Best Sexism EVER!
I was looking foward to DC’s cheapo B&W reprint series, Showcase Presents, getting to Metal Men, as I enjoyed a few issues as a kid back in the ’60s and had barely read any since. It’s actually rather less fun than I had anticipated, but one thing gave me great entertainment.
Basic setup: Doc Magnus builds a half-dozen robots, made out of different elements, and with powers and personality vaguely derived from their composition, so Lead is dense in every sense, Mercury is both liquid and mercurial, Gold is noble and so on. Five of them are built in male shape, one, Platinum, in female. Obviously platinum doesn’t much imply a personality, but she had one: she was female. In those days, that was enough.
When they have to go on dangerous missions, Doc Magnus regularly decides that there is too much danger to expose a woman to, and tells her to stay behind. Obviously almost all sexism is kind of stupid, but extending it to one of your robots because it is built in a slightly different shape from the othersis really going above and beyond the call of duty (and she is clearly not the weakest or most fragile - Tin is in there for comedy relief (there is no suggestion of why he thought tin was a good metal to use), and Magnus never tries to stop him going).
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Tom on October 18th, 2007
Hasn’t there been a long running theme in later Metal Men comics that Doc Magnus’ interest in his female robot may be more than platonic? I’m sure this is only a product of the cynical grim and gritty times we live in mind you.
Jack Fear on October 18th, 2007
The other way around, actually; Platinum (or “Tina,” as she insisted on being called) was in love with the Doc, and he was forever discouraging her affections in a very Schroeder-and-Lucy kind of way.
Pete on October 19th, 2007
I believe in the ALL NEW Metal Men, there is another female robot called Copper, who is like Platinum but Ginger. As we know, ginger is also a personality type.
Ken Shinn on October 19th, 2007
For a while, there was also a second female robot in the original series, called “Nameless” - she was a goofy-looking character who was very much created as a “girlfriend”/double-act figure for Tin, as I recall.
Jack Fear on October 19th, 2007
“girlfriend”/double-act figure
i.e., a beard.
Linked by: Yondermeans.Com » Best Sexism EVER! on October 28th, 2007
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