"Virginia... oh-oh... oh my Goodness...
Sweetie, slow down... I'm gonna..."
So says Edwyn Stoffgruppen to his girlfriend as they make love in the opening scene of Plastic, their car windows collecting steam from the inside as a result of their rather lustful and perverted passion for one another. They soon finish, and Edwyn suggests they get some donuts at the nearby gas station, his face a weirdly disturbing image of a mind not entirely sound. He talks to Virginia as if speaking to a life-long partner, and even suggests they take a trip to Rome at some point. The thing is, Virginia is a glorified blow-up sex doll.
The debut issue of writer Doug Wagner, artist Daniel Hillyard and colorist Laura Martin (alternate cover is by Andrew Robinson) is one strangely perverse and oddly pleasing comic, and is not for the faint of heart. Edwyn is soon revealed to be not only a deviant of the oddest kind, but also an ultra violent person whose temper has the shortest fuse when his "girlfriend" is disrespected by chauvinistic punks at the local gas station. He breaks the leg of one of them at the knee as if it was a toothpick, and soon nearly suffocates another using a plastic bag and a toilet brush. Yup, this guy has issues, but at least he's very faithful and loyal to his one-and-only.
Plastic comes across as a fully realized and magnificently illustrated comic about a man whose homicidal past comes back to haunt him when a rich, powerful gangster (Thaddeus Belliveau) forces him to kill again; if Edwyn refuses, Virginia will suffer as a result. The world that Wagner has created has no kind people in it, and therein lies its fortitude. At long last a serial (albeit limited, but still...) about sickos, murderers and sociopaths all sharing the same stage where the only "sane" one is an adult size plaything for men possessing a fetish for the synthetic. How odd that I am - and continue to be - drawn to its blatant wickedness.
B+
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