Starkville’s House of El Podcast

Hopefully by now you have seen 9×02 “Metallo” and some might wonder what his history has been with Superman. Smallville did a very good job of presenting the character and how he came to be the way that he is. Believe it or not, Metallo has been a character in the DC Universe for fifty years. Like most characters that have been around for multiple decades, Metallo has had more than a few different looks and origin stories.  Smallville has done a good job with many of the supporting cast members and guests, they take the heart of the character and make it fit into the Smallville universe.

The Character of Metallo first appeared in Action Comics #252, which was May 1959.  The character’s name was George Grant, and he wore a metal suit and gave himself a dose of serum that would enhance his physical abilities. In the issue, he exposed Superman to a ray that greatly weakened him.  That gave Metallo the upperhand until thier second battle. Superman had to go through a lengthy exercise and training regimen to finally defeat Metallo. As the  Golden Age of comics had ended and the Atomic Age had bridged the gap ushering in the Silver Age of Comics George Grant would be no more, but Metallo would live on in another re-imagining of the character. Many would argue that George Grant was considered a silver age character because of the time in which he first appeared. Others might say he is Golden Age simply because the Superman  he was fighting at the time still had not been fully introduced to the Silver Age storylines.

John Corben was introduced as a reporter who would  moonlight as a small-time theif and murderer.After completing what he thought was the “perfectmurder”, he suffered a near fatal accident that severly mangled his body. He was immediately found by an aging doctor by the name of  Professor Vale who used his know-how to transform John’s brain into a robotic body covered with synthetic flesh. Professor Vale could only power John’s new body with a uranium capsule, which only lasted a day and that if he obtained some Kryptonite to use intead, he would have a limitless power supply. After being hired at The Daily Planet he knew that Superman was the only one who could uncover his secret and after failing at romance with Lois Lane he set a kryptonite death-trap for Superman and proceeded to steal a rock of Kryptonite from a museum, not realizing until he tried to power his body with it that it was a fake. This mistake caused him to inadvertently kill himself. Years later a story was published that had John’s brother Roger follow the same destiny, having a heart of Kryptonite. Roger’s motives were to avenge his brothers death with Superman.

It wasn’t until 1986 that John Byrne who was rewriting Supermans origin story also gave John Corben an altered backstory as well. In this backstory he was not an employee at The Daily Planet but a petty thief. He was struck by a truck and found by Professor Vale who wanted him to kill Superman because he believed a Kryptonian army was going to invade. Metallo snapped the doctor’s neck.  Metallo engaged Superman a number of times in the years following usually due to the fact that he was still involved in petty crimes.  Metallo was finally blown apart by a person who called herself Celsius, a meta-human with thermal powers.  Metallo made a deal with a demon named Neron, who gave him the ability to morph his metal into any object like turning his hands into a weapon or changing his body to fit the situation much like a green lantern does with light. Another abily he was given by Neron was the ability to project his consciousness into any meachanical or metallic object.

Metallo has since been retconned a bit more having his mind transferred into a cloned body of John Corbin. There is no evidence yet that he retained any of his abilities given to him by Neron. His body now consists of a metallic skeleton with a kryptonite heart and synthetic tissue grown over the skeleton

Metallo has resurfaced recently in the “New Krypton” story arc that is happening currently in the Superman comic titles. He is now shown to have a normal body with lead based armor and a kryptonite heart.

In Smallville, John Corbin’s story is taken from all of his history, incorporating aspects of all the incarnations of the character. It has been alluded to that Zod is the one responsible for taking John Corbin’s body after being struch by a truck and implanting him with a kryptonite heart and one of his arms having mechanical additions that has given him superstrength.

Hopefully this has been an interesting read for some of the Smallville fans that are not familiar with the comic backgrounds of some of the people we are seeing on the show. There is more to the character than what I have talked about here, but I feel that I’ve hit the highpoints of the character history.

Leave a comment below or start a thread on our forums to discuss Metallo.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 10:41 am and is filed under Character History. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.