Story Title: The Edwina Crisis: Prologue Part Four
Reviewer: Paul Sebert
Writer, Art, Inking, Coloring, etc: Kyle Baker
Editor: Joe Vavalieri
Publisher: The Distinguished Competition
Now here’s a sad strange situation. A critically acclaimed multi-Eisner winning title that never found an audience with mainstream readers. Perhaps Baker’s hilarious take on Plastic Man was too edgy for the typical comics fan? Perhaps Baker’s absurdly cartoonish art style was too much of a refined taste for most comics fans? Or perhaps the mainstream fans shunning of this title was a sign of a much darker side of the fandom? There are days I suspect the reason many fans flocked to books like Identity Crisis and Countdown had less to do with the quality of the writing (good as it may be) and more to do with the lurid subject matter.
Big event books are the subject of Baker’s Satire in this latest arc which apparently opens up with apparent deaths of Eel’s O’Brien ex-wife Morgan and teenage ward Edwina at the hands of Evil Supervillain Ray El Ray. Meanwhile Plas has been frozen and shattered into little pieces. Both Eel and his supporting cast are revived however in ways far too ludicrous for me to mention, though readers of Day of Vengeance will probably have a good laugh at Baker’s take on the Spectre which I actually wish was part DC canon.
“Such is the heroic burden. We always mourn our fallen.” Plastic Man laments “Gone forever! Dead like Robin! Like Supergirl! Deceased like Superman! Hal Jordan! All gone!”
Later he remarks “Woozy, things are changing in our universe. People are dying violently. Superheroes are crying!”
Baker’s point regarding the nature of death and CATACLYSMIC PERMANENT CHANGES isn’t subtle but as fans are perpetually battered with hype for House of M and Infinite Crisis, it sure is funny. Additional humor is found in this issue regarding some inept mishandling of cremated remains, absurd abuse of the Spectre’s powers, Plastic Man battling ninjas, and a reference to Green Arrow’s epic battle with Spiro Agnew. Oh and a familiar villain returns from the dead. Baker is perhaps second only to Grant Morrison in terms of being able to squeeze so many outrageous and imaginative ideas in one issue.
Baker’s Plastic Man is side-splittingly funny, outrageous, instantly accessible, subversive, and consistently original. It’s precisely what the medium needs right now, yet for reasons I cannot fathom fans are just not buying this book.
However judging by the book’s level critical success I imagine this title will in the future become something not unlike Jack Kirby’s New Gods or the legendary O’Neal/Adams run of Green Lantern/Green Arrow: a title of such innovative quality that not even cancellation can tarnish its legacy.
