The story of Plastic Man and his creator, Jack Cole
By Jamie Coville
Some say he is the Jim Carrey of superheroes, but Plastic Man has been
making people laugh a lot longer than Jim has. Plastic Man first appeared
in Police Comics #1, published in August 1941 by Quality Comics. He
originally started off as a back up story, along with Quality Comics other
heroes. He turned into a superstar for Quality, and became the lead character in
Police Comics within a year. Plastic Man would then get his own comic in the
Summer of 1943.
His first story was also his origin. Police Comics #1 tells how a robber
called Eel O'Brian "The toughest gangster afoot" was cracking open a safe
with some of his buddies, when the police showed up and a shoot out followed.
During the melee, Eel was shot and a vat of acid falls over him, getting into his
wound. Eel manages to escape and wanders up to a mountain retreat. He passes
out a bit before he gets into the retreat, but wakes up and finds he is being
cared for by a monk. The kindness of the monk swings Eel to the side of the
straight and narrow.
He then realizes that he has aquired fantastic stretching ability and decides to
use it to stop crime. In Police Comics #13, Plastic Man picks up a side kick
known as Woozy Winks. He was a small time criminal who was made
invulnerable by a witch after saving her from drowning. Woozy Winks was very
different from other side kicks of this era. At this time, heroes had
young boy side kicks like Robin or Bucky to sell the comics to young male
readers. Woozy Winks was a small, fat guy wearing a polka dot shirt,
and added jokes to the story. During World War II, Plastic Man would
become a secret agent for the FBI.
What made Plastic Man important to the comic industry, was that he was a
real shot of creativity. All sorts of superheroes were being created during
the early 1940's. Just when you thought nothing original could be done,
Plastic Man showed up.
Plastic Man could do things none of those other characters could do. He
could turn himself into a lamp, rug, chairs, disguise himself as someone
else or anything else he wanted to. Plastic Man also added a lot of humor to
the stories. Other superhero titles had comedy in them, but nothing quite as
zany as Plastic Man.
Note:
Some say Plastic Man is the first "stretchy" hero ever. This is not
true. Marvel Comics created a character called "Thin Man" a year before
Plastic Man came out. "Thin Man" had the ability to turn himself two
dimensional, he had height and width, but no mass. He could slip though
anything. But without a doubt, Plastic Man was more creative and more
popular than "Thin Man" was. Plastic Man was also the obvious inspiration for
DC's Elongated Man, and Marvels' Mr. Fantastic.
Plastic Mans creator was a guy named Jack Cole. Most say Plastic Man
comic books have never quite lived up to the quality of his stories. Jack
Cole was born December 14, 1918 in New Castle, Pennsylvania. As a kid, he
enjoyed the comic strips and practiced drawing by copying them, but Jack
didn't feel his art was good enough. At age 15, while reading a magazine he
saw an advertisement for the Landon School of Cartooning and asked his
parents to buy him mail correspondence art lessons. His folks told him no,
but that didn't stop Jack. He saved up his lunch money and his allowance and
paid for the lessons himself. Jack made sure he didn't go hungry though,
before school he was crafty at stealing sandwiches and placing them in a
hollow book.
The art course helped Jack quite a bit, and he decided to put his skills to
use by anonymously producing an underground newspaper. The paper was called
"The Scoop" and made fun of his teachers and classmates with gossip and
pictures. Jack was caught, and his father ended up locking up the mimeograph
machine Jack used to make the paper. At 16, Cole went on a solo bicycle trip around
the country. He graduated high school in 1933 and a year later he married
Dorothy Mahoney. Jack also got a job at the American Can factory and
seemingly settled down.
The desire to be a cartoonist was still in Jack. In his spare time, he would
draw and send his work out to magazines looking for a sale. Eventually, Jack
sold a few cartoons, his first work was in 'Boys Life' magazine in 1935.
Jack then decided to borrow 500 dollars move his family to New York to look
for full time cartoonist work. The work didn't come right away. It took Jack
a while to find steady work and the payments for the bits of work he did
find did not come promptly. Financially things got very bad for the Cole
family, then Jack found Comic Books. His art style and off beat humor
managed to land him a job working for the Harry "A" Chesler studio. He started
working on strips like Silver Streak and The Comet and did many different
filler stories for various comics.
Editor Everette Arnold liked Jacks work and asked him to join the Quality
Comics staff. He did and began working on parodies of the Spirit and
Blackhawk comics called Midnight and The Death Squad. He then created
Plastic Man for Police Comics. He worked on Plastic Man until 1954 and also
did some crime and horror comics like 1952's Web Of Evil. Later he would
quit comic books to do freelance work. He sold some art to high profile
magazines like 'Colliers' and 'The Saturday Evening Post'. In 1955 Cole did
work for 'Playboy' Magazine, where his work were ladies drawn with bright
watercolours, often at Hugh Henfers suggestion. The feature was called
"Females By Cole". In 1958, Jack moved out to Chicago and began working on a
comic strip for The Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate. The strip was called 'Betsy
and Me' and was to appear weekdays and Sundays.
Throughout his life, Jack had emotional problems. Even as a boy, he would go
through severe bouts of depression and radical swings to sheer unexplained
happiness. Despite his shy, sensitive and introverted personality, he would
often play pranks on his coworkers. Nonetheless, his depression would cause
him to buy a pistol, drive out to a highway and commit suicide in August of
1958. Jack Cole died at age 43. His life long dream of becoming a comic
strip cartoonist had finally come true, but Cole would die before 'Betsy and
Me' was to see print.
Jack Coles most famous creation, Plastic Man, would last 102 issues in
Police Comics and in the summer 1943, Plastic Man received his own title. It
would end with issue 64. The Quality Comics characters were later bought by
DC Comics. They would re-start the Plastic Man title and it would span 20
issues, from 1966 to 1977. 3 years later, in issue #467 of Adventure Comics,
Plastic Man would become a regular feature until issue #478. In 1988, Plastic
Man would get a 4 issue mini series, and had his own cartoon at one time.
Plastic Man has made his return once again. He reappeared in Superman #110
and again in DC Comics best selling title The Justice League of America in
issue #15. He would soon become a member of the League, and now he is
getting his own 38 page special. The book will be an anthology of stories
and gags designed to tickle the readers funny bone. It will be written by Ty
Templeton and will include various artists from Ty Templeton, Dev Madan,
Mike Manley and others. Ty says that Woozy Winks will return as Plastic Mans
side kick and will get a revised origin. Some of Jack Coles Golden Age
Plastic Man stories will be published by DC Comics in an Archive book,
similar to the Superman and Batman Archives. Look for both of these projects
to come out in the fall of this year or in 1999.