ANOTHER REX MASON

Rex Mason, when you hear or read that name you know it is Metamorpho himself, former soldier of fortune and now unwilling metahuman who only wishes to be "cured" from being a super powerful hero. This name is so common for Metamorpho fans as Clark Kent is for Superman fans, but have you considered there are real people who are called same than comic-book superheroes? 

There is a New Zealand politician called Rex Mason, who lived in the last century but since we are more interested in comic-books, today I want introduce to you to another Rex Mason (also called Maxon by a few sources), an obscure penciler/inker who was active in the golden and silver ages. It is little what we know about his personal life, he was born on March 24th 1892, his earliest work in sequential art was the Tarzan newspaper strip in which he started working in 1929, additionally he worked on Tarzan's illustrated novels (prose books heavily illustrated). Sequential art was not something he did a lot but instead most of his career was devoted to the so called pulp magazines, specially the spicy pulp (magazines with explicit art).

In the 40's he breaks into the comic industry working for several publishers but probably most of his work was never credited since there are only a few records about what he did on these varied publishers. His most important work in the comics medium was perhaps his stint on Dell Comics where he co-created several features such as Turok, Track Hunter, Young Earth among others (in recent years Turok stories drawn by Rex Mason have been reprinted by Dark Horse).

Mr. Mason left the comics industry in 1969 as he moved to England to pursue a career as landscape painter. He died on November 25, 1973, aged 81. Considering that Bob Haney was very versed about what other publishers were producing (more about this on a future post), there is still the probability he read the name on a comic and took it by chance for his creation, who knows.

As a bonus, I want to show you the work of a potter or potters (this site is still trying to figure out the identity of the potter or potters) called Rex Mason.

THE MAN WHO SAVED METAMORPHO

When referring to Metamorpho, Bob Haney said this character was the most creative idea he had ever came up with. It is not strange then that Haney created a special bond with the Element Man and I dare to say this was his favorite character and the one he was mostly interested in not to allow falling into oblivion.

Some people has assured that the success of Marvel comics in the 60's and his solid continuity was chiefly due to the only one man was behind the creative process, involved in one way or another. Yes, I am talking about Stan Lee who penned all the series he created for years before someone else took charge.

In the case of Metamorpho it was a similar situation since between 1964 and 1979 (what I call the "Haney Era") the Element Man appeared in 43 different stories from which 38 were written by Bob Haney. This helped to shape the character in what we know today, specially on his particular way to talk and his sarcasm when addresses (generally disrespectfully) to Simon Stagg.

Despite the successful reception the character had in the mid 60's, a host of circumstances and variables put the first Metamorpho series into cancellation after only 17 issues with several unfinished plots. Those who are today fans of Metamorpho are not fully aware that this character was very close to fall into total oblivion and the man who saved the Element Man from this awful fate was no other than Bob Haney.

Haney loved Metamorpho and he made his utmost to keep the character alive and moving around the DC Universe. After all, he had created him and he believed in all the potential the Element Man still had.

After the cancellation of Metamorpho's first series, the character disappeared for four years until Bob Haney resurrected him in Brave and the Bold (Vol. 1) #101. However since this superhero was totally new for new readers, Haney took some panels to explain his origin and also tell old readers what was Metamorpho doing all that time. 

Why Bob Haney left the character dormant for so many years is something I cannot figure out. My hypothesis is he wanted to try Metamorpho again as soon as possible but the low sales the series had on its late stages prevented the person in charge to allow it.

This four years could have been the end of the character and his relegation to the books of history if it was not for Mr. Haney who brought him back to life again. Then the character found a new house in Action Comics starting with #413, Bob Haney run a six-issue second feature and for those months Metamorpho was also invited to three issues of the Justice League of America.

Action Comics #418 was Metamorpho's last story in the series, the feature was announced to move to the series "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" but this never happened. Six months later as Bob Haney was assigned as the regular writer of World's Finest Comics (inaugurating his run with the classic "Saga of the Super-Sons") Metamorpho gets into the radar again in issue #217, sharing stage with Superman and Batman.

Haney took advantage of his new position as the regular writer of the series and again wrote a second feature for Metamorpho starting with issue #218 after the main Superman-Batman story. As he was used to, Haney recapped the origin of Metamorpho in one page for the benefit of new readers who did not know the Element Man.

