Magical Robots!

cover art by Vic Prezio

The whole point of Magnus Robot Fighter was to, well, have the hero fight robots. Magnus lived a couple of thousand years in the future, where he realizes that humanity if becoming a little too dependent on robots. He's trained in martial arts to a degree where he can shatter steal, so he's the go-to guy when a robot goes rogue or an evil human is using robots for nefarious purposes.

The original Gold Key Magnus comic was created, written and drawn by Russ Manning, who provided consistently excellent art. Working within a premise that at first might sound limiting in terms of plot variety, Manning ending up giving us a unique comic book full of clever plot ideas.

For instance, Magnus #21 (February 1968) is about a robot powered by black magic. It begins with a ghost-like figure springing a couple of criminals from prison. It's a wonderful way to start off an issue that will grow increasingly bizarre while still following a definite internal logic. The crooks simply walk out of prison and, though robots try to raise an alarm, but the humans have been hexed so that they see nothing untoward. In fact, the humans order the poor robots to have their logic circuits checked.

The crooks are brought to a secret hideout and ordered to build a robot powered by black magic, using incantations rather than tools to put the thing together. This robot, which will be powered by the belief of humanity that robots are essential, will presumably be invulnerable to harm.

And at first, this seems to be true. The bad guys use a magic spell on the food suppy of North Am (the continent-sized city that Magnus watches over), draining everyone of will power. Magnus is affected by the spell as well. So, when he tries to fight the magic robot, a combination of this and the fact that magic is being used on him in various horrific ways, means he soon loses the fight.

The panel below, in which poor Magnus' arms have been turned into feathers, is by itself worth the price of the book.

But a Native American doctor and his family are unaffected by the will-sapping spell. Magnus finds out why when he's brought to what is essentially a holo-deck recreation of a Blackfoot settlement, created to remind the Indians of where they came from.

It turns out that the Blackfoot tribe still grows their own food, so they weren't hit by the will-sapping spell. This allows Magnus to form the core of a resistance group. Unaffected food is slipped into the main supply and Magnus prepares to fight the evil robot while video cameras broadcast the battle across North Am. The idea here is that the people will root for Magnus and the Blackfoot tribe will use this faith in Magnus to magically power him up.


Anyway, this works. Magnus has a rematch against the robot and beats it (giving us yet another classic panel along the way). The crooks are caught and its discovered that the ghost that started the whole business was sent by Malev-6, an evil robot planet that is also a reoccuring villain in the series.

To appreciate this comic, you have to be okay with introducing magic into Magnus' overtly science fiction universe. But if you are willing to go along with this (and I am), then Manning succeeds in giving us yet another clever variation of the Magnus-fights-robots concept, strengthened by great pencil work and two of my personal favorite panels of comic art.

Next week, we'll visit with Daredevil as he fights a very, very tall supervillain.