Plastic Man debuted in publisher Quality Comics' 1941 Police Comics #1. By the series' fifth issue, he had captured the cover and would remain on it through the 1950's #102. Meanwhile, Quality spun Plas off into his own Plastic Man book, which lasted 64 issues between 1943 and 1956.
Unlike a couple of Golden Agers—pretty much just Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman—Plastic Man didn't stay in constant circulation since his creation, but rather, like Captain America, he disappeared for a bit between the sunset of the Golden Age's original superhero boom and the revivals of the 1960s.
Quality's fortunes sagged in the 1950s, as did those of many comics publishers, and in 1956 they ceased publication of their line, all of their various characters and trademarks going to DC Comics, which kept a couple of Quality's comics going for a while but, notably, not Plastic Man (Who, at that point, apparently wasn't as popular as Blackhawk...or the books G.I. Combat and Heart Throbs).
But once Plastic Man was officially part of DC's toybox, it was only a matter of time before they took him out to play with, which they finally did in a couple of different comics in 1966. The being-absorbed-by-DC Comics and then eventually becoming part of their DC Universe shared setting was a survival strategy Plastic Man shared with plenty of other Golden Agers, perhaps most prominently one-time Superman rival Captain Marvel and his family.
At DC, Plas got another chance at a starring role every once in a while. There was a 10-issue Plastic Man series that launched in 1966 and lasted until 1968, followed by another in 1975 that resumed its numbering, ceasing publication with 1977's #20. The final Plastic Man ongoing was the 2004-2006, 20-issue series by Kyle Baker.
At DC, Plas got another chance at a starring role every once in a while. There was a 10-issue Plastic Man series that launched in 1966 and lasted until 1968, followed by another in 1975 that resumed its numbering, ceasing publication with 1977's #20. The final Plastic Man ongoing was the 2004-2006, 20-issue series by Kyle Baker.
There were also a handful of Plastic Man miniseries, in 1988, in 2018 and, more recently, 2015's Convergence: Plastic Man and The Freedom Fighters and 2024's Plastic Man No More! (reviewed in this column).
Similarly, the character earned a couple of one-shot specials at the turn of the century, Plastic Man Special #1 and 2004's all-reprint Plastic Man 80-Page Giant #1. Oh, and though his name wasn't in the title, the character also starred in a run of stories in Adventure Comics in 1980, usually sharing the cover with the Prince Gavyn version of Starman or, in a few cases, Starman and Aquaman.
That's a pretty decent bibliography for a character who debuted in 1941 really, but, quite obviously, there are a lot of holes in it. Like most of the superheroes who now make their home in one of the two "universe" settings that belong to DC Comics and Marvel Comics, though, Plastic Man has often been around, even when he wasn't starring in a book.
Now, there are a few ways to keep superheroes around when they aren't anchoring their own book.
Now, there are a few ways to keep superheroes around when they aren't anchoring their own book.
They could join a superhero team, which is what Plastic Man did around the turn of the century, when he joined the Justice League and ended up appearing in most of the issues of the 1997-2006 JLA series and it's many, many tie-ins and spin-offs. And, in this century, he was one fourth of superhero team that starred in the short-lived 2018-2020 series The Terrifics. (Oh, and like all of the Golden Agers DC would eventually come to own, he was a member of the title team in the 1940s-set All-Star Squadron book of 1981-1987, which started out being set on Earth-2, and...I'm actually not sure what happened to it after Crisis, as DC only ever collected the first 18 issues of the series.)
There were also the big, line-wide crossover events, which only really became a thing after DC's 1985-1986 Crisis on Infinite Earths, and then seemed to wax and wane in popularity in the decades since. Plas' role in such DC events seemed to be limited to a cameo or so though, unless these happened to fall during his time on the Justice League, wherein he might have more substantial panel time.
And then, finally, there is the superhero team-up, in which a more popular character with a book of their own might meet another, sometimes book-less character, and share an adventure. This was a way to keep book-less characters alive, of course, perhaps even interesting readers of the more popular character in them.
And, if nothing else, it helped add a sense of texture and connectivity to the superhero universe in which it was set. For a time, DC had two books pretty much dedicated to that formula, with every issue of The Brave and The Bold pairing Batman with another hero, and every issue of DC Comics Presents doing the same with Superman.
That final method is the one I want to focus on in this post, as it seems like DC somewhat consciously made an effort to "sell" Plastic Man to readers with his guest-appearances in books like The Brave and The Bold, for example. That, or maybe Brave and The Bold writer Bob Haney just really liked Plastic Man...?
And, if nothing else, it helped add a sense of texture and connectivity to the superhero universe in which it was set. For a time, DC had two books pretty much dedicated to that formula, with every issue of The Brave and The Bold pairing Batman with another hero, and every issue of DC Comics Presents doing the same with Superman.
That final method is the one I want to focus on in this post, as it seems like DC somewhat consciously made an effort to "sell" Plastic Man to readers with his guest-appearances in books like The Brave and The Bold, for example. That, or maybe Brave and The Bold writer Bob Haney just really liked Plastic Man...?
Anyway, below we will take a look at almost every Plastic Man team-up, those from 1966 to 2022 (I'm know I'm missing the Wonder Woman team-up from the pages of Batman: The Brave and the Bold #19-20; they haven't been collected yet; I'll probably update this post with an entry on that story when it is.)
As for what constitutes a team-up versus a guest-appearance, well, for the purposes of this post I'm defining a team-up as any story in which Plastic Man appears in a title not his own and, well, teams up with another hero...or, in a few cases, two or three other heroes...or, in one case, a heroic dog and that dog's gang. (And so I chose to ignore comics like 1980's Super Friends and 2008's Green Arrow/Black Canary #10-12, each of which featured Plas among a whole group of other heroes.) If, while reading this, you think of any I might have missed, do feel free to tell me, and I'll try to track it down, read it and include it in an update of this post.
Now let's read some comics...
The "Dial H for Hero" feature was written by Dave Wood and drawn by Jim Mooney and debuted in 1966's House of Mystery #156. Though quite inspired, the premise was also pretty straightforward. Colorado teenager Robby Reed falls into a cavern, where he discovers a strange artifact. It's a dial akin to that of a rotary phone—which I suppose fewer and fewer readers will have any firsthand experience with as the years tick by—with alien-looking symbols along its outer rim. When Robby dials the letters H-E-R-O on it, he temporarily becomes a brand-new superhero. When dialing the word backwards, O-R-E-H, he becomes himself again.
In this fifth installment of the series, which promises "an old new hero, a new new hero and a new old hero!", Robby goes to stay the weekend with his cousin Ned and engage in such wholesome, mid-60s teenage activities as searching for interesting rocks and going to the fair. As per usual, Robby finds himself facing various dangers and needing to dial himself into various heroes.
Here that means Giantboy, a, um, giant boy who had previously come when dialed in the feature's first installment; the brand-new King Kandy, a peppermint-striped hero who fights crime with various candy gimmicks; and, of course, Plastic Man himself.
As the different heroes, Robby encounters various stages of a villain named The Wizard of Light's attempts at a crimewave, which, in typical Silver Age fashion, means wasting such amazing inventions as a ray gun that cancels out gravity on a simple bank heist.
As Plastic Man, "that famous crime-fighting hero of years ago!", Robby acts and sounds like himself as per usual, but he takes on the appearance of Cole's Golden Age great, and has access to his powers. In the few pages in which he is Plastic Man, Robby turns himself into a giant bouncing ball, grabs onto two trees to fire himself like a slingshot into the Wizard's headquarters, stretches his arms to swat some crooks and ultimately wraps up the villain in one long, coiling arm.
As Plastic Man, "that famous crime-fighting hero of years ago!", Robby acts and sounds like himself as per usual, but he takes on the appearance of Cole's Golden Age great, and has access to his powers. In the few pages in which he is Plastic Man, Robby turns himself into a giant bouncing ball, grabs onto two trees to fire himself like a slingshot into the Wizard's headquarters, stretches his arms to swat some crooks and ultimately wraps up the villain in one long, coiling arm.
It's definitely the most unusual of superhero crossovers, and it's like is never repeated in the remainder of the original "Dial H" feature's run. I haven't read all of the later revivals (just Sam Humphries and Joe Quinones' excellent 2019 limited series, and the dial's appearances in Superboy and The Ravers and the Silver Age event), but apparently the dialer who stars China Mieville and Mateus Santolouco 2012 series once dialed himself into The Flash.
(Collected in 2004's Plastic Man 80-Page Giant #1 and 2010's Showcase Presents: Dial H for Hero.)
Although there's also Earth-Twelve, home to The Inferior Five that was retroactively named as the home world of various "funny" heroes and comedy stars with their own comic book series, like Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope, listed in the pages of the Crisis On Infinite Earths: The Compendium, which stated that most (but not all!) of Plas' 1960s comics were set there.
And then of course there is also the possibility that this issue of The Brave and The Bold isn't actually set on Earth-One at all, however, but the theoretical "Earth-B", where DC editor Bob Rozakis apparently suggested comics stories that seem off in some way may be set, particularly those like the ones Bob Haney wrote for The Brave and The Bold.
Gee, I can't imagine why DC ever thought to do away with their pre-Crisis multiverse...!
Those unfamiliar with the title will, upon reading this issue, immediately realize that the Batman in it doesn't really act or talk much like the Batmen they are likely most used to. Written by Haney, the Batman of this team-up title was friendly, jocular, quick with a joke and prone to lapsing into slang, sounding an awful lot like Haney's own narration, which had a Stan Lee-esque, trying-to-sound-hip nature that certainly designates it as distinct. (Hard to imagine another writer's Batman urging his vehicle into action with "Go, little Batmobile!" or declaring "Well, I'll be a super-hero's uncle-in-law," for example.)
In this tale, Batman faces off against a green-and-orange clad villain named The Molder, seen on the Neal Adams cover above. The Molder talks to himself incessantly, ranting repeatedly about "The Plastic Age," and he uses a variety of plastic gimmicks to commit unlikely (and, let's face it, unrealistic, crimes), like molding "memory plastic" in the shape of a car used in a bank robbery that soon "remembers" it's original form of a completely different-looking vehicle, or the invention of plastic robots he calls Plastoids or trapping Batman in melted plastic.
It's when Batman is trapped in plastic on a subway track that Plastic Man appears, using his stretching arm to catch the train and bring it to a stop before it can crash into Bats. The two shake hands, and seem to know of one another; Plas said he's in town on the trail of The Molder, perhaps concerned that the villain is giving plastic a bad name.
Before the adventure is over, The Molder will saturate Plastic Man with "a catalytic plastic," affecting his molecules "so that they will reproduce themselves endlessly," thus smothering Gotham City and drowning Batman in the ever-expanding Plastic Man's own body (That's what's going on with Plastic Man on the cover, by the way).
Needless to say, Plastic Man figures a way out of the mess, Batman punches out The Molder and Plas imprisons teh villain between the fingers of a giant hand.
The story ends with another handshake, that seen in the image atop this very post, and Haney extolling the virtues of the Plastic Man ongoing: "The regular adventures of Plastic Man in his own mag will heat up your funny bone, mold your mirth, and generally split your sideburns!"
Haney's collaborators on this issue are penciller Ross Andru and inker Jack Abel. Their Plas isn't exactly inspired, and looks fairly generic when compared to the one I've so recently been reading about in DC Finest: Plastic Man. Their design is notable for giving Plastic Man a full-body red suit, one that covers his legs and feet.
In addition to stretching, bouncing, changing shape and, in one sequence, making like a human slingshot, Plas repeatedly demonstrates the ability to survive being broken into separate pieces ("You're all over the place, Plas!" Batman smiles, while hauling his torso and a couple of limbs to Plastic Man's head and shoulders).
This is the first of a couple of appearances by Plastic Man in the pages of The Brave and The Bold, and I wonder if that was a factor in the producers of the Batman: The Brave and The Bold cartoon featuring him so prominently among Batman's allies in the team-up show.
