| Plastic Man | |
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Plastic Man #17 (May 1949) Cover art by Jack Cole. |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics Quality Comics (1941–1956) |
| First appearance | Police Comics #1 (August 1941) |
| Created by | Jack Cole |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Patrick "Eel" O'Brian |
| Team affiliations | Federal Bureau of Investigation Justice League All-Star Squadron Freedom Fighters Elastic Four |
| Partnerships | Woozy Winks |
| Notable aliases | Ralph Johns, Edward O Brian |
| Abilities | Can stretch and shape his highly resilient body into any shape he can imagine, even ones with moving parts. Immune to telepathy. Possible immortality. |
Plastic Man (Patrick "Eel" O'Brian) is a fictional comic-book superhero originally published by Quality Comics and later acquired by DC Comics. Created by writer-artist Jack Cole, he first appeared in Police Comics #1 (August 1941).
One of Quality Comics' signature characters during the Golden Age of Comic Books, Plastic Man can stretch his body into any imaginable form. His adventures were known for their quirky, offbeat structure and surreal slapstick humor. When Quality Comics was shut down in 1956, DC Comics acquired many of its characters, integrating Plastic Man into the mainstream DC universe. The character has starred in several short-lived DC series, as well as a Saturday morning cartoon series in the early 1980s, and as a recurring character on Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Although the character's revival has never been a commercial hit, Plastic Man has been a favorite character of many modern comic book creators, including writer Grant Morrison, who included him in his 1990s revival of the Justice League; Art Spiegelman, who profiled Cole for The New Yorker magazine; painter Alex Ross, who has frequently included him in covers and stories depicting the Justice League; writer-artist Kyle Baker, who wrote and illustrated an award winning Plastic Man series, and Frank Miller, who included him in the Justice League in the comics All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again.
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Plastic Man was a crook named Patrick "Eel" O'Brian. Orphaned at age 10 and forced to live on the streets, he fell into a life of crime. As an adult, he became part of a burglary ring, specializing as a safecracker. During a late-night heist at the Crawford Chemical Works, he and his three fellow gang members were surprised by a night watchman. During the gang's escape, Eel was shot in the shoulder and doused with a large drum of unidentified acid. He escaped to the street only to discover that his gang had driven off without him.
Fleeing on foot and suffering increasing disorientation from the gunshot wound and the exposure to the acid, Eel eventually passed out on the foothills of a mountain near the city. He awoke to find himself in a bed in a mountain retreat, being tended to by a monk who had discovered him unconscious that morning. This monk, sensing a capacity for great good in O'Brian, turned away police officers who had trailed Eel to the monastery. This act of faith and kindness—combined with the realization that his gang had left him to be captured without a moment's hesitation—fanned Eel's longstanding dissatisfaction with his criminal life and his desire to reform.
During his short convalescence at the monastery, he discovered that the acid had entered his bloodstream and caused a radical physical change. His body now had all of the properties of rubber, allowing him to stretch, bounce, and mold himself into any shape. He immediately determined to use his new abilities on the side of law and order, donning a red, black and yellow (later red and yellow) rubber costume and capturing criminals as Plastic Man. He concealed his true identity with a pair of white goggles and by re-molding his face. As O'Brian, he maintained his career and connections with the underworld as a means of gathering information on criminal activity.
Plastic Man soon acquired comedic sidekick Woozy Winks, who was originally magically enchanted so that nature itself would protect him from harm. That eventually was forgotten and Woozy became simply a dumb but loyal friend of Plastic Man.
In his original Golden Age/Quality Comics incarnation, Plastic Man eventually became a member of the city police force and then the FBI. By the time he became a federal officer, he had nearly completely abandoned his Eel O'Brian identity.
The star of the 1966-1968 Silver Age run of Plastic Man, written by Arnold Drake, was the son of the original Plastic Man, who as a toddler had accidentally drunk a souvenir bottle of the same acid that had given Eel O'Brian his powers. Other Silver and Bronze-age versions appear to carry the same identity and origin as the Golden Age original. The silver-age Plastic Man who took up the mantle from his father was later identified as residing on Earth-Twelve, home of the Inferior Five . A subsequent version appearing with Batman in The Brave and the Bold and Justice League of America was identified as residing on Earth-One. Afterwards, the original Quality Comics version was specified as being a member of the All-Star Squadron and Freedom Fighters, originally of Earth-Two and later moving to Earth-X. This version died during an extended period of World War II while on the latter world.
