Giant Robot Monsters and Still More Teenage Shenanigans

 

cover art by Vic Prezzio

As teenage sidekicks go, the teenage Outsiders do okay for themselves. In Magnus Robot Fighter #14 (May 1966), they help save the world. 

"The Monster Robs" is written by Herb Kastle and is drawn (in his usual magnificent fashion) by Russ Manning. The story begins with a meteor landing in a city park. In any science fiction story, this is never a good thing. Meteors are never just meteors. They always bring something ominous. 

In this case, they bring bubbles that seep out of the meteor whenever its dark. In turn, these bubbles cause robots to enlarge and go on rampages. Both the meteor in the park and a fragment picked up by one of the Outsiders do this.

Soon, there are giant robots rampaging throughout the city. Magnus rips the head off of one, but has to resort to an experimental ray gun to take them out enmasse. 

Magnus is soon urging the North Am city council to destroy all robots, because otherwise they will grow big enough in mass to threaten the Earth. But obstrusive bureacrats exist in the future as well as in the present. They complain about the cost of the damage done so far, but refuse to consider losing more money by dealing with the problem.

Fortunately, the Outsiders have been experimenting with the fragment they have and have discovered the bubbles that enlarge the robots and also that the meteor only emits them when it is dark. They have to tackle a robot to make a rather unauthorized entrance into the council chamber, but they soon bring Magnus up to speed.

Magnus confirms the information about the bubbles, but that raises a question of what to do about it. The meteor is indestructable and it can't be encased in metal, because the bubbles would merely make the metal grow. (A bit of a plot hole here--if the bubbles enlarge all metal and not just robots, why aren't the buildings of North Am growing larger?)

Well, before they can deal with the meteor, they need to take care of a few more attacking giant robots. When Magnus is knocked out in the ensuing fight, the Outsiders use some clever tactics to take out a few giants themselves.

Eventually, Magnus hits upon the idea of encasing the meteor in quartz. This, plus an whopping big ray gun to destroy the giants, soon solves the problem.

As with the issue we looked at last week, the Outsiders tend to cause trouble by sometimes ignoring rules or safety measures (sneaking into a restricted area in issue #8, taking a piece of the meteor in this issue). But they always accept responsibility, act intelligently in dangerous situations and are willing to put themselves at risk to do what's right. As I said above, as teenage sidekicks, they do okay for themselves.

Next week, we'll watch Superman sit around and do nothing.