Plot summary: Metallo finally washes ashore with no memory of his past and is taken in by a pair of children, oblivious to his true nature.

1. Notes and Trivia
2. Recap
3. Best Performance
4. Episode Ranking
5. Rogues Roundup

Notes and Trivia

Episode: 22 (S2.E9)

Original Air Date: September 20th, 1997

Directed: Kenji Hachizaki (2)

Written: Hilary J. Bader (4)

Animation: TMS-Kyokuichi Corporation (8)

Music: Lolita Ritmanis (5)

Metallo of course ended up taking an ocean walk at the end of ‘The Way of All Flesh’, which we learn was exactly a year before this episode.

This is the one and only time in the DCAU where Metallo is depicted without his synthetic skin.

Recap

On a volcanic island, a little boy, Bobby, won’t let his sister, Sarita, play with his action figures, so she vows to get her own. She doesn’t have to look very far as Metallo walks out of the ocean!

While she’s terrified at first she changes her tune after he protects her from a small avalanche. He says he doesn’t remember his name, so Sarita wants to call him Tinman, while Bobby prefers Steelman as he reminds him of Superman…

The hazardous conditions also caused a fuel truck to crash, with the kids imploring their new guardian angel to save the driver, which he eventually manages.

The spooked driver tells his story to the press, who mostly dismiss it as fantasy, but Lois & Clark both realise exactly what’s going on, with Lois awarded the assignment by Perry White.

A gift from Sarita causes Metallo to regain his memory, and he immediately sets to work manipulating the kids with lies about being a hero from another planet and that bad people are after him.

The children bring their pal a shoddy disguise to help him escape, but he spots Lois Lane has followed them (having tried to interview them before), so he captures her.

Superman swoops in, Kryptonite-suit ready, having helped the science team begin evacuation due to worsening volcanic activity.

The Anti-K suit becomes damaged during the fight, but the gloves remain, allowing Supes to rip out Metallo’s Kryptonite Core and throw it into lava. Superman flies Lois and the kids to safety as Metallo is washed away, his final fate unclear.

Best Performance

Malcolm McDowell is really great here, utilising a less is more approach. He barely speaks during his amnesiac episode, but the few words he utters are surprisingly good despite their brevity. It’s not an over the top ‘I… can’t… remember…’ type of deal either. Then when he regains his memories you can immediately tell he hasn’t been changed by his experience with the kids as he spins them a yarn that McDowell makes sound subtly sinister. The little yelp at the end as he’s washed away by lava is so profoundly ridiculous that I find it endearing. Finally he puts a button on the whole thing with his melodramatic inner monologue trying to cling onto his identity, which could have been really bad in the hands of a worse actor.

This is 100% a one horse race. I don’t even care to list any runners-up.

Episode Ranking

The biggest thing the episode has going for it is that it’s utterly gorgeous, particularly where Metallo is concerned. Whether he’s staring silently, his grim rictus belying his true nature, or making clumsy attempts at heroism, he’s pretty glorious throughout. I loved him emerging from the water covered in mud and seaweed. They didn’t have to do that but it was a fun little visual flourish and helped him look even more monstrous to the kids. In a similar vein, the rapid editing of flashbacks to his previous appearances, set to Lolita Ritmanis’ score were extremely effective, making us wonder if those are purely for our benefit or if Metallo is lying about his amnesia. Superman rediverting lava away from the island and out to sea was something a bit different too. The final fight is one of the better in the show so far despite being relatively brief, and it’s tough to imagine a more metal piece of imagery than a killer robot trying to drown Superman in lava. Metallo stuck in volcanic rock trying to cling to his sanity isn’t a bad runner up though.

I always enjoy the ‘child befriends monster’ dynamic, which works really well here, as the kids happily pal around with the freakin’ Terminator. Sarita brings him a picnic basket and makes him a little kitbash action figure… which he destroys because it makes him remember Superman. His uncharacteristic gentler nature giving way to villainy once he’s restored has some understated sadness, as their innocent trust in him is betrayed but they still hold out hope for him. There’s just enough ambiguity in the moment where Bobby pleads with his friend not to murder Superman that you could argue either way about whether it actually got through to Metallo. He certainly hesitates for a moment, but he definitely doesn’t stop.

I could have gone for some token exposition about where this island is and what the science team were actually doing there, but it’s a simple story extremely well told so I’m not too mad about it. I struggled with placement here, as some of the episodes I’ve slotted below it have grander ideas, but I appreciate the degree to which they nailed their pitch.

1. Livewire
2. Fun and Games
3. The Last Son of Krypton
4. Stolen Memories
5. Action Figures (NEW ENTRY)
6. The Prometheon
7. Tools of the Trade
8. The Main Man
9. Mxzypixilated
10. Blasts from the Past
11. Target
12. The Way of All Flesh
13. My Girl
14. A Little Piece of Home
15. Feeding Time
16. Speed Demons
17. Two’s a Crowd
18. Identity Crisis

Rogues Roundup

Metallo (Malcolm McDowell) (fourth appearance)

What a delightful character. Whatever complexity he once had has been stripped away alongside his fake skin and he’s now just a pure evil cyborg dude. Obviously the half-flesh, half-metal aesthetic is unsettling in its own right, but his ‘naked’ look is tremendous, fixed on a single expression of gnarled teeth and glowing green eyes. I really loved him dispensing with his machinations to escape in a shitty trench coat disguise that would have fooled nobody, going straight back to rampant violence when Superman arrives.

I’ve come to really appreciate what a drama queen he is too, as while he’s lost physical sensation, he remains prone to emotional outbursts, and whether they meant it this way or not I got a real kick out of seeing him strike little poses in his disguise, and then shrieking in fear at the oncoming lava at the end. His inner monologue in his possible dying moments being slightly shitty poetry is great too.

I actually think their work here gave me a far greater understanding of what they were originally going for when he lost the ability to feel in his last episode. Where Brainiac has very subtle tells that it’s not the cold unfeeling machine it presents itself as, Metallo’s humanity screams from the rooftops despite his appearance. I’m moving him up a spot.

1. Livewire
2. Toyman
3. Lex Luthor
4. Metallo (↑)
5. Brainiac
6. Mr. Mxyzptlk
7. Lobo
8. The Preserver
9. Parasite
10. Bruno Mannheim (and Intergang!)
11. Kanto
12. Mala & Jax-Ur
13. The Prometheon
14. Bizarro
15. Earl Garver
16. Edward Lytener
17. Mercy Graves
18. Darkseid
19. Detective Bowman
20. Weather Wizard