Gail Simone and Adriana Melo knocked it out of the park with the first issue of Plastic Man last month. Can issue #2 keep up the perfect hybrid of crime and comedy?
Eel didn’t like it when a spy blackmailed him over his secret identity, and then a kid found out, and now the dancers at his club know and the concept of a secret identity has gotten stretched way the heck out of whack. But the dancers are helping him find the kid, who was nabbed by some bad guys who don’t know his secret identity, just his costumed persona, which is still a terrible day, even in his pretty rotten life.
Tell me about it!
The artwork on Plastic Man #2 by Adriana Melo continues to be fun and cartoony as well as having some fantastic coloring by Kelly Fitzpatrick. It has this real fun and light art style which both works with and against the tone of the story that Gail Simone is setting up. While there are undertones of it being a much darker plot with a very upbeat and happy character, it also reflects the character himself more with how the artwork is presented. The issue is also full of little Easter eggs presented through Melo’s art, the first of which being a small tongue-in-cheek reference to how some Robins appear for a short amount of time before disappearing after a small amount of time. Another one is a three panel group that references the Hobbit, Transformers and Iron Man with small little quips about them written by Gail Simone. This really shows how well the writer and artist mesh together.
The page of “try and find” is a real fun page that works in the context of what’s happening in the story while also being a fun activity for the reader, with its small jokes such as Dan Didio appearing, an original design Challenger of the Unknown and the fact that there’s a potential Robin there too. The issue just does real fun comedy so well while also doing a serious storyline along side it, with a different artist I’d say it’d be a different story but Melo just captures it so well.

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