Tom Kenny, Dana Snyder, and Michael Bell, among others, have voiced the character in animated television series and films.

Fleeing on foot and suffering increasing disorientation from the gunshot wound and the exposure to the chemical, Eel eventually passed out on the foothills of a mountain near the city.

This monk, sensing a capacity for great good in O'Brian, turned away police officers who had trailed Eel to the monastery.

This act of faith and kindness—combined with the realization that his gang had left him to be captured without a moment's hesitation—fanned Eel's longstanding dissatisfaction with his criminal life and his desire to reform.

In his original Golden Age/Quality Comics incarnation, Plastic Man eventually became a member of the city police force and then the FBI.

After the 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths, a 1988–1989 four-issue Plastic Man miniseries by Phil Foglio introduced a new version of Plastic Man: Eel O'Brian, abandoned by his criminal gang after being shot and exposed to the unidentified chemical, wandered the streets as his new powers developed, frightening others and bringing the police and National Guard down on him as a dangerous monster.

The story arc "Rock of Ages" shows Batman recruiting Eel to infiltrate Lex Luthor's Injustice League in the guise of the Joker, which he does successfully.

After the extended League dissolves at the end of the "World War III" arc, he is the only member other than the 'Big Seven' heroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern) to retain full-time membership in the JLA.

He has played substantial roles in nearly every major team-up and crossover featuring the League of this era: with the Titans (The Technis Imperative), Young Justice (World Without Grownups), the Justice Society of America (Virtue and Vice, where he is one of the heroes to be possessed by one of the Seven Deadly Sins), the Avengers (the JLA/Avengers crossover) and even the Looney Tunes (in the humorous Superman & Bugs Bunny miniseries).

While Plastic Man devolved from a person with a sense of humor into a constantly wisecracking and almost ineffectual idiot, the now "normal" Eel O'Brian struggled with the criminal tendencies he had suppressed as he had become comfortable with his role as a superhero and wondered if he had actually changed for the better at all or this was just part of the super-hero "act".

Ultimately, Eel was the driving force behind the other transformed Leaguers banding together to re-join with their superheroic selves, noting that Bruce Wayne in particular was approaching a mental breakdown as he struggled with his rage over his parents' murder – having lacked the ability to do anything about it, as Batman was the identity that had 'inherited' his skills.

Plastic Man admits to Batman that he doesn't know if he ran away from being a father because he was enjoying his new life as a hero, or because he was afraid of becoming a parent for his son.

[5] During the story arc "The Obsidian Age", Plastic Man and the other main members of the JLA were transported through time thousands of years earlier to the beginning days of Atlantis.

After a few more cases, Plastic Man is present at the memorial service held after this incarnation of the Justice League officially disbands during the Infinite Crisis storyline.

The character wears a white costume with red goggles, similar to that of Offspring, Plastic Man's son in the earlier 1999 DC miniseries The Kingdom by Mark Waid.

While the Teen Titans story itself does not identify the character, page two of a published script supposedly by writer Geoff Johns' specifies it is "Plastic Man's son, Offspring".

His DNA is taken by Sivana and used to augment an amnesiac Connor Hawke, in a bid to turn the young hero into a brainwashed slave with a strong healing factor.

After joining up with the team following the events of Final Crisis, Plastic Man has his effectiveness questioned by his teammate Dr. Light, which starts a fight between the two, which Vixen breaks up.

Though they experience some control issues between them, the Royal Flush Gang is defeated and Plastic Man and Dr. Light finally stop arguing.

[9][10] In the Blackest Night crossover, while still suffering from his deteriorating state, Plastic Man had his heart torn out by the Black Lantern, Vibe, seemingly killing him.

[13] Plastic Man later appeared in Justice League: Generation Lost, helping a large coalition of heroes on an unsuccessful mission to trace Maxwell Lord.

In Dark Days: The Forge, Batman unveils a containment unit to Mister Terrific in The Lunar Batcave bearing the Plastic Man logo and suggests it is time to release him.

[25] Plastic Man's powers are derived from an accident in which his body was bathed in an unknown industrial chemical mixture that entered his bloodstream through a gunshot wound.

Due to his fluid state, Plastic Man can open holes in his body and turn himself into objects with mobile parts.

In addition, he can alter his bodily mass and physical constitution at will, creating virtually no limit to the sizes and shapes he can contort himself into.

These stretching capabilities grant Plastic Man agility, flexibility, and coordination far beyond the natural limits of the human body.

Some stories, perhaps of anecdotal quality, have showed him susceptible to surprise attack by bullets, in one case oozing a substance similar to liquid plastic.

He was only capable of returning to his usual form after the rest of the League were able to gather enough of his molecules and restore approximately 80% of his body mass, after which he began to regenerate the remaining 20% on his own.

In the aftermath of the Justice League story Arc "Obsidian Age", Plastic Man was discovered to have survived for 3,000 years scattered into separate, individual molecules on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean without decaying or being otherwise affected at all.