(Collected in 2007's Showcase Presents: The Brave and The Bold Batman Team-Ups Vol. 1 and 2017's Batman: The Brave and The Bold—The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 1)
This is a weird one—"The Brave and the Bold's most bizarre team-up!", according to that cover—even by the title's standards. While their first meeting was a pretty standard pairing of two superheroes, here writer Bob Haney takes an entirely different tack, with the 22-page adventure reading like a Batman solo story until the last three pages or so.
Batman is "hired" by Ruby Ryder, "the world's richest woman and top female tycoon", to find her lost fiance Kyle Morgan, "the most beautiful, wonderful hunk of man since Adonis," who disappeared in a South American jungle.
Batman is "hired" by Ruby Ryder, "the world's richest woman and top female tycoon", to find her lost fiance Kyle Morgan, "the most beautiful, wonderful hunk of man since Adonis," who disappeared in a South American jungle.
After some adventure, Batman succeeds, but when he brings Morgan to Ryder, she shoots him to death and disappears, pinning the crime on Batman!
Now a fugitive from the law, Batman travels the world hunting her, a mysterious guardian angel continually saving him from assassins (A panel in which a pair of inhumanely long arms stretch out of the water to grab a man with a knife stalking Batman would seem to offer a pretty good clue of who that guardian angel is, but not what exactly is going on).
As Ryder is eventually being led to the electric chair to be executed for Morgan's murder, the executioner is revealed to be none other than Plastic Man, who explains the whole crazy story. "Yes, I am Plastic Man," he confesses, sadly removing his goggles. "That clown I'd hoped the world had forgotten...and I'm also...Kyle Morgan!"
As Ryder is eventually being led to the electric chair to be executed for Morgan's murder, the executioner is revealed to be none other than Plastic Man, who explains the whole crazy story. "Yes, I am Plastic Man," he confesses, sadly removing his goggles. "That clown I'd hoped the world had forgotten...and I'm also...Kyle Morgan!"
Tired of being "that plastic clown," Plas says he "longed to be free...lead a normal life...know a woman's love..." Realizing his powers meant he could be anyone he wanted, he molded his face into the handsome visage of Kyle Morgan, "a man no woman could resist--!" He and Ryder fell in love, but when he realized she was cruel, selfish and power-mad, he fled and faked his own death.
But Batman found him and brought him back to Ryder, who shot him. He merely played dead, a gunshot unable to actually kill him, and then followed Batman on the hunt for Ryder, protecting the Dark Knight in secret. He took the place of the executioner to see Ryder "humbled for once," but he says he never would have pulled the switch.
As our heroes walk sadly into the background, Batman asks, "Well, what does the future hold for... Plastic Man?"
And Plastic Man, still resembling Morgan, responds, "I don't know, Batman! In this wide, wild world of today, is there room for me, or am I really what I feared--and out-of-date freak?" (This issue was published between 1968's #10 and 1975's #11 of DC's Plastic Man series, during a very long gap between issues, so apparently Plas would resume his old characterization as a superhero and/or "clown" within a few years).
It's an oddly emotional, if melodramatic, story for Plastic Man, especially for the time, and I wonder if this is the very first instance of the character grating against his reputation as a "funny" hero, which must have been well-established by this point in order for the story to work at all.
And Plastic Man, still resembling Morgan, responds, "I don't know, Batman! In this wide, wild world of today, is there room for me, or am I really what I feared--and out-of-date freak?" (This issue was published between 1968's #10 and 1975's #11 of DC's Plastic Man series, during a very long gap between issues, so apparently Plas would resume his old characterization as a superhero and/or "clown" within a few years).
It's an oddly emotional, if melodramatic, story for Plastic Man, especially for the time, and I wonder if this is the very first instance of the character grating against his reputation as a "funny" hero, which must have been well-established by this point in order for the story to work at all.
For this outing, Haney was joined by the artist Nick Cardy, who handles the action quite well, and is obviously pretty good at drawing attractive women (There's one particular neat panel where "Morgan" is fighting Batman in the cabin of an airplane and, when the plane briefly goes upside down, the dialogue balloon is similarly upside down, as if the editors had simply turned the whole panel on its head).
Haney's various characters don't speak in very enlightened terms about the Ruby Ryder character throughout ("Witch", "dame" and "boss lady" get used a lot), and the appearance and depiction of South American "head-hunters" and "Indians" is unfortunate.
Overall, it's an interesting comic, in large part because of how weird it is. Not, weird like so many of Haney's comics, because of their general sense of zaniness, but because of its emotional content and down, gloomy tone.
In this adventure, Plas' costume is only seen in a few panels, but in addition to red pantlegs, his suit also differs from its original design by featuring a pair of black briefs over his suit, in the style of Superman and Batman.
The cover is, once again, by Neal Adams, here inked by Dick Giordano.
(Collected in 2007's Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold Batman Team-Ups Vol. 2 and 2017's Batman: The Brave and The Bold—The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 1)
In its first part, Bob Haney, now joined by The Brave and The Bold's then-current regular artist Jim Aparo, presents an unusual state of affairs, with Batman charged with bringing in Bruce Wayne on fraud and murder charges...which he does, catching up with the millionaire in Istanbul, where he's trying to buy a sacred idol to return to its home village in Africa.
But how can Batman arrest Bruce Wayne? What's going on?
Well, apparently Batman ran into Plastic Man on the streets, the one-time superhero having fallen on really hard times after their previous adventure; he's now an unshaven bum panhandling on the streets of Gotham (He briefly refers to an old job in a carnival).
Well, apparently Batman ran into Plastic Man on the streets, the one-time superhero having fallen on really hard times after their previous adventure; he's now an unshaven bum panhandling on the streets of Gotham (He briefly refers to an old job in a carnival).
Knowing he's about to leave town as Bruce Wayne, Batman enlisted Plastic Man to stand in for him while he's gone, "Somebody's got to keep the crime lid from boiling over!"
Aware that Plas is standing in for Batman, Ruby Ryder brainwashes Plastic Man-as-Batman with a "polymeric catalyst" to believe he's the real Batman (and, of course, to do her bidding), while also framing Wayne so she can acquire the idol for herself.
Metamorpho comes to the real Batman's aid, breaking him out of jail, and together the pair try to track down Plas, thwart Ruby Ryder and get the idol back to where it belongs.
Another particularly downbeat Plastic Man story, this one does allow Aparo to draw a brief (too brief, really) duel between the two shape-changing heroes (Plastic Man: "See, punk, you're tangling with the original freak of a thousand shapes!" Metamorpho: "Yeah? Well, I'm the improved model, chum...the fantabulous freak of a thousand and one changes..."). The pair of heroes with overlapping powers would, decades later, appear together in the aforementioned The Terrifics, and share a tense scene in 2024 miniseries Plastic Man No More!.
Metamorpho comes to the real Batman's aid, breaking him out of jail, and together the pair try to track down Plas, thwart Ruby Ryder and get the idol back to where it belongs.
Another particularly downbeat Plastic Man story, this one does allow Aparo to draw a brief (too brief, really) duel between the two shape-changing heroes (Plastic Man: "See, punk, you're tangling with the original freak of a thousand shapes!" Metamorpho: "Yeah? Well, I'm the improved model, chum...the fantabulous freak of a thousand and one changes..."). The pair of heroes with overlapping powers would, decades later, appear together in the aforementioned The Terrifics, and share a tense scene in 2024 miniseries Plastic Man No More!.
For the first time in the pages of this series, Plastic Man is wearing his original costume. In the story's penultimate panel, he asks aloud what will become of him: "But now what happens to me...going back to be a panhandling bum again?"
Batman replies, "Never! The way you handled those bank-robbers as my stand-in was spectacular! You're a superhero for all seasons!"
(Collected in 2008's Showcase Presents: The Brave and The Bold Batman Team-Ups Vol. 3, 2012's Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Vol. 2 and 2018's Batman: The Brave and The Bold—The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 2)
Batman recognizes Plastic Man when he uses a super-stretchy arm to save a little kid from being run over, and the pair shake hands.
"Since then, it's been all downhill," Plastic Man tells Batman, referring to their previous adventure together in the pages of this book. "Cheap carnivals I quit because I hated being a freak! But I guess I'm doomed to play only phony roles...like this!"
"Wish I could help you, Plas--but you have to decide who you want to be first!", Batman says, tossing a coin in Plas' bucket. As Batman walks away, he thinks to himself that Plastic Man seems really depressed and notes how hard it is to be alone for the holidays. After three sad Plas stories in a row, I'm starting to wonder where Woozy Winks was in the 1970s.
The heroes will cross paths again quite soon, however. Gotham has been plagued by vicious gangs smuggling untaxed cigarettes into the city, killing one another's drivers and hijacking their cargo. Commissioner Gordon refers to it as a "Buttlegger war", and both he and Batman do it so often throughout the story that one wonders if Haney just thought the term was funny.
The "buttleggers" commit an even more audacious crime when they steal the massive Christman display from "Lacey's Department Store" and load it onto a convoy of trucks...complete with Plastic Man-as-Santa, who they knock out with a blackjack. As the cover says, "The Mob Stole Xmas."
Following a clue left by Plas, Batman trails the trucks to Florida, where the gangsters are throwing a Christmas party as part of a peace summit...that turns out to be a trap for their rivals. Naturally, our heroes break it up, capture the crooks and get the Christmas display back to Gotham in time for the holiday, Plastic Man's long, stretchy right arm spelling out "Merry Xmas" in cursive in the last panel.
The "buttleggers" commit an even more audacious crime when they steal the massive Christman display from "Lacey's Department Store" and load it onto a convoy of trucks...complete with Plastic Man-as-Santa, who they knock out with a blackjack. As the cover says, "The Mob Stole Xmas."
Following a clue left by Plas, Batman trails the trucks to Florida, where the gangsters are throwing a Christmas party as part of a peace summit...that turns out to be a trap for their rivals. Naturally, our heroes break it up, capture the crooks and get the Christmas display back to Gotham in time for the holiday, Plastic Man's long, stretchy right arm spelling out "Merry Xmas" in cursive in the last panel.
The art in this particular outting, Plas' last appearance in the title, is credited to artists "Joe Staton & Jim Aparo." It's not apparent who did what, but I imagine Staton handled either lay-outs or pencils, and Aparo either finished them or handled the inks. The art looks awfully Aparo-like throughout, and he does a pretty great Plastic Man, giving the hero a very distinct face and clearly conveying some complex emotions.
(Collected in 2013's Legends of The Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Vol. 2 and Batman: The Brave and the Bold—The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 2.)
So when Pasko, Staton and Smith created a Superman/Plastic Man team-up for DC Comics Presents, the team was on pretty solid footing, and essentially just had Superman (and his villain Toyman and his pal Jimmy Olsen) visit a quite belated chapter of their Adventure feature.
No name is given for the city in which most of the story is set, but it is Plastic Man and Woozy Winks' hometown, and it's a very distinct-looking city.
"I don't want to spend one more minute in this town than I have to," Superman thinks to himself as he descends towards the Acme Tilton hotel, where there's a toy convention Clark Kent has been assigned to cover. "I've begun to notice something-- This is a very weird city..."
I want to say the name of the city is Acme City, based on how many businesses are named Acme something-or-other, both in Pasko's dialogue and in Staton's backgrounds. As for how weird it is, well, it seems a lot like any big city, although Staton fills his street scenes and backgrounds with rather cartoonish-looking characters. The most cartoonish of them all is his Woozy Winks, whose big nose, pear-shaped head and overbite make him look like he belongs to an entirely different comic than one starring Superman and Plastic Man, both of whom are drawn completely "straight," as is Olsen (Toyman, on the other hand, has a much bigger and more pronounced nose than I've ever seen him with before).
The plot is about as ridiculous as one might expect, given the story's title: "The Thing That Goes Woof in the Night."
