Metamorpho Pt. 13: Brave & the Bold #66

Cover Date: June-July 1966

On Sale Date: April 26, 1966

Writer: Bob Haney

Penciller: Mike Sekowsky

Inker: Michael Esposito

Editor: George Kashdan

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Since I became the one and only Element Man, characters, I’ve tangled my molecules with everything from crazy skyscrapers to booby-trapped bulls… but like I still get a tingle down my silicon spine, thinking about the story you’re about to devour – when I unleashed the menace of the twentieth century, those fabulous Metal Men, and I either had to write off the whole world – or…

Wreck the Renegade Robots

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Our story begins with Rex once again pressuring Simon Stagg to cure him…

Sapphire doesn’t know that he may never come back. He goes to “the place where an Element Man can rendezvous with his destiny…"

Rex asks Dr. Will Magnus if he can cure him.

You’re my last hope, pal – my last chance to be normal again – and walk into the sunset with my Sapph baby hand-in-hand… not hand-in-chemical-paw.

Professor Kurt Borian is watching. After being shipwrecked, he created an island laboratory and gave birth to, how could he have known, crude imitations of the real Metal Men. Bitter and vengeful, Borian vows that this time, he won’t be second best. . The Metal Men commence collecting the raw elements that Doc Magnus needs. As he discovers the treatment seems to have worked, Simon discovers Metamorpho missing and sends his henchmen after him. Then, suddenly the Metal Men turn evil and surround Rex. The “Master” reveals himself…

Locked in a cell with Magnus, Rex realizes:

Simon and his henchmen arrive and are surprised by the turn of events, when Metamorpho bursts out of his cell, setting the stage for a battle between him and the Metal Men.

Ultimately, Metamorpho destroys the device that turned the Metal Men evil and..

Notes . The Metal Men premiered 29 issues earlier, so they'd been in the comics longer than Metamorpho, yet notice that in Brave & the Bold #66, Metamorpho narrates the story. In other words, it's his story. Does this mean he was more popular at the time?

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The Metal Men make a good pairing with the Element Man, sharing some of the same heroic properties (pun intended.) They've never been as accessible to me, though. I don't usually think of metal in liquid form, so I sometimes don't "get" their transformations. . You've got to love that Simon is more upset that Rex has been cured than he is by the situation that places his life in peril. That's good characterization that has remained consistent throughout the Metamorpho stories.

. Promotion of my beloved "Go-Go Checks" takes an odd turn with this ad:

In fact, what is it with the DC poetry all of a sudden?