Who is Plastic Man and what could his film be about?

Warner Bros. announced that a Plastic Man film is underway, and we have some questions (and some answers) about the mailable crook-turned-hero’s cinematic debut.

In an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. revealed that the company is working on a Plastic Man movie. Considering recent news that Warner Bros. is bolstering the future DCEU lineup with a Zatanna movie and a Blue Beetle film, excitement can’t even begin to describe how we feel about the recent DC-related news. If Eel O’Brian and Plastic Man seem like foreign terminology to you, then we can help catch you up to speed so you can join the Plastic Man fandom (or delve further into it) before his solo film drops.

Before Plastic Man became Plastic Man and acquired his metahuman abilities, he was just Patrick O’Brian, though most people just call him Eel O’Brian (or Eel, if you don’t want to be so formal). He first appeared in the DC Comics scene in the early 1940s, in the middle of Adventure Comics #468.

Like many superhero original stories, Eel gained his powers from a serious of chance incidents. The specific issue of Adventure Comics gives readers some critical backstory on his life pre-superpowers: he was a criminal afflicted by an accident that transformed him into an ever-changing, flexible man.

In fact, Eel got his powers from after he failed to rob Crawford Chemical Works with his bad-guy crew. He and his crew weren’t so stealthy because the police and facility guards quickly stopped their shenanigans. While Eel was trying to escape the attempted robbery, a guard show at him, which conveniently knocked over a containing of peculiarly crafted acid—which ignited his transformation into the shape-changing Plastic Man.

Granted, the initial transition to a mailable person was a bit difficult, especially since he was still impacted by the acid. A congregate of monks saved him and nursed him back to health before he fully realized that he wasn’t the same person being the acidic accident. Physically, the altered acid changed his genetic DNA so that his body acts like rubber. We get it: His name is misleading, but we love Eel all the same. On a moral level, the accident changed him, too.

Since life-changing experiences tend to have lasting life-change ramifications on a person, Eel gave up his criminal lifestyle for a heroic one. The accidents don’t stop there, seeing as Eel didn’t intend on dubbing himself, Plastic Man. Shortly after discovering his abilities and stopping a gang-related scheme, he told a reporter that he was “Elastic Man.” However, the reporter misunderstood him and printed in the papers that he was “Plastic Man,” and Eel just accepted his fated alias.

While the Plastic Man film is still in its conceptualization stages, we do know that Amanda Idoko will write the script and that it will have a canonically comedic spin to Eel’s story arch, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s initial reports.

Plastic Man (2018) #3, page 14. Photo Credit: DC Comics.

Though we don’t know much other than the production doesn’t yet have a director, we can assume that Plastic Man’s film will focus on his origin story. Since Eel’s powers are flexible, the movie will likely take some time to illustrate his abilities. After all, he can’t necessarily shapeshift like Madame Rouge, but he can manipulate his physical form to look like certain objects and creatures — without actually becoming those entities, of course.

If you’re looking for an entertaining read on Eel and his pseudo-shapeshifting adventures, we suggest the recent and ongoing comic book run, Plastic Man (2018), written by Gail Simone — you know, the woman who reimagined comic book Wade Wilson and the same woman Deadpool namedrops on screen. He even turns into a shark, well, his head turns into a shark—not that that’s one of our favorite panels or anything.

Plastic Man (2018) #6, page 5. Photo Credit: DC Comics.

If you need reassurance on the character, take it from comic book fan Stan Lee. In the book Stan Lee: Conversations, there’s a passage where Lee talks about his love for Plastic Man and how Eel’s powers inspired his creation of Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic). Lee explains, “I liked Plastic Man. That’s a great power, and nobody was using it. So I gave Reed Richards Plastic Man’s power.”

Given that Plastic Man’s comic book incarnation has been a longstanding member of the JLA, his film debut could also be preparing him to join the DCEU’s next Justice League movie. We could only imagine the dynamic team-ups between Eel and Barry Allen.

Do you have a favorite Plastic Man moment that you hope to see in his solo film? Or do you have any fan theories about his DCEU debut? Let us know in the comments section!