Apparently, a prototype toy dog that the going-straight Toyman is there to demonstrate makes a noise that just so happens to be the exact sonic frequency as "the computer-generated electronic tonality used to lift the tumbler" on a nearby vault door.
The plot is about as ridiculous as one might expect, given the story's title: "The Thing That Goes Woof in the Night."
Apparently, a prototype toy dog that the going-straight Toyman is there to demonstrate makes a noise that just so happens to be the exact sonic frequency as "the computer-generated electronic tonality used to lift the tumbler" on a nearby vault door.
That's according to local criminal Dollface, a woman who looks like a doll, and together with Fliptop, whose mop of curly red hair has a hinge which he can open to gain access to a variety of miniature weapons and gadgets, she attempts to steal the toy from Toyman.
The bad guys ultimately end up teaming-up to commit the robbery, just as Plastic Man and Superman team-up to thwart it (And Jimmy and Woozy team-up, the latter ultimately showing off his signal watch-inspired invention meant to summon Plastic Man whenever he's in trouble).
There's really not much to it, although it's interesting to see the contrast between what that era's Plastic Man feature must have been like and the Superman comics of the time, both in their sense of humor and the style in which they are rendered.
There's really not much to it, although it's interesting to see the contrast between what that era's Plastic Man feature must have been like and the Superman comics of the time, both in their sense of humor and the style in which they are rendered.
(Collected in 2013's Showcase Presents: DC Comics Presents: The Superman Team-Ups Vol. 2 and 2021's Superman's Greatest Team-Ups.)
Though this issue is written by Paul Kupperberg, the idea for it seems to have come from someone else, as the title page contains a little box reading "Team-up suggested by Laney Loftin."
Action Comics #661 (1991) Unless I missed something, this is the first Plastic Man appearance since his 1988 miniseries, which was a new, contemporary origin for the character, following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths (A series which was thus the Plastic Man equivalent of "Batman: Year One", or what John Byrne and George Perez were up to with Superman and Wonder Woman a few years earlier).
Kupperberg, working with penciller Alex Saviuk and inker Kurt Schaffenberger, opens with a scene that will appear rather cryptic if one isn't already familiar with Plastic Man's origins. A man with the rather unlikely name of Skizzle Shanks has just bought an old chemical factory, the narration tells us, and then we watch as he shoots himself right in front of a big, bubbling vat labeled "acid." In the last panel, he is lying face down in the green goop, which has spilled all over him after he stumbled backwards and upset it.
A turn of the page than brings us to a splash of the Daily Planet newsroom, where masked gunmen are trying to shake Jimmy down for the "secret potion" that makes him stretchy. Jimmy, who here wears a red checked jacket instead of his more customary green, has of course signaled Superman on his watch, but before the Man of Steel can arrive, another Justice Leaguer makes the scene: Elongated Man Ralph Dibny wraps the gunmen up in the fingers of one hand.
Apparently, he and wife Sue are in the building for an interview. Lois immediately whisks Sue off for coffee, leaving the boys to talk superhero shop.
Soon after Superman arrives, he and Ralph, at this point in time wearing the half-white, half-purple version of his costume, follow a shriek to a jewel robbery. Jimmy, having downed his serum to keep it safe, follows along to get the story.
At a nearby jewelry store, where a seemingly impossible robbery has just been committed, they run into Plastic Man, who is just there because...well, he's just there, I guess.
Apparently, he and wife Sue are in the building for an interview. Lois immediately whisks Sue off for coffee, leaving the boys to talk superhero shop.
Soon after Superman arrives, he and Ralph, at this point in time wearing the half-white, half-purple version of his costume, follow a shriek to a jewel robbery. Jimmy, having downed his serum to keep it safe, follows along to get the story.
At a nearby jewelry store, where a seemingly impossible robbery has just been committed, they run into Plastic Man, who is just there because...well, he's just there, I guess.
It may have taken nine pages, but Kupperberg finally got all of the heroes together, and rushing off in the same direction: After a criminal with stretchy powers similar to those of most of the assembled heroes, wearing an all-green bodysuit with pupil-less white eyes.
This is, as we will eventually learn, Malleable Man (Mr. Shanks was, it would seem, successful in his efforts to re-create the accident that gave Plastic Man his powers).
The heroes will try and fail to stop the new villain a few times. During their second encounter, Malleable Man will have an accomplice, wearing the same costume and displaying the same powers as him, which the characters will comment on ("There's two of you now?" Ralph will exclaim upon seeing them, as they evade his outstretched arms. "You guys got a franchise on rubber men or...Hey!"), but the second Malleable Man will disappear after the scene and never be mentioned again.
The heroes will try and fail to stop the new villain a few times. During their second encounter, Malleable Man will have an accomplice, wearing the same costume and displaying the same powers as him, which the characters will comment on ("There's two of you now?" Ralph will exclaim upon seeing them, as they evade his outstretched arms. "You guys got a franchise on rubber men or...Hey!"), but the second Malleable Man will disappear after the scene and never be mentioned again.
As the page count dwindles, the villain's ultimate plan will be revealed. It turns out Skizzle Shanks was on the chemical plant job with Eel O'Brian on the fateful night of Plastic Man's origin, and he managed to put two and two together regarding the new superhero's secret identity. After he got out of prison, he successfully gave himself the same powers as Plas and, thanks to some "mind-control glop", he's hypnotized Plas, Elongated Man and Jimmy into joining him as "The Elastic Four."
Riding Plas-in-the-shape-of-a-hot-air-balloon, the quartet make their way to the Fortress of Solitude and then stretch through the keyhole. Before they can loot the place of its fantastic treasures, however, Superman arrives, and the other reveal that they were never really under Shanks' control.
Riding Plas-in-the-shape-of-a-hot-air-balloon, the quartet make their way to the Fortress of Solitude and then stretch through the keyhole. Before they can loot the place of its fantastic treasures, however, Superman arrives, and the other reveal that they were never really under Shanks' control.
As some of the plot holes may have already alerted you, it's not too terribly a great comic; I actually went back through it a couple times, trying to figure out where the second Malleable Man came from, where he went, and why no one mentions him at the conclusion.
It's also somewhat disappointing as the first meeting of Plastic Man and Elongated Man. The creators do manage to compare and contrast their powers—both stretch, but Plas takes various shapes as well—but, well, a more thorough explorations of their differences would have been preferable (Woozy Winks doesn't make an appearance, for example; surely it would have been fun to see he and Sue together). With Jimmy, Superman and a villain to attend to as well, however, there's just not much room to devote to much about any of the characters.
The pair do get along perfectly well here, though, and are just as collegial with one another as they are with Superman (This is opposed to the scene they share in Alex Ross, Jim Krueger and Doug Braithwaite's 2006 Justice #8, wherein Elongated Man starts an argument with Plastic Man and Plas tells him off).
The pair do get along perfectly well here, though, and are just as collegial with one another as they are with Superman (This is opposed to the scene they share in Alex Ross, Jim Krueger and Doug Braithwaite's 2006 Justice #8, wherein Elongated Man starts an argument with Plastic Man and Plas tells him off).
While the script leaves much to be desired, Saviuk and Schaffenberger's art is superior, just realistic enough to really accentuate how strange the various characters' powers are, and if there is no truly memorable scene involving the various stretchy guys—certainly no image within the book has as much impact as Jim Starlin's cover for it—there are several great Superman moments. I was particularly fond of a panel where Malleable Man and his accomplice attempt to escape out a window, and find Superman standing there in mid-air, Saviuk drawing the scene at a low angle so we can see the soles of Superman's feet.
(This issue has never been collected.)
The character's status quo certainly seems to honor that of Phil Foglio and company's mini. Here Plastic Man and Woozy Winks run a private detective agency in New York City, and there are several indications that Plastic Man...well, that he has his own way of seeing things.
In relating the story of what brought them to Metropolis, the art style dramatically shifts to something far more cartoony (and not unlike the work of Hilary Barta in that Plastic Man mini). Plas looks the same, but Woozy is radically different in appearance, and a man who stumbles into their office shot full of holes has big, Swiss cheese-style holes in his body, as if he were a Looney Tunes character.
Later, after Plastic Man has been blown-up by the issue's exploding villain, Superman asks if he's okay, and Plas responds, "I suppose...I mean, everything looks normal to me." This despite the fact that Superman, as seen through Plas' eyes, is drawn in a different style, with an enormous chin and jawline.
The issue is the work of writer Roger Stern and artists Bob McLeod and Brett Breeding. Entitled "Stretching a Point," it finds Jimmy Olsen running into Plastic Man and Woozy at the airport, specifically at the baggage claim, as they seem to have traveled to Metropolis as baggage. (Woozy climbs out of a suitcase, while Plastic Man was a suitcase.)
Later, after Plastic Man has been blown-up by the issue's exploding villain, Superman asks if he's okay, and Plas responds, "I suppose...I mean, everything looks normal to me." This despite the fact that Superman, as seen through Plas' eyes, is drawn in a different style, with an enormous chin and jawline.
The issue is the work of writer Roger Stern and artists Bob McLeod and Brett Breeding. Entitled "Stretching a Point," it finds Jimmy Olsen running into Plastic Man and Woozy at the airport, specifically at the baggage claim, as they seem to have traveled to Metropolis as baggage. (Woozy climbs out of a suitcase, while Plastic Man was a suitcase.)
They explain to Jimmy that they've come to town following some cryptic clues left by a badly injured colleague, a string of numbers and a set of initials. Woozy and Plas introduce themselves to Jimmy; none of them seem to remember their previous meetings in the pages of DC Comics Presents, so I guess we can assume that Crisis knocked those stories out of continuity. (Later, Superman will mention having met Plastic Man once before: "Very adaptable sort, but he didn't seem all that stable." This is likely a reference to Superman's appearance in the final issue of the 1988 Plastic Man mini.)
With some help for Bibbo, who in this issue has just bought the Ace O' Clubs in Suicide Slum, our heroes eventually meet up at the city docks, and duke it out with a new supervillain named Time Bomb, a big brute whose power is that he can blow up any part of his body, only to have it instantly reform (So, like a flesh-and-blood version of Shrapnel, I guess...?).
Although the book advances several ongoing Superman plotlines, it reads more than satisfyingly enough as a done-in-one story.
It's always interesting to see how artists draw Woozy, given how unnatural his design tends to look outside of a Jack Cole comic (or someone working in an exaggerated style, like, say, Barta or Kyle Baker). McLeod and Breeding draw him very realistic (and with a trench coat over his polka dots, perhaps because he's a private investigator at this point), which only accentuates the gulf in the way Plastic Man seems to see him in this narrative, when the art shifts to show a Plas'-eye-view of things.
Plas himself is also drawn "straight," and the artists do a fine job at depicting his powers (here mostly limited to stretching, outside of that bit as a suitcase). They also, obviously, do a fine Superman. It might have been nice to see the two superheroes spend more time with one another—Plas and Woozy spend most of the issue in Jimmy's company—but then, they would cross paths again in the not too far future.
(This issue has never been collected).
The story, "The Treasure Hunt Caper", is plotted by Dan Jurgens, scripted by Jerry Ordway and drawn by Ron Frenz and Joe Rubinstein.
Jimmy, then working as a TV reporter for WGBS notices Woozy, again wearing a trench coat over his regular attire, walking down the street holding a red sign in the shape of Superman's S-shield. The sign is actually Plastic Man, and as the pair will soon explain to Jimmy, they are looking for Superman.
Back in their New York City detective agency office, they were approached by a beautiful woman who was literally dripping money. Plastic Man transforms into a chair and offers a seat, his face forming the seat of the chair. (Is this the first instance of a DC shape-changer not-so-subtly asking a character to sit on their face? Notably, in the previous scene, Plas has turned into a chair for Woozy to sit on, and it is his lap that forms the seat of the chair, rather than his face).
She decides to stand. She introduces herself as Treasure Hunt, and says that her brother, Tiger, is in Metropolis, planning to test an experimental new weapon called "a sonic atomizer" against Superman. She wants Plas and Woozy to deliver a "sonic atomizer nullifier" to Superman to save him.
