Many Bob Layton fans are aware that the Metallix armor concept -- smart metal/programmable nanites -- was first conceived and introduced while you and David Michelinie crafted your original IRON MAN: THE END proposal for Marvel in December 2001, which was ultimately and sadly rejected.

One year later in 2002, METALLIX #1 debuted for Future Comics and ran for eight issues, including #0. Issue #7 did not see print, but it was posted on boblayton.com as a gift to fans. (See the October and November 2005 Archives.)

METALLIX brought together the talents of writer/co-plotter David Michelinie, penciler Ron Lim, and yourself as co-plotter, inker, and editor.

And speaking of Ron Lim, both Allen Del Caro and I are THRILLED that Ron will be penciling the final chapter of the upcoming Iron Man/Doctor Doom  ‘Camelot Trilogy.’ I enjoyed Ron’s work on METALLIX, while Allen was a huge fan of his work on X-MEN 2099 (1993).

Allen had these comments: “Ron Lim's pencils were tight and detailed, yet avoided a cluttered look. He also achieved balance in his character designs. His costumes and creatures gave the story the look and feel it needed but didn't speak of vanity. The artwork was devoted to telling a story, an art that seems to have fallen out of favor for overdone eyesores of CGI that do more to hide meaning that reveal it. X-MEN 2099 was a refreshing take on the super-hero genre, no glittering lives or snow-white souls, but showing one didn’t have to be an angel to have a hunger to help the world have something better to hope and shoot for.”

Back to METALLIX. I encourage all Iron-Man-loving Laytonites unfamiliar with the series to order back issues from this website. It has a 1980s look and feel that is irresistible. Wonderful covers, too -- worth the price of the books alone, in my opinion.

Thanks Bob.

1. METALLIX is essentially a team book. In fact, Metallix is touted as a tag-team super-hero: four people with differing but complimentary skills, abilities, and knowledge bases sharing one single suit of nanite-based armor that is custom programmed to maximize each wearer's expertise.

QUESTIONS AND COMMENT: Why an armored team book, and were you ever afraid that you and David either couldn’t balance the amount of ‘screen time’ devoted to each character or that one of the characters would ultimately dominate the use of the armor?

I know you enjoyed the old DC Atomic Knights stories, so I'm thinking that perhaps they were an influence in Team Metallix’s creation.

1. As you mentioned in your opening, the character of Metallix was originally created as the successor to Iron Man in our original IRON MAN: THE END story for Marvel Comics. In that original incarnation of the tale, Metallix was an individual character, not a team. Only after David and I discussed the possibilities of giving Metallix his own Future Comics series, did the team concept raise its head. I believe David came up with the idea after discussing the armor's unique ability to enhance the wearer's natural talents. He thought it would be clever to have several people with diverse abilities sharing the unique nanite suit--that way, the powers would be different depending on which character was wearing the armor at the time. After milling that around for a while, we created the colorful cast of characters that made up Team Metallix. It had the advantage of having never been done before--the tag-team concept.

As far as one character dominating use of the armor, as with our plotting on Iron Man, David and I had mapped out an overview for the series which allowed each character to have his/her own moment to shine. We knew where we were going to go through the first six issues and had constructed the series in a manner that each characterwould get his/her moment in the sun.

Concerning the Atomic Knights, they served more as inspiration to me, than anything else. Conceptually, there's very little to compare one to the other.

2. I truly love the idea of the armor being comprised of programmable nanites. But I like the idea of sentient nanites even more. (In fact, War Wabbit is based upon that notion; you might even say that WW is a spinoff of METALLIX.)

QUESTION: Did you and David ever discuss any possible "evolution" of the nanites? Any potential impact with Asimov¹s "Three laws of Robotics," to me, would make for interesting scenarios. And, did you and David ever feel that the armor itself was a character?

2. Yes. In fact, we had intended the armor to evolve as the series when on. However, we never envisioned the nanites themselves as having intelligence or a "soul." For a more in-depth description of where we were heading with the series, our readers can check out the Archives for David Michelinie's article on the proposed future of Metallix.

3. Distinguishing the identity of a Metallix armor wearer is simple: You can partially see his or her face. But I noticed one other notable identification characteristic: the "eyebrows" of the armor changed for each user. (Note the two examples.) Obviously, the nanites could "sense" which member of Team Metallix was clad in them.

QUESTION: Did you and David toy with the idea of the armor displaying other "personality" flourishes for the four individuals; in other words, customizing the suit's look for each pilot?

3.  As a matter of fact, we did! I had always intended the armor to take on an extremely noticeable difference with each wearer. Somehow, that particular nuance got a little lost in the mix as we got more involved in the content of the story. But, you are correct in the fact that we made some cosmetic changes depending on which team member donned the armor. If I had it to do over, I would make those changes far more pronounced.

4. The color scheme of the Metallix armor did not change from its initial concept.

QUESTIONS: Why weren't the classic red and gold colors used for the armor in the IRON MAN: THE END pitch, and why did the color scheme not change when the armor was plucked from the IRON MAN: THE END proposal and dropped into the METALLIX comic?

4. Part of that had to do with the concept of the original story in IRON MAN: THE END. The conclusion was about the end of Iron Man, so when Tony Stark creates a new armored successor, it was his intention for the new corporate symbol to be as far removed from the Iron Man configuration as possible. It was the end of the Iron Man armor that the story concluded with.

I kept the color scheme the same because...I LIKED IT!

5. The cover image for METALLIX #11 (unpublished) featured a Deep Sea Metallix armor configuration.
    

QUESTION: If the series had continued, were new armor configs to be an ongoing feature?

5.  Of course! The advantage of having a morphing armor is that all Team Metallix (and technician Stu Konig) had to do was enter a new software program into it to change its configuration. You may have noticed the bulkier Artic Armor in issues #3 and #4 of Metallix. It was our intention to, as with Iron Man, introduce variant armors as the circumstances warranted.

This month, Allen Del Caro provides a War Wabbit cover swipe of METALLIX #1.