Professor Kurt Borian isolated himself on a resource-rich island and spent the next 15 years developing (from total scratch) humanoid robots based on metallic elements. When he returned to civilization, he found that Doc Magnus had anticipated him and done a better job of it. Borian had wasted 15 years of his life - really because he chose to be a hermit, but he didn't see it that way. (Doc actually complimented him on his skill in doing what he did without any outside help.) So Borian decided use the Metal Men to get revenge on Magnus. He implanted a device in Lead that caused all the MM's responsometers to obey only him. Metamorpho had coincidentally come to Doc recently for a cure and Doc did cure him, just in time for Borian to take them all prisoner. Metamorpho made the appropriate sacrifice and became the Element Man again and, in fighting the Metal Men, Borian's device was found and destroyed.
