After being shot and doused with some kind of acid, a safe-cracker flees from police and is nursed back to health by monks at a mountain retreat. He discovers that the acid had entered his bloodstream and caused radical changes in his body. Upon returning to the city he returned to his criminal ways, but only as a means of gathering information for his crime-fighting career. Who was this masked man?

Patrick 'Eel' O'Brian is Plastic Man, whose origin exactly matches this description. As a safe-cracker, he was shot during a robbery and doused with acid, which entered his bloodstream and gave him his stretching powers. He was nursed back to health by monks at a mountain monastery before returning to fight crime. Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic), Ralph Dibny (Elongated Man), and Stretch Armstrong are all stretchable characters but have different origins.