This entire sequence is drawn in a style similar to that which Hilary Barta had deployed in the miniseries. Plas basically looks the same, but Woozy hews to Barta's cartoony design for him, in sharp contrast to how Frenz and Rubinstein draw him in Metropolis, and the other characters and elements of the action are also highly cartoony. There's also an earlier panel where we briefly see Jimmy through Plas' eyes, and he appears a caricature of himself.
Meanwhile, Tiger Hunt has summoned reporter Clark Kent to a parking garage, where he tells a similar story: His sister Treasure plans to test an experimental new weapon against Superman. He wants Kent to get a sonic atomizer nullifier to Superman to save him.
Obviously, something's not quite right about the Hunts' stories. No sooner do Superman, Plastic Man and their respective sidekicks get together and start comparing notes than they are attacked by high-tech but retro-looking robots.
Obviously, something's not quite right about the Hunts' stories. No sooner do Superman, Plastic Man and their respective sidekicks get together and start comparing notes than they are attacked by high-tech but retro-looking robots.
These are no match for Superman, of course. Plastic Man simply holds one off until Superman can punch it to bits, but his shape-changing powers come into play when our heroes deliver a bit of comeuppance to one of the Hunts.
While the team-up fills most of the pages, there is one devoted to Lois Lane hanging out with Clark's old college roommate Lori, in which Lois is pretty catty.
While the team-up fills most of the pages, there is one devoted to Lois Lane hanging out with Clark's old college roommate Lori, in which Lois is pretty catty.
(This issue has never been collected.)
Ordway must be a fan.
It's an especially interesting pairing, as the two characters were among the most popular of the 1940s, neither came from Timely or National Comics and each was from, instead, a different publishing house (Captain Marvel from Fawcett, and Plas from Quality, of course).
In this done-in-one issue, both heroes are after the gangster Muscles McGinnis, trying to save his life after the mysterious Lady M puts a million-dollar bounty on his head. Cap wants to protect him, of course, as does Plas, as he was apparently friends with Muscles back when he was still gangster Eel O'Brian.
This initially leads to conflict between our two heroes, as when Plastic Man sees Captain Marvel coming for Muscles, he sheds his disguise and goes on the offense, wrapping Marvel up in his own body, and then suddenly unwinding it, sending Fawcett City's hero spinning like a top and bouncing all over a fancy restaurant before being flung out the revolving door.
They eventually get on the same page, around the time Woozy Winks and a high-priced assassin catch up with them. Working together, they protect Muscles and go after Lady M, but while they manage to bust her henchmen, she manages to slip away...as does Muscles, who falls into the ocean and never resurfaces.
Ordway and artists Peter Krause and Mike Manley continue to honor the Foglio/Barta conceit that Plastic Man sees the world through a sort of cartoon vision, just like the last two Superman team-ups did. Here the few panels devoted to showing readers what Plas sees having red borders around them to distinguish them (The change in styles is particularly notable in this issue, as one page juxtaposes two panels in which Woozy appears, rendered completely realistically in one and then in Barta's cartoony design in the next).
This would appear to be the last time that aspect of the character would be part of a comic featuring him, as the next time Plastic Man would appear would be in 1997's JLA #5, trying out for the team, which he would join a few stories later.
Ordway gives Plas lots to do here, physically. In addition to getting the better of Captain Marvel in their brief fight, he wraps up several opponents, hides Muscles by taking the form of a bright red dumpster and adopts a pair of disguises. There are a couple of panels in which he threatens the assassin, quoting Wolverine and shaping his right hand into a big, pointy-fingered claw, which I didn't find too terribly effective (Barta, in contrast, did a great job of a "scary" Plas in his Plastic Man #1, in which the hero gleefully attacks his own old gang, his head contorting so that he had horn-like points and a big, wicked-looking grin full of pointy teeth).
Ordway gives Plas lots to do here, physically. In addition to getting the better of Captain Marvel in their brief fight, he wraps up several opponents, hides Muscles by taking the form of a bright red dumpster and adopts a pair of disguises. There are a couple of panels in which he threatens the assassin, quoting Wolverine and shaping his right hand into a big, pointy-fingered claw, which I didn't find too terribly effective (Barta, in contrast, did a great job of a "scary" Plas in his Plastic Man #1, in which the hero gleefully attacks his own old gang, his head contorting so that he had horn-like points and a big, wicked-looking grin full of pointy teeth).
Krause and Manley's art is pretty far divorced from what people now tend to think of when they think of comic art from the '90s; it's stately, sturdy and classic in feel, and thus quite perfectly suited to a story starring not one, but two characters from the Golden Age who have hardly changed a bit, and are, indeed, still wearing the exact same costumes they were back then.
The story, entitled "The Big Rubout!", reads pretty much perfectly as a standalone one (there's only a single page of the book not devoted to team-up's plot). There's also next to nothing in the book that marks it as having its own particular version of Captain Marvel (maybe just the Fawcett City setting?), or to any wider DC continuity, making it an evergreen story that reads just in well in 2025 as it did in 1996.
The story, entitled "The Big Rubout!", reads pretty much perfectly as a standalone one (there's only a single page of the book not devoted to team-up's plot). There's also next to nothing in the book that marks it as having its own particular version of Captain Marvel (maybe just the Fawcett City setting?), or to any wider DC continuity, making it an evergreen story that reads just in well in 2025 as it did in 1996.
(This story has never been collected.)
The short 10-page story featuring him is entitled "Anything You Can Do," which echoes the scene where Changeling and Plastic Man faced-off in 1998's JLA/Titans, and Plas sang "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)" to himself while matching Garfield Logan beast for beast. It's written by a Hank Kanalz (though he's credited as "K.H. Kanalz" in the credit box), penciled by Kevin J. West and inked by Norm Rapmund.
Set on the JLA Watchtower, it opens with Green Lantern Kyle Rayner narrating: "I'm on watch tonight. And for some reason, so is he." The two heroes seem to be occupying each other by playing with their powers. Plas takes the shape of the Titanic, Green Lantern conjures an iceberg construct for him to crash into. Plas turns into a giant set of novelty vampire teeth, GL conjures a big green dog bone to jam into them.
Suddenly, an alarm goes off, warning them that there's an intruder on their lunar base. They split up and go looking for it, encountering a series of big, scary aliens as they do so. When Plastic Man thinks he has one captured by enveloping it in his body, it suddenly disappears.
Suddenly, an alarm goes off, warning them that there's an intruder on their lunar base. They split up and go looking for it, encountering a series of big, scary aliens as they do so. When Plastic Man thinks he has one captured by enveloping it in his body, it suddenly disappears.
This leads up to the gag ending, the last panel revealing a smiling Martian Manhunter, thinking to himself: "That should keep them quite for the rest of the day. And it certainly confirms one thing... ...Anything they can do, I can definitely do better!"
The tell was apparently that all of the alien monsters were green-colored, although J'onn, unlike Plastic Man, doesn't really have any color limitations on his transformations.
(This story has never been collected.)
It's a two-parter written by Dan Jurgens, who drew the covers with Terry Austin (The first one did not feature Plastic Man, so I used the second one, which did, above). Mike S. Miller pencilled the first issue and was inked by Saleem Crawford and Keith Champagne. Tom Lyle penciled the second part and was inked by Andrew Pepoy. The story arc was a fill-in, coming fairly late in writer Ron Marz's lengthy, almost 80-issue run on Green Lantern.
The star is, of course, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, and we catch up with him as he's battling a battalion of soldiers in high-tech armor flying through the skies of New York City. Quite unhelpfully, their armor is colored green, and their dialogue balloons are also green, the same color as the various ring constructs GL uses to fight them, and the color of Kyle's narration boxes.
Why are they fighting? Apparently, Kyle woke up that morning only to find a big red crate had appeared in his apartment, a shipping label attached reading, "Blue and Gold Express...When it absolutely, positively has to be there in ten seconds." Then waves of armored enemies promptly crash through his wall to retrieve it, and thus the fight begins.
Why are they fighting? Apparently, Kyle woke up that morning only to find a big red crate had appeared in his apartment, a shipping label attached reading, "Blue and Gold Express...When it absolutely, positively has to be there in ten seconds." Then waves of armored enemies promptly crash through his wall to retrieve it, and thus the fight begins.
It's not until page 16 that the guest-stars arrive. Blue Beetle's Bug rises from the water, being piloted by Booster Gold. "And sitting in for my sidekick," Booster says after announcing himself, "Plastic Man!"
What on Earth is Plastic Man doing with Booster Gold? I have no idea, especially since this is rather clearly a Booster Gold and Blue Beetle story, the "Blue and Gold Express" being a Justice League teleporter-powered shipping company the pair came up with, one of their classic get rich quick schemes that leads to trouble.
"Great," Green Lantern says when they appear. "I need Superman or Wonder Woman, maybe even Damage, and I end up with Abbot and Costello." That sounds like something someone might say about Booster and Beetle too, not Booster and Plas, whom, to my knowledge, have neither even met one another before (They were in the same place at the same time in JLA #27, the issue where Oracle calls in a bunch of Justice League reservists to help the team tackle Amazo, but they didn't speak to one another at all. I may be forgetting some big crossover story where they interacted previously, though).
"Great," Green Lantern says when they appear. "I need Superman or Wonder Woman, maybe even Damage, and I end up with Abbot and Costello." That sounds like something someone might say about Booster and Beetle too, not Booster and Plas, whom, to my knowledge, have neither even met one another before (They were in the same place at the same time in JLA #27, the issue where Oracle calls in a bunch of Justice League reservists to help the team tackle Amazo, but they didn't speak to one another at all. I may be forgetting some big crossover story where they interacted previously, though).
After a few panels of exchanges, Green Lantern turns to Plastic Man and says:
You must not have read page 167 of the JLA handbook?
I quote: "Any member identified as spending time with Booster Gold----And/or Blue Beetle is subject to immediate expulsion."
He's presumably kidding around, of which there is a lot in these two issues.
Even with the reinforcements, Green Lantern finds the odds too great, and then Booster Gold whispers a plan to him. GL creates a blinding light that temporarily paralyzes all of the soldiers, and then our heroes fly away, leaving the big, red crate behind.
This being what they were after in the first place, the armored guys gladly take it and return to their base, where they present it to their leader, a balding man with a fancy cape, a walking stick and rings on all of his fingers.
As you have probably guessed already, there's a reason why the crate was red, instead of a more standard crate color: During the blinding flash, Plas disguised himself as the crate, and rather than the genuine article, the bad guys brought the disguised Plastic Man back to their base.
Meanwhile, Booster and Green Lantern open it up to see what it was—due to privacy concerns, Booster had no idea what his company was being used to ship—and they dramatically react to what's inside, something we're not shown by the end of this first issue.
Meanwhile, Booster and Green Lantern open it up to see what it was—due to privacy concerns, Booster had no idea what his company was being used to ship—and they dramatically react to what's inside, something we're not shown by the end of this first issue.
"Oh, my...!" Booster says.
"Of all the things that could've been inside...I never expected that!"
"Of all the things that could've been inside...I never expected that!"
Not a bad cliffhanger to get a reader to pick up the next issue, huh?
That next issue starts with an entire page devoted to recapping the previous issue, in which Green Lantern's narration tells us the story thus far. Oddly, he says this of Booster Gold's plus one: "Brought a sidekick, Plastic Man, with him...Don't know much about him either, even though we work the JLA beat together."
Really? They've been on the team together for about a year and half and 17 issues of JLA together and, when you factor in all the many ancillary JLA comics of the time, that's hundreds of pages of adventures. Why, it was just a few months previous that we say Green Lantern and Plastic Man hanging out and playing with their powers together in Green Lantern 80-Page Giant #2! Although, given the lead time necessary, Jurgens almost certainly didn't read that story before writing this one.