After the 1985 "Crisis on Infinite Earths", a 1988-1989 four-issue Plastic Man miniseries by Phil Foglio introduced a new version of Plastic Man: Eel O'Brian, abandoned by his criminal gang after being shot and exposed to the acid, wandered the streets as his new powers developed, frightening others and bringing the police and National Guard down on him as a dangerous monster. Eel was at first oblivious to the changes to his body, but after realizing that he was the monster everyone was going on about, he used his new abilities to escape his pursuers, but soon became so despondent over his new condition that he attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge.
Fortunately, he was interrupted by Woozy Winks, a former mental patient who was kicked out of an institution due to lack of funding (or as Woozy put it, "something called Reaganomics"), who desired nothing more than to return to the warm safety of a straitjacket and padded room. Eel and Woozy decided to work together and capitalize on Eel's new powers to make their fortunes (Eel wanting to get rich quick, Woozy just wanting his "old room" back), but couldn't decide whether there was more money in crime or crime-fighting, and resorted to flipping a coin to choose serving the law (though Woozy had his doubts early on). Eel, ending up with the name "Plastic Man" after a reporter misinterpreted his first choice, "Elastic Man", and Woozy set up a detective agency in New York City and had various misadventures.
The alteration that Plas was initially in the superhero business for the money has had an effect on his character development post-Crisis, notably in the 2000-2001 JLA storyline "Divided We Fall" by Mark Waid where he, along with other Justice League members, was separated into two people, his normal "civilian" identity and his superhero persona, by the manipulative wish-granting Id. While Plastic Man devolved from a person with a sense of humor into a constantly wisecracking and almost ineffectual idiot, the now "normal" Eel O'Brian struggled with the criminal tendencies he had suppressed as he had become comfortable with his role as a superhero, and wondered if he had actually changed for the better or if it had all been part of the super-hero "act". Ultimately, Eel was the driving force behind the other transformed Leaguers banding together to re-join with their superheroic selves, noting that Bruce Wayne in particular was approaching a mental breakdown as he struggled with his rage over his parents' murder while lacking the ability to do anything about it as Batman was the identity that had 'inherited' his skills.
Another memorable milestone in the life of Plastic man was in the late-Nineties/early Millenium incarnation of the Justice League in the story arc "The Obsidian Age" where many of the key members including Plastic Man were transported in time thousands of years earlier to the beginning days of Atlantis and during a battle with the antagonists, he was frozen and then shattered into hundreds of thousands of inanimate little pieces. Having no way to locate all the pieces, much less fix him, with the technology of the day, the JLA finally returned to their own time and were eventually successful in finding all of his pieces and returning Plas to his former complete self after laying near dormant and unable to move for thousands of years. Unfortunately, even though he had been practically destroyed and turned into scattered confetti of sorts, he was partially, if not completely, aware of the passage of time and his inherent helplessness which had a profoundly negative effect on his mind. Shortly after being reincorporated, he admitted he has lost his nerve and quit the JLA, hoping to live a regular life. Helping him come to grips with leaving his former life behind was the newly introduced information that he had a son, now a teenager, and felt the boy needed a father and a normal life. Eventually, Batman convinced Plas to return to his life as a super hero again.
