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Underground > Comic Books >

Plastic Man - Kyle Baker

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01:45 / 15.04.05

anyone still reading this? The new one was pretty good, some fun stuff in there about Edweena, his adopted daughter (he saved her from a vampire in an earlier issue) and the freako picked-on goth boy who wants to go out with her.

I feel like this book is doomed to be cancelled around its 25th issue but it's really pretty fun. At one point Woozy is eating a sandwich and the captions promise that the way Woozy eats the sandwich is going to result in MAJOR CHANGES IN THE DC UNIVERSE!!!!

19:42 / 15.04.05

Plastic Man is up for 2 Eisners - best book aimed at younger audience and best humor book. It better win at least one of 'em!

20:05 / 24.07.05

This is still pretty damn funny! Support a comedy book in the DCU (ok, other than the Giffen & DeMatteis JL books) and read it!

Essential Dazzler

21:12 / 24.07.05

I knew this existed but it never really registered on my "Must get" list. I really like Kyle Baker when I've encountered him (Truth, Doom Patrol covers, and Why I hate Saturn). I've got three questions.
Is it written and pencilled by Kyle?
Is any prior knowledge of Plastic Man needed?
Is the series being collected, or do I have to go to Ebay for the singles?

21:21 / 24.07.05

It is written, drawn, colored, and lettered by Kyle Baker.

I'm fairly certain you don't really need to know anything about Plas other than the obvious. This is a non-continuity book.

There's at least one trade out that I know of. You can't miss it; it has a plastic cover.

Essential Dazzler

21:26 / 24.07.05

It is written, drawn, colored, and lettered by Kyle Baker.
And there's the deal breaker. I must own this.

13:06 / 25.07.05

There is only one trade so far, to my knowledge, collecting issues 1-6 I believe.

The latest story is called 'the Edweena Crisis,' (Edweena is the daughter that Plastic Man and his apparently-girlfriend Morgan, a former FBI agent created by Kyle Baker, have adopted after they killed her vampire parents (but Edweena herself is not a vampire, just a teenage goth girl). Baker has many wonderful digs at DC's hype for "Infinite Crisis" and "Identity Crisis" and at DC continiuty in general (the opening scene of the first part of this apparently 4-parter - 3 parts of which have come out so far - featured a random guy that Baker identifies as Joe Chill III with a caption like 'ooooh, that's right JOE CHILL III! Guaranteed to have reprecussions that will rock the DC Universe forever!' Even Baker's 'coming next issue' blurbs at the back of the comic are filled with satiric digs at DC.

And in the latest issue, Edweena and her would-be boyfriend, a superpowered psycho outcast teenager named Ray el Ray, crash a party that Ray wasn't invited to where, among other things, the kids are trashing the house and one kid bakes a phone (taking a phone out of the oven). Priceless.

10:15 / 26.07.05

It’s still a lot of fun, innit ? Had my doubts about the change in art style a few issues ago – it’s more about the linework now, I feel – but it’s grown on me, and the jokes are still very good, especially the digs at crossovers etc.
Like others here, I wonder how long this title will keep going, but it’s a definite case of enjoying while I can!

15:38 / 07.09.05

from Lying in the Gutters....damn. I guess we know a book like this couldn't last long.

---

>> PLASTIC EXPLOSIVE

LITG understands from a DC source that "Plastic Man," this year's Eisner-winning series from Kyle Baker and DC Comics, has been cancelled from issue 20.

Bugger.

It's also interestingly timed as a Plastic Man cartoon show is in the works at Warner Bros, based in part upon Baker's run, although he's been denied any participation in the project.

There may, however, be a epitaph in the form of a Plastic Man/JLA oneshot.

Kyle Baker's quite excellent "Nat Turner" continues publication, uncancelled. Because, well, Kyle's publishing it himself.

Essential Dazzler

09:33 / 08.09.05

I picked up the trade last week and I love it. Laugh out loud funny, even on re-reads. I'm not used to all-ages comics this good (is this the only one?).

And the plastic cover? Excellent!

Touches like that really make a collection feel special. How many books on your shelf don't even have an intro, or few sketch pages? Too many I bet.

(Any shipping dates for Nat Turner? Feels like a month since the first one.)

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:59 / 16.09.05

Could anyone tell me what issue/trade the above is from, and whether the rest of it is that funny? Because if so, it must be mine.

Essential Dazzler

10:43 / 16.09.05

Ah, everyones favourite page. It's in the first trade, if I had to guess I'd say it was around #3 in the singles, the trade isn't divided into chapters.

And yes, a lot of it is as funny as that.

12:41 / 03.10.05

The lastest issue features:

>> “Woozy, things are changing in Our Universe,” Plas says, “People are dying violently. Superheroes are crying!”

As a recent Newsarama review called it, "The perfect chaser to this week’s JLA and OMAC."

15:18 / 13.10.05

Also, in the brilliant latest issue, Plas bemoans his 'dead' girlfriend and adopted daughter:

"Morgan is dead! What a shocking and permanent change to our universe! It is our lot as heroes, to bemoan the loss of our loved ones. Dead! Gone forever! Like Superman! Robin! Hal Jordan! Superman! Green Arrow! Dead forever!"

Later, he scoops up the ashes of the dead people in question and as the ashes get scattered around by accident, he says "It'll be even harder to bring them back from the dead now!"

12:40 / 01.12.05

Please please PLEASE do yourselves a favor and pick up the latest issue, or at least read it in the store (#19). I laughed out loud many, many times...it features Kyle Baker's ode to 'shirtless fighting with Ra's al Ghul'. Priceless. So sad that next issue is the final issue of this book....a truly funny humor comic.

