Magnus and AI.

By curious coincidence, two comic book characters by two different publishers were born just over sixty years ago, characters whose adventures centered around robots and artificial intelligence. And the characters had the same name: Magnus. 

The Metal Men were created by comic book veteran Robert Kanigher and appeared first in 1962. They were a team of six robots invented by Dr. William Magnus, each made of, named for, and with the physical and chemical characteristics of one metallic element -- Gold, Platinum, Tin, Mercury, Iron, and Lead. Each robot was self-aware and rational and had a distinct personality corresponding to its element (Lead was dumb, Mercury was snarky and egotistical, Gold was pure of heart, Iron was a bruiser, Tin was cowardly, and Platinum, the female type, was a sweetheart). In a way, these really weren't robots or even androids; depending on the era in which they appeared, they were tiny computers called Responsometers that not only served as the robot brain, but also caused quantities of the metal element to cohere into a humanoid shape around it. Inventor Magnus was a stalwart pipe-smoking type, but also had a tendency to lose his mind (or have it taken over) through the years, even building evil robots. Nevertheless, the heroes of the book, the bots themselves, were friendly and were friends to humanity, so AI was good; evil machines were an exception and frequently their opponent. 

Gold Key comics' Magnus, Robot Fighter of 4000 A.D., taking place in that far-future date when people forgot A.D. is a prefix, starred a very different kind of Magnus. American comic books are all about the superheroes now, but in the 1960s the field also had science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, humor, war, Western, and other genres represented. Magnus, Robot Fighter was obviously an SF title, by second-string publisher Gold Key, which is probably best remembered for its many TV show comic book adaptations like Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek. 

Magnus, created by writer/artist Russ Manning, took place in a fully-realized futuristic Earth, in which the world's enormous human population was completely dependent on robots -- leading to tyrannical robot rule. Magnus was specially trained to be able to fight and destroy these mechanical monsters, with his bare hands if necessary, in his quest to free mankind. 

Here artificial intelligence is the enemy of the heroes. But Magnus was helped by artificial intelligence that was good -- and in fact had been trained to be a robot fighter by a robot called 1A. 

This Magnus first saw print in 1963, and his adventures ran until 1977 -- a tremendous run for a non-DC/Marvel/Disney/Archie comic book. 

But why were both main human characters named Magnus? It's a famous and heroic name (Latin for Great, as in Carolus Magnus, better remembered as Charlemagne), but not common. Did Russ Manning pick up the name from the Metal Men's creator? If he did, I can’t find evidence. Manning died from cancer at the age of just 52 in 1981, so it's too late to ask. While Kanigher was based in New York, Manning lived and worked in California his whole life (I believe), so it's not like they met up to shoot the breeze and swap ideas at the Comic Book Tavern. Maybe Russ saw the Metal Men book and the name stuck in his head without him realizing it. Or maybe it's just one of those weird coincidences. 

Since the rights to the characters have never been owned by the same company at the same time, there's never been a crossover that might give some fictional background to the two Magnii. However, that did not stop the guys at Super-Team Family, the site that makes fake comic book covers for stories that should have happened ... but DIDN'T!

Artificial intelligence would never be the same!