Flexible friend – Éanna Brophy on the trail of a missing superhero

The question suddenly popped into my head while perusing an online toyshop site seeking something suitable for a grandchild who is suddenly “into” superheroes (having recently passed his finals in Dinosaurology). There were several superhero figures on this site, including Spiderman, Captain America, Iron Man and Hulk (who seems to have dropped the definite article). On other sites one could find the big two – Superman and Batman – but not a sign of the pliable one anywhere.

Had I imagined that he ever existed? But no! I had a clear recollection of reading his exploits in those American comics of long ago, where all these superpowered crimefighters first saw the light of day. In the days before rock-and-roll (to quote a Van Morrison song) – and indeed before many Irish households had a television set – boys who had graduated beyond reading the Beano or Dandy and even Roy of the Rovers found a whole new world of excitement in the big American comic-books that featured the exploits of some of the above-mentioned gents – and even their female counterparts in some cases.

These weekly glossy-covered magazine-format publications carried stories that brought you somewhere far beyond your own everyday existence. The illustrations were vivid and ingenious: it was only much later that the work and the worth of those artists came to be recognised as a whole new genre. Boys who could not be persuaded to open a book could be seen sitting on garden walls with their heads buried in the latest adventures of the superheroes.

The life of each comic lasted for weeks and months. There quickly emerged a whole sub-economy that was not quite a black market – (and one hesitates to use the word “barter” for fear of a government investigation) – but what happened was that in every suburban neighbourhood there seemed to be a “king of the comics”, a lad who seemed to have the gift of accumulating armfuls of used comics which he was willing to trade for whatever puny offers you might have at your disposal.

Bird on the wire – Frank McNally on a great reporter’s last hurrah

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Stand and deliver — Brian Maye on the ‘gentleman highwayman’ James Maclaine

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On the case – Tim Fanning on Armagh detective James McParland and his battles with the Molly Maguires

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General selection – Frank McNally on national stereotypes, Greek (and table quiz) heroes, and a stamp of greatness

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This could mean that to get your hands on the latest (or fairly recent) Superman you’d have to cough up at least four old Batmans and throw in a Captain Marvel or even a Wonder Woman if you admitted to having one.

Mention of Captain Marvel brings us into the real world of the cut-throat competition that existed in the highest level of America’s comic-book industry. Captain Marvel made his first appearance several years after Superman. The latter, you will remember, had an alter-ego disguise as the mild, bespectacled Clark Kent who worked as a reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper in a city called Metropolis. When crime broke out, or when the world was threatened with destruction, Clark had merely to run to a nearby phone-box (pause to explain what they were) and tog out in his blue onesie and red cloak before flying off on his latest mission. Billy Batson, on the other hand, had merely to shout “Shazam!” to become Captain Marvel and do likewise. (You will know of course that his magic word was made of the initials of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury).

But DC Comics, who owned Superman, were having none of it: they sued for breach of copyright and Captain Marvel vanished for many years. He’s back now, but is published by the very company that brought about his long banishment. But they’ve cut to the chase and just call him Shazam.

Even the creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, suffered too at the hands of the industry that benefitted so exponentially from their work. They were young and eager to get published when they sold their first story about the Man of Steel – so eager that they sold the rights to their creation for $130, which may have appeared to them as a tidy sum in 1938. (That cheque was sold at auction years later for $130,000). It was not until the 1970s when Hollywood began to plan a blockbuster movie that negative publicity forced the then owners to grant them pensions, while a court decision granted them a screen credit.

But what about Plastic Man? If he really “existed”, why have we not heard of him? So I went in search of Plastic Man – and whaddya know folks, the guy is Irish! Patrick “Eel” O’Brian, the alter-ego who would become Plastic Man first saw the light of comic-book day when he was invented by cartoonist Jack Cole for Police Comics in 1941. He was a baddie to begin with, and during an unsuccessful robbery at a chemical works came in contact with some substance that would enable him to change his body into any shape imaginable. Soon after this he changed sides and began to ensnare evildoers who never suspected his presence: he even became a couch and nabbed two dimwits who sat on him by mistake.

You may have detected that Plastic Man was a humorous creation, but it turns out that he had a second coming in the 1980s both in print and in an animated television series as (like Batman) a darker, more serious character, while “Eel” O’Brian also became angst-ridden. So maybe it’s just as well that he’s not to be found on the toyshop shelves. We wouldn’t want to be upsetting the children. But a chilling thought occurs: what if one of those hero figures I purchased and presented is really lurking, ready to cast off its disguise and burst forth some night as the new, darker, anti-Plastic Man?