After issue #220 the Element Man disappears again but reappears on issue #224 as a reprint of an early tale from Metamorpho's first series. On issue #226, Metamorpho returns to central stage alongside Batman and Superman in the main story of the book, finally Metamorpho appears for a last time on issue #229 as an 8-page second feature.

Two months later, Bob Haney took the reins of Metamorpho again, this time on First Issue Special #3. The intention of this book was to test the waters to try a new ongoing series with Metamorpho but the answer of the readers was not enough for DC to decide giving the Element Man a new chance and nothing resulted out from this one-shot.

Six months after this "failure", Bob Haney tried again his creation inside the pages of his last bastion "Brave and the Bold" on issue #123 alongside Batman and Plastic Man. After this issue, the character did not appear in any other comic for almost four years to finally reappear on issue #154 for the last Metamorpho story by Bob Haney, a team-up with Batman criticized for relegating Metamorpho to a few pages at the end of the issue and not being an authentic team-up. 

Did Bob Haney give up with Metamorpho? Did he want try new things? We will never know but what the story witnesses is Mr. Haney's persistence to keep the character always in a visible spot and do not allow him to be forgotten.

After the "Haney Era" started what I call the "Barr Era". As we know, the next big thing in Metamorpho was to be chosen by Batman to be part of his new team the Outsiders, this gave the character a wide exposure and catapulted him from an obscure character to be part of the Batman family and later allow him to join the Justice League International/Europe.

Again the character was close to be forgotten for good but a twist of the destiny made Mike W. Barr to choose the character to include it in the the Outsider's roster. Why did Mike W. Barr took into account Metamorpho? According to an interview you can read here, Metamorpho was chosen by Mr. Barr in first instance because he likes the character but for other interesting things such as his visual aspects, his incredible powers and the long-term subplots with Simon Stagg, Java and Sapphire.

He also referred to his laboral relationship with Bob Haney when got a job in DC comics as proofreader and later moved to become editor to books Haney was writing in the moment. Barr considered Haney a good writer, same than Jim Aparo and coincidentally both Aparo and Barr (men who worked closely to Haney) were involved into the creation of the Outsiders and the therefore in Metamorpho's comeback.

Everything is related, if there was a person who stayed in the first Brave and the Bold title almost as much as Bob Haney (107 issues), that was Jim Aparo (99 issues) and although they only met in person a couple times, they developed a friendship talking by the phone all the time they worked together (about eight years). 

I speculate but probably in one of those conversations Haney talked to Aparo about his favorite characters and Metamorpho came up in the conversation as Jim Aparo knew about the efforts Haney did through all the past years to avoid the character to fall into oblivion, same with Mike W. Barr, we cannot know the full extent of those office conversations but perhaps both Barr and Aparo brought the Element Man to the cast of the Outsiders perhaps to honor Haney's efforts, perhaps because they both liked this terrific character or perhaps because these talented creators thought Metamorpho deserved not to be forgotten.

7-ELEVEN METAMORPHO CUP

When it comes to convenience stores, 7-Eleven is the name. The 7-Eleven franchise (called like that because they open from 7 a.m to 11 p.m.) is a multinational chain store with presence in several countries all over the world. Originated in United States in the late 1920's, they started selling standard products but in the 60's 7-Eleven began to create their own exclusive products, sold only through their stores.

One of these products were the "Slurpee" beverage and although the early design of the container was simple and direct, in the years to come they would eventually license several properties to appear on the beverage's cup in order to make it more attractive. Thus, in 1973, 7-Eleven licensed DC characters to make them appear on their Slurpee beverage's cups, they even created a checklist for those interested in collecting the whole set of 60 cups.

In 1975 was the turn for Marvel Comics with its own 60-cup set (a checklist was provided as well) and due to the popularity of Marvel characters by the time, a second set was distributed in 1977. Although the Marvel sets are superior in aesthetics and design, the DC set is considered by collectors as the most desirable one because of its rareness (being the Speedy cup the hardest one to find).

DC set's art is recycled from previous published work, this represented a tragedy to Metamorpho since despite he had appeared in more than 30 different comics by the beginning of 1973 for a reason I cannot understand the designers of the cup chose Metamorpho's image from the cover of Justice League of America (Vol. 1) which does not make justice to the character, considering there were much better action poses on his own series. 