In the 2006 "One Year Later" DC Comics crossover storyline that followed the "Infinite Crisis" crossover, a young man with similar appearance and powers as Plastic Man appears briefly in the superteam series Teen Titans Vol. 3, #34 written by R.J. Carter. The character wears a white costume with red goggles, similar to that of Offspring, Plastic Man's son in the earlier 1999 DC miniseries The Kingdom by Mark Waid. While the Teen Titans story itself does not identify the character, page two of a published script supposedly by writer Geoff Johns' specifies it is "Plastic Man’s son, Offspring".[1] Plastic Man's son is also shown in costume, and identified as Offspring, in the 2007 52 Week 35 (written by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid) when he is injured while rescuing a number of the depowered Everyman heroes. Eventually, Plastic Man and Offspring come together as father and son and for a while, they had the idillic family set up until Plas was convinced that he couldn't deny his rubberized destiny as a super hero
In Countdown To Mystery #1 (2007) written by Matthew Sturges, Plastic Man is seduced by Eclipso, being made to believe he is a joke among his fellow heroes, and the only way for him to get some respect is through Eclipso. He is later freed of this corruption by Bruce Gordon. Plastic Man makes his next appearance within the pages of Green Arrow/Black Canary #8 by Judd Winick, having been freed from a stasis tube by Green Arrow. His DNA is taken by Sivana and used to augment an amnesiac Connor Hawke, in a bid to turn the young hero into a brainwashed slave with a strong healing factor.
Plastic Man appeared for a brief period in the 2009 Justice League of America vol. 2 series written by Len Wein. After joining up with the team following the events of Final Crisis, Plastic Man has his effectiveness questioned by his teammtes Dr. Light, which starts a fight between the two. Vixen breaks them up.[2] Vixen reassigns Plastic Man to team up with Dr. Light to stop the Royal Flush Gang robbery, when they have some control issues.[3] Later, after the Royal Flush Gang is defeated, Plastic Man and Dr. Light finally stop arguing.[4]
During a massive battle at the Justice League Satellite in Justice League: Cry for Justice, Prometheus injected Plastic Man with a chemical that badly damaged his plastic body. The chemicals caused Eel to suffer from a condition where it took great concentration to keep himself in his usual, semi-solid state and caused him pain, according to him, when he even thought about changing shape, leaving him in an infirm state.[5][6]
In the Blackest Night crossover, while still suffering from his deteriorating state, Plastic Man had his heart torn out by the Black Lantern, Vibe, seemingly killing him.[7] However, due to his powers, he was able to survive such an attack, albeit badly wounded.[8] In the following issue, Vixen stated that Plastic Man was being taken care of at STAR Labs, and that he would be unable to return to the League.[9]
He then appears in Justice League: Generation Lost, helping a large coalition of heroes on an unsuccessful mission to trace Maxwell Lord. He has seemingly been cured of his condition, and was shown retaining his normal shape without issue.[10]
Later, he aids the JLA on their mission into Hell, where he helps Batman defeat Geryon. The League learns Satanus' plans to use the Dante's mask to become powerful. Plastic Man grabs the mask, which possesses him. The Leagues combines forces to remove the mask, which is incinerated, apparently killing Plastic Man; however, it is discovered Zauriel transported him into another dimension. Zauriel helps the League escape Hell.[11]
Following the events of Flashpoint, Plastic Man is considered as one of the candidates for the United Nations-sponsored Justice League International. He is denied a spot on the team for being too unpredictable.[12]
Malleable Physiology: Plastic Man's powers are derived from an accident in which his body was bathed in an unknown industrial chemical mixture that also entered into his bloodstream through a gunshot wound. This caused a body-wide mutagenic process that transformed his physiology. Eel exists in a fluid state, neither entirely liquid or solid. Plastic Man has complete control over his structure.
Density Control: Plastic Man can change his density at will; becoming as dense as a rock or as flexible as a rubber band.
Malleability (Elasticity/Plasticity): He can stretch his limbs and body to superhuman lengths and sizes. There is no known limit to how far he can stretch his body.
Size Alteration: He can shrink himself down to a few inches tall (posed as one of Batman's utility belt pockets) or become a titan (the size of skyscrapers).
Shape-Shifting: He can contort his body into various positions and sizes impossible for ordinary humans, such as being entirely flat so that he can slip under a door or using his fingers to pick conventional locks. He can also use it for disguise by changing the shape of his face and body. Thanks to his fluid state, Plastic Man can open holes in his body and turn himself into objects with mobile parts. In addition, he can alter his bodily mass and physical constitution at will; there is virtually no limit to the sizes and shapes he can contort himself into.
