One doesn’t normally put Plastic Man, film noir, and David Cronenberg in the same sentence, but Christopher Cantwell and Alex Lins’ new DC Black Label series aims to do just that in Plastic Man No More!
The four-issue mature readers series finds the comical Eel O’Brian transported into a hard-boiled tale filled with humor, body horror, and existential questions. According to Cantwell “I don’t know about you, but when I think about Plastic Man, I immediately think of David Cronenberg. There is an element of body horror to his story that I have always found fascinating. And I also found myself wondering recently—How would Plastic Man actually die? What would that look like? Is he immortal? And then I thought of the long and particularly nasty way real plastics and petroleum products break down when and if they finally do. That’s how I learned about depolymerization and the chemical process of ‘unzipping,’—from a particularly morose afternoon on the ol’ Internet, picturing what might happen to Eel if his entire cellular structure started to give way.”
Stricken with a deadly case of catastrophic cellular damage, Plastic Man must confront his past and prepare for a grim future. Cantwell saw this hook as an opportunity to “…play with the metaphor of our own inability to control our physical bodies .Plastic Man provided a way to take that allegory even deeper. How we look in the mirror and see one thing, then see a photo of ourselves and don’t recognize the person at all. How we all break down over time. What’s this strange itch? Why is this sagging? Why does this hurt now? Is my face permanently going to look like this? Or get even worse? With all these questions in the story comes a real and profound fear of aging, and yes, what lies beyond that—dying. And when someone like Plastic Man is suddenly looking at the end of the road, and now reflecting on his legacy, he begins to wonder: was he ever taken seriously by anyone? Did he even take himself seriously?”
Cantwell also admits that “The character also has a history of neglect and failure when it comes to personal relationships. So quite catastrophically, Patrick O’Brien suddenly finds himself desperate, asking WHAT NOW? HOW DO I FIX THIS? “THIS” being his very body, his very cells, as well his connections to the people he loves. And just WAIT until you see how horrifically and hilariously Alex Lins and Jacob Edgar have rendered this referendum on our vanguard ultra-bendable former-criminal-turned-hero-guy.”
Plastic Man No More! #1 (with additional art by Jacob Edgar, color by Marcelo Maiolo and lettering by Becca Carey) will arrive at your local comic shop on September 4 with four covers to choose from by Lins, Michael Allred, Chris Samnee, and Tyler Boss (1:25 variant).
Check out all of the covers and a preview page below and stay tuned to Conskipper for all of your Plastic Man and DC Black Label news.
