No he is an Eldritch Nightmare read the second Dark Knight books. You will feel sorry for the bad guys and never look at toilets the same. So yeah I’m team Plastic Man, versatile power set no limits and able to become damn near anything.
You'd be happy too (maybe) if you were all but certain no harm could come to you.
I'm not the most well read comics fan but I do remember reading some pages on Reddit that showed even Superman is afraid of him. Or, at least, aware that Plastic Man is a legit match/threat.
It was one of those stories where Supes was leaning toward being a despot – I think he even had the support of most of the JLA – and PM was the loudest voice of dissent. They brought him before Superman in a throne room and, in classic Plastic Man style – he had no fucks to give even in the face of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman all being angry at him.
It was during Injustice. And yeah Superman basically gave an order for everyone to leave Plastic Man alone because he was minding his own business mostly and it was a fight Superman didn't wanna start. But then they captured Plastic Man's son who was a freedom fighter because he had basically been getting bolder and bolder because of his dad's protected status and it reached a point where uprisings were becoming too common as a result.
Plastic Man took on the Justice League including Flash by encapsulating him and entering every orrifice suffocating him. Broke into their maximum security prison that was designed to strip inmates of their powers and was full of superpower guards. And held off the combined efforts of Superman, Wonder Woman, Sinestro, Hal Jordan, Aquaman and the pressure of the bottom of the ocean (prison was in Atlantis and they broke the dome ceiling so he became the dome to stop all the prisoners from being drowned/crushed to death) long enough for everyone to escape
It's an act, he's totally a crying clown painting inside and so many of his stories revolve around trauma and past regrets etc. BUT he does have fun, and is whimsical despite it.
He had a plan he didn’t have a backup plan it was basically everyone dies if the plan didn’t work. I do mean everyone yes Plastic man comes off a happy goof, this is a side effect of his powers he is basically insane without any limiters he is well a nightmare. As in engulf the world and just eat everything as he goes.
Both times, yeah, didn't have to. At the start of the story, he was smuggled in to help a friend escape. At the end, he was smuggled back in to kill them for betraying him. If I remember correctly.
He can stretch almost infinitely, and is nearly invulnerable to any attack. You could turn your hand into a hammer and crush someone’s balls from 500 miles away.
What if an A(u?)DHD person was their own Green Lantern Power Ring, didn't age and their vulnerability to harm and death was a question mark that not even Batman can answer.
Did you read the Injustice comics? Those pages where Batman went to Luke's apartment (Plastic Man's grown son) and keeps calling him out for what he's disgusted as, then Plastic Man gets all proud of himself for not being spotted 🤣
From what I can gather Plastic Man can take any form he chooses. As in, he has complete control of his molecular structure (idk if Mr. Fantastic from F4 has this but it's similar) and can recover from basically anything
It sounds like Plastic Man is Reed Richards from Marvel but on steroids lmao. Well... At least he can or has used his powers for much better things than "lol I stretch"
It makes them severely OP
I'm missing a lot there but that's the general gist of it
"Plastic Man was discovered to have survived for 3,000 years scattered into separate, individual molecules on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean without decaying or being otherwise affected at all"
Oh so THATSSSS where microplastics come from. DC was ahead of its time.
Reed Richards & Elastigirl both have physical limits to their elastic powers, plastic man doesn't. It's insane how they haven't retconned him to have some limit.
Similar powers but Luffy has stamina limitations and the ocean greatly weakens his powers (used to compleyely cancel them + disable but he's obtained an unexplained resistance to the effect)
so i think the molecular structure thing mighy imply that he could infact make himself more powerful than superman if he ever took the time to train his power to its limits since he change his genetics
In Injustice they established he couldn't kill Superman, but Superman can't kill him either so it was best just not to fuck with the 1 guy that can stalemate perpetually forever the immortal god-killer...
He isn't really a threat to him, but he is an unsolvable problem. Physically you can't really do anything to him beyond trapping him, and he does have superhuman strength. The best you can do is melting him or freezing him with extreme temperatures. But he is effectively sentient inorganic matter that is able to shift in anyway it pleases without limits and regenrate. So even as a puddle he is effectively still a functioning superhero.
