thisiscomics:Plas is back in his own series! And he is not...

thisiscomics:

Plas is back in his own series! And he is not afraid to ask the difficult questions, particularly about wang.

The opening sequence is quite a neat bit of narrative mis-direction, as it initially seems like a revisiting of the origin of the character (wang aside. I don’t recall Jack Cole featuring a great deal of wang in his comics). This wouldn’t be too surprising given Rebirth etc. and the fact that Eel hasn’t had his own comic for a while (the Kyle Baker series in 2004-2006, I think was the last), although it would be a contradiction to the ‘egg’ seen in Dark Nights: Metal.

It turns out to be an echo rather than a retelling- post-wang gag, we see that Eel O’Brien has his powers already, and was revisiting the shady gangster milieu of his pre-Plastic days as part of an investigation into his own past. Thus it becomes a sequence with some nice nods to history, for those that know it, as well as establishing who Plas is, and was, for anyone new to the character.

Simone strikes a nice balance between the wacky comedy aspect of Plastic Man and a crime/superhero story, which hopefully appeals to those who like either approach. I certainly loved reading the almost anarchic comedy in the original Cole strips, and it’s always good to see this referenced (despite what DC TV/film producers think, not everyone works with a dark and gritty treatment), but for longevity and successful storytelling, I think there is a need to try and balance that with a more weighty form of narrative. The Kyle Baker series was mainly humour, and as fun as that was (and funny), it seems there isn’t a large market for funny books that are actually funny, unfortunately. Grant Morrison’s use of Plas in his Justice League is probably a good example of where the character’s fun-side was successfully combined with large scale threat and cosmic adventure. Simone’s series is much more street level than that, but shows a similar ability to shift register without any narrative dissonance, so I think we can be certain that we are going to get 6 quality issues of Plastic Man and maybe people will demand more once they give him a try. If nothing else, we need to know if he will ever learn the truth about wang….

From Plastic Man 1, by Gail Simone, Adriana Melo, Kelly Fitzpatrick & Simon Bowland