By Jack Cole (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-835-8
As adroitly recounted by European comics historian and film critic Andreas C. Knigge in his Foreword to this fourth beguiling Deluxe Archive collection, Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of America’s Golden Age of Comics.
Before moving into the magazine and gag markets he originated landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero comicbooks, and his incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled. It was a glittering career of distinction which Cole was clearly embarrassed by and unhappy with.
In 1954 he quit comics for magazine cartooning, becoming a household name when his brilliant watercolour gags and stunningly saucy pictures began running in Playboy from the fifth edition. Cole eventually moved into the lofty realms of newspaper strips and, in May 1958, achieved his life-long ambition by launching a syndicated newspaper strip, the domestic comedy Betsy and Me.
On August 13th 1958, at the moment of his greatest success he took his own life. The reasons remain unknown.
Without doubt – and despite his other triumphal comicbook innovations such as Silver Streak, Daredevil, The Claw, Death Patrol, Midnight, Quicksilver, The Barker, The Comet and a uniquely twisted and phenomenally popular take on the crime and horror genres – Cole’s greatest creation and contribution was the zany Malleable Marvel who quickly grew from a minor back-up character into one of the most memorable and popular heroes of the era. “Plas†was the wondrously perfect fantastic embodiment of the sheer energy, verve and creativity of an era when anything went and comics-makers were prepared to try out every outlandish idea…
Eel O’Brian was a brilliant career criminal wounded during a factory robbery, soaked by a vat of spilled acid and callously abandoned by his thieving buddies. Left for dead, he was saved by a monk who nursed him back to health and proved to the hardened thug that the world was not just filled with brutes and vicious chisellers after a fast buck.
His entire outlook altered and now blessed with incredible elasticity, Eel resolved to put his new powers to good use: cleaning up the scum he used to run with.
Creating a costumed alter ego he began a stormy association with the New York City cops before being recruited as a most special agent of the FBI…
He soon picked up the most unforgettable comedy sidekick in comics history. Woozy Winks was a dopey indolent slob and utterly amoral pickpocket who accidentally saved a wizard’s life and was gifted in return with a gift of invulnerability: all the forces of nature would henceforth protect him from injury or death – if said forces felt like it.
After failing to halt the unlikely superman’s impossible crime spree, Plas appealed to his sentimentality and, once Woozy tearfully repented, was compelled to keep him around in case he strayed again. The oaf was slavishly loyal but perpetually sliding back into his old habits…
Equal parts Artful Dodger and Mr Micawber, with the verbal skills and intellect of Lou Costello’s screen persona or the over-filled potato sack he resembled, Winks was the perfect foil for Plastic Man: a lazy, greedy, morally bankrupt reprobate with perennially sticky fingers who got all the best lines, possessed an inexplicable charm and had a habit of finding trouble. It was the ideal marriage of inconvenience…
This lavish, full-colour hardback barely contains the exuberantly elongated exploits of the premier polymorph from Police Comics #40-49 and Plastic Man #3 (stretching from March 1945 to Spring 1945), and opens with an outrageous murder mystery in Woozy’s loon-filled boarding house as ‘The Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder’ inexorably lead to a fatal stabbing and the ever-imaginative Plas aping the victim until the culprit tries to kill him again…
Police #41 details how an epidemic of shoplifting threatens to close a department store, but when Plas and Woozy hunt down prime suspect ‘Louie the Lift’ they soon discover the thief is only the stooge of a far more dangerous crook, whilst ‘The Diabolical Dr. Dratt’ is clearly his own maniacal man; conning innocent strangers into distilling a deadly new weapon which could level the city…
In ‘Arctic Circle Adventure’ the misshaped manhunters head to the far north to save a little professor’s radium mine from claim-jumpers but none of the polar perils compare to the ardour of marriage-mad Hut Sut who thinks Woozy is the man of her dreams, after which the big goof helps a down-&-out drifter get into a old folks home and precipitates a ‘Murder at the home for the Aged’. Thankfully Plastic Man is on hand to ascertain the identity of the assassin-wolf in the well-wrinkled fold…
Sheer absurdity – and Woozy – trigger a city-wide disaster when a founding father determines to sell the smelly, garbage-strewn land the city is built on back to the Indians and Plas’ poltroon pal makes it happen. Soon ‘Chief Rain-in-the-Trap’ and his braves are running roughshod over everyone and the chameleonic cop is intent on discovering if there’s a pale face behind all that war-paint…
Issue #46 reveals the genesis – and demise – of ‘The Owl’s Witch Union’ as a crook realises magic has as much power as the A-bomb and organises all the city’s sham shamans and con conjurers to take control of the state by eradicating its legislature and government…
‘Slicer and Doser’s Medical School’ finds Woozy trying to save his partner’s life when a pair of deranged surgeons decide to dissect Plastic Man for the sake of science and the betterment of humanity, and it’s just such noble sentiments which prompt inventor Jasper Tipple to design ‘The City of the Future’. Sadly since honest entrepreneurs won’t provide the venture capital to build it the poor fool accepts dirty money and sees his masterpiece become a safe-haven for crooks… until Plastic Man takes an elasticated hand…
The monthly exploits end here with Police Comics #49 (cover-dated December 1945) and the sad tale of a young lady whose physical blandishments were merely average but who nevertheless had the power to make men into helpless puppets.
After years of men acting like slaves around her naturally she fell for the one man immune to her gifts. Such a shame he was a murderous conman and she was so naïve and love-struck…
It was more luck than wit which saved Plas, Woozy and ‘Thelma Twittle, Super-Charmer’…
Rounding out this stylish slapstick selection is grand quintet of tales from Plastic Man #3 (Spring 1946) which opens with ‘The Killing of Snoopy Hawks’ wherein Woozy is threatened by a gossip columnist who ends up dead. Although the cops feel certain it’s the confirmed felon at fault, Plastic Man is equally suspicious of the former banker, upcoming actress and brutal prize-fighter also on the victim’s scandal-list…
The Pliable Paladin almost meets his match when a criminal sociologist hoodwinks a trio of genuine magic makers into destroying the only barrier to his nefarious plots in ‘B. T. Tokus and the Witch Doctors’ after which the stooge becomes the star as ‘Woozy Winks: The Escape of Smelly Pitts’ finds the Dolorous Dope attempting a (semi-legal) get-rich-quick bounty-hunting scheme only to be captured by his target, and fooled into getting married…
Plastic Man’s uncanny abilities are then explored in prose short ‘The Hand Behind’ before this superb slice of superhero silliness concludes with a daring tale of High Seas drama as at-long-last body-conscious Mr. Winks goes in search of deodorant and becomes embroiled in an ambergris-smuggling racket, which is only the tip of an illegal iceberg.
When the oaf turns up missing again, Plastic Man gets on the case and soon discovers and closes ‘A Whale of a Tale’…
Augmented by all the stupendously hilarious covers and a ‘Biographies’ feature detailing the author’s amazing achievements and unhappy life, this is another true gem of funnybook virtuosity: exciting, breathtakingly original and still thrilling, witty, scary, visually outrageous and pictorially intoxicating more than seventy years after Jack Cole first put pen to paper.
Plastic Man is a truly unique creation who has only grown in stature and appeal and this is a magical comics experience fans would be crazy to deny themselves.
© 1945, 1946, 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.