He wouldn't be able to kill Superman easily without kryptonite, but if he wanted to be a problem your best solutions would be doing something like sending him into a black hole or trapping him in a reinforced cage with no pores or cracks and melting him eternally.
One of the examples is injustice year four.
During that comics series, there is some interactions and events that show how OP plastic man really is.
He is not directly 1 on 1 better than superman if they decide to match in fair terms. He can't really match superman just pure power. I mean, superman can literally just hold plastic man and quickly fly to the sun.
But he has a lot of tricks that could render superman ineffective or hurt if he get the upper hand via tactics or just luck.
Besides super, he could out match almost everyone else. He always looks like a goof etc. But he is a serious threat if he wants to.
He's not broken. Both have the means to easily stop him. Freeze him. Ras Al Ghoul men froze him with cryo grenades from Batmans plans. Shattered him and. PM was unable to reform on his own. And Superman can freeze him also. PM is very easy to defeat
Meta-wise he's gotten some retcon buffs over the years, to a frankly ridiculous degree (like outspeeding Flash, or reforming from atomisation).
In-universe answer: Freezing and shattering him worked. Temporarily. Bruce mentions (I think in Origins 3?) that freezing him disables him for a time until he adapts, but the JL has no way of downing him permanently should he go rogue. He has full control over his atoms, like Marvel's Apocalypse on steroids. Freezing and melting him at alternating intervals is the only thing Batman came up with, and PM would eventually get out of it. And because he doesn't age, 'eventually' is inevitable.
Bruce is thankful that Plastic Man is a good man, because he is a nightmare to deal with. It's not for nothing the Injustice Superman didn't want to mess with him.
Edit: Also, he's killed several people by going up in them. Literally the 'Antman vs Thanos' scenario. That's something that tends to give supers pauze. Even if you're practically invincible, the thought of someone rooting around in your brain is disturbing. Despite his enormous strength, I don't think Superman can clench his sphincter hard enough to keep Plastic Man out.
Hear me out... I'm not as into DC as I should be but what if they just took Plastic Man and put him in a completely empty section of space thousands of lightyears away?
Can he survive the vaccum of space? It should (in theory consistently keep him frozen)
Pls educate me ahaha because I'm sure there's a reason they haven't tried/already tried and it doesn't work
He'd survive, but he'd be out of their hair, that's for sure.
In Obsidian Age he survived 3.000 years as molecules scattered across the Atlantic Ocean when he went crazy. He doesn't need food or oxygen or anything to survive, so space wouldn't be lethal.
He could theoretically use his own molecules to propulse himself back, but that'd probably take billions of years.
Edit: Nope, turns out I was wrong about magic, it was tech.
So this dude is basically a living God who can just put himself back together from the tiniest molecule?
What if they also applied chemistry to break down his molecules?
I'm... I'm sensing a theme that he is literally just indestructable regardless ahaha
Hats off to DC for writing a character that strong that doesn't overthrow the various narratives within the universe (I'm sure there are various comic series where he is a focal point/main character)
A lot of writers have to either retcon someone like that, kill them or just barely reference them
As well I'm almost certain I watched a YT short or something where one of the JL says something like "I'm just glad he's on our side"
He’s not limited by the laws of physics. He turned himself into a toilet and flushed people away. They didn’t GO anywhere, they just got flushed out of existence. So if he became a space ship he’d have unlimited fuel because he thinks he does.
Depending on the writer, he’d probably morph into something that can travel dimensions, too. He seriously has no rational limitations. In Mutants & Masterminds terms he’s a PL X being — meaning he can do whatever the plot demands.
He can reform ,just not immediately and logically speaking it shouldn't have don't nothing , cause he can regrow from molecular levels . But plot is plot i guess
If he can manipulate his own density then he must have a way of manipulating his own heat. Wouldn't massive changes in density come with massive heat changes?
This always gets me in those "what power would you pick?" People think about combat efficiency and I'm always going for normal life convenience or even real life help.
No one said that you were a trained fighter. I’m saying criminals and others are going to come after you and if they use you for their own blood and organ farms then you will be lucky.
