Successful themes rarely took only a single bow at DC Comics. And so it was that Robotman found himself in possession of some strange bodies.
In Detective Comics 174 (Aug. 1951), the cyborg superhero faces Dr. Ripari, a man “…whose warped scientific genius had been twisted into the shady labyrinths of crime.”
When Ripari invents a chemical spray that instantly rusts metal, Robotman beats a quick retreat, only to return with a glass body.
“I’ve got a glass jaw, but better not try to take advantage of me,” Robotman quips as he slugs Ripari’s henchmen.
“Very clever, Robotman … but people in glass houses shouldn’t throw punches,” sneers Ripari as he wields an improvised tuning fork against the crimefighter.
Robotman returns with a rubber body and makes like Plastic Man before being forced to retreat by Ripari’s blowtorch. He finally defeats the gang by forging a new body out of the very thing they were attempting to steal — gold.
This was clearly inspired by The Strange Costumes of Batman, an Edmond Hamilton/Dick Sprang story that had appeared nine months before in Detective Comics 165. In that story, the Dynamic Duo inspects the various special-use costumes they’d designed to fight crime over the years.
The theme would get another workout in The Strange Costumes of Superboy (Superboy 16, Sept.-Oct. 1951). The Boy of Steel uses the garish variants in a scheme to protect the secret of his identity.
And that’s also the reason Bruce Wayne is forced to become The Rainbow Batman in Detective Comics 241 (March 1957). He dons various brightly colored Batman costumes in a successful effort to keep people from noticing that Robin has an injury identical to Dick Grayson’s.
The Robotman tale, featuring robot bodies made out of various substances, anticipated the Metal Men feature that debuted a decade later (Showcase 37, March–April 1962).
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