THE ORIGINAL E-MAN

Superheroes' names generally are not conceived by the same character but they are given by the people or by the media. Many of those names are in most cases related to their characteristics, powers or appearance.

With Metamorpho this was a bit different. The curious thing is despite his feature was called "Metamorpho, The Element Man", being the "Metamorpho" part more prominent than "the element man" part, Rex called himself "Element Man" since his first appearance and it was on his second appearance that his fiancee Sapphire came up with the name "Metamorpho".

In the issues to come, people started using both names to call him, however Rex contracted his name and called himself "E-Man" when leaving a message for a group of soldiers sent by the government of the United States in Metamorpho (Vol. 1) #3, November 1965. From then on, he was also known with that name and people sporadically called him like that.

It was in 1973, after 8 years Bob Haney came up with the idea of calling Metamorpho "E-man" that Charlton Comics trying to revive its superhero line with fresh ideas asked writer Nicola Cuti and artist Joe Staton to create something and the result was E-Man a sentient energy blast thrown by a nova, who after traveling through the cosmos gathering knowledge, arrives to earth, where he adopts a human form.

Despite being a name already in use by DC Comics to refer to one of their characters, Charlton still used it taking advantage of the fact the name had not been yet  trademarked to any superhero. Today, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the word E-Man has been trademarked by eight different companies (mostly in the electronics business) being one of them First Comics (the character's new house after Charlton) but to date seven of those trademarks are tagged with the "dead" status including the one from First Comics.

Years after the character's first appearance Cuti, stated that his inspiration to create E-Man was Plastic Man (hence the humorous touch in the series) and although we cannot insinuate Cuti took the idea from a Metamorpho comic without entering the field of speculation, it is worth emphasize the character's conception had to be modified on its early stages due to similarities with Captain Atom (another Charlton property by the time). The curious thing about E-Man is that despite being inspired in Plastic Man, his shaphe-shifting powers resemble mostly those from Metamorpho since he can transform (among other things) into self-propelled engines.

E-Man was introduced on his own book cover-dated October 1973, with an ample promotion in advance as Cuti sent letters to several fanzines informing about the upcoming series. The news could have probably reached Bob Haney but whether or not he knew about the upcoming series, it is curious that World's Finest Comics (Vol. 1) #219 (whose regular writer was Haney by the time) cover-dated also October 1973 has a back-up Metamorpho story in which the name E-Man (previously used sparsely to call Rex) was mentioned three times in five pages, a rare occurrence, perhaps to clear up who was the "true" E-Man.

Even though his first run lasted only ten issues, E-Man is nowadays an established franchise and has become a cult character with a strong fan base. Unlike Metamorpho who has lived his whole life in a widely recognized universe, E-Man has moved from small publisher to small publisher, but this has not been a problem for his fans to follow him wherever he goes and to still keep going as one of the most memorable superheroes of the last decades.

METAMORPHO IN THE TABLETOP ROLE-PLAYING GAMES (PART 3)

Giving an end to our tour through all the DC Comics iterations in the RPG world, now we enter to examine the latest licensed tabletop RPG based on DC properties. Brought to us thanks to the effort of "Green Ronin Publishing" a company with more than 15 years in the gaming business.

Green Ronin Publishing made a reputation in the early 2000's after Wizards of the Coast (the owners of "Magic the Gathering") bought the rights for the legendary "Dungeons and Dragons" (D&D from now on) franchise and created the third edition for the game (based on the so called d20 system) alongside the "Open Game License" (OGL from now on). This license allowed individuals and amateur or profesional companies to create derivative works to be played using the rule mechanics from the third edition of D&D with the condition the product had to include a copy of the license and a tag on the cover that stated it required D&D's three core rulebooks (Player's handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual) to be played. 

This move was thought by Wizards of the Coast as a way to stop the growing wave of new RPG entering to the market with incompatible rule systems and bring all creative people under the same umbrella publishing games and supplements fully compatible with D&D which would represent more sales of the core rulebooks.

The OGL originated a revolutionary movement that brought dozens (if not hundreds) of individuals, small and big companies in the RPG business to publish games, supplements and other sourcebooks fully compatible with D&D. The third edition rules were an instant hit and still today it is considered as the most successful edition ever.