Really? They've been on the team together for about a year and half and 17 issues of JLA together and, when you factor in all the many ancillary JLA comics of the time, that's hundreds of pages of adventures. Why, it was just a few months previous that we say Green Lantern and Plastic Man hanging out and playing with their powers together in Green Lantern 80-Page Giant #2! Although, given the lead time necessary, Jurgens almost certainly didn't read that story before writing this one.
Anyway, despite the freaking out about the contents of the crate last issue, here Jurgens rewinds time a bit and has the freaking out about it for another few pages, although it's clear they have no idea what it is. It's just a mysterious glowing ball.
Meanwhile, the villain, whose name is The Supplier, is busy torturing Plastic Man at his secret base...which just so happens to be right across the street from Kyle Rayner's apartment, which is how the crate was accidentally teleported to Kyle in the first place.
The Supplier has Plastic Man stretched out on some kind of off-panel rack, which surely wouldn't hurt him at all, over a bed of spikes. This really shouldn't be able to hurt him either, but, for whatever reason, the spikes are able to puncture him, and he's not stretching of shifting around them. Then the spikes start to burn which, admittedly, should hurt Plastic Man...I think (His Golden Age comics seemed to vary on whether or not heat hurts him).
Plas continues to make jokes throughout the torture, and then Green Lantern and Booster Gold arrive. The Supplier gives a name to the glowing ball—The Ogalict—and tells us a little about himself. Apparently, he distributes "the most unusual items to be found anywhere," and he bought The Ogalict from a Psion to sell to a Khund warrior.
The Supplier has Plastic Man stretched out on some kind of off-panel rack, which surely wouldn't hurt him at all, over a bed of spikes. This really shouldn't be able to hurt him either, but, for whatever reason, the spikes are able to puncture him, and he's not stretching of shifting around them. Then the spikes start to burn which, admittedly, should hurt Plastic Man...I think (His Golden Age comics seemed to vary on whether or not heat hurts him).
Plas continues to make jokes throughout the torture, and then Green Lantern and Booster Gold arrive. The Supplier gives a name to the glowing ball—The Ogalict—and tells us a little about himself. Apparently, he distributes "the most unusual items to be found anywhere," and he bought The Ogalict from a Psion to sell to a Khund warrior.
After some negotiation, Kyle agrees to give The Ogalict to The Supplier in exchange for the lives of his soldiers, all of whom were apparently innocent victims kidnapped off the street, brainwashed and implanted little bombs within them.
The Supplier then vanishes, saying something along the lines of how our heroes haven't seen the last of him yet. As it turns out, our heroes didn't really hand over the maguffin; Kyle explains that the orb he handed over was actually just a ring-generated fake, and he had hidden the real orb under a bucket on a rooftop...although when he goes to retrieve that, it's missing.
Whatever. Rather than dealing with that, he turns his attention to Booster, threatening to tell Batman that he and Beetle have used Justice League teleporter tech for one of their schemes. A bemused Plastic Man sits silently by, his bare legs crossed as Booster pleads with Kyle.
Whatever. Rather than dealing with that, he turns his attention to Booster, threatening to tell Batman that he and Beetle have used Justice League teleporter tech for one of their schemes. A bemused Plastic Man sits silently by, his bare legs crossed as Booster pleads with Kyle.
And that's that. What was The Ogalict? Where did it go? Will we ever see The Supplier again? And what on Earth was Plastic Man doing in this story in the first place? The issues provide no satisfactory answers and, to my knowledge, none of this ever came up again anywhere else in the next 26 years, but then, I haven't read every DC comic in that time, so perhaps it did.
I like both Miller and Lyle okay as pencil artists, having a bit more affection for the work of the latter, given that he drew some of the first comics I read, including the Robin miniseries starring Tim Drake (and then a Detective Comics arc that was something of a sequel to the first of those).
Other than making funny faces and disguising himself as the crate, Plastic Man doesn't have much to do in Miller's half of the story. He does considerably more in Lyle's half, including lots of dramatic stretching, binding The Supplier in his arms and growing quite large in one panel, although I didn't really care for how Lyle drew his face, as he gave him prominent, monkey-like ears and a notably pointy nose and elongated chin...although, granted, the chin might have been a result of him stretching his face to scream and otherwise react to torture.
Among Plastic Man team-ups, this one isn't too terribly a good one, but it is weird and, rereading it for the first time all these years later, I'm still perplexed as to the hows and whys of Jurgens' story. It seems like the very same story could have been told with Blue Beetle instead of Plastic Man...with the exception of the bit where Plast pretends to be a crate, something that is definitely outside of Beetle's skillset.
(This story has never been collected.)
JLA 80-Page Giant #2 (1999) The second annual JLA 80-Page Giant didn't have the same organizing theme of team-ups that the Green Lantern one from a few months previous did. Of its seven short stories, three are two-hero team-ups, one is a three-hero team-up, another a four-hero team-up and the others feature whole Leagues. One of those two-hero team-ups features Plastic Man, and so it is relevant to us here. In it, he is teamed with the one member of this particular iteration of the Justice League that he has the least in common with: The New God Orion.
Despite the fact that they apparently both like red, the relationship between the two was never particularly warm. Indeed, when the then-new, expanded JLA roster debuted at the end of 1998's JLA #17, the first group shot of them all features Plastic Man making fun of Orion's dour nature, stretching his neck so that it's behind Orion's back and changing the shape of his head so that it is a parody of Orion's, complete with the odd shape of his helmet and a deep frown.
The cover refers to them as "The Combo of Chaos!", although that actually refers to the content of their particular 10-page adventure rather than just the simple unlikelihood of their pairing.
Entitled "Outside the Box," the short is the work of writer Fabian Nicieza and artists Anthony Williams and Stephen Baskerville. On the opening page, the League is assembled in their Watchtower base, and Superman is in the middle of a brief about "chaos-energy" being unleashed planet-wide.
Entitled "Outside the Box," the short is the work of writer Fabian Nicieza and artists Anthony Williams and Stephen Baskerville. On the opening page, the League is assembled in their Watchtower base, and Superman is in the middle of a brief about "chaos-energy" being unleashed planet-wide.
As the Man of Steel is assigning pairs of heroes to different locations, Orion volunteers, "Barda and I shall--", but Superman interrupts him, saying that Barda is staying on monitor duty. Then Orion suggests that Green Lantern and he will team-up, but Superman again interrupts him, assigning Green Lantern and The Atom to Russia.
At this point, Plastic Man raises his hand and says, "Pickme-Pickmeooh-oohmeme", while Orion glares and says under his breath, "No..."
But yes, Superman assigns he and Plastic Man to go to Los Angeles, where the chaos energy is threatening the San Andreas fault. They leap into action, saving civilians and trying to stem various disasters, getting along like oil and water.
Orion says that Mother Box informs him that the nature of the chaos-energy is "to perform the opposite action-- --to the statistical norms of the laws of physics."
"Up goes down, down goes up and boyohboy must that really bug a 'by the book' guy like you!" Plastic Man responds. "Let it rip 'cause this stuff is like laughing gas to me!"
At this point, Plastic Man raises his hand and says, "Pickme-Pickmeooh-oohmeme", while Orion glares and says under his breath, "No..."
But yes, Superman assigns he and Plastic Man to go to Los Angeles, where the chaos energy is threatening the San Andreas fault. They leap into action, saving civilians and trying to stem various disasters, getting along like oil and water.
Orion says that Mother Box informs him that the nature of the chaos-energy is "to perform the opposite action-- --to the statistical norms of the laws of physics."
"Up goes down, down goes up and boyohboy must that really bug a 'by the book' guy like you!" Plastic Man responds. "Let it rip 'cause this stuff is like laughing gas to me!"
After some successes by Plas, some advice relayed from Barda regarding how the other teams are doing and the "telemetry analysis" from Mother Box, Orion realizes that Plastic Man has the right idea, and that by seemingly aiding the chaos, they can fix the various problems. Like helping knock down a teetering building, for example, causes it to right itself (Look, I don't get it either. It's a very short story).
Ultimately then, the pair is able to save the day, when Orion uses a blast of the Astro-Force to trigger a massive earthquake, and thus setting the quaking fault back to normal. As they walk off toward the horizon together, Orion tells Plas thank you and, for once in the story, Plas makes no smart remark in return.
After the humor of the pair initially being teamed against Orion's will, there's not much more of note to the story which, typical of many of the supplemental JLA stories of the time (i.e. those not written by Grant Morrison himself), a "straight" superhero regards Plastic Man as something between ineffective comic relief and an outright irritant. Although given how annoying Plastic Man tends to be written in many of these stories, perhaps that's not all that surprising of a reaction to him.
The art team gives Plas the shiny, plastic-y sheen that artists Howard Porter, John Dell and others usually gave him in the pages of JLA proper, and while none of his transformations in this short story are necessarily inspired or memorable, some of his stretching is compelling, particularly in one two-panel sequence where, in the first panel, we see Orion rocketing away with a big BOOM! sound effect following in his wake, and then Plastic Man taking off after him in the next panel, his left leg elongating to incredible portions to carry him after Orion, while the sound effect starts to crumble, a bit like slowly shattering glass.
Ultimately then, the pair is able to save the day, when Orion uses a blast of the Astro-Force to trigger a massive earthquake, and thus setting the quaking fault back to normal. As they walk off toward the horizon together, Orion tells Plas thank you and, for once in the story, Plas makes no smart remark in return.
After the humor of the pair initially being teamed against Orion's will, there's not much more of note to the story which, typical of many of the supplemental JLA stories of the time (i.e. those not written by Grant Morrison himself), a "straight" superhero regards Plastic Man as something between ineffective comic relief and an outright irritant. Although given how annoying Plastic Man tends to be written in many of these stories, perhaps that's not all that surprising of a reaction to him.
The art team gives Plas the shiny, plastic-y sheen that artists Howard Porter, John Dell and others usually gave him in the pages of JLA proper, and while none of his transformations in this short story are necessarily inspired or memorable, some of his stretching is compelling, particularly in one two-panel sequence where, in the first panel, we see Orion rocketing away with a big BOOM! sound effect following in his wake, and then Plastic Man taking off after him in the next panel, his left leg elongating to incredible portions to carry him after Orion, while the sound effect starts to crumble, a bit like slowly shattering glass.
Plastic Man also appears in this issue's "Average People" story by D. Curtis Johnson and Chris Wozniak. Featuring some of the JLA then-newer recruits—Plastic Man, Steel, Huntress and Zauriel—it tells the story of the League pursuing insurance actuary and seemingly totally normal guy Andy Plugh. In reality, he is one of several partial prototype Amazos built by Professor Ivo, androids so lifelike that even they don't know they aren't real people.
Plas only appears in a few panels, attempting to wrap up the Andy-bot and then getting pinned to the floor by a handful of Huntress' crossbow bolts that the android snatches from the air at super-speed. Huntress calls him "P.M." at one point, which isn't a nickname I've heard before, and certainly isn't as popular as "Plas" or even "Plastic," as he is sometimes referred to in that recent-ish DC Finest: Plastic Man collection of Golden Age adventures.
Plas only appears in a few panels, attempting to wrap up the Andy-bot and then getting pinned to the floor by a handful of Huntress' crossbow bolts that the android snatches from the air at super-speed. Huntress calls him "P.M." at one point, which isn't a nickname I've heard before, and certainly isn't as popular as "Plas" or even "Plastic," as he is sometimes referred to in that recent-ish DC Finest: Plastic Man collection of Golden Age adventures.
("Outside the Box" has never been collected...no has "Average People")
Plastic Man's inclusion in the Justice League obviously lead to lots of appearances throughout the DC Universe during the years he was on the team, almost always appearing alongside at least some of his teammates. This appearance is a bit unusual as, though he appears in his capacity as a Justice Leaguer, he's the only Leaguer who appears and, somewhat curiously given the title it appears in, this issue is more of a Plastic Man story than an Impulse one.
