Across its first four issues, Plastic: Death & Dolls has asked one simple question — what’s the measure of a man when said man is a murdering psycho? Not every chapter of this latest Plastic story has been as robust as the other, but especially since the peak that was issue #4, this story has felt like it’s building to some important insights into Edwyn and even us as readers.
What we get with the fifth and final issue, then, is more of what’s made Plastic this important, extra compelling exploration of how the best and worst of mankind is a tricky web indeed, and maybe that’s all the revelations and understanding we could ever truly desire.
Leading up to issue #5, Edwyn had been going back-and-forth trying to protect a young girl named Cricket from a nasty man named Callan. Booker, a young blind boy and son of the diner owner employing Edwyn, got caught up too, and thus Edwyn’s tried to save the day in his own way. Issue #5, then, sees Edwyn go all John Wick as he makes one final stand for the youngsters as well as decency and good manners in general.
And to some extent, the sudden turn toward uber violent action film is a little jarring, even as artist Daniel Hillyard and colorist Michelle Madsen have spent this run of Plastic crafting some especially gorgeous and wholly theatrical slayings/beheadings. But the pair approach this grand finale with the same inventive streak and flair for the dramatic, and what we get are overwhelmingly violent fights that exude a confidence and focus that inevitably shows us who Edwyn is at his core.
Main cover by Daniel Hillyard and Michelle Madsen. Courtesy of Image Comics.
That this idea of him being a killing machine, with the utmost brutality and precision, is informed by this deep well of humanity within our peculiar hero. That he can do the things he does because he has the future of Booker and Cricket racing in his thoughts, and it’s a more robust and thoughtful version of every cheesy action movie we’ve ever seen. By seeing Edwyn operate so effortlessly, we more clearly see what he’s capable of when the people he cares about are in danger and when the idiots of the world would threaten that peace and stability.
Does that somehow make him a good/better man? No way, he murdered dudes with a bunch of sporks. But as Plastic has tried to do in this “origin” story, it’s less about answers and more challenging your own ideas and morals about these kinds of matters. The story’s poked and prodded us in some great ways, but there’s something about this issue’s massively satisfying action scenes that just pushes that moral pondering into overdrive.
Writer Doug Wagner has a penchant for bringing up these big ideas about good versus evil and even the role of violence in society in a way that’s 1) a little understated and thus more effective and 2) always in alignment with the art, where the visuals do a lot of the heavy lifting and foster true engagement. Perhaps Wagner’s greatest contribution to issue #5 is some Edwyn dialogue that demonstrates that dynamic really well — little word choices and a slight tonal shift that drive home this modified action hero approach, what value that has emotionally and contextually for Edwyn, and how playing with the extreme nature of this narrative helps to contextualize this story’s ideas about the true nature of humanity.
It’s a function aided by the continued mirroring of present-day Edwyn with his younger self, where we learn, among other things, what happened to his mom and his “rivalry” with her boyfriend, Cassidy. From a visual standpoint, the art team deliver once more, fostering this sense of nostalgia (through a feel not unlike old VHS tapes) to draw comparisons and also ground Edwyn’s complex nature in the warmth of the past. These choices, then, foster a deep history of Edwyn’s ideas and choices, and force readers to spin through these added layers in fully tackling something big and systemic in nature.
Variant cover by Daniel Hillyard and Michelle Madsen. Courtesy of Image Comics.
But it’s more than just the mere presentation of the past. It’s about showing Edwyn in a position of vulnerability even after he’s dispatched someone. Or, the way blood appears somehow especially “wrong” on his youthful exterior. It’s these decisions that ultimately inform, extend, and even simultaneously offset our understandings and perspectives. To get us to grapple with our assumptions of the past and future and ask big questions. Like, was this always the path for Edwyn, or could things have been different? Did the past make the monster, or is it all just a convenient explanation? Was Edwyn a bad kid trying to make excuses, or a good kid who got lost in feelings and thoughts infinitely larger than himself and the world?
It’s the narrative skeleton, again in service of the visual prowess of this story, that asks questions rather than giving answers or firm declarations. And by doing so, Plastic: Death & Dolls never passes judgment or slow-pitches us answers to these especially massive ideas. Instead, as past and present seemed to blend together through this perfectly melded visual-narrative marriage, so too are we forced to contend with this thing that’s both inviting and discomforting. We are compelled to come to things ourselves, and to never pass the buck off to a story whose only job was to capture a story with vivid power and intensity. If he’s good, then it’s on you, and same if he’s a rotten egg. But you damn well know that you’ve come to that through a prolonged and passionate engagement with the Plastic story.
I don’t want to spoil the very end of Plastic: Death & Dolls, but it’s another especially powerful visual moment and a robust callback to volume one. What I will say, though, is that it does one vital thing: frame the sheer size and scope of this book, and how it’s as much something uplifting and also deeply unsettling.
It’s a final affirmation of what this book, but this miniseries especially, has done and how it’s always tried to wrestle with us every step of the way. Whether that was always the most compelling encounter is up to you, but you must applaud the Plastic team for fighting tooth and nail in a way that honors the very difficult core of this book. That as funny and bloody as it was, it’s ultimately a story about deciding how to be human when that’s not always an easy prospect.
I certainly hope Edwyn’s story has more chapters (no matter how complicated that is) because his true measure is a rich and lively character whose story is also very much our own.
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