As the market expanded, more and more publishers threw themselves into the new third edition fever, some released just standard fantasy material but others were more creative and started experimenting with other genres (sci-fi, war, steampunk, western) and is on these early years of experimentation that Green Ronin hit home with the game "Mutants and Masterminds" (M&M from now on) using the d20 system and created under the terms of the OGL.

M&M was published in 2002 the same year than "Silver Age Sentinels" (d20 version) but the first was downright more successful and still remains strong after almost 15 years and three editions, being perhaps the most played RPG game in the superhero genre nowadays. Green Ronin even created a license for M&M to allow third parties to create derivative works compatible with the game, this has glutted the market with a growing wave of new supplements and sourcebooks.

After the success harvested with M&M, Green Ronin was ready for the major leagues and acquired the license to produce a RPG based on the DC Universe and published "DC Adventures" in 2010. The quality of the product was such that received several award nominations specially for the artwork and the neat presentation.

The product line encompasses four books, the core rulebook, two expansion sourcebooks with stats for several heroes, villains and supporting cast and a campaigns setting book describing the DC Universe (pre-flashpoint), all published with one year of difference being the last one published in 2013. 

The line seems to have been conceived as only for those four books (perhaps DC has limited the license due the "New 52" restructuring or just learned from the past to sell short-term licenses only), no information has been given by Green Ronin about new releases (game's official website has not been updated since November 2014) so it is a fact the line is over and only these four books were produced. 

Regarding Metamorpho, I am really pleased to see the character has been given a full three-page spot inside "DC Adventures Heroes and Villains: Vol. 2". The most pleasant thing I see is at last a DC Comics RPG provides stats for the Element Man's supporting cast as Simon, Sapphire and Java are included as well.

Whether you are or not a Metamorpho fan, the books from this RPG are worth collecting and the small extension of the line makes it way easy to assemble a complete collection on your bookshelf. M&M still rules unbeaten so the longevity of these products is secured for the years to come, who knows, perhaps before the lack of a better offer to enter the RPG market again, DC decides to team up with Green Ronin one more time to expand this memorable RPG line.

METAMORPHO IN THE TABLETOP ROLE-PLAYING GAMES (PART 2)

In 1999, after securing the rights to create a RPG based on the DC Universe, the company West End Games published the "DC Universe RPG", it was based on a variation of the "d6 System", popularized by the time for other properties West End Games had previously secured such as Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Men in Black, Xena, Stargate, among others. This system has its detractors and fans, however the number of followers was not enough to avoid West End Games entering into a very acute financial crisis that extended for years pulling the company over to lose its licensed properties (after filing bankruptcy, partially merging and finally being sold) and put its "d6 System" into the public domain.

The company released less products than its predecessor in running a DC Universe RPG, they were actually a fraction of those published by Mayfair, perhaps largely due to the poor reception the game had with players. The core rulebook despite having a substantial section with a general inside look to the DC Universe, his organizations, cities and even a detailed timeline from "10 years ago" til today (for that time), it totally ignores Metamorpho, Simon Stagg or Stagg Enterprises. At least it is mentioned on the timeline Batman left the Justice League of America and formed the Outsiders, the team's dissolving is mentioned as well.

Unfortunately Metamorpho was not very active by the years the game was in print (1999-2002), his canonical appearances were outrageously scarce for that time and Metamorpho fell relegated just to picturesque alternate versions in Elseworlds stories. That is the reason none of the art (which from what I recall seems to be recycled) depicts Metamorpho. 

It seems that everything goes according to the eyes of whom wrote the handbook and according to them it was more important to create stats for a bunch of unknown characters in despite of older established characters. Sample of this is the chapter nine titled "Legendary Heroes and Villains", the word "legendary" warns the reader you will find there only those high profile characters most players would like to role-play and although the selection of characters is not bad at all, it does not have a classic or "legendary" taste but it is rather mostly a tour to the 90's freaks today no one remembers.

The supplements evade Metamorpho too, it seems Rex Mason's disappearance for the time from the monthly books made him to fall into oblivion. The sourcebooks in which Rex Mason could have the right to appear such as the "JLA Sourcebook" instead were more willing to give entries to multiple versions of the same character (Flash 2, Flash 3, Green Arrow 1, Green Arrow 2) not to mention the usual dose of novelties from the era.

