For quite some time, there have been rumors that Ethan Van Sciver is working on a project involving the languishing DC Comics character Plastic Man.The project, rumored to be tentatively titled “Bedlam,” was semi-formally announced at the Phoenix Comic Con last year, with Van Sciver telling fans that it was a horror book that he was co-writing with Gail Simone, his co-writer on the first few issues of The Fury of Firestorm the Nuclear Man. At the time, it seemed as though Van Sciver had rather radically re-envisioned the character.Now, Simone’s husband (via her Twitter account) reports that “Ethan Van Sciver says he and Gail are working on a hardcover project and Plastic Man is IN it.”Whether that means the nature of the project has evolved over time or whether it was always planned that way and rumors have simply taken over fact is unclear.While Plastic Man has only appeared once–in the background of Justice League International #1 on a monitor–since the DC relaunch, he had not been substantially re-envisioned when he did. If the Simone/Van Sciver story turns out to be taking place in the world of the New 52, it may require a brief explanation as to what happened to alter his appearance, or that single-panel appearance may just be ignored. Other characters who appeared briefly in that same issue have also not yet appeared in the new DC Universe, including Metamorpho, who might be the subject of something on Geoff Johns’s plate.Of course, a hardcover graphic novel (such as Batman: The Judas Coin, released last year by Walter Simonson) could just as easiliy take place in its own stand-alone context, unconcerned with the New 52.
