Plastic Man Saves the World

"**Plastic Man Saves the World**" is the seventeenth episode of Justice League Action.

## Summary

Brainiac intends to shrink Metropolis down into a bottle, but the desperate Justice League are still reluctant to accept the help of the erratic Plastic Man.

## Story

In the streets of Metropolis, the citizens flee as a 'flying saucer' hovers above and shoots at them. Brainiac floats underneath it, announcing his intention of adding the city to his collection of miniaturised ones before "eradicating" the Earth. Looking up at him, Batman, Cyborg and Vixen are confident they can deal with him, but the alien villain sends a group of flying, spherical droids to attack them, and this initiates a lively battle in the streets. The droids adapt to their opponent's abilities and begin to win, but then Superman flies in and destroys some of them. However, when he goes to attack the spaceship, he is blasted back down to the ground by a kryptonite ray.

Meeting with Batman there, the pair agree that someone needs to go inside the ship to deal with it, and this is overheard by an approaching Plastic Man who volunteers his services. His two colleagues think he is not suitable and, when he shows his inability to deal with the droids, they decline his offer. However, once they have gone, 'Plas' decides on his own plan to disable the ship's miniaturisation threat.

He stretches upwards from the top of the Daily Planet building towards the spaceship but is detected and retreats before its guns can fire. Then, taking the form of a duck, he escapes detection among a flock of them, enters the ship through a grille and passes amongst the collected bottled cities. Meanwhile, outside, Superman beats away at Brainiac, who is protected by a personal force field, but, unharmed, the alien villain orders the shrinking process to begin. In the streets, the worried League and citizens look up to see the "miniaturisation cannon" deploy. In the ship, Plastic Man makes his way to the control room and sneaks past the robots to stop the countdown. Much to his annoyance, they see him as an insignificant threat and eject him outside, allowing the restart of the shrinking process.

Re-entering, Plas unconvincingly imitates a robot and attempts to fly the craft into space but just takes it in circles. Recognised, he gets into a fight with the robots, dodging their shots and destroying them all but at the expense of wrecking the controls. The ray continues to power up, bathing the city in a menacing red glow, and, in radio contact with Batman and Superman, Plastic Man says he cannot either fly the ship or stop the shrinking ray. He decides to sacrifice himself by going inside the ray device to destroy it and bids farewell to the League. The entire ship detonates in the air and disappears to the cheers of the crowds, but leaving the Justice League to mourn their loss.

Later, as Cyborg and Vixen restrain Brainiac ready for transport in Justice One, Batman and Superman now regret their earlier dismissal of Plastic Man, but are suddenly overjoyed to see him float down like a giant balloon and deliver all of the shrunken city bottles to safety. The captive Brainiac now honours him as his most potent enemy, and, on hearing this, the ecstatic Plas celebrates with a group selfie.

## Notes

* This episode is setting up the plot for Battle for the Bottled City.
* In the DVD release, this is episode 18 and comes between Luthor in Paradise and Rage of the Red Lanterns.