It’s Thursday and that means a new Creature Commandos episode has premiered.
Spoilers from here on out.
As James Gunn previously revealed in interviews, in addition to his role as Doctor Phosphorus, actor Alan Tudyk would also be voicing scientist William Magnus, better known by DC Comics fans as the creator of the Metal Men.
The Metal Men are a team of robot superheroes whose membership include Gold, Iron, Lead, Mercury, Platinum and Tin. The characters including Magnus have appeared in media outside of comics over the years most notably the Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series. A series of shorts was even created by Evan Dorkin for the DC Nation television block.
This week’s Creature Commandos episode entitled “Cheers to the Tin Man” focused on the team’s resident mechanical soldier, GI Robot, shedding light on his backstory. Decades after serving in World War II with Sgt. Rock and Easy Company, it was revealed that the U.S. government lent GI Robot to Magnus to assist him with his studies in artificial intelligence to create “the next wave of automatons.” In Magnus’ lab, are shown diagram plans for such automatons with the symbols of the Metal Men circled.
Eagle-eyed viewers will also likely spot GI Robot walking past what appears to be classic Doom Patrol villain Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man and Bug Man Crimson Centipede. Many, myself included, mistook the villain on the far right as Bug Man when in fact he is another obscure antagonist, Crimson Centipede who made his debut in Wonder Woman #169.
It goes without saying at this point that James Gunn has a fondness for under the radar characters. In fact, he has cited the Metal Men as a longtime favorite in the past. Moreover, in a post on Threads he revealed that when he was eight years old he wrote and drew his own comic book called Super-Robots which he admits was a ripoff.
In our interview, Creature Commandos executive producer and showrunner Dean Lorey cautioned fans not to read too much into the inclusion of certain characters. In other words, don’t immediately assume this is setting up a Metal Men series or movie. Incidentally, at one point a Metal Men animated film from Disney animation legends on Ron Clements and John Musker was in the works. Given the overall of various projects with the formation of DC Studios, it seems safe to assume the animated film is no longer in development.
