Cover: Aaron Lopresti
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Adriana Melo
Apart from some appearances in Adventure Comics during the 1980s and the cartoon on Saturday mornings, I didn't have much Plastic Man experience prior to this but I'm a big fan of Gail Simone's other work so I grabbed this when I spotted it down at the comic shop.
Eel O'Brian takes a shit kicking but that's fine, for he is Plastic Man, Cole City's #1 super hero! Plas is tracking down some old criminal cronies of his to figure out who shot the guard on their last heist and winds up stumbling upon something much bigger.
This is some great shit! Gail and Adriana look to be doing Plastic Man: Year One here.
First off, I love that the story is set in Cole City, a reference to Jack Cole, the creator of Plastic Man. Secondly, this is one hilarious yet gritty book. While he's clearly reformed after the accident that gave him his powers, Plastic Man is plumbing the depths of his criminal past to piece together what happened on his last job.
While Michael Allred would have been my dream artist on this issue, Adriana Melo's art is pretty perfect for the tale. Plas is cartoony without being too cartoony and the transformation into Wonder Woman was worth the price of admission on its own.
Gail Simone does a great job juggling the humor and the seriousness. That's hard to do in detective fiction in general and has to be a lot harder when you're dealing with a character like Plastic Man. It would be easy to descend into ridiculousness when you're dealing with a wisecracking guy made of rubber but Gail sticks the landing.
In today's decompressed times, I don't often feel like I'm getting my money's worth in single issues but this one is stuffed to the gills. I can't recommend it enough.
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