MADAM DE LUTE
Real Name: Micheline De Lute II
Class: Human
Occupation: Socialite, heiress
Group Affiliation: None
Known Relatives: Micheline “Mike” De Lute III (daughter)
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Mobile, Earth-12
First Appearance: Plastic Man I #1 (November, 1966)
Powers: Madam De Lute was a woman of extraordinary wealth.
History: (Plastic Man I #1) - In the prosperous De Lute family the De Lute name and wealthy was passed from mother to daughter. Micheline “Mike” De Lute, who was a free spirit, started dating superhero Plastic Man, much to the chagrin of her mother Madam De Lute. Plas’ archenemy Dr. Dome sent the criminal scientist Professor X to destroy his nemesis with a 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. 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) - Dr. Dome 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 Capatin 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 year 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) - 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. 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-dart 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) - 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. 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. Mike bawled her eyes out, and her mother gloated. 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) - Mike invited Plas over for a game of tennis which Plas and Madam De Lute spent trading verbal barbs. Plas had to make his leave when he spotted Dr. Dome using a flying saucer to rob a band. 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 approached Sphinx, who grabbed a baby from a passing mother and tossed him high in the air, allowing him to escape while Plas saved the baby. Dome and Plas agreed on a temporary truce, teaming up to defeat the new villain.
(Plastic Man I #6) - Mike invited Plas to a band show at The Cool Cat club, despite his insistence that sudden movements made him lose control of bodily function. They started dancing, and when Plas’ body started uncontrollably flailing around the club Mike insisted that he’d invented a crazy new dance. The villain Goldzinger crashed the party, using his gold magnet to rob the club, before planting a kiss on Mike, declaring that he liked how fiery she was with her resistance. Goldzinger’s getaway plan went awry when his motorcycle got towed away, and Plas detained him by tying him to a lamppost. After he left Madam De Lute freed Goldzinger, promising him a huge cash reward if he eliminated Plastic Man. Goldzinger agreed, but realized De Lute thought he was a stupid patsy because he was a criminal, and used his magnet to rob her before boarding a plane to South America to lay low for a while. Plas was on his trail, and was waiting for Goldzinger disguised as his seat. Goldzinger squirmed out of Plas’ grasp and jumped out of the plane, but Plas was disguised as his parachute. Goldzinger landed in a field and was chased by an old farmer into a tree, which turned out to be Plastic Man. The farmer took off her mask, revealing herself to be Madam De Lute. Plas told Goldzinger he’d slipped up, De Lute would go to the ends of the earth to catch anyone who stole from her.
(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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