It is the same for "Gotham City Sourcebook" which contains stats for several Batman allies but unlike the "Batman Sourcebook" from the DC Heroes RPG this book does not include stats for the members of the Outsiders, probably due to the fact no Outsiders series was being published when this book was released. 

I have included this RPG in this series of articles only because despite being perhaps the less successful, it represents still an important part of the history of RPG based on DC Comics properties, but Metamorpho fans cannot find anything here about the Element Man neither to collect nor to use in a game session.

The d6 system has evolved and become a very solid cornerstone of the RPG gaming community, it is now an open game system and anyone can create derivative works from it. In fact, a lot of publishers use this system as the rules set for their RPG.

METAMORPHO IN THE TABLETOP ROLE-PLAYING GAMES (PART 1)

DC Comics dabbled into the tabletop role-playing games (RPG from now on) three times in all its existence, being Mayfair Games in 1985 the first to claim for DC Comics a piece of the pie from the fast growing superhero RPG market. While the RPG market for the fantasy genre was growing at a good pace in the late 70's, the market for the superhero genre started slowly with precursors such as "Villain and Vigilantes" (1979), "Supergame" (1980), "Champions (1981)" but it was in 1984 when the market was fueled with the addition of the first licensed RPG "Marvel Superheroes". The money was there to be collected so immediately Mayfair secured the rights for the use of the DC Universe and released "DC Heroes RPG".

For many DC fans who also are RPG players and for a lot of RPG critics, this has been the best game ever created with DC properties, the reason?, the game's system that later was known as MEGS (Mayfair Exponential Game System). The term "system" in the context of RPG refers to the rules used to resolve the different actions inside the game and unlike the Marvel RPG, this system was deeper and more intricate but even kept a low learning curve so children did not have any problem to learn it and play alongside older players, however the box recommends 11 as the minimum age to play (an advertisement reduces to 10 the minimum age).

Marvel Superheroes RPG's system and many other out-of-print systems published through the last four decades have been preserved to the public domain thanks to the retro-clone movement, the Mayfair exponential game system, in the other hand, has remained very difficult to clone since his complexity is such it would be a headache to present the rules in a way you do not infringe copyright law as RPG cloning takes advantage of the fact you cannot copyright game rules but only the way you present them.

The DC Heroes RPG could be considered the golden age of RPG set in the DC Universe, not only for all the years the game ruled (1985-1997) being polished through three editions but for the plethora of sourcebooks and supplements published for the game. DC Heroes was moreover the only RPG that gave Metamorpho full exposure as he was included in several books (although he was not featured in any of the three editions of the core book).

If you are in the Metamorpho completionism wagon you could be interested in collecting these books:

Batman Sourcebook

Among Batman allies, the Outsiders are listed with an entry for every member of the team, the entry for Metamorpho declares he is the most powerful member of the team. In the skill list, the entry endow a score 6 for the skill Charisma which allows a character to intimidate, interrogate or persuade, this score equals those of the Green Lantern's but is lower than others (Changeling 7, Joker 10, Darkseid 15, Superman 20, Bother Blood 20) which makes me think most of the scores assigned to stats are arbitrary.

Come on down!

An adventure module totally dedicated to the Justice League Europe. Metamorpho is on the cover alongside other members of the team.

Lights, camera... Kobra.

An adventure module conceived for the players to role-play members of the Outsiders. The book comes with stats and role-playing notes for every member of the team and the players choose one to embark into the adventure. The cover features a colorful elongating Metamorpho.

Justice League Sourcebook

Rex is part of the cover among a bunch of members of both branches for the time: America and Europe/International. The entry for Metamorpho is perhaps the most complete in the whole line as it describes extensively his background and personality, including some reference comic-books as endnotes.

Who's Who #1: Backgrounds of Characters and Places #1

Contains the stats block for Metamorpho and a detailed drawing of the Orb of Ra. There is a complete list of appearances up to publication date at the time, the book considers all pre-crisis appearances of Metamorpho (and all other characters) out of continuity. 

Who's Who #3: Backgrounds of Characters and Places #3

Contains the stats block for Element Girl with the observation she is deceased. The entry also includes a map of her apartment.

