GORDY K. TRUEBLOOD

Real Name: Gordon K. Trueblood

Class: Human

Occupation: Pet shop owner

Group Affiliation: None

Known Relatives: Nasturtia (aunt, deceased)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Mobile, Earth-12

First Appearance: Plastic Man I #1 (November, 1966)

Powers: None.

History(Plastic Man I #1) - Gordy Trueblood inherited ownership of his aunt’s pet shop “Furs, Fins & Feathers,” and became close friends with the superhero Plastic Man. Plas snuck into Gordy’s pet shop, and disguised himself as a birdcage to surprise his friend. Gordy was annoyed that Plas was always joking around, and told him that as a superhero and role model he had to start acting more seriously. Plas’ nemesis Dr. Dome sent Professor X to destroy Plas with his new hi-tech tank. The tank shot a powerful adhesive at Plas, gluing him to the sidewalk, but he turned his hands into a pick and shovel to free himself. Plas snaked his body into the tank’s treads, grinding the machine to a halt, and Dome ordered X to flee. X escaped using rockets attached to the tank. Plas’ girlfriend Mike arrived, and told him to take a break from crimefighting because he owed her some quality time. Mike stopped by her mother’s mansion, and told Plas not to let Madam De Lute see him, since she thought he was classless and disapproved of him dating Mike. Plas disguised himself as a couch, but was found out when De Lute’s guest Countess Snidely sat on him. De Lute and her butler Fawnish called the police, convinced he was there to steal something. Captain McSniffe, who long suspected Plas was a crook, looked forward to catching him in the act, but Plas easily evaded him. Fawnish was secretly working with Dr. Dome, and convinced De Lute to put a secret $1,000,000 bounty on Plas’ head. Gordy wanted Plas to apologize to Madam De Lute for ruining her party, but Mike would hear of no such thing. Professor X confronted Plas again, this time shooting acid from his tank. Plas fled and ran into Dr. Dome’s daughter Lynx, who invited him into her house to hide from X. Lynx thought it was unhealthy for her father to obsess over Plas, and was worried his fixation was bad for his health, so she was determined to eliminate Plastic Man herself. She slipped him a mickey and threw him off a pier, but a fisherman dredged Plas up. Plas returned to high fight with X, whose tank shot several expanding metal bands that encircled the hero. Plas stretched into a barrel shape and ran straight into X’s tank, blowing it up. Captain McSniffe arrested X, but told Plas he still thought he was the real crook.

