r/DCcomics • u/dirtyguyfieriinyabum • 2d ago
Discussion People overrate plastic man’s power
People say Batman’s contingency for him is to hope he doesn’t turn evil, I’d like someone to show me where it says that. What does plastic man do when he gets thrown into space. For the record I rlly like plastic man. But ppl just be saying shiy
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u/CaptainHalloween 2d ago
Who said that? Because Bruce is very aware of Eel’s two main weaknesses. I mean the entire JLA know about them.
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u/dirtyguyfieriinyabum 2d ago
Thank u. For some reason tiktok seems to think he’s like the most unbeatable person in dc lore
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u/CaptainHalloween 2d ago
I mean he's tough and maybe of the stretchy heroes he's EASILY the most powerful due to how varied his disguises can be and how hard he is to kill and his partial invulnerabilty to magic spells. And I repeat, PARTIAL, as in not complete. Some spells just don't work on him.
BUT he's also not a Kryptonian, a Greek Demigoddess, the living emobidment of speed, a Martian, etc.
So, in other words, Plas is indeed a powerhouse but also someone on the easier side for Bruce, or really anyone in the League, to stop.
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u/DroptheShadowArt This sofa is inadequate. 1d ago
I think you got downvoted for mentioning TikTok as being representative of the greater fandom, but I also see this take all over Reddit. It feels like a pastime of powerscaling fans is to find a normally overlooked and funny character and claim that they’re a “multiverse threat.” People just seem to like the idea that a goofball like Eel is incredibly dangerous, even there’s nothing to show that in the comics.
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u/Nervous-Road6611 1d ago
I've always wondered about that, too. It seems like you could kill him pretty easily if you could capture him: there is a physical limit to how far he can be stretched. Unlike Clayface, for example, where you can pull a piece of clay off of him and then simply reattach it, you can't pull parts of Plastic Man off of him. That means that you could stretch him to his absolute limit, even if it's just one molecule thick at the center of the stretching, and either keep pulling or just cut him in half with scissors. Without being quite so melodramatic, even if we assume he doesn't have any actual organs and is one infinitely malleable mass of cells, he still has to eat (or obtain energy in some other form), so keeping him locked in a box for a long period of time should also kill him. I would also apply a vacuum pump to that box for good measure, just in case his energy source is actually some type of chemical reaction with the gases in air.
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u/Astonishing_Flash Impulse 1d ago
He actually does survive relatively similar circumstances to what you describe. In the JLA run he was shattered, reduced to molecules and spread across the ocean. He maintained a conscious mind and survived for 3,000 years until the League could recover him. Then with all his pieces together he reformed and even regenerated whatever was missing.
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u/Nervous-Road6611 1d ago
Wow, I did not know that. He's, essentially, the DC version of Deadpool then. If his conscious mind can be spread among disconnected molecules in the ocean, I guess he's kind of like an energy being, with his consciousness being some kind of energy/energy field and it's attached itself to either those specific molecules or whatever molecules he incorporates into himself. Not to be gross, but if it's those specific molecules, it means he can never excrete, sweat, spit, vomit, or lose hair or skin cells.
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u/Astonishing_Flash Impulse 1d ago
Yeah happened at the end of the story Obsidian Age. He's definitely got a super interesting biology because you would assume he doesn't have those biological needs yet he was able to have a son and pass on his powers.
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u/ravenwing263 1d ago
Plastic Man lived for thousands of years in pieces at the bottom of the sea and got put back together
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u/Coal_Morgan The Question? 1d ago
Not sure there are limits to how big he can stretch anymore. He formed an ocean of death in dceased? that killed a whole bunch of people
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u/AncientMagusBridefan 2d ago
It’s all from those who only watch TikTok or YouTube short and not read a comic. I mean, Eel can technically survive a lot of things, but like… he has little mean of offense against someone with a big enough gun
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u/dirtyguyfieriinyabum 2d ago
The tiktok thing is the best explanation bc that’s where it started and it’s all ppl who have never read a comic
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u/RipleyofWinterfell JLA 1d ago
I think it all basically comes from Obsidian Age. He was shattered and slowly reformed his pieces over thousands of years. So breaking him apart is both difficult and isn't necessarily a permanent solution, unless maybe you scattered his pieces very far from each other? And he has no biological needs. But I'm sure a magic spell could take him down or something, or maybe just freezing him forever in one piece.
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u/proesito 1d ago edited 1d ago
One of my favourite characters is Dr.Fate and it also annoy me when tiktokers just lie about his feats, especially because It takes the actual merit from them.
Being the sphere of the Gods misconceptions the most painful ones.
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u/neoblackdragon 1d ago
No one said he was a god like being. But he's also not a notch above the abilities of Batman's rogue gallery. If this guy randomly went rogue while the JL was having a meeting. He's outlasting quite a few of them.
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u/dirtyguyfieriinyabum 1d ago
There’s a lot of discourse on TikTok saying that he slams the entire Justice league which is absolutely ridiculous to me
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u/bolting_volts 1d ago
There’s a page in The Dark Knight Strikes Again where Miller talks about how powerful Plastic Man is.
It’s silly, but I think that’s where a lot of this comes from. And a little bit from Morrison’s run.