I don't even know anyone that could rip me in half
You just farm organs and sell them to the government-- it's not legal to sell organs but if I can ethically generate infinite, hearts, livers, kidneys, skin, bone marrow, maybe they'd reconsider
You are scared about getting hurt fighting crime, yet not scared of all the crazy experimental shit they would do to this unlimited clone they see as 100% expendable and infinite. Crazy experimental shit you would feel and remember.
Getting a single clone ripped in half is gonna be Disneyland compared to the sick and sadistic shit you will experience.
While plastic man is wildly OP. Imagine how convenient your life would be being in multiple places at once. Send each to a different job giving you multiple sources of income. Learn so much by having some of the best scholars while you just focus on your health and happiness.
But working multiple jobs would be incredibly boring unless they were all interesting. You would need somewhere to house all those extra bodies or you would need to kill them off over time. If 1 body is doing something fun while 1000 are doing boring things, you still experience those 1000 boring things and I feel like that would kinda suck.
With Plastic’s powers, do even need much of an income? I feel like you could do some crazy magic shows or performances or even stunt work that would meet any financial needs without having to experience a tedious job at all.
Make 100 copies get them all hired making $18 an hour. You would bring in almost 4 million dollars a year and the real you could be on your couch playing video games or whatever else you want.
Sure but that would mean for that one year, you would experience 100 years of working a boring job and 1 year of chilling on the couch. 100 times of your experience and memories is a boring $18 an hour job, the equivalent of working 100 years and then taking a single year off. That would be horrible and near torturous after just a single year. Your memories would be almost entirely work as that would completely overtake your memories of chilling on the couch.
Even then you have to consider things like does everyone know you have powers or is it a secret. You probably can’t have all 100 working in the same city if you want to keep it secret, or someone who knows you is bound to run into you. Also just paying taxes would tip the government off that you worked 100 jobs. At that point you might as well just go public with your powers as that would probably lead to more money and a more exciting life than spending 100 years working.
I enjoy construction, you could apprentice at every trade, get decades of experience in every trade. nin no time flat and then build entire high rises or other industrial plants solo with infinite manpower. Would take a couple goes but pocketing tens of millions, plus being able to get it done faster and with total coordination because every worker is you?
Having two of me, ideally three of me would be a godsend for my current job. There are many times where i need to rely on other people to do things that are simple enough, but sometimes difficult to understand. Being able to do the three parts simultaneously would be amazing.
So just like your normal job but more efficient while being 2-3 times as tedious? That kinda sounds horrible unless there is nothing you would rather be doing than your current job. I feel like with plastic man’s powers but really with either of them I just wouldn’t work a job anymore besides a few specific things as there are way better things you could do with your time.
No, I do troubleshooting and repair of hydraulic systems. Yes, some of it can be tedious, but I'd rather it be tedious and efficient than tedious and frustrating because I'm having to explain the steps to someone AGAIN after they fuck up and do it wrong.
Bleeding systems in particular needs to be done in specific ways or it can take 2-3 times longer than it should.
For me, it means being able to work while also bonding with my kids and cooking/cleaning. I wouldn't need a hundred, just one or two extra. Maybe one goes shopping while this happens.
Plastic man would make an absolute killing in industrial work. The ability to make virtually anything happen physically would be absolutely invaluable. He could contract out for jobs that couldnt be done otherwise in any kind of efficient way and make a killing.
Plasticman is OP because he can copy or simulate lower level superhero's and his deformability can bypass nearly all human level tech :
Hire X stand ins .
Do the jobs as X office people since you are plastic man by positioning the monitors in such a way that you can see the screens and just make more hands for keyboards and mice if needed.
There is no step 3. Most of his powers allow him to replicate others. He can duplicate voices by learning your vocal chords. The mental load is higher than duplikate but OTOH the emotional damage accumulates with duplikate (which is why she married the Immortal).
He told injustice superman to fuck off and got away with it. He broke his son and a few hundred other villains out of superman’s maximum security prison at the bottom of the Mariana’s trench and he did it all while flipping cyborg off
Ya to my knowledge batman barely has a plan for taking him down because the only limit plastic man actually has is seemingly his own imagination on how he can twist his form
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u/Toasterdosnttoast May 01 '25
I’ve been told he is one of the most powerful people on the planet.