Superhuman Agility: These stretching powers grant Plastic Man heightened agility enabling him flexibility and coordination that is extraordinarily beyond the natural limits of the human body.
Color Change: The only limitation he has relates to color, which he cannot change without intense concentration. He generally does not use this ability and sticks to his red and yellow colored uniform.
Invulnerability: Plastic Man's powers extraordinarily augment his durability. Some stories, perhaps of anecdotal quality, have showed him susceptible to surprise attack by bullets, in one case oozing a substance similar to liquid plastic.[13] In most stories, though, he is able to withstand corrosives, punctures and concussions without sustaining any injury (although he can be momentarily stunned). He is resistant to high velocity impacts that would kill an ordinary person, resistant to blasts from energy weapons (Batman once mentioned that he could presumably even withstand a nuclear detonation), and is bulletproof. His bodily mass can be dispersed, but for all intents and purposes it is invulnerable.
Regeneration: He is able to regenerate and/or assimilate lost or damaged tissue, although he needs to be reasonably intact for this process to begin; he was reduced to crumbs and scattered across the ocean for centuries, only returning to his usual form after the rest of the League were able to gather some of the crumbs and restore approximately 80% of his body mass, after which he began to regenerate what they hadn't salvaged.
Telepathic Immunity: As stated by Batman (in JLA #88, dec 2003), "Plastic Man's mind is no longer organic. It's untouchable by telepathy."
Immortality: Plastic Man does not appear to age; if he does, it is at a rate far slower than that of normal human beings. In the aftermath of the Justice League story Arc "Obsidian Age", Plastic Man was discovered to have survived for 3000 years as little more than crumbs on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. He is now over 3000 years old and is still active as a superhero.
Ultrasonic Detection: His body will start to "ripple" when an ultrasonic frequency is triggered.
His semi-liquid form remains stable at relatively high and low temperatures, provided that the temperature change is gradual. A sudden change induces a complete change of state, creating a truly solid or truly liquid form. Plastic Man was incapacitated in the JLA story arc "Tower of Babel" when mercenaries froze and shattered his body. Once thawed and reassembled, he was physically unharmed (though emotionally traumatized). In the JLA story arc "Divided We Fall", Plastic Man is shown to have some weakness to extreme heat (intense heat vision attack from a martian) and was temporarily melted. In some versions, Plastic Man is also vulnerable to chemicals such as acetone, which melts and destabilizes his putty-like form, although he will eventually regenerate when the chemicals are gone. Another weakness is that the only colors Plastic Man can mimic are the colors of his body and costume (IE: red, black, yellow, and flesh tone), although he can use these colours in various ways, once even managing to exactly duplicate the appearance of the Flash. Whether this is an inherent flaw in his powers or a mental block had never been explained, whereas, his son, Offspring, also gained his father's powers, but is able to mimic any color he chooses; Offspring's introduction revealed that Plastic Man could change colour, turning his nose blue to prove to Batman that he could, but it apparently took a great deal of concentration just to accomplish that much. Also, for a long while it was not known if Plas could take off his costume, but when he rejoined civilian life, he was wearing normal clothing so it appeared that he is able to.
Plastic Man has fought many enemies:
In Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again (2001—2002), Frank Miller's miniseries now set on DC's new Earth-31, Plastic Man was betrayed and locked in Arkham Asylum for years with his body forced into a perpetual egg-like shape (alluding to a container of Silly Putty) by a pressurizing machine. The imprisonment and confinement drove him insane, and upon his release he lashed out at those around him. He fights Elongated Man, having the upper hand until Batman brings Plastic Man to his senses with a punch to the face. Batman declares that Plastic Man is the most powerful superhero in the room. Carrie Kelly (as Catgirl) describes him as being: "Immeasurably powerful. Absolutely nuts." In this continuity, he appears with silver hair and the occasional wrinkle. In All Star Batman and Robin, also written by Miller. Plastic Man has only appeared in issue #5, where he is a founding member of a proto-Justice League, along with Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Lantern Hal Jordan. He constantly changes shape and cracks jokes, and other members repeatedly tell him to "shut up".
