Police Comics #24 (1943)

After gangster Pinky Flowers sees how devastating Plastic Man is in capturing his mob, he decides the best replacement would be a mob of Plastic Men! He visits scientist Dr. Gleason, who agrees to make hundreds of robot Plastic Men, simply because he's bored and has nothing better to do with his prodigious talents. Soon tires are being stolen off every car in town to provide the raw materials. Soon, a baffled Plastic Man and Woozy Winks see another Plastic Man running by, carrying the take from robbing the Sixth National Bank. Pursuing cops promptly arrest Plas for the theft, leaving Woozy to investigate on his own. He finds the secret laboratory, and for an ironic way of disposing of the witness, they throw him into the machine making the fake Plastic Men. Woozy comes out unharmed but in a rubber body and costume, which has him bouncing wildly out of the building and to the jail where his partner's incarcerated. The malleable hero slips out of jail to stop the imitation Plastic Men from robbing the U.S. Sub Treasury. He ties them all in knots, and hands over Pinky and Dr. Gleason to the feds. Dr. Gleason is beside himself at having his ration books confiscated for being part of the tire theft ring: he'd just figured out how to make a rubber man out of coffee beans.