(Plastic Man I #2) - Gordy planned on going to a zoo auction with Plas, and was annoyed when his friend was late, wondering why he couldn’t be a responsible go-getter. Plas was actually disguised as a monkey in the pet shop, but Gordy was unamused and told Plas he really had to grow up. Mike drove by, and although she preferred the idea of spending the afternoon flying to Switzerland for chocolate with Plas she agreed to drive them to the Mammoth Park Zoo. One of Dr. Dome’s agents was posing as an ice cream vendor, and sold the trio some sweets. There was a timebomb inside Plas’ ice cream pop, but when he saw it was pistachio flavored he threw it away. The resulting explosion stunned two bank robbers running away from the cops, and the police congratulated Plas on another heroic deed. Dr. Dome watched the scene unfold on his remote viewing screen and fumed at Plas always getting the best of him. He bemoaned that he’d been trying to destroy Plastic Man for seven years, but had been foiled every single time. Dome dreaded Plas’ upcoming speech at the Annual Luncheon of the Society of Law Enforcement Officers, and wanted him destroyed before he could make it. Lynx told him to calm down, and mused about fighting Plas without his powers. Dr. Dome said he could use his time machine to travel back in time to when Plas was a small child and defeat him, but no one knew Plas’ secret identity or where he came from. Dome remembered that three people were rumored to know Plastic Man’s origins, so he used his triplicate machine to turn Lynx into three women and told her to pose as a reporter to interview Plas’ associates. As Shirley Glotz, a reporter for “The Peter Wabbit Weekly,” she bent Captain McSniffe’s ear. McSniffe told her that when he was a patrolman he met “Eel,” an undercover operative from Migraine, Missouri posing as a criminal. He gave McSniffe a tip about the notorious criminal Spider’s plan to steal a bop bag from the Big Deal Toy Factory. They interrupted the robbery, but during a fight with the Spider “Eel” fell into a vat of Nutty Putty. He was transformed into Plastic Man and caught the crook. “Billie” De Kid of “The Cattle Breeder’s Journal” interviewed Madam De Lute, who told her that while riding a railroad car across her estate she was robbed by the Japanese Beetle. A gypsy fiddler providing music in the railcar turned out to be an undercover railroad detective from Chillblains, Nevada, and pursued the Beetle across the train cars. The Beetle hosed him down with milk from one of the railcars, knocking him into a railcar filled with acid, and the resulting explosion turned him into Plastic Man. Vava Vavoom of “Playguy Magazine” interviewed Gordy, and he told her that when he was a young boy scout his troop was held up by a crook named the Frog. An unnamed yogurt farmer drew the Frog away from the boys, bringing him to the yogurt farm where he worked. The farmer was accidentally exposed to yogurt infected with diphtheria, turning him into Plastic Man, and he easily captured the crook. The three Lynxes returned to Dome, and after he made his daughter one person he grumbled that he had no time to check out the three cities where Plas might actually be from. Plas made his speech at the luncheon, and even though the Society had voted to name Dr. Dome Public Enemy #1 Plas made the final decision, and put Dome at #17. Dome had a fit at being snubbed as Public Enemy #1 for eight years running. After the luncheon Gordy asked Plas why he had three completely different origins, and Plas said that was his little secret.

(Plastic Man I #3) - Madam De Lute threw a ball for Mike aboard her ship, the S.S. Mal de Mer, hoping to introduce her to some eligible bachelors. Mike reiterated to her mother that Plastic Man was the only guy for her, and the bachelors weren’t that impressive, pointing to Rupert, an inveterate mamma’s boy and Haverford Sluice, who spent much more money than he had. Madam De Lute tried to interest her in the Duke of Wheelington, who asked her to dance, but Plas and Gordy showed up to crash the party. The rebuffed Duke went to the bridge and announced to the ship’s captain that he was commandeering the wheel because rightful recipient of the international patent on the wheel. Madam De Lute’s stories said the Duke’s story checked out, so they were stuck at sea. Plas saved the day by turning into a sail and onboard motor to get the ship back to shore. Once on shore the press mobbed the Duke, who told them he had proof that his grandfather, 88,000 generations removed, Urggly the cave man, was the inventor of the wheel. The President wanted an immediate solution to the wheel problem, so he summoned Plastic Man to Secretary Dirvish’s office. Dirvish told Plas that the duke was demanding ten cents a yer in rental fees for every wheel, and calculating that there were 20,000 billion wheels in the world that sum added up to two trillion dollars. U.S. legal advisors recommended paying the Duke for all wheels on emergency vehicles and discontinuing the use of all other wheels until the government could fight the Duke in court. Dirvish charged Plas with spying on the Duke to learn more about his legal strategy. Plas found the hotel where the Duke was staying, and extended his ear into the Duke’s room to eavesdrop, but Plas was found out by the Duke’s henchman. After a brawl with the henchmen the Duke declared he was done playing nice, starting to collect tolls from everyone using wheels, grinding traffic and industry to a halt. Madam De Lute was rich enough to afford being driven around, and a crowd pelted her car with tomatoes. She ordered her driver to run over the protesters, but Fawnish suggested he simply gun them down with his submachine gun. Fawnish fired into the crowd, but Plas jumped in front of the bullets which bounced off him. The crowd then turned on Plastic Man for angering the Duke, and Plas went into hiding. Mike was heartbroken, and things got worse for her when Madam De Lute tried to force her into a marriage with the Duke. The Duke drove her to City Hall where he was confronted by Plas. Captain McSniffe tried to bring in Plas, accusing him of working with the Duke. Plas ripped off the Duke’s clothes and his mask, revealing the so-called Duke as Dr. Dome. Dome kidnapped Mike, and locked her in his hotel room after starting a fire in it. Plas turned into a trampoline, allowing Mike to jump out the window onto him safely.