Plastic Man (2004–2006), written and illustrated by Kyle Baker, harks back to the Jack Cole version of Plastic Man featuring Eel O'Brian tended to by a monk in a mountain retreat, and inspired by the monks kindness, Eel resolves to use his powers for good, becoming the crime fighter Plastic Man, and works for the FBI. In this series, Plastic Man gets a girlfriend (FBI Special Agent Morgan, revealed as the surgically altered fiancee that Plas' alter ego had left in the 1940s) and adopts a Goth teenage daughter, Edwina. The series won five Eisner Awards for Best New Series, Best Title for Younger Readers, Best Writer/Artist: Humor and one Harvey Award for Best New Series.
In the Tangent Comics imprint, set on the alternate universe Earth-9, Plastic Man is a member of the Secret Six. He is scientist Gunther Ganz, whose consciousness has been transferred to a "living polymer".
In the DC Comics/Marvel Comics intercompany crossover JLA/Avengers, Plastic Man is a member of the JLA and teams with Martian Manhunter in the Marvel locale of Wakanda, where the two encounter the Marvel characters the Wasp and the Black Panther. Plastic Man is replaced by DC Comics' Elongated Man after the merging of worlds.
Plastic Man is mentioned by Sal Paradyse in Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier.
In the alternate timeline of the Flashpoint event, Eel O'Brian is a villain. After Heat Wave was sent to death row after killing Jason Rusch, O'Brian arrives to break him out in the flying fortress of the military Doom prison, having been hiding in the body of his cellmate Cluemaster.[14] During the prison break, O'Brian dislikes being called "Plastic Man", when inmate Sportsmaster calls him by his name. While O'Brian helps him to retrieve his weapons, he discovers Heat Wave attacking the guards' control room and attempting to ram the flying prison at Cyborg's home city of Detroit.[15] O'Brian refuses to let him destroy the city, but Heat Wave turns on him, apparently killing him by using his flame gun to melt his body. After Heat Wave is defeated by Cyborg and imprisoned in Belle Reve, O'Brian is revealed to have survived, and smuggles himself into the prison in Heat Wave's new cellmate's body and advances on him at the end of the page.[16]
The April 19, 1999, issue of The New Yorker features Plastic Man on the cover gawking at a Picasso painting. This issue ran a biography of Jack Cole by Art Spiegelman, which two years later would comprise much of the text in his and Chip Kidd's book Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to their Limits. In the 499th issue of Mad Magazine, Plastic Man can be seen in the magazine's Watchmen spoof during Funnyman's (spoof of Edward Blake/Comedian) funeral.
There have been several versions of Plastic Man immortalized in plastic. In 1979 he was made into a stretch figure for the Mego Corporation Elastic Superheroes line (which is highly sought after by collectors and extremely rare). He was a part of Kenner's Super Powers action figure line in 1986. In 1998, Plastic Man was included in Hasbro's line based on the JLA comic book. When DC Comics started its own toy company, DC Direct, in 1999, Plastic Man was one of its first action figures made. A second figure, this time an interpretation of the character based on the art of Alex Ross, was released by DC Direct in May 2006. In 2009, two versions of Plastic Man were released as part of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold tie-in toy line. Plastic Man was also released as a figure, in DCAU style, in the Justice League Unlimited toyline in late 2009. A new, stretchable Plastic Man figure was recently released in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold toy line, in a multi-pack with Batman and Rubberneck. In 2010, Mattel released a Plastic Man figure as part of the DC Universe Classics line. This figure was exclusively sold at the San Diego Comic Con.
Plastic Man is featured in Wizkids' Heroclix tabletop miniatures game, in his traditional red and yellow costume, in addition to having a regular Rookie/Experienced/Veteran figure in the inaugural DC Hypertime set. In 2003 a convention-exclusive figure was produced which featured the same powers and abilities but with a figure of Plastic Man as a mailbox (actually the mailbox 3-D object token repainted with his costume). Another version of Plastic Man, in the form of a hang glider was released in 2007. Meanwhile, in the VS System Trading Card Game, there was an alternate art version of Plastic Man's first card in VS System, in which his face takes up the entire card.
DC Comics unless otherwise noted.
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