Comic Review: Plastic Man #1

Plastic Man #1

DC Comics

Writer : Gail Simone

Artists : Adriana Melo and Kelly Fitzpatrick

Plastic Man has always been a character I’ve always wanted to be more familiar with. Sure, I’ve read a mini here and there (Kyle Baker’s series stands tall in my big ol’ dumb brain), and loved it when Morrison was writing him as a member of The Justice League. Eel O’Brien always carried himself like a giant doofus, which was amazing contrasted against Martian Manhunter, as well as Batman and the other no-nonsense types. The gravity of the situations and the idiocy of Plastic Man’s antics could always pull a snicker out of me. So I patiently waited for them to bring back our favorite Plastic-ed man. And I had to be patient because apparently, Plastic Man was an egg until recently for some reason. Yes, I read the entirety of DC’s Metal. No, I do not remember why Plastic Man was an egg. I think it was he saw/felt something bad from the Dark Multiverse, and turned himself into an egg. Anyway, he’s not an egg anymore, he’s featured heavily in The Terrifics by Jeff Lemire, and DC even gave him a mini-series about the early days of Plastic Man by Gail Simone!  DC’s got that Plastic Man fever, and boy is it contagious!

All jokes aside, I think Simone and Melo knocked it out of the park with this issue. The story takes place right after two-bit crook Eel O’Brien had an accident during a robbery and transformed into “PLASTIC MAN!”, and we follow Eel around town as he tries to get answers from his old crew about what went down that night, but then something happens that sets Plastic Man on a whole different path with serious implications. Most importantly, this issue is hysterical. Damn hysterical. It genuinely had me laughing out loud, which is no easy feat for a comic book. Simone really nailed Eel’s narrative thoughts, because yes, they are silly, but also it can get kind of heavy at times, almost like an actual person’s thoughts.  Plastic Man is both the comic relief and the straight man at times, and it doesn’t feel sloppy or forced. I’d feel awful if I left out that I absolutely adore Simone’s dialogue for lowlife criminals. Gail is able to tap into the brain of the over-confident idiot criminal type, who, let’s face it is the most hilarious archetype to play around with. Just promise me more dumb goons and I’ll send you my money on Venmo.

The art by Adriana Melo fits the tone perfectly. It’s really solid art while not being too crazy or flashy, which is a perfect contrast to the stylized Plastic man and his always eye-catching transformations. Very solid work by Melo and I hope we get to see her get real crazy with this series.

All in all, an extremely fun read that I wish was going to be longer than six issues, but I’ll take any Plastic Man I can get my mitts on.