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It’s fairly common in the comic book fandom to put characters with similar skills together to fight one another and the case of Plastic Man and Mr. Fantastic is no different. They are both competent heroes and have had their fair share of impressive feats, especially considering they have been around for several decades.
Of course, the main reason these two characters are put together in a fight is because they both have elastic powers. While is true that they are very different in terms of their roles in the stories, it is also true that is an interesting exercise who is better in using these abilities and who would be the winner in a fight.
So let’s find out!
Brief Rundown Of Their History
Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic) first appeared in Marvel Comics during the first issue of The Fantastic Four back in November 1961, with him serving as the leader of the titled team. He’s a super genius and has elasticity powers. Funny enough, considering the context of this fight, Plastic Man was the inspiration for Reed’s powers, according to Stan Lee himself.
Based on the comment mentioned above, it’s fair to deduce that Plastic Man is an even older character than Mister Fantastic. Patrick O’Brian (Plastic Man) first appeared in the first issue of Police Comics in August 1941 and was originally part of the Quality Comics company, which joined DC Comics in 1956. He has enjoyed some solo series and was even a part of the Justice League in the late 90s during Grant Morrison’s legendary JLA run, which is probably the character’s most popular era in recent decades.
Powers and Abilities
This is going to be redundant but both characters have elasticity powers. That is why this entire battle is a thing, to begin with: they have the same abilities, with one (Plastic Man) being a direct influence on the other (Mister Fantastic).
How The Fight Would Go?
Considering that they are both fairly heroic characters and have a strong moral compass, it would be difficult to have them fight one another. The most likely scenario is the good old classic in comics: there was a misunderstanding and they had to fight each other on the spot.
How Each Could Gain The Edge In Battle?
The big issue with this battle is the context and how much time Reed Richards has to prepare. This isn’t the “Batman with prep time” argument but rather that Reed is smart enough to come up with technology that could seal or nullify Plastic Man. Therefore, the nature of this battle is going to be without time to prepare because, in that situation, Mister Fantastic has all the resources to win a lot of different battles.
However, if there is no time to prepare, there is a very good chance that Plastic Man is going to win. One of the first reasons is that Patrick used to work as a thief, so he has a lot of experience when it comes to fighting and stealing, which is something that gives him a lot more know-how and experience with thinking on his feet.
There is also the fact that Plastic Man’s abilities are a lot more diverse than he’s given credit for and a lot more varied than Reed’s version of elasticity. This is a man who has turned into a cannon, disguised himself as Harley Quinn in the New 52 (yeah, that happened), could turn into a dragon, and can also take a huge beating, as shown in several storylines in recent decades, which shows his insane durability.
This is very important because it means that Reed cannot predict his movements. No matter how smart a guy can be, when you are facing an opponent with so many variables, it is hard to come up with a strategy to defeat them. Add to the fact that Plastic Man is a much better hand-to-hand fighter and Mister Fantastic is not going to have the time to react and come up with a strategy.
This doesn’t mean they are going to fight to the death because they are not killers, but if they were to knock each other out, Plastic Man would be the first one to achieve his goal. His elasticity powers are not related to stretching but rather how he can turn himself into many different things, becoming all the more powerful and dangerous than Mister Fantastic.
The Result – Who Would Win?
There is a very good chance that many folks out there have Mister Fantastic as the winner because he is a lot more popular and has a lot more comic book material to reference. However, based on the context of this battle, Plastic Man would win with relative ease. He is a much better fighter and has a wider skill set, which means that he would come out on top.
