DC Comics 2018
Written by Gail Simone
Illustrated by Adriana Melo
Coloured by Kelly Fitzpatrick
Lettered by Simon Bowland
Meet Eel O’Brian: a petty thug, thief and con artist who runs a strip club. Hey, he’s also dead, at least according to the gang that tossed him out like last week’s garbage. Literally. Don’t worry, though-he bounced back from all that, and now he’s trying to make a new life for himself, but the effort is stretching him pretty thin. How can he get revenge on his old boss, keep a street kid out of trouble, make a dancer fall in love with him and stop a mysterious society from taking over the world? Eel has no idea!
Not to poo poo anything but when is this story supposed to take place? I mean Metal establishes that Eel has been around a while, long time comics readers know he was created in World War II era of comics but if we are forgoing all that in favour of new reader friendly then okay. I am just a little confused as to when this is supposed to be unless Eel is back after the events in Metal before being a part of the Teriffics and he’s trying to settle old business then okay. I’m just a little lost as to the when this is supposed to be.
Now from here out I am going to approach this as a band new entity and from that regard Gail hits home run with this. I mean I like that Eel goes back to the group of men who were responsible for his “death.” it is everything you could want in a story and it’s only just beginning I love that Gail is able to show us some burgeoning detective skills to go alongside his career as a stooge and mix that with all the over the top humour that he uses as a defence mechanism when he’s Plastic Man. How it all manages to come together is only something I think Gail is capable of doing to this much success.
The way that this is structured is brilliant and how the book flows throughout and ties it to the mainstream DCU is somewhat surprising. The opening is strong and powerful as we get to see Eel’s reunion with his best friends. Though it is also the moment he meets Pado and learns a new word which will apparently become a thing, hearing it used and Eel asking if it still meant what he knew was the kind of funny that isn’t intentional but is and it’s brilliantly done. So if that becomes a thing and means something other than what it has Gail should get credit heh.
Adriana’s work here is utterly delightful and let’s be honest how many people thought Plastic Man was cute? Eel’s face is handsome take off those white goggle things and there’s a good looking man so that we see this is great. The utilisation of page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off her amazing eye for storytelling. Also the backgrounds we see being utilised just make me happy and it’s too bad this is DC for everyone because I would like to see what Obscura did to make her change her mind. Adriana has found the right work to blend the humour and seriousness behind the character and his world and it’s so much fun to see.
I like that Eel wants to figure out his past and how exactly things went down. Why his former friends would so casually discard him? So I don’t know if the exposure to what made Plastic Man changed his brain too or if this is his way of coping with his pretty recent past doesn’t really matter he’s here and he’s in way over his head. The cliffhanger style ending leads us to believe he’s been set up but we’ll see.
This is the DC I remember and want to see again. This is fun, interesting and full of what makes comics so damn entertaining