The icing on the cake for this legendary RPG was the metal miniatures Mayfair sold in 10-piece sets according to teams and their adversaries for the players to use as tokens to represent their characters on the gaming table. Between 1985 and 1989 were produced six different sets featuring the Justice League, the Legion of Superheroes, the Teen Titans, the Watchmen, Batman vs. Joker (for the Batman RPG using the same rules) and the Outsiders (#6504), this last including Metamorpho.

No other RPG based on DC properties could reach such a "cult" status this one reached, the amount of material created for this game and that you can find on the Internet could have you and your gaming group playing for years. My only complaint with this game is there are not stats for Metamorpho's supporting cast other than Element Girl.

FANS KILLING CHARACTERS DID NOT START WITH ROBIN

The shameful 1988 episode in which DC Comics set a 1-900 phone number up for people to call and decide the destiny of the second Robin, Jason Todd, has been considered as one of the most infamous marketing campaigns to attract new readers to comics ever. Considered as revolutionary on its time many believe this is the landmark for all events in which fans decide the outcome of a storyline.

Truth is, fans deciding the destiny of a character is not something that started with Robin but even earlier. Metamorpho (Vol. 1) #11 published in 1967 already made a "decide whether the character lives or dies" event. Perhaps they could not do the whole "call and decide" campaign due to the 1-900 numbers were not introduced in United States until 1971 or just because they did not think it was the big deal, they only used the the conventional way of the time: the snail mail.

The character to decide her destiny was Urania Blackwell a.k.a. Element Girl, another person altered by the meteor inside the Ahk-Ton pyramid who underwent similar changes to Metamorpho. She was introduced interrupting Rex and Sapphire's wedding to ask for Metamorpho's aid to defeat a criminal organization led by his ex-boyfriend, they travel together to Europa leaving Sapphire waiting dressed with her bride garments.

At the end of the adventure Urania dies and Metamorpho takes her with him and asks Simon Stagg to bring her back to life. The fans then had to decide whether Element Girl is resurrected or remains dead.

Urania Blackwell returned two issues later on issue 13 and one caption box on the story informs the readers that Element Girl is alive thanks to the majority of the fans who voted in favor of bring her back from death.

It is evident Rex has a crush on the girl and the attraction is mutual, this dichotomy in Rex's feelings and the rivalry between Sapphire and Element Girl will be a major plot in the issues to come until the end of this series run.

DC SKYCAP #28 FROM 1993

You already know what 1993 represented to superhero comics industry. Everything that looked like a collectible was selling and many publishers made a lot of money from people looking for whatever that smelled to investment for the future.

That year, Skybox, a company which had acquired the rights to produce trading cards based on DC Comics properties, took advantage of the growing wave of people looking for whatever claiming to be a collector's item and dabbled into this so basic market thus the DC Skycaps were born. What were they? Just tokens to play the Milk Caps or POG game, very popular by the early and mid 90's.

The origin of the name for these collectible playing tokens is associated to a certain brand of beverages called Passion Orange Guava or POG by its initials, kids started playing with POG bottle caps before the commercialization of the game, however the milk caps game history can be traced to the 1920's possibly in Hawaii or even earlier, considering there is Japanese game called Memko believed in existence since the 17th century which is pretty similar to POG.

If you were a child by the 90's, there is a big chance you had played this game or seen kids around you playing it. Skybox, probably with the consent and complicity of DC Comics put the hands in this so basic market and produced a 54-cap set plus six foil stamped bonus "chase" skycaps, using the distribution model of the trading cards; that is, you had to buy 6-cap packs with random caps inside, so imagine the problem to assemble a complete set and add to this trying to get all six foil stamped ones.

Like almost all collectibles from those years, they were overproduced and today they are worth not even the price people paid when they were released, provided they looked for a complete set which implies they had to buy several packs. If you have a sealed pack you could collect between 4-6 dollars a piece and if you are lucky enough or seek after hard enough you probably can fin a complete set (minus the foil stamped ones) in the $10-15 range. That does not look like an investment, considering they were released about 23 years ago.

Metamorpho's cap was number 28 and like all other caps from this set, the art is recycled from previous published works, Metamorpho's art is the same from his card in the 1992 DC Cosmic trading card set. Evidently this product was created in a rush just to make money fishing in troubled waters.