Set Description:
Synopsis: This is a complete set of 60 books with a minimum grade of 9.0, which has topped the registry for six years. Highlights of the set are 46 highest graded examples with 12 single highest graded books, including Showcase #37. LOL.
Background: The Metal Men are liquid metal robots made from various elements each with almost limitless shape shifting abilities. They were created by the brilliant robotics expert and Elementical genius Dr. William Magus. The Metal Men consist of six robots: Gold, Platinum, Mercury, Iron, Tin and Lead.
Doc Magnus was a student of super-villain T.O. Morrow and became the world's foremost authority on the new science of Elementics, a synthesis of chemistry and robotics. Doc Magnus developed the Responsometer, a small microcomputer capable of animating pure metals into humanoid robots capable of independent thought, initiative, and emotions.
Together, the Metal Men embarked on a variety of adventures, their specialty fighting monsters spawned from weird science. Perhaps their most unusual and deadliest for is Chemo a walking stew of chemical waste in gigantic humanoid form. Among their other foes are the Missile Men, the Gas Gang, B.O.L.T.S., Doctor Yes and the Plastic Perils.
Eventually, the Metal Men travelled to Gotham City to be part of a worldwide robot convention, but they were framed for the uprising in criminal robots. They were locked away by the local vigilante, Batman, but their names were soon cleared and they helped Batman fight the hordes of crazed robots and capture the criminal responsible for the evil plot. After this, the Metal Men worked with Batman on several occasions and they were even summoned to replace the Dark Knight as Gotham City's protectors, although they failed. Over the years, the Metal Men have been destroyed many times, but Magnus has always been able to salvage their Responsometers and rebuild them. Due to their shape shifting ability the robot can combine into a giant robotic form known as Alloy. Alloy has the combined might of all the robots along with their thoughts and skills, making him a formidable opponent.
Tin later created a robot himself an unofficial member of the team dubbed "Nameless". Shy and withdrawn, Nameless was Tin's "girlfriend" until her destruction in battle.
Our Collection: I was always fascinated by this title as a kid, yes I know I am dating myself with that comment, and have long owned a #1 9.6. But otherwise, it was not a title we focused on when I first returned to collecting in the early 2000s. We first started picking up a few Metal Men after completing our Flash and GL sets and quickly discovered that building a Metal Men set really takes the patience of Job, as for the most part the books aren’t expensive, just impossible to find. We probably would not have finished the set at all a couple of years ago except for my buddy, WxMan Slaw, telling me the whereabouts of a copy of an Issue #47 we needed. Thanks Steve!
Many of the later issues are scarce because so few issues are graded. Again, it’s the problem with extended sets where the later books are sometimes not worth submitting because the CGC fees are actually higher than the value of the books. Also, there have long been two completed sets in the registry, and those books are out of circulation. Finally, there are many people who own the Metal Men Showcases as part of Showcase collections and those books also never come on the market.
2026 Update: It has been awhile since I have studied the census here and, while this is still a complete set with almost 80% of the books highest graded examples, it is far from our best, as we lack highest graded examples of two of the four Showcases and Issues #1 and #2. Moreover, there are also two 9.2s, in our set, which I would characterize as slot fillers. Some day maybe we will get a shot at upgrading some of those six issues, but quite frankly, I look pretty frequently and have not seen a meaningful upgrade on any of those books on the market for years. Consequently, I contemplated not even making this set public this year, as it needs a lot of work to compare to our better DC sets like Flash, Green Lantern, JLA, Atom and Aquaman, among others. But since it is still tops the registry by a wide margin and does contain a number of very nice examples, I went ahead and updated our very dated set description along with some of our book descriptions. So for anyone who is interested in Metal Men, here it is.
Current Stats:
60/60 Books
33 9.8s-All Highest Graded
16 9.6s-9 Highest Graded
9 9.4s-4 Highest Graded
2 9.2s
1 9.0
36 WP
18 OW/W
5 OW
1 Cr/OW
12 Single Highest Graded
46 Highest Graded
12 Second Highest Graded
2 Third Highest Graded
1 Fourth Highest Graded
22 Pedigrees
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