It’s hard not to think of Joe Pesci’s most famous scene from Goodfellas while reading DC Comics‘ Plastic Man No More! #1. While nowhere near as aggressive as the iconic “Am I here to amuse you” speech, what the series seems to posit is: what if the clown didn’t want to be a clown anymore? And what if nobody noticed?
The plot is pretty simple… Eel O’Brian, better known as Plastic Man, has gone from a life of crime to being the court jester of the Justice League. On a run-of-the-mill mission against a Z-tier bad guy, Plas gets blasted with a heat ray… And subsequently starts to fall apart. Only as it turns out, the damage he’s suffered is permanent, and he’s going to die. Worst of all — and spoilers past this point — it might be genetic. This means Eel’s son, who also has his elastic abilities, may die, too. So with little to no time left, Eel sets out on a mission to save his son.
While the “falling apart” metaphor is the main driver of the action, the strongest bits in the issue are the ones dealing with Plastic Man being the “funny one.” Basically, nothing he says in the entire issue, at any point, is an actual joke. That seems purposeful on the part of writer Christopher Cantwell. Everyone in the Justice League hysterically laughs at his every statement, then proceeds to talk over him. They don’t take him seriously, because Eel doesn’t take his own life seriously. As he says in an early flashback, “I’m the punchline.” But like Pesci in Goodfellas, he’s not actually funny, nor is he a clown. He’s a guy who fell into a vat of chemicals and gained the ability to stretch himself into strange shapes. To be clear, that did not happen to Pesci in Goodfellas (though maybe in the Director’s Cut, I don’t know).
This lack of actual humor extends to Eel’s relationship with his son, by the way, who mostly acts as a foil in this first issue. Eel is trying to seriously discuss his son’s potential death, but can’t get a word in edgewise. Eel has gotten so used to being treated as a joke, he doesn’t know how to work his way around to a serious conversation.
That emotional thrust works, and Alex Lins’s art works in the issue, as well. He leans into that cartoony nature of Plastic Man, down to gross moments like pieces of the “hero’s” body dripping off down the drain, or the constant colostomy bag-esque sack of dripping flesh Plas is carrying around with him. And it seems like the body horror aspect will amp up in subsequent issues.
What doesn’t quite work is the balance of all of this, which is just getting started here. This is very much a setup issue, and over the course of the Black Label series, it will live and die on the relationship between Eel and his son — which doesn’t get as much time as necessary.
But if you’re a fan of Plastic Man, and hoped that some day someone would give him the time and pathos he deserves, then this might be the comic for you. Just don’t call him a clown.
Plastic Man No More! #1 Rating:
Plastic Man No More! #1 Official Synopsis:
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…