If you missed the last one…
The Golden Age was truly the golden age of robot comics. The reason for this was the World’s Fair of 1939. The robot made a splash that year that reverberated through out all media. The comics more so than anyone. They threw out all kinds of tin-plated beings, some good, some bad. Since most comics in 1939 were based on the old reprint magazines, they all had multiple characters covering a variety of tropes: the jungle comic, the Western comic, the nautical comic, etc. Robot characters were a thing after 1939. Marvel tried out a bunch of them with Flexo the Rubber Man this time around. Eventually they would settle on Robotman. Doc Savage Comics tried Trix but only the one time. Any number of superheroes faced off against the metal menaces with the Marvel Family, Wonder Woman, Captain Midnight, etc. For DC, it was the anthology comic Strange Adventures with numerous tales by Otto Binder, that creator of Adam Link, at it again. (It would be fun to do a round-up post on all of Otto’s robot comics. The list is long.)
Just a reminder, this post only features “tin robots” of around human size. For giant robots, go here. I have tried to list the authors where possible but the Golden Age was a time when such credits were often forgotten or ignored.
1940s
“Introducing Flexo the Rubber Man” (Mystic Comics, #1-4, March-July 1940)Â This first appearance was written by William Harr.
“Trix He Rubs Out Crime” (Doc Savage Comics #4, May 1941)
“Metal Monster!” (Captain Midnight #38, March 1946)
“The Marvel Family and the Shazam Robot” (The Marvel Family #5, October 1946) was written by Otto Binder.
Man Out of Space, 1947 was written and drawn by Vernon Hayles.
“Neptune’s Freak Show” (Marvel Family #27, September 1948) was written by Bill Woolfolk.
“The Rich Robot” (Captain Marvel Jr. #73, May 1949) was written by Otto Binder.
“Torchy” (Torchy #1, November 1949)
“The Dodo and the Frog” (Funny Stuff #51, November-December 1949)
1950s
“Hollywood Goes to Paradise Island” (Wonder Woman #40, March-April 1950) was written by Robert Kanigher.
“The Adventure in Robot Paradise” (Marvel Family #46, April 1950) was written by Otto Binder.
“The Amazing Jungle of Robot Menace” (Adventure Comics #152, May 1950) was written by Ed Herron.
“Robot Trouble” (Foodini #3, May 1950)
“The Robot Farmer” (Captain Marvel Jr. #87, July 1950) was written by Otto Binder.
“Henry and His Goon-Child” (Weird Fantasy #15, September-October 1950) was written and drawn by Harvey Kurtzman.
“The Eternal Man” (Weird Science #14, September-October 1950) was written by Al Feldstein.
“Dr. Sivana’s Friendly Robot” (Captain Marvel Jr. #93, January 1951) was written by Bill Woolfolk.
“The Menace of R Day” (Weird Thrillers #1, September-October 1951)
“Challenge of the Robot Knight!” (Mystery in Space #7, April-May 1952) was written by Robert Kanigher as Dion Anthony.
“Hector Protector” (Witches Tales #22, December 1953)
“The Robot Sailors” (Detective Comics #216, February 1954) was written by Otto Binder.
“Into the Fourth Dimension” (Mystery Tales #18, March 1954)
“The Robot Detective of Mars” (Mystery in Space #19, April-May 1954)
“The Monster Men” (Mystic #30, May 1954) was written by Paul S. Newman.
“The Rejected Robot” (Mystery Tales #22, October 1954)
Conclusion
The robots of Science Fiction certainly ended up in the comics. This was partly because of writers like Otto Binder, Manly Wade Wellman, Edmond Hamilton and Gardner F. Fox wrote both Pulps and later comics. The editors, like Julius Schwartz and Mort Weisinger, started off as Pulp editors. New writers recycled their ideas and even came up with some of their own as well. The robot as estranged being, a descendant of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein’s monster, is a common thread. Robots have it hard and must find their place in the world. They can impersonate humans and take us into Philip K. Dick territory. I haven’t focused much on robots that look like humans because they are less interesting visually. There is something about the tin robot that speaks to me while all those Superman stories where a robot fools Lois Lane bore me to tears. (It worked once but over and over?) Give me a tin robot every time.
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