(Plastic Man I #4) - Plas disguised himself as safe-cracker Biff Banyon to infiltrate Slinky’s gang, promising Slinky he could easily break into the Last National Bank. He squeezed through the bank’s air conditioning system, slithered under the vault door to open it from the inside, and yelled to the gang to come on in. When Slinky and his crew ran into the vault Plastic Man tied them up with his body and handed them over to the police. Gordy read of his exploits the next day, and asked if it wouldn’t have been simpler for Plas to just tip off the police about Slinky’s robbery. Plas said it would have been simpler, but his way was more fun, causing Gordy to have a fit. He yelled at Plas to take his work more seriously and Plas told him he needed to chill out. Madam De Lute and Mike attended a masked ball thrown by The Society to Preserve Aardvarks. Mike invited Plas and Gordy, with Gordy dressing up as Napoleon, and Plas changing into Napoleon's horse. A masked French woman cut in on Mike’s dance with Plas, and Plas thought he recognized her from somewhere, so he asked her outside to talk. She used her compact mirror to hypnotize Plas, and demanded he follow her out of the ball. The masked woman was Madam Merciless, who promised Dr. Dome she could make Plas his willing slave for two million dollars. Merciless employed two witch doctors, who cast a spell on Plas to make him follow any orders Dome gave him. Dome wanted to see if Plas really was under his control, and booted Plas in the rear, and then made him thank Dome for it. Plas inwardly fumed, neither the hypnotism nor the voodoo spell actually worked, he was just playing along to find out what Dome was up to. Merciless gave Plas a physical exam, cooing over how impressive his body was, and Lynx was enraged, jealous that she wasn’t the one with her hands all over Plastic Man. Lynx asked Dome if she could take Plas out for a spin, and he never could say no to his daughter. Lynx brought Plas to a park, and ordered him to kiss her, convinced that one kiss would forever make him her love slave. She then had Plas steal a mink coat for her, but they were spotted by Gordy and Mike, who’d been looking all over for Plas since he left the party. Lynx pushed Mike in front of a car, and Plas was forced to break his cover to save Mike. Madam Merciless had been trailing Lynx and Plas, and shot the hero with a hypno-dark before dragging him back to Dome’s headquarters and having her witch doctors cast another spell on Plas, and she promised Dome that this time she was absolutely certain it’d worked. Dome had Plas rob museums and an armored car before commanding him to walk across telephone lines to rob the Witherspoon mansion. Merciless had shortchanged her voodoo men for their work, so they undid the spell on Plas, who instantly snapped to, but lost his balance. Lynx, shot out of a cannon, Merciless riding a motorcycle, and Mike, flying a helicopter, all tried to keep Plas from falling. They all grabbed him at the same time, and in a tug-of-war over Plas ended up stripping him to his underwear.  Plas captured Dr. Dome and handed him over to Captain McSniffe, who  also arrested Plas for indecent exposure.

(Plastic Man I #5) - Plas told Gordy he was worried because the criminal organization SAPMALAL (Society to Assassinate Plastic Man And Live A Little) were having their annual get-together and offering a five million dollar door prize to anyone who could kill Plas. Plas knew every crook looking to make a name for themselves would be after him, and as they walked down the street Plas had to dodge several assassination attempt including a falling safe, a painted tarp placed over an open manhole, and an out-of-control car that tried to run him down. Plas was the guest of honor for the first voyage of a new class of sea scouts, and on the voyage he had to fend off SAPMALAL members Ivan Byturnozov and Jean Le Feet. In a bid to get some peace Plas created the supervillain identity of the Assassin, stormed into the SAPMALAL meeting and announced that he was going to be the one to do away with Plastic Man. Plas, as the Assassin, tossed Gordy, dressed as Plas off a bridge and announced he’d killed the hero, making front page news. Plas told Gordy, who was recovering from a cold after his dip, that he was going to donate the 5 million door prize to cancer research. When Plas went to get his pay he was confronted by the real Assassin, which confused Plas, since he thought he’d dreamed up the identity himself. The Assassin based his character on an old Marble Comics supervillain, and Plas realized he must have read Marble Comics as a kid and subconsciously done the same thing. Plas gave away his identity when the Assassin fought him, but with the help of Gordy Plas managed to defeat the Assassin and SAPMALAL.

