Plastic Man (Patrick "Eel" O'Brian) is a fictional comic-book superhero originally published by Quality Comics and later acquired by DC Comics. Created by writer-artist Jack Cole, he first appeared in Police Comics #1 (August 1941).
One of Quality Comics' signature characters during the Golden Age of Comic Books, Plastic Man can stretch his body into any imaginable form. His adventures were known for their quirky, offbeat structure and surreal slapstick humor. When Quality Comics was shut down in 1956, DC Comics acquired many of its characters, integrating Plastic Man into the mainstream DC universe. The character has starred in several short-lived DC series, as well as a Saturday morning cartoon series in the early 1980s, and as a recurring character on Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Although the character's revival has never been a commercial hit, Plastic Man has been a favorite character of many modern comic book creators, including writer Grant Morrison, who included him in his 1990s revival of the Justice League; Art Spiegelman, who profiled Cole for The New Yorker magazine; painter Alex Ross, who has frequently included him in covers and stories depicting the Justice League; and Frank Miller, who included him in the Justice League in the comics All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again.
Powers and abilities
Malleable Physiology: Plastic Man's powers are derived from an accident in which his body was bathed in an unknown industrial chemical mixture that also entered into his bloodstream through a gunshot wound. This caused a body-wide mutagenic process that transformed his physiology. Eel exists in a fluid state, neither entirely liquid or solid. Plastic Man has complete control over his entire molecular structure.
Malleability (Elasticity/Plasticity): He can stretch his limbs and body to superhuman lengths and sizes. There is no known limit to how far he can stretch his body.
Size Alteration: He can shrink himself down to a few inches tall (posed as one of Batman's utility belt pockets) or become a titan (the size of skyscrapers).
Shape-Shifting: He can contort his body into various positions and sizes impossible for ordinary humans, such as being entirely flat so that he can slip under a door or using his fingers to pick conventional locks. He can also use it for disguise by changing the shape of his face and body. Thanks to his fluid stated, plastic man can open holes in his body and turn himself into objects with mobile parts. In addition, he can alter his bodily mass and physical constitution at will, there is virtually no limit to the sizes and shapes he can contort himself into.
Superhuman Agility: These stretching powers grant Plastic Man heightened agility enabling him flexibility and coordination that is extraordinarily beyond the natural limits of the human body.
Color Change: The only limitation he has relates to color, which he cannot change without intense concentration. He generally does not use this ability and sticks to his red and yellow colored uniform.
Invulnerability: Plastic Man's powers extraordinarily augment his durability. He is able to withstand corrosives, punctures and concussions without sustaining any injury (although he can be momentarily stunned). He is resistant to high velocity impacts that would kill an ordinary person, resistant to blasts from energy weapons (Batman once mentioned that he could presumably even withstand a nuclear detonation), and is completely bullet proof. His bodily mass can be dispersed, but for all intents and purposes it is invulnerable.
Regeneration: He is able to regenerate and/or assimilate lost or damaged tissue, though it does take a long time, its far faster than an ordinary human.
Telepathic Immunity: As stated by Batman (in JLA #88 ), "Plastic Man's mind is no longer organic. It's untouchable by telepathy." (Mostly immune to mind control. It's unknown if Batman meant that Plas is immune to just mind control or to telepathy altogether from that point on...considering Plas's history with mind scans, mind wipes, and the use of J'onn's telepathic link.)
Immortality: Plastic Man does not appear to age; if he does, it is at a rate far slower than that of normal human beings. In the aftermath of the JLA story Arc "Obsidian Age", Plastic Man was discovered to have survived for 3000 years as little more than crumbs on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. He is now over 3000 years old and is still active as a superhero.
Ultrasonic Detection: His body will start to "ripple" when an ultrasonic frequency is triggered.
Weaknesses
His semi-liquid form remains stable at relatively high and low temperatures, provided that the temperature change is gradual. A sudden change induces a complete change of state, creating a truly solid or truly liquid form. Plastic Man was incapacitated in the JLA story arc "Tower of Babel" when mercenaries froze and shattered his body. Once thawed and reassembled, he was physically unharmed (though emotionally traumatized). In the JLA story arc "Divided We Fall", Plastic Man is shown to have some weakness to extreme heat (intense heat vision attack from a martian) and was temporarily melted. In some versions, Plastic Man is also vulnerable to chemicals such as acetone, which melts and destabilises his putty-like form, although he will eventually regenerate when the chemicals are gone.