It opens with Plastic Man and is mostly told from his point-of-view, as we see Impulse through his eyes (There are about three pages devoted to Impulse's supporting characters, Max Mercury, out of costume, and Helen Claiborne).
Writer Todd Dezago and pencil artist Ethan Van Sciver, who had taken over the book eight issues previous, give us another in a series of Impulse Christmas issues. In this one, it's Christmas Eve, and Plastic Man sneaks Woozy Winks onto the JLA Watchtower, where the pair plan to watch their favorite Christmas movie in "the monitor womb."
They are interrupted by an incoming call from Impulse from Young Justice headquarters; he has some dangerous glop called "technoplasm", which, he says, Robin and Steel want him to store in a cryo-lab at the Watchtower.
They are interrupted by an incoming call from Impulse from Young Justice headquarters; he has some dangerous glop called "technoplasm", which, he says, Robin and Steel want him to store in a cryo-lab at the Watchtower.
Plas reluctantly allows Impulse to teleport up, explaining to Woozy and readers that he's not fond of the annoying little speedster (and perhaps, an asterisk and editorial note suggests, it might have something to do with Impulse tying him in knots in 1998's JLA/Titans).
Meanwhile Mr. Mxyzptlk—dressed not in his traditional orange and purple, but instead in seasonal red and green—has a not-very-good plan to humiliate Superman. He has programmed a "SANTAndroid super-bot" to fight Superman; the Man of Steel will obviously win, but Mxy figures the public will turn against him if they see him beating up Santa Claus (How this will work is exactly not apparent to me, given how extremely fake the Santa looks; like, it's clearly a robot).
JLA #65 (2002) When JLA writer Grant Morrison passed the writer's baton to Mark Waid in 2001, the latter kept Plastic Man as part of the cast, despite purging the rest of Morrison's additions to the Big Seven/Magnificent Seven line-up (Because, if I'm remembering interviews from the time correctly, Waid wasn't entirely sure which characters were going to survive Morrison's final story arc, "World War III"). And then, when Waid passed it to Joe Kelly in 2002, he too kept Plas on.
After Kelly's first four issues with the new art team of Dough Mahnke and Tom Nguyen, the creators took a done-in-one break or breather issue between the story arcs "Golden Perfect" and "The Obsidian Age". This was JLA #65, "Bouncing Baby Boy," which, as Mahnke and company's cover above intimates, was a Batman/Plastic Man team-up.
I wasn't blogging back then, but, if I were, I imagine this issue would have inspired a very long, rather angry post, given the dramatic changes it made to the Plastic Man character who, at that point, had been regularly appearing in JLA comics (and throughout the DC Universe line) for about five years.
Green Lantern/Plastic Man: Weapons of Mass Deception #1 (2011) This 44-page one-shot is a curious one, pairing Plastic Man with Green Lantern Hal Jordan. As far as I can tell, the two characters have never even met in continuity...at least, not while Hal was alive (Plastic Man encountered him when he was briefly The Spectre in 1999's JLA #35 and 2003's miniseries JLA/Spectre: Soul War and JLA/Avengers). They've certainly been in the same place at the same time before at least once though, both attending the ceremony Aquaman hosted after the League was dissolved in 2005's JLA #120, and perhaps they met off panel during some crisis or crossover of some sort.
Scooby-Doo Team-Up #27 (2017) Are DC's Scooby-Doo comics set in the DC Universe...? I...don't think so. Sure, they feature tons of DC characters, or, at least, this particular 2014-2015 series did, and it was followed by another series The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries that, as the title says, had Batman in every issue. That said, they didn't tend to stick to whatever was going on in the DCU comics at the time, they would instead feature the default, classic or original versions of the visiting DC heroes in Team-Up or, in Mysteries, different versions of the characters might show up in different comics, depending on the story.
That said, they are very good comics, and Team-Up proved to be a great introduction to some of DC's better characters; not just the popular heroes you might expect, but many of whom didn't have their own series and were thus less visible (Issues featured, for example, The Doom Patrol, The Marvel Family, Metamorpho, Black Lightning and Mister Miracle and Big Barda; sometimes it seemed like writer Sholly Fisch was writing this series particularly for me personally).
Flash Facts (2021) Like the issue of Scooby Doo Team-Up discussed previously, the 12-page story in this original trade paperback targeted at kids probably isn't officially canonical. On the other hand, there's nothing in the story that contradicts continuity, either.
Batman: Urban Legends #15 (2022) This relatively short-lived Batman anthology book, which ran for 23 issues between 2021 and 2023, gave DC a place to feature Batman's increasingly large and unwieldly family of Robins, Batgirls, sidekicks and partners outside of the Batman books proper. It would eventually come to also include Batman's other allies, like, of course, Plastic Man.
Plas appeared in a 10-page team-up entitled "Bending The Rules" by the creative team of writer Joey Esposito and artist Jason Howard, and he was featured on issue #15's variant cover, by artist Riley Rossmo (above).
The imp's plan goes awry, though. Superman is busy in space, and so it's Plastic Man who comes to Metropolis to deal with the robot....with Impulse close behind. Plastic Man surprises Mxy, who is tinkering with the robot's insides for some reason, and the imp bumps his head on the robot's interior, knocks himself out, and then gets trapped inside it.
That's when Impulse shows up, decides the robot is the real Santa (apparently the robot was convincing enough to fool him, anyway), and then races around the country, dragging the robot at super-speed and helping him deliver presents.
In the end, it's Woozy who sends Mxyzptlk back to the 5th dimension, tricking him into inserting himself into the black-and-white Christmas movie they were watching, and then rewinding it so that the dialogue is played back backwards, so that Mxyzptlk is forced to say "Kltpzyxm". (Um, it's been a while since I've used a VCR, but whenever I rewound a tape, it was more or less silent, it didn't play the dialogue backwards; maybe the JLA monitor womb's VCR works differently...?)
That's when Impulse shows up, decides the robot is the real Santa (apparently the robot was convincing enough to fool him, anyway), and then races around the country, dragging the robot at super-speed and helping him deliver presents.
In the end, it's Woozy who sends Mxyzptlk back to the 5th dimension, tricking him into inserting himself into the black-and-white Christmas movie they were watching, and then rewinding it so that the dialogue is played back backwards, so that Mxyzptlk is forced to say "Kltpzyxm". (Um, it's been a while since I've used a VCR, but whenever I rewound a tape, it was more or less silent, it didn't play the dialogue backwards; maybe the JLA monitor womb's VCR works differently...?)
Obviously, there are some problems and leaps in logic here, but Dezago does a fine job of depicting Impulse as innocently annoying, and it's sort of fun to see Plastic Man in the position of the frustrated and annoyed character, as he's usually the one irritating other characters.
Van Sciver, inked here by Prentis Rollins, was an unusual choice for Impulse, as the series' original artist Humberto Ramos established a very manga-influenced style, giving the lead a big head, floppy hair and big hands and feet, making Impulse look both cartoony and awkward (And the character, of course, tended to "think" in pictograms, which would appear as more cartoony images of objects in thought clouds above his head).
Van Sciver, who followed the similarly inclined Craig Rousseau as the book's third regular pencil artist, has generally worked in a very different mode. If you're familiar with the once-popular artist's later work on, say, the Green Lantern franchise, you know he specializes in a far more realistic, detail-heavy style.
Van Sciver, who followed the similarly inclined Craig Rousseau as the book's third regular pencil artist, has generally worked in a very different mode. If you're familiar with the once-popular artist's later work on, say, the Green Lantern franchise, you know he specializes in a far more realistic, detail-heavy style.
Still, Van Sciver acquitted himself nicely. His Impulse art certainly had a lot more lines in it than that of his predecessors, but he nailed the regular cast's character designs, his Impulse looked, moved and felt like the "real" Impulse and if the more detailed look was a bit of a departure, he didn't really alter the book's basic aesthetic drastically.
Dezago didn't give him too much to do with Plastic Man in terms of transformations—the best image is probably that of a flattened Plas, run over by Impulse when wasn't watching where he was racing, peeling his head off the ground, his face bearing the deep tread marks of Impulse's giant shoes. Still, his is an interesting version of the character, with lots of crosshatching that is normally absent.
Van Sciver also, credit where credit is due, draws one of the best, or at least most accurate, versions of Woozy Winks I've seen while reading and/or re-reading all these comics for this post. His Woozy looks the closest to Jack Cole's of any I've seen, and he manages to get the jowls just right (artists usually just give Woozy a rounder, fat face).
Dezago didn't give him too much to do with Plastic Man in terms of transformations—the best image is probably that of a flattened Plas, run over by Impulse when wasn't watching where he was racing, peeling his head off the ground, his face bearing the deep tread marks of Impulse's giant shoes. Still, his is an interesting version of the character, with lots of crosshatching that is normally absent.
Van Sciver also, credit where credit is due, draws one of the best, or at least most accurate, versions of Woozy Winks I've seen while reading and/or re-reading all these comics for this post. His Woozy looks the closest to Jack Cole's of any I've seen, and he manages to get the jowls just right (artists usually just give Woozy a rounder, fat face).
(This issue has never been collected...and, given the toxicity of its pencil artist, isn't likely to ever be.)
After Kelly's first four issues with the new art team of Dough Mahnke and Tom Nguyen, the creators took a done-in-one break or breather issue between the story arcs "Golden Perfect" and "The Obsidian Age". This was JLA #65, "Bouncing Baby Boy," which, as Mahnke and company's cover above intimates, was a Batman/Plastic Man team-up.
I wasn't blogging back then, but, if I were, I imagine this issue would have inspired a very long, rather angry post, given the dramatic changes it made to the Plastic Man character who, at that point, had been regularly appearing in JLA comics (and throughout the DC Universe line) for about five years.
I can understand Kelly's desire to make the character seem a bit deeper and more complex (he was, at the time, the only one of the seven Leaguers to not have his own book...or more than one book, in the cases of Batman and Superman). I can also understand Kelly wanting to make Plastic Man into a somewhat flawed character (although none of the other Leaguers at the time had such a flaw or moral deficiency). This just didn't seem to me, then or now, the way to do it (Exploring the character's criminal past, and perhaps his ongoing temptations to occasionally do bad, as Waid did at one point during his brief run on the title, seemed a more obvious strategy for instilling Plastic Man with a bit more nuance).
Instead, Kelly reveals in this story, that Plastic Man had fathered a son out of wedlock. And then apparently more or less ignored his son for many years, even going so far as to doubt that the child might have been his, something he's no longer able to keep up once the kid starts exhibiting shape-changing powers.
Instead, Kelly reveals in this story, that Plastic Man had fathered a son out of wedlock. And then apparently more or less ignored his son for many years, even going so far as to doubt that the child might have been his, something he's no longer able to keep up once the kid starts exhibiting shape-changing powers.
So Plastic Man, Kelly tells us, is a deadbeat dad. Hardly superheroic behavior...and quite contrary to the version of the character Waid wrote in the 1999 one-shot The Kingdom: Offspring, an out-of-continuity story set in a possible future starring Plastic Man's son, who has a close and happy relationship with his father.
After reading this issue when it was originally released, I was fairly certain it was one that future writers would end up ignoring, given what a negative light in which it painted one of DC's longest-lived and, at that moment, more prominent characters. I ended up being pretty wrong about that, obviously.
In his first issue on the series, Kelly devoted a page to Plastic Man's secret identity, fast-talking on a cellphone in an office with "O'Brian Security" on the door. He takes a call from someone he apparently hates, but then says he will send money to. A few issues later, when "the truth is breaking down" worldwide, Plas is alarmed to find that he can no longer lie. Among the things he reports he couldn't help but confess? "My ex called looking for her check and I told her I blew the money on the ponies".
So there was a bit of foreshadowing of this issue, in which Plastic Man seeks out Batman in Gotham City and asks the Dark Knight for a favor, as he doesn't think Batman cares at all about his teammates' personal lives, and he knows he can keep his mouth shut. And as for the task at hand? Well, it involves scaring a kid straight, and that's what Batman's all about, right?
