Perhaps the least-likely superhero to deal with either the Korean War or biological warfare...
...was the usually light-hearted Ductile Detective, Plastic Man!
As you can see, this never-reprinted tale from Quality's Plastic Man #38 (1952) is a loooong way from his usual surreal antics.
After World War II, while most surviving superheroes were going from serious to light-hearted, Quality's characters took a dive into the Dark Side of the pool, following whatever trend was popular at the moment!
Monsters (including vampires, zombies, and werewolves), Korean/Russkie/Chinese Communists, and aliens from outer space became their primary opponents!
For other characters like Blackhawk and Kid Eternity, it wasn't much of a transition since they had battled fairly realistic Nazis and Japanese both on the battlefield and on the homefront, but the usually-fun Plas went through a particularly-jarring change as writer/artist Jack Cole departed his creation early in 1950!
The decidedly non-humorous trend continued until Plas was laid to rest in 1956.
Though DC bought up the Quality Comics line that year, the only titles they continued were Blackhawk, G.I. Combat, Heart Throbs and the short-lived Robin Hood Tales.
Plas languished without even a reprint until he was revived in 1966 in all-new stories in a short-lived series!
(Note: around the same time, IW/Super Comics reprinted several issues of Plas's Golden Age book since they had purchased the actual printing plates from a facility where they had been abandoned by Quality.
The timing appears to have been a coincidence.)
Since then, he's been revived and revamped several times under a variety of creatives including Kyle Baker and Phil Foglio, and eventually incorporated into the DC mainstream universe.
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Featuring classic tales from each of his eras (Golden Age/Silver Age/Bronze Age)
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