Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman, is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum.
In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy Gale befriends the Tin Woodman after she finds him rusted in the forest, as he was caught in rain, and uses his oil can to release him.
A recurring problem for the Tin Woodman in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and afterward was his tendency to rust when exposed to rain, tears, or other moisture.
For this reason, in The Marvelous Land of Oz, the character has himself nickel-plated before helping his friend the Scarecrow fight to regain his throne in the Emerald City.
He is a major character in the comic page Baum wrote with Walt McDougall in 1904-05, Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz.
He affects the plot of a book most notably in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, in which he forbids the young hero from collecting the wing of a butterfly needed for a magical potion because his heart requires him to protect insects from cruelty.
Baum also wrote a short book titled The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, part of the Little Wizard Stories of Oz series for younger readers.
In The Tin Woodman of Oz, Nick Chopper finally sets out to find his lost love, Nimmie Amee, but discovers that she has already married Chopfyt, a man constructed partly out of his own dismembered and discarded limbs.
Baum's successors in writing the series tended to use the Tin Woodman as a minor character, still ruling the Winkie Country but not governing the stories' outcome.
In the book, Nessarose – the Wicked Witch of the East – is seen enchanting the axe to swing around and chop off Nick Chopper's limbs.
In Oz Squad, Nick was shown in a sexual relationship with "Rebecca Eastwitch" in order to get closer to Nimmie Amee and attempt to elope with her.
A darker twist to the beloved woodman is made by author James A. Owen in The Shadow Dragons, the fourth installment of his series The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, when his identity is revealed to be Roger Bacon.
The Tin Woodman appears in the 2011 TV series Once Upon a Time episode "Where Bluebirds Fly" portrayed by Austin Obiajunwa (as a teenager) and by Alex Désert (as an adult).
Many years later, Stanum, now a man, is punished by the Wicked Witch of the North for chopping down a tree in her domain, and his body slowly begins to transform into tin.
To prevent himself from completely becoming tin, Stanum seeks out help from Zelena (now the Wicked Witch of the West) at the Emerald City of Oz.
Some time later, when Robin Hood arrives in Oz in the episode "Heart of Gold", the Tin Man is seen on the side of the Yellow Brick Road, torn apart.
[13] They state that Baum and Denslow did not simply invent the Lion, Tin Woodman, Scarecrow, Yellow Brick Road, Silver Slippers, cyclone, monkeys, Emerald City, little people, Uncle Henry, passenger balloons, witches and the wizard.