The kid, Plas tells Batman, belongs to his ex Angel McDunnagh, who "ain't exactly what you'd call 'Waltz Her Through the Watchtower Material'"; while saying this, he creates a tiny shape of a scantily clad woman dancing on a pole in the palm of his hand.
It probably doesn't take The World's Greatest Detective to figure out that the kid is actually Plastic Man's. A silent panel where Plas and Angel look meaningfully at one another after Batman asks where the boy's father is will probably clue most readers in.
The kid, Plas tells Batman, belongs to his ex Angel McDunnagh, who "ain't exactly what you'd call 'Waltz Her Through the Watchtower Material'"; while saying this, he creates a tiny shape of a scantily clad woman dancing on a pole in the palm of his hand.
It probably doesn't take The World's Greatest Detective to figure out that the kid is actually Plastic Man's. A silent panel where Plas and Angel look meaningfully at one another after Batman asks where the boy's father is will probably clue most readers in.
When we first meet the 10-year-old boy, in the shape of a triceratops wearing a backwards hat, with four gangsters riding on his back, it's clear enough for Batman to say out loud (The boy's first appearance in the story is one of the funnier moments, as Batman asks which one he is, and Plas simply says, "Um, heh....I think he's the one in the hat," a turn of the page revealing to the reader that one of the gang is, you know, a dinosaur).
The gang gets away, in part because Plastic Man refuses to reveal himself to his son, and then the two heroes have a heart-to-heart conversation in which Batman tells Plastic Man that he's disappointed in him and that, "Of all of us, even Clark, I always thought you would make the best father," explaining "I thought you'd be the kind of father would show his children that he loved them, instead of just telling them" and "I thought you would make them laugh all the time."
The gang gets away, in part because Plastic Man refuses to reveal himself to his son, and then the two heroes have a heart-to-heart conversation in which Batman tells Plastic Man that he's disappointed in him and that, "Of all of us, even Clark, I always thought you would make the best father," explaining "I thought you'd be the kind of father would show his children that he loved them, instead of just telling them" and "I thought you would make them laugh all the time."
In the end, Plastic Man is unable to face the boy, whose name is Luke, even when prompted by Batman. The Dark Knight infiltrates the gang's hideout, and does something off-panel that has paralyzed all of the older boys with fear. He threatens the boy to never again as much as look at the other kids in the gang (I don't think it's supposed to be funny when Batman says "gangsta" and "Peeps" in scare quotes, but it sure is), before letting him go. Plastic Man spends the whole time disguised as one of the little yellow panels on Batman's utility belt, shedding a tear from his goggled eye after Luke asks Batman if he knows Plastic Man and if Plastic Man knows about him.
As much as I didn't agree with the content at the time, reading it again over 20 years later, I have to confess it's effective, and that Kelly does a fine job playing the two superhero characters off of one another. Unlike their various Brave and the Bold Team-Ups, here they are much more in character, or at least now what we would think of as in character, with Batman quiet, business-like, judgmental and menacing, while Plas never shuts up or stops joking, even when he's angry or sad (One of Batman's first clues that there's something personal between Plas and the boy is when Plastic Man is quiet for too long; "You've been silent for over seven and a half minutes," Batman says over his shoulder, while scanning the area through binoculars. "Either you've had a stroke, or there's something on your mind.")
As much as I didn't agree with the content at the time, reading it again over 20 years later, I have to confess it's effective, and that Kelly does a fine job playing the two superhero characters off of one another. Unlike their various Brave and the Bold Team-Ups, here they are much more in character, or at least now what we would think of as in character, with Batman quiet, business-like, judgmental and menacing, while Plas never shuts up or stops joking, even when he's angry or sad (One of Batman's first clues that there's something personal between Plas and the boy is when Plastic Man is quiet for too long; "You've been silent for over seven and a half minutes," Batman says over his shoulder, while scanning the area through binoculars. "Either you've had a stroke, or there's something on your mind.")
The story really wouldn't work at all without Mahnke, who here demonstrates his facility with character acting throughout, both in the expressions of the characters and in their body language, the latter of which tends to communicate what Plastic Man is thinking even better than his various transformations which, by this point in the character's history, were fairly constant and usually used as visual punchlines (The two stars probably aren't the easiest to give expressions either, given Batman's white-eyed cowl and Plas' opaque goggles).
It would take a few months' time (within the comic), but Plastic Man would eventually do the right thing by Luke, some ten years too late. During "The Obsidian Age" arc, probably the biggest and most ambitious of Kelly's run, the League travels back in time and, at one point, Plastic Manis turned to stone and then smashed to pieces by their opponents. But he doesn't die. Instead, he spends the next 3,000 years lying scattered about the ocean floor, a disembodied consciousness with nothing to do but think.
Back in the present, the Leaguers gather and reunite the various pieces of Plastic Man. (This is issue #76, featuring another striking Mahnke cover, in which Batman pours Plastic Man out of a beaker onto a table in front of the other Leaguers.) After talking about his ordeal, Plas appears in a suit, confessing to the rest of the League that he has a son and he regrets having spent so long running away from him: "I want to get to know my son," he says. "I don't want to be Plastic Man anymore."
Back in the present, the Leaguers gather and reunite the various pieces of Plastic Man. (This is issue #76, featuring another striking Mahnke cover, in which Batman pours Plastic Man out of a beaker onto a table in front of the other Leaguers.) After talking about his ordeal, Plas appears in a suit, confessing to the rest of the League that he has a son and he regrets having spent so long running away from him: "I want to get to know my son," he says. "I don't want to be Plastic Man anymore."
And so he takes a leave of absence to reunite with Luke (mostly off-page), not coming back to the team until he's called to do so about a dozen issues later, at the very end of Kelly and company's run.
Luke, meanwhile, would eventually be conflated with The Kingdom: Offspring's Ernie, rapidly aged without any in-story explanation, and become the shape-changing Teen Titan Offspring (a Geoff Johns massaging of continuity). Luke (and Angel) would both play major roles in the 2024 Black Label miniseries Plastic Man No More!, which is basically a graphic novel-length extrapolation of JLA #65.
Luke, meanwhile, would eventually be conflated with The Kingdom: Offspring's Ernie, rapidly aged without any in-story explanation, and become the shape-changing Teen Titan Offspring (a Geoff Johns massaging of continuity). Luke (and Angel) would both play major roles in the 2024 Black Label miniseries Plastic Man No More!, which is basically a graphic novel-length extrapolation of JLA #65.
(Collected in 2015's JLA Vol. 6 and 2021's Legends of the DC Universe: Doug Mahnke.)
Regardless, the pair were never on the Justice League at the same time before, and neither of them were on the team at the time this book was published (Which was during James Robinson's run on the 2006-2011 Justice League of America title).
And yet Weapons of Mass Deception, which is written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Brent Anderson, opens in the League's headquarters, where Plas and Hal are both present, and, from Hal's opening narration, it sure sounds like they are both meant to be active members:
My name is Hal Jordan. I'm a member of the Green Lantern Corps. It takes a lot to make me angry: Cruelty, violence......Or thirty seconds with Plastic Man.
He's thoughtless and frivolous. And in the most serious situations, all he cares about is fun. If the J.L.A. doesn't keep an eye on him, he might very well be the death of us all.
Later, when Plastic Man balks at the pair of them taking on thousands of enemies alone, Hal scolds him, "You're the one who wanted to be in the Justice League...This is what we do."
It sure sounds like they are meant to be active Leaguers during the time at which the story is meant to be set then, right?
As to why this book exists at all, my best guess was that it was originally meant to be a two-issue arc of the 2007-2010 The Brave and the Bold, as Wolfman wrote a two-issue fill-in arc for that title during the 10-issue span between the end of writer Mark Waid's run and the start of J. Michael Straczynski's. Weapons is, after all, the exact length of two regular issues of a comic book, and halfway through there's a dramatic cliffhanger, immediately followed by a scene-setting splash page.
As to why this book exists at all, my best guess was that it was originally meant to be a two-issue arc of the 2007-2010 The Brave and the Bold, as Wolfman wrote a two-issue fill-in arc for that title during the 10-issue span between the end of writer Mark Waid's run and the start of J. Michael Straczynski's. Weapons is, after all, the exact length of two regular issues of a comic book, and halfway through there's a dramatic cliffhanger, immediately followed by a scene-setting splash page.
So it seems that DC may have commissioned it for a Brave and the Bold fill-in and, not wanting to let it go to waste, they ended up publishing it as a standalone one-shot.
It's not very good, even setting aside the pairing of the characters and the supposition of them as Justice League teammates, which is, of course, completely unmoored from DC continuity.
Hal's badmouthing of Plastic Man occurs on the opening splash page, during which Plas is begging a very impatient Green Lantern for his help. He explains that he was on what seemed like a routine case, attempting to stop a nuclear heist on behalf of the FBI (here, Plas is apparently a former FBI agent), but when he closes in on the criminals, they pull out "zap-blaster space guns". Though he's injured by the weapons, Plas overhears the bad guys, and it appears that there's some kind of alien presence organizing Earth criminals for something big.
It turns out that the alien weapons seem to be of the same sort that Hal was on his way into space to go investigate. "Unbelievable," he says. "You case actually intersects with mine."
It turns out that the alien weapons seem to be of the same sort that Hal was on his way into space to go investigate. "Unbelievable," he says. "You case actually intersects with mine."
And so the unlikely pair go undercover at an underworld bar in L.A. where the aliens, who look like humanoid cartoon ducks barely disguised in trench coats and wide-brimmed hats, are looking to recruit. And then they go into space (Plas in a spacesuit, being dragged along in a green bubble by GL), where they fight more ducks on one ship, and then face their entire armada.
After some flying around and fighting, they return to Earth for some more undercover work, and, ultimately, they split up to do what they do best. Plastic Man is able to rally the Earth criminals to betray the space ducks on the ground, while Hal flies into orbit and takes on the ships they have parked there.
During the course of the adventure, Hal earns a new respect for Plastic Man, which I guess I'll quote at length, given that I quoted Hal's earlier trash-talking of him:
During the course of the adventure, Hal earns a new respect for Plastic Man, which I guess I'll quote at length, given that I quoted Hal's earlier trash-talking of him:
Ninety percent of the time Plastic Man acts like a moron. Then wham! He turns on a dime and does his job like a pro.
He told us once that he's an undercover F.B.I. agent who poses as a third-rate thief to get information on the mob.
Must be one hell of a life.
Maybe that's it. The reason. The thing that drives me insane whenever I'm near him.
As Eel O'Brian, he can't let his guard down for even a second.
One mistake and he's dead.Maybe that's his secret.
Being Plastic Man's his release.
Without the insanity of Plas, there can be no Eel O'Brian focused on doing real police work.
Maybe...?
While Hal's assessment of Plastic Man seems quite harsh, both in the first half of the comic where he's down on him and even near the climax where he seems to come around to him, I have to admit that, as written here, Plastic Man is pretty annoying.
As has so often been the case after he joined the JLA in the late '90s, the character is presented as zany comic relief, always making generally unfunny jokes, and using his shape-changing powers as visual punchlines to them. And, as is also often the case, he's played off a straight man type character, who finds his schtick tiresome.
For some reason I can't fathom, Wolfman chose Hal as the straight man in this particular comic.
Anderson, like Wolfman, is a solid craftsman, and he does a decent enough job on the art here, although it's mostly unremarkable (Given the realism of his style though, the duck-like aliens stick out as particularly weird-looking).
Anderson, like Wolfman, is a solid craftsman, and he does a decent enough job on the art here, although it's mostly unremarkable (Given the realism of his style though, the duck-like aliens stick out as particularly weird-looking).
His Plastic Man has a lot of character in his face, and he is often bending or stretching weirdly (the image Anderson draws of him on the opening splash is particularly odd looking).
Still, the creators don't do anything all that clever or interesting with his powers throughout other than, perhaps, the way Anderson draws his torso as occasionally almost two-dimensionally thin when he stretches.
