RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 7

 

I suppose I like this one partly it was the first Drake PLASTIC MAN I bought, purchased in a secondhand store. In addition, #5 pits Plas against an international cabal of crooks, which may have inspired Drake to craft a wider variety of silly jokes.

My favorite, for example, is the name of a Russian rogue named Ivan Byturnozov. For years, I mentally pronounced the surname wrongly, until I belatedly realized the reason why parts of the name sound like "bite" and "nose."

The Russian rogue, a British bounder and a French fiend all make attempts on Plas's life, with predictable failures. But when the international crime-cabal is at its collective wit's-end, a hulking goofball, The Assassin, claims that he can do the job. After trouncing some of the crooks to show his power, the helmeted horror appears to complete the mission. But no, it's Plas in disguise, hoaxing the ne'er-do-wells. Yet the trick turns against the trickster, when the authentic Assassin shows up.

The two Assassins fight, and inevitably Plas's pliable nature is exposed. He does get neutralized by a fink with a paralysis beam, but Gordon comes to his rescue, after which Plas returns the favor. 

I've sometimes asserted that Arnold Drake was the only gag-writer in comic books who could touch Stan Lee for sheer quantity of funny lines, and the Assassin story, more than any other issue, shows the writer at the top of his game in that regard.