“The Menace of the Machine Men” was a Superman comic story that is part of a robot tradition. Edmond Hamilton made the transition from Pulps to comic books in the 1940s. He penned this particular story for Superman #57 (March-April 1949). Much of what appears there can be seen in his December 1926 story “The Metal Giants” in Weird Tales. That story has the first giant robots of Science Fiction attacking the countryside. The robots were created by a mad man and it is up to his former friend to stop him. He does this by creating a robot-crushing wheel. Hamilton creates the first images of gigantic metal bodies destroying property and killing humans. His inspiration was H. G. Wells and the tripods of The War of the Worlds (1898).
Another, later Hamilton story is important here too. “The Comet Doom” (Amazing Stories, January 1928) gave SF some of the first Pulp killer robots. In this story for Hugo Gernsback, Hamilton sticks to the Wellsian formula of robots coming from outer space. These are not Martians but riders on a comet. They are also not really true robots, but cyborgs with organic brains. All the same, Hamilton set the idea for the steel-bodied killer that would be popular in all kinds of stories. He would rewrite that story for a DC comic later too.
Ed recycles much of these old stories for his Superman tale. The artwork was done by Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye, one of the best DC duos.
This story features a new technology that changes the story…television. The citizens of Metropolis are fascinated to watch extraterrestrials arriving on Earth and landing at Northville. They see the metal marauders emerge on their TV sets. Lois, always a dedicated reporter, is off to get the story.
After fixing a dam, Superman learns of the invasion. He flies off to Northville. Meanwhile the robots arrive and begin destroying the town. (Note the guy who points out “We’re seeing it! And that’s Lois Lane describing it.” In previous versions of Wells’ Martians, the audience read it or heard it on the radio (Orson Welles and such).
When Supe arrives he finds the town unharmed. Using a TV antennae as a locator, he finds Lois Lane giving her broadcast. He talks to Lois. She doesn’t want to lie to people but she has no choice. She is part of a hoax that uses model robots. The kingpin is Lex Luthor, who threatens to kill all the technicians working on the TV crew.
Lex stops Superman by threatening Lois. Luthor’s men get inside giant robots they can operate.
To make it even worse, Lex forces Superman to stage a fake fight that he loses.
The robots come to Metropolis. Lex tells the citizens to give up their diamonds to the robots. Superman is powerless to stop him. Lex has him and Lois trapped inside the rocket ship that started the hoax. Luthor has placed a bomb to go off if they leave. Superman can’t risk Lois’s life.
But he has an idea. By blowing his breath into the rocket tubes, he sends the rocket out into space. There the extreme cold jams the bomb. Superman brings Lois safely to Earth, then attacks one of the robots. He pulls the crooks out and takes over controlling it. Robot against robot, Superman stops Luthor’s robot invasion.
You can see that Hamilton didn’t just lift the plot wholesale. He is far too professional for that. He took ideas and played with them knowing his Superman perimeters. The result is a related but new story.
The tradition, created both in the Pulps and later in the comics, became a genre staple in countries like Japan. The tradition returns to America with The Transformers, originally a toy brand, then a cartoon then comics and films. When you watch Decepticons and Autobots slugging it out, you are reliving a Hamilton idea.
More recently in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we got see a superhero riding inside a robot suit when Hulk lost his courage in the face of Thanos. For the second half of The Inifinity War, Hulk wears a robotic suit devised by the original suit superhero, Iron Man. “The Hulkbuster” is also in this tradition.
Even though Ed never wrote for Marvel Comics, his work –which brought so much Science Fiction to DC (and through osmosis elsewhere)– had a profound impression on all we see in the theaters. Like his wife, Leigh Brackett, who actually wrote the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back, Edmond Hamilton was an innovator who many may not even know about today. Every time I see a giant robot, I smile and think of Ed.