(Plastic Man I #6) - Dr. Dome used his new flying saucer to rob a band, but Sphinx, a new supervillain in town, got to the bank first, and when Dome objected to him stealing what he intended to steal the Sphinx ripped a column from the front of the bank out of the ground and tossed it at Dome and his men. Plas responded to the robbery, and approached Sphinx, who grabbed a baby from a passing mother and tossed him high in the air, allowing him to escape while Back at his hq Dome complained to his daughter that the Sphinx had foiled the last four of his plans, and he came up with a new scheme that he was sure the Sphinx couldn’t ruin. Plas saved the baby. Plas met with Gordy, who was worried that since Dome and Sphinx were feuding that Sphinx would try to kill Plastic Man, one-upping Dome by succeeding in what he’d failed to do for several years. Dr. Dome robbed a baseball stadium’s box-office during a game, but the Sphinx was waiting for him, disguised as an umpire, and got the drop on him with a gun. Plas had the game staked out, disguised as a cola advertisement, and the Sphinx tossed a grenade filled with solvent at him. Dome used a compressed air gun to knock the grenade into the stands, saving Plas, but melting the stadium’s girders. Plas had to hold up the crumbling stadium so the fans could evacuate, allowing Sphinx to slip away. Plas and Dome agreed on a temporary truce to team up and defeat the new villain. Plas helped a little old lady cross the street, and she gave him an apple as a reward. The old lady was actually the Sphinx in disguise, and the apple was really a time bomb. Dome sucked the bomp up into his saucer and ejected it into the air, where it exploded harmlessly. Sphinx ripped a fire hydrant from the ground and the spray of water hit Dome’s saucer, causing him to lose control, but Plas transformed into a glider to allow Dome to safely pilot the saucer to the ground. Plas and Dome worked together to defeat the Sphinx, and shook hands. Dome placed a bomb on Plas’ back, but Plas didn’t fall for his trick and placed it on Dome’s helmet as he walked away.

(Plastic Man I #7) - Gordy read an account in the newspaper about how Plastic Man had bungled an attempt to stop the King of Spades, the Queen of Hearts, and the Jack of Diamonds from pulling an art heist. Plas said that he wasn’t out crimefighting recently, so the only Plastic Man the story could be referring to was his father, the original. Plas apologized for giving Gordy phony origins in the past, and revealed his actual origin. When he was a small child he drank the flask of acid that his father kept as a memento of his crimefighting career. The acid was from the vat of chemicals that gave the original Plas his powers, so his son now had the same superpowers, and when his father retired from crimefighting the new Plas stepped into his shoes. When Plas’ father retired he bought the health resort for the elderly Plastic Acres, where business was booming. Plas had a fond reunion with his dad at Plastic Acres, and was happy to see his dad’s sidekick Woozy Winks was still working with him. The original Plas showed his son and Gordy the sulfer springs that brought all the business to Plastic Acres. After their daily drink from the spring the old timers were all fired up and acting like irresponsible youth. Plas took Woozy aside, certain that he’d done something to the spring, because he didn’t buy that his dad had a fountain of youth on his hands. Woozy admitted that business was originally crummy at the resort, and he didn’t want to see his friend’s bushiness go under, so Woozy had started pumping white wine into the springs. Woozy assured Plas that he screened residents so it couldn’t hurt him, but Plas insisted he stop acting like the con man he used to be and turn off the wine going to the springs before he told his father what Woozy had done. The original Plas admitted that he was trying to take down the King of Spades and his crew because he held the mortgage to Plastic Acres, and he’d fallen behind in payments because Woozy forgot to mail out the money. The King envied the business the Acres was doing, and looked forward to claiming it for his own. The King was a criminal, but no one had ever caught him in the act. Woozy wanted to frame him, but Gordy would hear of no such thing. They came up with a plan, and the following night they arrived at a ritzy hotel with the original Plas posing as wealthy sheik Grand Mahfah of Eliakazan, with a large diamond in his turban. His son posed as a camel, Woozy as an attendant, and Gordy as a harem girl. The King, Queen and Jack broke into their room in an attempt to steal the diamond, and Plas took a picture of them in the act. The two groups scuffled, but in the battle the camera was destroyed, so the plan was for naught. The original Plas relented, inviting the King and his crew to what would soon be his health resort. The King, Queen and Jack indulged in the springs, but Woozy hadn’t turned off the wine, so they were all soon dead drunk and confessing to numerous crimes before passing out. Plas recorded their conversation and then celebrated with his dad for saving his business.

