Metallo

40 years ago - John Corben is born.

20 years ago - 20-year-old John Corben, small time thief, starts running cons.

13 years ago - 27-year-old John Corben is nearly killed in a massive car accident. His body is recovered by S.H.A.D.E., who put his brain into a indestructible robotic body covered with cloned body tissue. He escapes and rampages, but it stopped by Superman.

12 years ago - 28-year-old John Corben, his uranium core nearly depleted, steals a kryptonite stone from Lexcorp as his new powercore.

7 years ago - 33-year-old John Corben is recovered by General Wade Elling for his First Strike Program, his hardware updated,. He escapes and rampages, stopped by Superman.

1 year ago - 39-year-old John Corben has his core programming rewritten by Brainiac's data modules, becomes able to rebuild his body. He incapacitates Superman, but is defeated by M'gann M'orzz, Natasha Irons and Traci Thirteen.

At first glance, Metallo is so much like the Terminator that he seems almost derivative. Yes, he has a kryptonite power core that makes him one of Superman's most consistently deadly foes, but he's still a powerful skeleton-like robot with cloned human tissue for skin. You have to wonder how they get away with it... until you realize that Metallo's first appearance predates the Terminator by almost three decades. He's often one of the first members of Superman's rogues gallery used in almost any telling of his story, because he's such a simple straightforward concept. Very few other characters provide their particular hero such a specific, dangerous challenge.

Metallo's Comic History

The original Metalo (one 'L'') made one appearance inc 1942 in World's Finest Comics #6, a really great classic story, where Metalo is eventually revealed to be a guy in a metal suit who took a strength serum. This version of the character appeared again exactly one more time in an Earth 2 story in Superman Family #217 in 1982.

The Metallo we all know debuted in 1959 in Action Comics #252, which is better remembered as the first appearance of Supergirl. In this story John Corben is a criminal who is in a horrible car accident, found by a Professor Vale, who rushes him to his laboratory where he saves his life by placing him in a metal body with rubber/plastic skin. It is kind of a nightmare scenario if you think about it for more than a second, but Corben just goes on to be hired at the Planet and hits on Lois. Soon she starts to believe that he's actually Superman. It's really a classic Silver Age Superman Story.

Metallo made plenty of appearances as a classic Superman villain over the years. He's the threat in the very first issue of John Byrne's Superman series, where Professor Vale has now created him specifically to kill Superman, who he believes is the first wave of an alien invasion.

Later appearances of the character featured his ability to rebuild himself using available machinery, like his appearance in the Batman Superman arc Public Enemies, when he replaced an arm with a backhoe scoop. He was even able to build himself to nearly skyscraper-size during the Action Comics arc Supergirls.

Our Metallo Story

We followed the traditional origin story for Metallo, but made a slight shift in who actually did the deed, taking John Corben's brain and putting it into the body of a proto-terminator. It just seems like such an obvious mad scientist thing to do, so we went to our resident mad-scientist organization S.H.A.D.E. This sort of monster building for fun and profit just seems totally in their wheelhouse. Just like in his original appearance, and the Superman Series, we made his original core uranium, and having him steal his Kryptonite heart for Lexcorp and installing it himself.

Corben has had a few upgrades over the years, like his ability to alter his shape into different weapons, or even increase his size, but most of these came from Neron (DC's Satan allegory) in exchange for his soul in an arc where many classic villains were likewise upgraded. We're not using that, so instead we gave him a few upgrades by various sources. One is the US Government thanks to classic jerk Wade Elling, but the second is actually Brainiac, which explains some of his more outlandish abilities thanks to the inclusion of alien technology.

His last story in our arc is a retelling of Action Comics 'Supergirls', a story that introduced three new superheroines. Metallo gets so powerful in that story that it's kind of ridiculous, so hopefully by the end of our version he won't be able to access QUITE that level of power. It was a fun one-off, but the character makes more sense as a human-sized robot killing machine.

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