Real Name: Patrick "Eel" O'Brian
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Powers: Shape-Shifting, Malleability, Plasticity, Elongation: Plastic Man has complete control over his entire molecular structure. He can stretch his limbs and body to superhuman lengths and sizes. These stretching powers grant Plastic Man heightened agility enabling him flexibility and coordination that is extraordinarily beyond the natural limits of the human body. He can contort his body into various positions and sizes impossible for ordinary humans, such as being entirely flat so that he can slip under a door or using his fingers to pick conventional locks. He can also use it for disguise by changing the shape of his face and body. As Plastic Man can alter his bodily mass and physical constitution at will, there is virtually no limit to the sizes and shapes he can contort himself into. There is no known limit to how far he can stretch his body. The only limitation he has relates to color, which he cannot change without intense concentration. He can shrink himself down to a few inches tall (posed as one of Batman's utility belt pockets) or become a titan.
Invulnerability: Plastic Man's powers extraordinarily augment his durability. He is able to withstand corrosives, punctures and concussions without sustaining any injury (although he can be momentarily stunned). He is resistant to high velocity impacts that would kill an ordinary person, resistant to blasts from energy weapons, and is completely bullet proof. His bodily mass can be dispersed, but for all intents and purposes it is invulnerable.
Regeneration: He is able to regenerate and/or assimilate lost or damaged tissue, though it does take a long time, its far faster than an ordinary human.
Telepathic Immunity: He is immune to the effects of telepathic power (mostly immune to mind control. In the past, he has been observed having been vulnerable to mind scans and mind wipes. Also he is able to use J'onn's telepathic link when he was with the JLA.)
Immortality: Plastic Man does not appear to age; if he does, it is at a rate far slower than that of normal human beings. In the aftermath of the JLA story Arc "Obsidian Age", Plastic Man was discovered to have survived for 3000 years as little more than crumbs on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. He is now over 3000 years old and is still active as a superhero.
Ultrasonic Detection: His body will start to "ripple" when an ultrasonic frequency is triggered.
Abilities: Plastic Man was once a very talented professional thief. Although no longer a criminal, he has insight into their mindset, enabling him to be an effective sleuth. He is also a lateral thinker and much smarter than he lets on.
Gadgets: None
Bio: Eel O'Brian, abandoned by his criminal gang after being shot and exposed to the acid, wandered the streets as his new powers developed, frightening others and bringing the police and National Guard down on him as a dangerous monster. Eel was at first oblivous to the changes to his body, but after realizing that he was the monster everyone was going on about, he used his new abilities to escape his pursuers, but soon became so despondent over his new condition that he attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge.
Fortunately, he was interrupted by Woozy Winks, a former mental patient who was kicked out of an institution due to lack of funding (or as Woozy put it, "something called Reaganomics"), who desired nothing more than to return to the warm safety of a straitjacket and padded room. Eel and Woozy decided to work together and capitalize on Eel's new powers to make their fortunes (Eel wanting to get rich quick, Woozy just wanting his "old room" back), but couldn't decide whether there was more money in crime or crime-fighting, and resorted to flipping a coin to choose serving the law (though Woozy had his doubts early on). Eel, ending up with the name "Plastic Man" after a reporter misinterpreted his first choice, "Elastic Man", and Woozy set up a detective agency in New York City and had various misadventures.
The alteration that Plas was initially in the superhero business for the money has had an effect on his character development post-Crisis, notably in a JLA storyline by Mark Waid where he, along with other Justice League members, was separated into two people, his normal "civilian" identity and his superhero persona. While Plastic Man devolved from a person with a sense of humor into a constantly wisecracking and almost ineffectual idiot, the now "normal" Eel O'Brian struggled with the criminal tendencies he had suppressed as he had become comfortable with his role as a superhero, and wondered if he had actually changed for the better or if it had all been part of the super-hero "act". Ultimately, Eel was the driving force behind the other transformed Leaguers banding together to re-join with their superheroic selves.
Appearance:
