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| "Tex Avery Plastic Man" from Plastic Man vol.4 #15 (DC, 2005) by Kyle Baker |
Post-Crisis, the DCU gave us some better Plastic Men. The Phil Foglio mini-series was a return to the Jack Cole aesthetic with a dollop of Ambush Bug self-awareness. Morrison's JLA made him a trickster worthy of the team. And then there was the Kyle Baker series (with help from various artists over the course of its 20 issues), idiosyncratic, highly cartoony, and award-winning. It might have gone too far for most DC readers though, and only equaled the publishing record set by the previous DC series.
You missed the Ty Templeton one-shot, unless that was critique by omission. Certainly that would be the case with the Wolfman/Anderson team-up featuring Green Lantern. I got turned onto the Pliable Paladin after a lifetime of hating the character by the Spiegelman book, but haven't enjoyed pretty much anyone's take besides Jack Cole's. For me, the problem is that I like Plas as the straight hero in a crooked world, but integration into the DCU made him a pitiful jester in a straight world.
ReplyDeleteNot on purpose, I'm just more concerned with "series". It doesn't help that I never got the one-shot, though I did read the GL team-up and well, not great.
ReplyDeletePlastic Man is one of those characters that makes a good argument for keeping some characters in their own little bubble where they can enjoy the proper tone for their stories. The Marvel Family are another.