All in all, it's a very weird comic, but more so in why-was-this-even-made or a what-were-they-thinking kind of a way, than in a fun way.
(Weapons of Mass Deception has never been collected).
That said, they are very good comics, and Team-Up proved to be a great introduction to some of DC's better characters; not just the popular heroes you might expect, but many of whom didn't have their own series and were thus less visible (Issues featured, for example, The Doom Patrol, The Marvel Family, Metamorpho, Black Lightning and Mister Miracle and Big Barda; sometimes it seemed like writer Sholly Fisch was writing this series particularly for me personally).
I particularly enjoyed Fisch's "thematic" issues. Their cover might feature, say, Martian Manhunter, but the story inside would actually feature every single alien character they could fit in. (Other such issues featured all of DC's ghost characters, or all of the gorilla characters or all the teams-of-regular-guys-in-matching-uniforms like The Challengers of the Unknown and the Sea Devils and so on).
If you've never read any of the series, it's well worth checking out to read quality all-ages comics featuring your favorite DC hero, no matter how unlikely a Scooby-Doo team-up might seem for them (I mean, there's a Swamp Thing issue, too). And if you're a Scooby-Doo fan? Well, don't miss issue #50, which features every version of every Scooby-Doo character ever.
The praises for Scooby-Doo Team-Up sufficiently sung, I have to confess that I wasn't really a fan of this particular issue, which I didn't think was one of Fisch's better one. It's drawn by his frequent collaborator Dario Brizuela, whose versions of Scooby and the gang are perfect adaptations of how they appeared in the original cartoons, while his superhero characters were generally drawn in his own personal style (Rather than trying to, say, Scooby-Doo-ize them).
For this issue, Fisch reverts back to a classic, Jack Cole version of Plas. He's working for the FBI (as opposed to the NBI, or as a private detective), and he's doing so under a Chief Branner. Woozy wants to help, but his help is not wanted. After Plas lowers him out the FBI headquarters window to the street, Woozy wanders off and meets a fortune teller, who tells him he's doomed.
Woozy is inconsolable at the idea that he's now cursed, and so Plas turns to Mystery Inc. to prove to Woozy that there's no such thing as fortune-telling, psychic powers and curses. Plas would prefer to concentrate on tracking down the Granite Lady (a 1940s villain created by Cole, whom Gail Simone and company seemed to be in the process of trying to recreate in their 2018 series) and her gang of colorfully-named thugs (Including one named "Hijack" Cole).
For this issue, Fisch reverts back to a classic, Jack Cole version of Plas. He's working for the FBI (as opposed to the NBI, or as a private detective), and he's doing so under a Chief Branner. Woozy wants to help, but his help is not wanted. After Plas lowers him out the FBI headquarters window to the street, Woozy wanders off and meets a fortune teller, who tells him he's doomed.
Woozy is inconsolable at the idea that he's now cursed, and so Plas turns to Mystery Inc. to prove to Woozy that there's no such thing as fortune-telling, psychic powers and curses. Plas would prefer to concentrate on tracking down the Granite Lady (a 1940s villain created by Cole, whom Gail Simone and company seemed to be in the process of trying to recreate in their 2018 series) and her gang of colorfully-named thugs (Including one named "Hijack" Cole).
Conveniently, the two cases intersect.
(Collected in 2018's Scooby-Doo Team-Up Vol. 5...along with issues featuring the "Hard Travelling Heroes", Hong Kong Phooey, Jonah Hex, Top Cat and the Challengers of the Unknown).
The premise of Flash Facts is to use Barry Allen's old oft-repeated term to explain various scientific facts to readers as a sort of over-arching format, with each story in the anthology tackling a different subject and different DC superhero characters used to explain that to young readers in the course of a short adventure. These characters include Supergirl, Green Lantern Jessica Cruz, Poison Ivy and Swamp Thing and the oft-teamed Batman and Plastic Man, which is why I'm talking about the book in this particular post.
Their story, "If You Can't Take the Heat" by writers Varian Johnson and Darian Johnson and artist Vic Regis, is about 3D printing.
Their story, "If You Can't Take the Heat" by writers Varian Johnson and Darian Johnson and artist Vic Regis, is about 3D printing.
Our heroes return to the Batcave after a disastrous encounter with Firefly. Batman is badly singed, one ear on his cowl broken off, the other still smoldering. Batman says he will need a new suit, one more resistant to high temperatures.
He and Alfred then explain what a 3D printer is and how it works to Plastic Man. After the brief lesson, they turn to Batman's own larger printer, which they will feed the temperature-resistant filament into in order to create the necessary batsuit.
Soon they are back on the street, with Batman in his new armor and Plastic Man as a red bat-symbol on the Dark Knight's chest, and this time they handily defeat Firefly. After Plas asks if there's anything else he can do to help, the story ends with Batman sipping from a cup of coffee, while Plastic Man is in the form of a Keurig-like coffee maker.
Batman and Alfred are both smiling and joking, but I don't know if I'd be quite so eager to drink coffee that's been brewed inside Plastic Man's body, personally.
Regis' versions of all the characters are big-headed, somewhat squat and bearing big, bold expressions that sometimes seem to slide off their faces, giving them the look of chibis or, perhaps, animated Funko Pops. There are only a couple of panels where we see Plastic Man's lower half, and Regis, who apparently colors his own work here, seems unsure of how long to make his pantlegs. In one panel, they seem to be knee-length shorts, while in others they terminate near the characters' ankles.
Of course, one fun aspect of Plastic Man is that an artist can always excuse any inconsistencies by saying the shape-changing character himself was in flux.
This team-up is fine, but hardly extraordinary. I originally reviewed the book here; flipping through it again as I write this, I think it's strongest points of recommendation are probably the chances to see various lesser-seen characters like Swamp Thing, Mary Marvel and Atom Ryan Choi and a rather wide variety of art styles. The cover is by EDILW favorite Derek Charm, who, unfortunately, doesn't also contribute a story within.
He and Alfred then explain what a 3D printer is and how it works to Plastic Man. After the brief lesson, they turn to Batman's own larger printer, which they will feed the temperature-resistant filament into in order to create the necessary batsuit.
Soon they are back on the street, with Batman in his new armor and Plastic Man as a red bat-symbol on the Dark Knight's chest, and this time they handily defeat Firefly. After Plas asks if there's anything else he can do to help, the story ends with Batman sipping from a cup of coffee, while Plastic Man is in the form of a Keurig-like coffee maker.
Batman and Alfred are both smiling and joking, but I don't know if I'd be quite so eager to drink coffee that's been brewed inside Plastic Man's body, personally.
Regis' versions of all the characters are big-headed, somewhat squat and bearing big, bold expressions that sometimes seem to slide off their faces, giving them the look of chibis or, perhaps, animated Funko Pops. There are only a couple of panels where we see Plastic Man's lower half, and Regis, who apparently colors his own work here, seems unsure of how long to make his pantlegs. In one panel, they seem to be knee-length shorts, while in others they terminate near the characters' ankles.
Of course, one fun aspect of Plastic Man is that an artist can always excuse any inconsistencies by saying the shape-changing character himself was in flux.
This team-up is fine, but hardly extraordinary. I originally reviewed the book here; flipping through it again as I write this, I think it's strongest points of recommendation are probably the chances to see various lesser-seen characters like Swamp Thing, Mary Marvel and Atom Ryan Choi and a rather wide variety of art styles. The cover is by EDILW favorite Derek Charm, who, unfortunately, doesn't also contribute a story within.
Plas appeared in a 10-page team-up entitled "Bending The Rules" by the creative team of writer Joey Esposito and artist Jason Howard, and he was featured on issue #15's variant cover, by artist Riley Rossmo (above).
In this story, set "Years Ago," Batman is on the hunt for a Gotham criminal named Brad Sampey who had made a deal with the District Attorney to flip on his boss The Penguin, but then, after The Penguin found out, Sampey decided to run instead.
Batman, who Howard draws as a big, black, angry-looking shape as he delivers his typical hard-boiled narration, is just about to grab the fleeing Sampey, when, suddenly, BWAANNGG, Plastic Man stretches between the Dark Knight and his prey.
What gives?
Plas explains that he was friends with Sampey back when he himself was a criminal, and that he believes that Sampey will ultimately do the right thing and is just running at the moment because he's scared...of The Penguin, sure, but also of Batman. Plas wants him to turn himself in, but on his own, rather than punched-out and tied-up by Batman.
To help convince Batman, Plas shares a story about a time when he was still just a criminal named Eel O'Brian and he and Sampey were sight-seeing in Gotham. Their bus was attacked by The Joker, as buses in Gotham City tend to be. The villain tossed Sampey from the moving bus, but Batman swings onto the scene, catches Sampey and kicks The Joker in the face.
Batman, who Howard draws as a big, black, angry-looking shape as he delivers his typical hard-boiled narration, is just about to grab the fleeing Sampey, when, suddenly, BWAANNGG, Plastic Man stretches between the Dark Knight and his prey.
What gives?
Plas explains that he was friends with Sampey back when he himself was a criminal, and that he believes that Sampey will ultimately do the right thing and is just running at the moment because he's scared...of The Penguin, sure, but also of Batman. Plas wants him to turn himself in, but on his own, rather than punched-out and tied-up by Batman.
To help convince Batman, Plas shares a story about a time when he was still just a criminal named Eel O'Brian and he and Sampey were sight-seeing in Gotham. Their bus was attacked by The Joker, as buses in Gotham City tend to be. The villain tossed Sampey from the moving bus, but Batman swings onto the scene, catches Sampey and kicks The Joker in the face.
"The Batman risked his life to save some schmuck who never did nothin' for nobody but himself," Plas says, noting that he right then and there decided the next job would be his last. "I woulda bailed on that one that one too, if I thought I could get out of it without running for my life like Sampey."
That next job was, of course, the one at the chemical plant that gave him his powers, but it was actually the example set by Batman that had inspired him to change for the good.
Plast finishes his story with "So if you wanna take Sampey in because of who he used to be, who he used to work for...if you think people aren't truly capable of change... ...then what does that make me?"
Plast finishes his story with "So if you wanna take Sampey in because of who he used to be, who he used to work for...if you think people aren't truly capable of change... ...then what does that make me?"
And then The KGBeast, who The Penguin has hired to kill Sampey before he can testify, arrives. There's a brief fight and Sampey does indeed decide to do the right thing.
Howard's art is great, especially two panels in which Batman fights KGBeast; in the first, he kicks the villain in the face, Howard drawing Batman's leg exploding toward the reader diagonally and then off the page, in the second, the Beast fires his gun at Batman, who Howard again draws as more silhouette and shape than man.
Plas doesn't get to do too much, powers-wise, only taking on the shape of a surfboard with a sail on it for Batman to chase Sampey's boat on and then doing some stretching.
Howard's art is great, especially two panels in which Batman fights KGBeast; in the first, he kicks the villain in the face, Howard drawing Batman's leg exploding toward the reader diagonally and then off the page, in the second, the Beast fires his gun at Batman, who Howard again draws as more silhouette and shape than man.
Plas doesn't get to do too much, powers-wise, only taking on the shape of a surfboard with a sail on it for Batman to chase Sampey's boat on and then doing some stretching.
There's probably more supervillains than one needs in such a short story, but then, I guess it's fun to see Howard drawing The Joker, Penguin and KGBeast rather than just some generic mobster types.
Espositio making Batman the inspiration for Eel going straight all those years ago seems a little forced, of course, and it's easy to roll one's eyes at DC once again making everything about Batman. But, on the other hand, this is a Batman comic, so maybe doing so is more forgivable here.
Espositio making Batman the inspiration for Eel going straight all those years ago seems a little forced, of course, and it's easy to roll one's eyes at DC once again making everything about Batman. But, on the other hand, this is a Batman comic, so maybe doing so is more forgivable here.
(Collected in 2023's Batman: Urban Legends Vol.4.)
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