(Plastic Man I #8) - The mayor honored Plastic Man with a ceremony, and 50,000 people showed up, including Mike, Madam De Lute and Gordy. Plastic Man gave a speech about how he wasn't noble, selfless or dedicated, but also kept stretching out to prevent crimes and accidents in the stands. One of the grandstands started buckling under the weight of the crowd, and Plas got under it to hold it up until everyone was evacuated, but the effort was too much for him and the grandstand collapsed on top of him before he could get out. Gordy asked for a doctor, and Dr. Filmore Verbiage responded, but he was a doctor of philosophy so he could do little for Plas. Plas was dazed and didn't remember his name, and Captain McSniffe arrived to accuse Plastic Man of being up to something, and Madam De Lute offered McSniffe a million dollars to throw Plastic Man in jail. Chief, the leader of the Doom Patrol, examined Plastic Man and said he was suffering from amnesia, and was a complete blank slate, noting that he’d already picked up Verbiage’s loquacious speech, McSniffe’s paranoia, and De Lute’s snobbiness. Gordy was skeptical of Chief, saying he was a neurosurgeon, not a psychiatrist, and Chief got out of his wheelchair and threatened to hit Gordy with it. In the commotion Plastic Man wandered off and met the criminal the Weasel, who convinced Plas that he was his sidekick who dutifully helped him in his war on crime. Weasel pointed out a patrolman, saying that anyone wearing a police uniform was actually a member of the criminal Blue-Coat Gang. Plas confronted the officer, who realized Plastic Man was not in his right mind, but still tried to pull his gun, but pulled out his pencil by accident. Plas concluded the pencil was a super weapon, and walked away from the confrontation lest the officer turn it on the crowd. Weasel came up with a number of implausible situations to get Plas to unknowingly commit crimes, like saying the bank president needed the bank safe opened up because it was stuck. The mayor knew Plas wasn’t right, but had no choice but to call for a manhunt to stop Plas’ crime wave. Mike became much more enamored of Plastic Man now that he was a criminal, and Madam De Lute boarded her door shut to keep Mike away form Plas, but Mike slipped out a window.  Mike arrived just as Plas, with Weasel and his men hit an armored car, and told Plas she loved his dangerous criminal ways, and even though she’d turned down marriage proposals from him many times she now wanted to get hitched. Plas was confused as to why she thought he was a criminal, and Weasel called her a liar. Mike realized Plas was being tricked, and was so disappointed she threw a bag of money at Plas, conking him on the head and jarring his memory. Weasel and his men tried to make a getaway, but Plas disguised himself as a train station and trapped the crooks inside. Plas proved to Captain McSniffe that he was a good guy again, and asked Mike if he’d done anything foolish while he had amnesia like try to propose to her again, and she replied that that was a silly notion.

Comments: Created by Arnold Drake & Gil Kane.

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