New Plastic Man Black Label series announced
Word Balloons #1220: "Plastic Man No More!" is set for September 2024 release
One DC hero may be stretched to his limits.
A new Black Label series from DC Comics will star Plastic Man, in a series in which his powers are failing him.
Eisner-nominated Christopher Cantwell and Alex Lins are the creative team for the series “Plastic Man No More!”, which features both hardboiled mystery and body horror.
While this seems edgy for Plastic Man, the character has been pulled in multiple directions throughout his 80-year history.
Jack Cole’s “Plastic Man” was decades ahead of its time, both in his own title and in “Police Comics.” The former gangster turned pliable hero was the star of these stories, with a mix of slapstick, action and humor.
“I don’t know about you, but when I think about Plastic Man, I immediately think of David Cronenberg,” said Cantwell in a news release. “There is an element of body horror to his story that I have always found fascinating. And I also found myself wondering recently—How would Plastic Man actually die? What would that look like? Is he immortal? And then I thought of the long and particularly nasty way real plastics and petroleum products break down when and if they finally do. That’s how I learned about depolymerization and the chemical process of ‘unzipping,’—from a particularly morose afternoon on the ol’ Internet, picturing what might happen to Eel if his entire cellular structure started to give way.”
Here’s how DC Comics describes the new Black Label series, aimed for readers 17+.
Eel O’Brian might be a superhero now—but before he was anything else, he was a crook. Until the accident that turned him into the pliable Plastic Man, Eel was bad to the bone…and just because he no longer has bones doesn’t mean that’s not still true. When an incident on a Justice League mission leads to catastrophic cellular damage, Plastic Man discovers he just might be out of time to make amends for the past he’s tried hard to outrun—or to save the soul of his son, who (unfortunately for him) might have inherited more from dear old Dad than just his superpowers…
“There are many superhero stories that play with the metaphor of our own inability to control our physical bodies,” said Cantwell. “Plastic Man provided a way to take that allegory even deeper. How we look in the mirror and see one thing, then see a photo of ourselves and don’t recognize the person at all. How we all break down over time. What’s this strange itch? Why is this sagging? Why does this hurt now? Is my face permanently going to look like this? Or get even worse? With all these questions in the story comes a real and profound fear of aging, and yes, what lies beyond that—dying. And when someone like Plastic Man is suddenly looking at the end of the road, and now reflecting on his legacy, he begins to wonder: was he ever taken seriously by anyone? Did he even take himself seriously? The character also has a history of neglect and failure when it comes to personal relationships. So quite catastrophically, Patrick O’Brien suddenly finds himself desperate, asking WHAT NOW? HOW DO I FIX THIS? ‘THIS’ being his very body, his very cells, as well his connections to the people he loves. And just WAIT until you see how horrifically and hilariously Alex Lins and Jacob Edgar have rendered this referendum on our vanguard ultra-bendable former-criminal-turned-hero-guy."
“Plastic Man No More!” #1, written by Cantwell with art and main cover by Lins, additional art by Jacob Edgar, color by Marcelo Maiolo, and lettering by Becca Carey, is set for a Sept. 4 release.
Variant covers for the book are by Michael Allred, Chris Samnee, and Tyler Boss in a 1:25 ratio.
Want to read more Plastic Man?
The “Plastic Man Archives” from DC have gone at least partially out of print, but are findable, collecting the brilliant Jack Cole’s work on the character. They are also available in digital formats, as are 1980s and 1990s stories with the character.
Plastic Man was notably part of Grant Morrison’s “JLA” series as part of the Justice League of America, joining in March 1998’s “JLA” #16.
Art Spiegelman and Chip Kidd in 2001 created a book examining Jack Cole and Plastic Man, called “Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits,” that’s a terrific primer on the character and his creator.
Kyle Baker was the writer/artist of an award-winning “Plastic Man” run from 2003-2006, collected in the book “Rubber Banded.”
More recently, in 2018, Gail Simone wrote a “Plastic Man” miniseries with artist Adriana Melo, which is still available in a collected edition.
Matthew Price, matthew@matthewLprice.com, has written about the comics industry for more than two decades. He is the co-owner of Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman.