Remember Plastic Man? Sure you do!
Here's one more Plastic Man-centric comic book that was released near the end of the 90s. At the height of Grant Morrison's take on the Justice League which brought Plastic Man back to the front of the scene thanks to his slot on the team's roster.
That is when this One Shot special, brilliantly orchestrated by writer-artist Ty Templeton, was released. Its role was having fun and exploring Plas' outside the JLA team (though they do appear here and there, like on this comic's cover)...
Comic title: JLA
Art by Ty Templeton, Aaron Lopresti, Dev Madan, Claude St. Aubin, Rick Burchett & Walden Wong
Stories by Ty Templeton
All color by Chris Chuckry
Published by DC Comics
From 1999
Lineup Plastic Man
Format: Special One Shot stand alone issue of about 38 pages released during summer.
"Featuring the man of India rubber Plastic Man and his portly pal, Woozy Winks!"That's what it says directly on the first page!
Plastic Man 38-Page Special is a special issue featuring various little tales of Plastic Man and his sidekick Woozy Winks.
All the content was plotted and written by Ty Templeton who even did a bang up job at even drawing some of the features in this comic book.
This isn't even his first time having fun with one of DC's pliable here. Coincidently, he wrote the Elongated Man feature in the Elongated Man/Plastic Man: Secret Origins comic some years earlier.
Plas and Woozy are on the case, villains beware!!
This special features mostly 3 lengthy principal stories.
The first one is a comedic solo adventure of Plas and Woozy facing a group of Canadian (!!) supervillains, the media and their new found popularity in the showbiz.
Pretty fun, I could even picture this as an episode, had Plastic Man finally gotten his well deserved solo cartoon series nowadays..
In the second story, after a brief look at Plastic Man's origin as Patrick "Eel" O'Brian once more time, we finally get a threat with his bumbling pal's origin in "Why is Mr. Winks so Woozy?"
A very fun story, based around plot elements alluded briefly in Morrison's JLA.
Thankfully, it doesn't take itself too seriously as Plas' fans might fear.
Silly and plausible origin story for comic book's best sidekick ever!
Finally, the last story called "The Age of Crisis on Infinite Clones Saga" is as it implies, a big funny parody on the comic book medium and its fanbase and clichés.
Ty Templeton even appears in this one in a great self-parody. Definitively the main feature and highlight of this special.
The book features a wide range of artist, some more comedic others more "usual" (which suits the last auto-parody segment). All of them seem to be really having fun with Plastic Man's unique feature. (hint: his elastic proprieties)
The comic also features some other non-sequential pages. "Plastic Facts", "How to make your own Plastic Man Action Figure" both beautifully illustrated by Mr. Templeton (I kinda wish they'd gave him a Plastic Man on-going series).
And even a zany interview about Plastic Man's past movie while we wait for his upcoming modern take on theaters. What? You did not know about Plas' original movie on the silver screens? Well... You need to get this 38-Page Special and find out about it in this unique interview!!! :'3
Overall, BWA HA HA HA!!
This kinda summarize this whole special issue!
A pure gem, sadly underrated.
The book is very fun, DC truly needs to publish more humor titles like this again.
Plastic Man fans need to grab a copy of this, DC Comics fanboys and other comic book readers might want to give this a try too.
Just an overall perfect little one shot, fun, well drawn and great writing.
I give it:
