Plastic Man No More! #3 – Christopher Cantwell, Writer; Alex Lins, Jacob Edgar, Artists; Marcelo Maiolo, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: This series is all about the deterioration of Plastic Man – in more ways than one. Eel O’Brien has always been a bit of a scumbag, starting his career as a petty criminal – but the accident that gave him his powers put him on a different path, giving him the motivation to be a hero and the desire to be a father to his son. But he slowly started going back to his old ways – and with the accident that’s making his molecular bonds fall apart, it’s going downhill fast. He’s now worries about his son meeting the same fate, and that’s caused him to take leave of what few moral scruples he has left. Working with Woozy Winks and a shady doctor, he caused an accident that led to the death of the Metal Men to get his hands on the villainous Uranium – who he plans to detonate in an experiment that might fix his problem. But the Justice League has questions about the fatal accident – and Eel absconds before they get too personal.
This issue focuses more heavily on Eel’s bond with his son, as he recruits Luke for one last mission – and then lures him into a trap that shows just how far he’ll go to protect him. This is one of the starkest depictions of desperation I’ve ever seen in a comic, as Eel falls apart physically and mentally, justifying everything and anything to get another lease on life. And all the while, Detective Chimp – one of his best friends, and one of the people who knows he can’t be trusted right now – is investigating the events around the death of the Metal Men. It all builds to a tragic conclusion that reveals that Eel isn’t the only one with a hidden agenda here, and he might be in far too deep whether he wants to continue or not. This story is incredibly bleak, almost unpleasantly so at point, but I can’t say I’m not completely fascinated to see just how Cantwell is going to bring this to a likely tragic close.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
