By Jack Cole (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-621-4
Jack Cole was one of the most uniquely gifted talents of American Comics’ Golden Age, crafting landmark tales in horror, true crime, war, adventure and especially superhero genres. His incredible humour-hero Plastic Man remains an unsurpassed benchmark of screwball costumed hi-jinks: frequently copied but never equalled. In 1954 Cole quit comics for gag and glamour cartooning, becoming a household name when his brilliant watercolour gags and stunningly saucy pictures began running in Playboy with the fifth issue. 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.
OnAugust 13th 1958, at the moment of his greatest success he took his own life. The reasons remain unknown.
Without doubt – and despite his other comicbook innovations and triumphs such as Silver Streak, Daredevil, The Claw, Death Patrol, Midnight, Quicksilver, The Barker and The Comet as well as through a uniquely twisted take on the crime and horror genres – Cole’s greatest creation was the zany, malleable Plastic Man who quickly grew from a minor back-up character into one of the most memorable and popular heroes of the Golden Age. “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…
This second superbly lavish full-colour deluxe hardback reprints Plastic Man #1 and the cover-featured lead tales from Police Comics #21-30, covering August 1943 to May 1944 and sees, after a convivial commentary in the Foreword by author, strip writer and historian Ron Goulart, the Stretchable Sleuth’s meteoric rise, fully converting from hilariously edgy benevolent rogue to malleable super straight man as his comedy relief sidekick increasingly stole the show in a series of explosive exploits which shaped the early industry every inch as much as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman or the “Shazam†shouting Captain Marvel…
Eel O’Brian was a career criminal wounded during a factory robbery, soaked by a vat of spilled acid and callously abandoned by his thieving buddies. Crawling away to die, O’Brian was found 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, gifted with incredible malleability (he surmises it was the chemical bath mingling with his bullet wounds), Eel resolved to put his new powers to use in cleaning up the scum he used to run with.
Creating a costumed alter ego he began a stormy association with theNew York Citycops before being recruited as a most special agent of the FBI…
Shortages and government rationing were gripping the country at this time. For publishers it was lack of paper that particularly plagued and Plastic Man #1 was released (a Summer 1943 cover-date) through a subsidiary company Vital Books, rather than as a straight addition to Quality Comics’ prestigious line of stars.
Irrespective of the name on the masthead, the mammoth 64 page tome offered a quartet of stunning tales of humour, heroic hi-jinks and horror, beginning with cover-featured ‘The Game of Death’ in which Plas and his inimitable, often unwanted assistant set upon the trail of an engrossing mystery and incredible threat posed by a rich man’s gambling club which concealed a sadistic death cult using games of chance to recruit victims …and new disciples…
Said assistant Woozy Winks was an indolent slob, paltry pickpocket, utterly venal yet slavishly loyal oaf 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 thief’s impossible crime spree, Plas appealed to his sentimentality and better nature and, once Woozy tearfully repented, was compelled to keep him around in case he strayed again…
Winks – 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 – was the perfect foil for Plastic Man: a lazy, greedy, ethically challenged 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 perfect marriage of inconvenience…
In ‘Now You See it, Now You Don’t’ the rotund rogue got involved with a goofy Professor and became the greedy owner of an invisibility spray. He wanted to sell it to the Army but Japanese spies captured both the formula and Plastic Man, and dispatched them toTokyo for disposal.
Of course this simply allowed the Man of a Thousand Shapes to deliver such a sound and vicariously joyful thrashing to the Dishonourable Sons of Nippon that it must have had every American kid who saw it jumping for joy.
Cole then touched the heartstrings with the tragic tale of ‘Willie McGoon, Dope’ as a hulking yet gentle simpleton disfigured by neighbourhood kids became the embittered pawn of a career criminal. The duo’s terrifying crime-wave paralysed the city until Plas and Woozy stepped in.
The stunning solo package closed with ‘Go West Young Plastic Man, Go West’ after Woozy bought a gold mine from a guy in a bar and greedily galloped to Tecos Gulch to make his fortune. By the time Plas arrived to save him from his folly the corpulent clown had been framed for rustling and murder…
Police Comics #21 featured conspiracy by a financial cabal attempting to corner the travel and shipping routes of the nation. Only one man could counter the impending monopoly but he was missing, seduced by the prognostications of a circus fortune teller. If Plas couldn’t rescue Sylvester Smirk from ‘The Menace of Serpina’ the entire country would grind to a standstill…
In #22, ‘The Eyes Have It!’ pitted Plas and Woozy against a child-trafficking human horror dubbed The Sphinx who was exercising all his resources to regain possession of a little mute boy who had seen too much, whilst #23’s purportedly supernatural thriller saw the Stretchable Sleuth prove ‘The Ghost Train’ to be no such thing, but only a scam by a shareholder trying to buy up a rail line the Government needed to acquire for vital war work.
A rash of tire thefts (also severely rationed during war time) in Police #24 had a sinister purpose as gangsters and a mad scientist joined forces to synthesise evil knock-offs of their greatest enemy in ‘The Hundred Plastic Men’ after which Woozy again stole the show – and sundry other items – when his addiction to mystery stories led him and Plastic Man on a deadly chase to discover the culprit and cause of ‘The Rare Edition Murders’ in #25.
Over and above his artistic virtuosity, Jack Cole was an astonishing adept writer. His regular 15-page adventures were always packed with clever, innovative notions, sophisticated character shtick and far more complex plots than any of his competitors. In #26’s ‘Body, Mind and Soul’ he starts with Plas’ FBI boss discovering his shady past, and builds on it as the exposed O’Brian agrees to a take on three impossible cases to prove he really has reformed. From there it’s all rollercoaster action as the Pliable Paladin rounds up brutish Slugger Crott, ferrets out the true identity of the city’s smartest mob boss and ends the depredations of a tragically cursed werewolf…
The rotund rascal again took centre stage – and even the cover – in #27 as ‘Woozy Winks, Juror’ hilariously endangered the very nature and sacred process of jurisprudence after being excluded from jury duty. After all, he only had a small criminal record and the impish imbecile was determined to serve so when a sharp operator gave him a few tips Woozy was so grateful that he…
The star-struck schmuck dominated again in #28 as Hollywoodcalled and the Flexible Fed agreed to star in a film. However with Mr. Winks as his manager it was inevitable that ‘Plastic Man – the Movie’ would start with intrigue, sex and murder but as usual end as a furious fun-filled fiasco.
The trail of America’s biggest tax-evader drew Plastic Man to ‘Death in Derlin’s Castle’ as the FBI’s Odd Couple followed the absence of money to an historic pile and a nefarious scheme with moody movie echoes of Citizen Kane and The Cat and the Canary, before this sublime Archive selection ceases with the outrageously odd and supremely surreal ‘Blinky Winks and Gooie Louie’ from Police Comics #30.
Plas and Woozy are drawn into incredible peril when ruthless butter-leggers begin supplying illicit spreads to the city’s dairy-deprived (rationing again) denizens. Even dedicated crime-busters like Woozy found it hard to resist the lure of the lard and when the creamy trail unfortunately led to Woozy’s uncle Blinky justice had to be done. Of course there was always lots of hard-to-find food to be found on a farm but that was just a happy coincidence…
Always exciting, breathtakingly original, thrilling, funny, scary and still visually intoxicating seventy years later, Jack Cole’s Plastic Man is a truly unique creation that has only grown in stature and appeal. This is a magical, unique comics experience fans would be crazy to deny themselves.
© 1943, 1944, 2000 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.