The Plastic Man Archives, Vol. 8 by Jack ColeMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Plastic Man Archives Volume 8 collects Plastic Man #9 and 10 and Police Comics #72-77.
I've been grabbing these Plastic Man archives whenever I stop one that falls into my cheapness range. The cover price is $50 but $25 and below is more my speed. Anyway, this is good shit.
Before the arrival of Neal Adams in the 1960s, comics were traditionally drawn in a style more akin to cartooning than illustration. Jack Cole was one of the best of the cartoony style of comics in the 1940s and 1950s, up there with luminaries like Will Eisner.
That stretchy sleuth Plastic Man is up to his old tricks in this volume, going up against magicians, gangsters, a femme fatale robot, and a stamp counterfeiter. The writing isn't anything spectacular by today's standards and was probably average for the time period. Plas is a straight-laced FBI agent who happens to have ridiculous powers and his sidekick Woozy Winks providers the comic relief. I don't know when Plastic Man started acting like a buffoon all the time but he didn't do it under Jack Cole's watch.
Cole's cartoony style is minimalist but intricate. He uses angles and panel design to his advantage and makes imaginative use of Plastic Man's stretch powers to put together some amazing visuals. The stories are fun and don't take themselves too seriously, which is a nice change of pace. I'm not a tremendous fan of comics from before the silver age but I'd read Jack Cole's Plastic Man all day long.
Jack Cole's Plastic Man deserves all the praise it gets and more. 4 out of 5 stars.
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