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Kyle Baker: Heroine (Quicktime required, kind of loud, but entirely worksafe.)
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Plastic Man: On the Lam
And now, having finally read the first volume of this series, I can cheerfully say ... I'm truly astonished at how much Kyle Baker got away with.
But first, let's discuss the packaging, shall we? Let's shall. It was twice-over plastic; that is to say, it was shrinkwrapped in cellophane, and the cover itself is this (slightly stinky, actually) rubberized plastic thing. Nice hook into the concept -- although it did seem to make for binding that was a little looser than a regular trade would have been.
As for the content ... ah, yes, the content. Essentially, with volume 1 of Plastic Man, Baker does a fairly merciless lampoon of the Batfamily's "War Games" set, up to and including the "Huh?" rebirth of Red Hood. If I understand the publication dates correctly, he was doing this while War Games was being published. Mind, that sort of parody is about the only way Plastic Man is going to hook into normal DC continuity -- it sort of cheerfully ignores almost everything happening anywhere else in the DC universe. But still, can you imagine the pitch meeting? "Yeah, so while you're over here doing this big serious Bat-altering stuff, I'll be over here making fun of it. What do you think about that?" And somehow, they said yes.
The end of "On the Lam" is very ... um .... well, it's very .... Honestly, I don't have any words to describe it. The only thing I can say is that I was simultaneously laughing and saying, "Oh, you have GOT to be kidding!" all at the same time through the last few pages.
And having read volume 1 (and hoping against hope that they'll do the volume 3 collection), I can say ... I understand why DC didn't know what to do with it. It's very much all ages humor, with lots to appeal to the kiddies but sophisticated enough to appeal to adults (including, most unfortunately, an anal rape in prison joke that I really wish he'd left out -- although, that said, it's actually and truly a one-word joke, so it's not as though he lingers on it, and I can't imagine any children picking up on it; in fact, I'd expect that it sailed right past a pretty healthy number of adults, for that matter.) It's really a rare talent to be able to pitch that way these days, so rare that the people who are trying to sell the thing didn't know what to do with it.
Pity. It really is a lot of fun.
And now, having finally read the first volume of this series, I can cheerfully say ... I'm truly astonished at how much Kyle Baker got away with.
But first, let's discuss the packaging, shall we? Let's shall. It was twice-over plastic; that is to say, it was shrinkwrapped in cellophane, and the cover itself is this (slightly stinky, actually) rubberized plastic thing. Nice hook into the concept -- although it did seem to make for binding that was a little looser than a regular trade would have been.
As for the content ... ah, yes, the content. Essentially, with volume 1 of Plastic Man, Baker does a fairly merciless lampoon of the Batfamily's "War Games" set, up to and including the "Huh?" rebirth of Red Hood. If I understand the publication dates correctly, he was doing this while War Games was being published. Mind, that sort of parody is about the only way Plastic Man is going to hook into normal DC continuity -- it sort of cheerfully ignores almost everything happening anywhere else in the DC universe. But still, can you imagine the pitch meeting? "Yeah, so while you're over here doing this big serious Bat-altering stuff, I'll be over here making fun of it. What do you think about that?" And somehow, they said yes.
The end of "On the Lam" is very ... um .... well, it's very .... Honestly, I don't have any words to describe it. The only thing I can say is that I was simultaneously laughing and saying, "Oh, you have GOT to be kidding!" all at the same time through the last few pages.
And having read volume 1 (and hoping against hope that they'll do the volume 3 collection), I can say ... I understand why DC didn't know what to do with it. It's very much all ages humor, with lots to appeal to the kiddies but sophisticated enough to appeal to adults (including, most unfortunately, an anal rape in prison joke that I really wish he'd left out -- although, that said, it's actually and truly a one-word joke, so it's not as though he lingers on it, and I can't imagine any children picking up on it; in fact, I'd expect that it sailed right past a pretty healthy number of adults, for that matter.) It's really a rare talent to be able to pitch that way these days, so rare that the people who are trying to sell the thing didn't know what to do with it.
Pity. It really is a lot of fun.
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