Metal Men #31

Metal Men #31 On Sale: February 15, 1968) has a cover by Gil Kane, which, for some reason, reminds me of the covers Walt Simonson did years later on the Metal Men revival.

"The Amazing School for Robots" is by Otto Binder, Gil Kane and Mike Esposito. Doc Magnus creates a second team of Metal Men in case the first team is damaged. The second team which consists of Silver, Osmium, Gallium, Iridia, Zinc, and Cobalt are then trained by the original Metal Men. The new robots prove to be as good or better than their mentors and jealousy ensues. When Doc praises the replacements, the first team decides to quit.

Each of the original Metal Men take ordinary jobs, while Tina meets a disembodied intelligence from space named Darzz. She frees Darzz from an energy globe which then allows him to animate the inanimate. Darzz is secretly evil and uses Tina to take control of the replacement Metal Men.

The original team of Metal Men reunite to battle their replacements now under the control of Darzz. In combat, they exploit the weaknesses of the new robots and destroy them all. After Darzz has been defeated, Doc praises his original Metal Men and vows that he will not create another group to replace them.

Edited by Robert Kanigher.