Unused Adventure Comics Cover: Plastic Man

Only the lower right corner section, with Starman, was used on the published cover of Adventure Comics # 469, cover dated March 1980. Aparo's Plastic Man was replaced with a Joe Staton-drawn illustration:

Staton (who pencilled the interior Plastic Man story) has kept the same basic layout, but Plas is defensive and intimidated rather than fighting back, so the editor must have wanted to convey threat instead of a more active engagement.
It's interesting to see Jim work in a more intentionally cartoony style, hearkening back to his earliest comic book work. The villain is clearly in the vein of Ramona Fradon, who had recently handled Plas in his self-titled series, ending in October 1977. Other than Joe Staton, who was penciller on this run in Adventure Comics, Aparo was the only other artist to have drawn Plastic Man in the intervening years, in Brave & Bold #148.
Jim did the full cover of the previous issue, Adventure Comics #468.