17:21 / 01.12.05

Can I be the only one who got this issue and loved it? Truly, I hope it cannot be so.

18:19 / 01.12.05

I'm going to get it finder, but it is interesting to see how many consecutive posts you can stick together.

19:38 / 01.12.05

I know it seems silly given that I'm one of the only ones to post about this book, but is it a high-quality book.

07:07 / 02.12.05

I agree with you Finderwolf, in fact I went out and picked up the tpb based mainly on the recommendation of this thread, and now I pick it up regularly. This issue was good, and I like all the digs at infinite crisis, other than this I just don't have that much to say about it.

09:47 / 02.12.05

I've creacked, on issue 19, I've ordered it finally. Not that I haven't in the past for any real reasons - I just passed it by. Shame it's the penultimate issue, but I'll post more once I've read it.

04:17 / 03.12.05

oh, and Billy Batson 'dies'.

14:34 / 28.12.05

Newsarma calls it "the best DC book no one's reading" - and the paperback of Vol. 2 of Baker's run came out last week. I am doing my best to spread the word about this book.

Tons of positive quotes (about 11 separate quotes & sources) in the inside cover of Vol. 2 -- except the fact that whoever published the book wrote "hearsay" instead of what clearly is supposed to be "heresy" in the quote from Entertainment Weekly is embarassing to the editors of the paperback collection, methinks.

17:10 / 30.12.05

oh, and in the latest issue, Plas/Kyle Baker references the Ali/Superman fight. Joy!

14:00 / 26.01.06

Final issue out. Just as funny as NextWave, and yet no one seems to have bought Kyle Baker's Plastic Man with much regularity. Ah well.

I'm surprised that I'm one of the few people here who was excited about this book since all of the satire and comedy in it seemed of the sort that Barbelithers joke about every day (esp. all the satire on Infinite Crisis and Identity Crisis in the book).

The final issue features some parodies of the Frank Miller-inspired 'Batman beats up Superman saying Frank Miller-esque thing' slugfest. And Superman saying 'oh NO YOU DIDN'T!!" And Wonder Woman killing Ra's al Ghul over and over again.

19:09 / 26.01.06

Yeah, that was really funny. As were both Dr. Light lines, though I do have to wonder what demographic this last arc ultimately aimed itself at? It's basically industry satire (particularly 8C/ASBARTBW,) and while I'm appreciative and amused, I dunno what that has to do with Baker's initial ideas for the series. I guess he knew the cancellation fix was in some while ago.

19:21 / 26.01.06

True, it is a lot of in-jokes for comics readers.

Although maybe a kid or early teen would still laugh at Superman saying to Wonder Woman "What happened, you used to be so cool and carefree, like back in the days when we used to hang out at Batman's ski lodge listening to old Motown records?" (not a direct quote but very very close)

18:45 / 27.01.06

I read this and enjoyed it. However as someone who traditionally has fallen into the Marvel camp and who isn't really up to date on IC I did get the feeling I wasn't really appreciating all of the jokes. I could spot them, they amused me, but not being familiar with the source of the parody meant I lost some of the impact.

19:43 / 27.01.06

Actually, truth be told I'm not terribly sure I get the last page - like both Capt. Marvel and the Spectre's hosts are dead, but is there a misplaced speechbubble there?

And you know, I may not actually read the Willingham comic this references (but I'll say with reasonable certainty it was pish,) but I'm damn sure I've read about it. Anyone help?

21:03 / 27.01.06

That last page made me kind of scratch my head for a minute, too - in the end, I just figured the gag was that Billy Batson and Shazam are still connected even if Batson is dead...? Or maybe just the sheer silliness of them continually changing places, when they expected something else would happen...? Not quite sure. It made me chuckle, though.

I don't think it has a whole lot to do with the "Spectre goes crazy and wants to destroy magic" plot of Willingham's DAY OF VENGEANCE book - the only idea here is that the Spectre can be without a host or has lots of hosts (Morgan and Plastic Man's adopted daughter were the Spectre's hosts last issue, playing on this whole 'rotating Spectre host' thing in the DCU). There was a fun scene where they argued about what was the coolest way to kill a guy and get the most approriate revenge based on the crime.

19:36 / 03.02.06

That might be the best Wonder Woman, in issue twenty, that I've seen in a long... well, maybe ever.
The Dr. Light gag was painful. And hilarious. Because it's true.
Three weird questions, for folks, though:
(a) Is there a reason none of the women in this issue, other than Plas' daughter, can keep their legs together?
(b) On the themed superheroine's at service page, is Powergirl blowing golden smoke or something?
(c) The end, with dead-boy Batson and Cappy Marvel... am I the only one who wishes this had been the actual conclusion to getting Spectre a new host? Following the Hal Specter it makes a good, superheroes are my new victims, deal... and Billy Batson is totally the innocent continually wronged. And I can't believe they got that Doctor Light gag in there.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

18:03 / 04.02.06

Oddly enough, I thought the comic was great until the final few issues, where it went from a great kid's comic with a LOT of humor to a typical "comic book satire" book that could only appeal to fanboys. Looking over the sales charts, if they would have just kept it as a kid's focused book (and even moved it under the Johnny DC label) it would have been their best selling kid's comic.

Baker's stuff on his own is so good, that I won't miss this comic as much as I would have before he started self-publishing.

12:24 / 05.02.06

(b) I think that 'golden smoke' is just golden gilded stuff/moldings on the wall of whatever place they're having the funeral. Then again, I can't be sure if your question about this was tongue-in-cheek or not. But I'm answering it just in case you were really asking what it was.

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