After a couple of appearances in The Brave and the Bold, Metamorpho landed himself a bimonthly series that lasted 17 issues. Bob Haney wrote all of them, with Ramona Fradon as penciler for the first 4 issues, then Joe Orlando for 2, then Sal Trapani for 10 issues. Grand Comics Database has a note that Trapani used ghost pencilers, so who knows how much of those issues he actually drew.
Haney sticks to a pretty regular formula, where Metamorpho faces a weird science crook because his would-be father-in-law, Simon Stagg, was all too eager to either show off some new (probably malfunctioning) invention, or glad-hand with said science crook. Leaving Metamorpho to clean up the mess. Stagg heaps criticism on Rex, when he's not making sure to keep him under his thumb, while his daughter Sapphire frets about Rex, and Stagg's Unfrozen Caveman Lackey, Java, bemoans how Metamorpho steals Sapphire's affection away from him (when he's not trying -and failing comically - to play hero himself.)
Metamorpho usually transforms himself into some basic shape, with Haney making sure to have him describe both what he's making and what element it's made of. A "silicon sawblade", or "cobalt ram", things like that. Haney does try to create villains with science know-how so he can explain why something didn't work, or why Metamorpho's reacting badly. Metamorpho tries to use sulfur to create a smokescreen, the bad guy's chemical robot injects him with selenium, which replaces the sulfur and nearly kills Metamorpho.
One thing I didn't know before reading this series, and really only learned during Haney's version of Galactus' first time menacing Earth (where Galactus is a little guy who shoots devastating beams of energy from an eye on a stalk protruding from the top of his head), is Metamorpho can only transform into elements (or chemicals, which Haney seems to treat as interchangeable) that are found in the human body. The Silver Surfer stand-in (who is jetpack wearing dork with an atom symbol on his chest) mentions it, and that he commands the other 103 known elements, making him 4 times as powerful.
Haney introduces Urania Blackwell as a secret agent who gets herself the same powers as Metamorpho to fight a guy named Stingaree (oooooof), and then to act as a rival love interest to Sapphire, since the "Element Girl" has powers of her own that will let her fight alongside him. The conclusion to that, however, is just weird, even for Bob Haney. Sapphire marries some rich boy out of nowhere, then Rex is approached by a guy who wants the aid of the man who 'fought in 3 wars, put down two revolutions, hunted every dangerous animal there is', and brings him to a valley where he meets an ageless queen (who looks like Sapphire), and thinks Rex is her long-lost lover, who had the same powers.
That lasts one issue - because she wants him to lead her armies in conquest - and then Metamorpho's on trial for killing Sapphire's husband. The series ends with him on the run, but no immediate path to clearing his name since the one who framed him died at the hands of his mysterious client's giant bees?
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