Random Happenstance

I bought two copies of this one from a quarter bin that had at least three; because the print quality on the covers varied wildly between them! Enough to be momentarily interesting, anyway; let's see if the actual story is! From 1972, Brave and the Bold #103, "A Traitor Lurks Inside Earth!" Written by Bob Haney, pencils by Bob Brown, inks by Frank McLaughlin.

The government thought if they put nuclear command in the hands of a "compu-bot" installed a mile underneath a magma dome; it would be safe from enemy interference. Of course, it was also unreachable to maintain or reprogram, so when "John Doe" starts acting up, the government asks Batman to try and find the rebellious robot's creator. Batman works the case, eventually finding John's creator, an apparent suicide; but Bats realizes John killed him with an ultrasonic signal triggering termporary insanity. John might be found out, but what could they do about it? Nothing! But, Batman might be able to get some help from this month's guest-stars, the Metal Men! If they decide to reform, that is.

I don't know where this fits in Metal Men continuity, but Professor Magnus was currently out of the picture, having become "the power-mad puppet of a foreign dictator via a brain operation." Feel like the Metal Men, or Batman for that matter, should do something about that; but the robots were currently living as second-class citizens. The surly Mercury is offended that Gold would choose to "pass" as a human, while Tina is working as an "all-nite" go-go dancer. Actually, it isn't clear if Tina is technically an employee, the nightclub owner may think he owns her. He gets rather casually knocked out by Iron, which is probably assault, but feels appropriate. This was a fairly common theme in Metal Men stories, although here "Robots' Lib" seems like a jab, like they were being uppity for wanting better treatment. Also, Tin has settled down with a little wife: who the hell was that? Actually, there seemed like a lot of robots, an auditorium full, at a Robots' Lib meeting; and the speaker's words seem familiar to Batman--because rights are universal? No, because John Doe has co-opted the movement. Batman approaches the Metal Men, who are divided about whether to help him or not; but Batman produces Professor Magnus's last will, which moves them, although Mercury argues Magnus wasn't really dead, that shouldn't apply!

The Metal Men are launched through terrible heat and radiation to get to John Doe--and then side with him! John makes his ultimatum: robots would take over, because let's be honest, it's not like they could do a worse job than humanity, right? Batman works out an alternate route--through a bat cave!--to get to John, but the heat and radiation is too much for even him. He's saved by the Metal Men--how they could have saved him from radiation poisoning, um, well--and they say they haven't gone bad: John had captured Tin, as a hostage against them! (Losing Tin on its own wouldn't break their responsometers; but they wouldn't be able to face his poor wife--again, who the hell was she? Looks it up...oh, no.)

The heroes manage to free Tin, and Gold rips out dozens of John Doe's memory banks--a slow, horrible death for a robot. But the robot had a reserve personality, that of its creator, that fights a little more before pulling its own plug. Still, maybe this could be an important lesson, against creating a race of slaves...no, we're gonna go out again playing "lib" as a bad joke.