When Brainiac comes to add Metropolis to his collection of bottled cities, the League fights back with little success. Plastic Man offers his help, only to be turned down for not taking hero work seriously enough. Determined to prove himself, Plas makes his way aboard Brainiac's ship, only to find the villain and his minions don't consider him a threat worth bothering with.
Tropes:
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: This exchange:Brainiac bot: Threat level 4.6
Plastic Man: 4.6? Out of 5, right!?
Brainiac bot: Threat scale goes to 100. - Fatal Flaw: Not taking Plastic Man seriously enough and dismissing his potential threat (Plas' "threat level" is 4.6 out of 100) leads to Brainiac's defeat. Once he knows what Plas is truly capable of (unpredictability combined with shape-changing abilities) Brainiac revises his threat level to 87 out of 100 and vows that next time he'll deal with Plas first.
- Hammerspace: Plas uses his head like a hot air balloon to float safely to the ground. He then belches up dozens upon dozens of bottled cities he has stuffed inside his body. They weren't all in his head and his body was as spindly as ever.
- It Has Been an Honor: Plastic Man says this to all Leaguers over the com channel before he attempts to stop the shrink ray.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The miniaturization ray is about to shrink Metropolis, and no one can stop it. Plastic Man literally gums up the works to make it and the ship explode. Subverted as Plas survives and managed to rescue every bottled city on the ship to boot.
- Humble Pie:
- Superman isn't sure Plastic Man should be in the Justice League, but when Plas makes a Heroic Sacrifice, Superman admits to Batman that Plastic Man DID deserve to be in the League after all.
- Brainiac admits he'd underestimated Plastic Man's threat level, which led to Brainiac losing his robots, his ship, and the bottled cities on the ship thanks to Plastic Man's malleability and unpredictability. In defeat, Brainiac tells Plastic Man, "Next time, I'll take care of you first."
- Indy Ploy: Plastic Man has to constantly adapt to deal with the situation, often on the fly.
- Lethal Joke Character: Brainiac realizes Plastic Man was this to him.
- Not Now, We're Too Busy Crying Over You: Superman and Batman, along with the rest of the heroes present,sadly reflect that they underestimated Plastic Man and how seriously he took hero work, only too late to thank him for his sacrifice. Cue Plas, alive and well, drifting gently to earth, having survived the explosion.
