Death Metal is a powerful cyborg whose body is crafted from the living metal Prometheum. Unfortunately, that mystic metal is tainted by its demonic origins and constantly attempting to subvert his mind. The last time he lost control he killed entire worlds. Now that his own personality's resurfaced, he can't let that happen again - in fact, he thinks it's better for everyone if he dies first - but his programming won't let him destroy himself.
Perhaps if Death Metal can't be destroyed, he can somehow be contained, though?
He's aware of superhumans with powers that can affect his artifical form, such as Alpha Flight's Box - and Vesper, one of the genetically modified teenagers known as the Genetix. None of them seem to have quite enough power to do the job, though. So he'll just have to make use of them as a starting point to create someone else who has.
The first issue was released October 19 1993.
Death Metal vs Genetix contains the following tropes:
- Big Bad: Death Metal himself, a Well-Intentioned Extremist contemplating some pretty dark actions, falls into this role.
- Breeding Slave: Death Metal almost takes his Medical Rape and Impregnate plan fully into this territory as well, planning to damage Krista's brain and destroy her mind so that she can't interfere with the pregnancy. Argon stops him, thankfully.
- Death Seeker: As seen in his own miniseries, Death Metal is determined to find a way to destroy himself before his mind loses control again. However, he's starting to fear it might not be possible.
- Designer Babies: Using stolen cell scrapings, Death Metal is attempting to create a child who'll inherit the powers of both Box and Vesper.
- Fighting from the Inside: Argon, the hero who was assimilated by Death Metal at the start of the Death Metal series, refuses to let him destroy Krista's mind.
- Forgot About Her Powers: In the initial battle with Death Metal, Stinger's knocked out by a blast from his Eye Beams. One of Stinger's abilities is that she can absorb energy, so that should have been a Feed It with Fire power up for her.
- Human Shield: Death Metal catches Shift’s punch by reshaping his liquid metal form, trapping his hand, then uses him as a shield to block his teammate Stinger's energy blast.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: One of the driving forces behind Death Metal's actions. He believes that he needs to die for the greater good, but his programming won't let him commit suicide.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Krista wrenches a spike out of a metal railing and puts it through Death Metal's head. It doesn't seem to bother him much.
- Magitek: Mainstream loudly boasts that he's a techno-magical creation. As is Death Metal himself, with an artificial body built of mystical metal.
- Medical Rape and Impregnate: An embryo is created by Death Metal, using stolen genetic material from Vesper and Box, then implanted into Krista Marwan without her consent.
- Mutants: Box and Krista Marwan are both mutants, although Death Metal and Vesper refer to them as "Mutonics" for some reason.
- No Name Given: The A.I.M. scientist who's (unwillingly) assisting Death Metal is never named.
- Out of Focus: Vesper plays a much larger role in the story than the rest of her Genetix teammates. In particular, Stinger and Ridge get almost nothing to do other than their role in the team's fight scenes.
- Projected Man: The Gena-Sys agent Mainstream, sent to retrieve the Genetix, seems to be some sort of Hard Light projection from their computers. Which makes him vulnerable to Vesper's power.
- Saying Too Much: If Mainstream hadn't boasted about his status as a Projected Man, Vesper might not have realised that she could turn her powers on him.
- Sticky Situation: A variant. Shift uses his Delta Five Fury war glove to punch Death Metal in the chest. Death Metal liquifies his chest to catch the blow and traps Shift's hand.
- Super-Senses: Death Metal has 97 different forms of enhanced vision. When the Genetix obscure his sight to allow a surprise attack, he just switches to another one.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Death Metal is prepared to artificially inseminate an innocent teenager and destroy her mind so that she can become the mother to a mutant child who may save millions of lives by killing or containing him.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never find out what happened to the A.I.M. scientist that Death Metal kidnapped to help him with the genetic splicing.