-- Quoted from Wikipedia
One of Quality Comics' signature characters during the Golden Age of Comic Books, Plastic Man can stretch his body into any imaginable form. His adventures were known for their quirky, offbeat structure and surreal slapstick humor. When Quality Comics was shut down in 1956, DC Comics acquired many of its characters, integrating Plastic Man into the mainstream DC universe. The character has starred in several short-lived DC series, as well as a Saturday morning cartoon series in the early 1980s, and as a recurring character on Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Although the character's revival has never been a commercial hit, Plastic Man has been a favorite character of many modern comic book creators, including writer Grant Morrison, who included him in his 1990s revival of the Justice League; Art Spiegelman, who profiled Cole for The New Yorker magazine; painter Alex Ross, who has frequently included him in covers and stories depicting the Justice League; and Frank Miller, who included him in the Justice League in the comics All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again.
Powers and abilities
Malleable Physiology: Plastic Man's powers are derived from an accident in which his body was bathed in an unknown industrial chemical mixture that also entered into his bloodstream through a gunshot wound. This caused a body-wide mutagenic process that transformed his physiology. Eel exists in a fluid state, neither entirely liquid or solid. Plastic Man has complete control over his entire molecular structure.
Malleability (Elasticity/Plasticity): He can stretch his limbs and body to superhuman lengths and sizes. There is no known limit to how far he can stretch his body.
Size Alteration: He can shrink himself down to a few inches tall (posed as one of Batman's utility belt pockets) or become a titan (the size of skyscrapers).
Shape-Shifting: He can contort his body into various positions and sizes impossible for ordinary humans, such as being entirely flat so that he can slip under a door or using his fingers to pick conventional locks. He can also use it for disguise by changing the shape of his face and body. Thanks to his fluid stated, plastic man can open holes in his body and turn himself into objects with mobile parts. In addition, he can alter his bodily mass and physical constitution at will, there is virtually no limit to the sizes and shapes he can contort himself into.
Superhuman Agility: These stretching powers grant Plastic Man heightened agility enabling him flexibility and coordination that is extraordinarily beyond the natural limits of the human body.
Color Change: The only limitation he has relates to color, which he cannot change without intense concentration. He generally does not use this ability and sticks to his red and yellow colored uniform.
Invulnerability: Plastic Man's powers extraordinarily augment his durability. He is able to withstand corrosives, punctures and concussions without sustaining any injury (although he can be momentarily stunned). He is resistant to high velocity impacts that would kill an ordinary person, resistant to blasts from energy weapons (Batman once mentioned that he could presumably even withstand a nuclear detonation), and is completely bullet proof. His bodily mass can be dispersed, but for all intents and purposes it is invulnerable.
Regeneration: He is able to regenerate and/or assimilate lost or damaged tissue, though it does take a long time, its far faster than an ordinary human.
Telepathic Immunity: As stated by Batman (in JLA #88 ), "Plastic Man's mind is no longer organic. It's untouchable by telepathy." (Mostly immune to mind control. It's unknown if Batman meant that Plas is immune to just mind control or to telepathy altogether from that point on...considering Plas's history with mind scans, mind wipes, and the use of J'onn's telepathic link.)
Immortality: Plastic Man does not appear to age; if he does, it is at a rate far slower than that of normal human beings. In the aftermath of the JLA story Arc "Obsidian Age", Plastic Man was discovered to have survived for 3000 years as little more than crumbs on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. He is now over 3000 years old and is still active as a superhero.
Ultrasonic Detection: His body will start to "ripple" when an ultrasonic frequency is triggered.
Weaknesses
His semi-liquid form remains stable at relatively high and low temperatures, provided that the temperature change is gradual. A sudden change induces a complete change of state, creating a truly solid or truly liquid form. Plastic Man was incapacitated in the JLA story arc "Tower of Babel" when mercenaries froze and shattered his body. Once thawed and reassembled, he was physically unharmed (though emotionally traumatized). In the JLA story arc "Divided We Fall", Plastic Man is shown to have some weakness to extreme heat (intense heat vision attack from a martian) and was temporarily melted. In some versions, Plastic Man is also vulnerable to chemicals such as acetone, which melts and destabilises his putty-like form, although he will eventually regenerate when the chemicals are gone.
-- Quoted from Wikipedia
