Compared to Wayne Boring or Curt Swan, I always found Al Plastino’s art on Superman stories to be a bit bland and indistinct.
But there’s no denying that he worked on some milestones, including The Three Supermen from Krypton (1950); Mrs. Superman (1957); The Battle with Bizarro (1959); The Curse of Kryptonite (1959), The Menace of Mr. Mxyzptlk (1959); The Story of Superman’s Life (1961), Superman Under the Red Sun! (1963) and The Day Superman Became the Flash (1964).
Plastino drew the stories that introduced the Legion of Super Heroes (1958), Brainiac (1958), and Metallo and Supergirl (both in the same 1959 issue of Action Comics).
“Al Plastino’s art shows his interest in abstract painting,” observed comics historian Michael E. Grost. “In an early panel (in a Superman 173 story), Jor-El is shown with an invention called the Dimension Screen. Its monitor shows a series of colored polygons. These geometric figures make a highly effective piece of abstract art.”
Plastino wasn’t that interested in comic books, however. “I did my job, and I never took comics that seriously,” he once said. “It was a job and I did it, and that was it.”
Plastino and Jerry Siegel produced The Orphans of Space (Superman 144, April 1961), a tale in which Superman’s blunder causes the apparent destruction of Earth.
It’s remarkable how many of Siegel’s later Superman stories treat the Man of Tomorrow as a tragic figure. But by then, of course, he represented the Man of Disappointed Yesterdays to his co-creator.
Meanwhile, over in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen 52, the cub reporter was having his second exploit as a werewolf in search of a Sleeping Beauty solution to his dilemma. Only the magic of a kiss could restore him to his ordinary daily life of being stalked by criminals, kidnapped by aliens, and transformed into other weird forms by various potions, spells, curses, and pseudo-scientific devices.
Siegel also penned this tale, with art by Swan.
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