Elongated Man
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The Elongated Man is a fictional comic book superhero in the DC universe. He is a reserve member of the Justice League. His first appearance was The Flash vol. 1, #112 (May 12, 1960). He was partially created by Julius Schwartz, who noted he only created the character because he didn't realize DC Comics had acquired Plastic Man in 1956.
The character has won and been nominated for several awards over the years, including winning the 1961 Alley Award for Best Supporting Character.
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[edit] Character history
[edit] Biography
According to his origin, as a teenager, Ralph Dibny adored contortionists, or people who displayed feats of agility and suppleness. He learned that all of the body-benders he spoke with drank a popular soda called "Gingold." Ralph set to work learning chemistry and developed a super-concentrated extract of the rare Gingo fruit, which gave him his elasticity.
Ralph Dibny was one of the earliest Silver Age DC heroes to reveal his secret identity to the public, and also one of the first to marry his love interest. He and his wife Sue Dibny became effectively partners, solving mysteries and participating in Justice League adventures as equals. They were also notable in having a stable, happy, and relatively trouble-free marriage — an anomaly in the soap operatic annals of comic books. Fans of the characters often referred to Ralph and Sue as the "Nick and Nora Charles of the super-hero set" (a reference to The Thin Man movies).
[edit] Identity Crisis
In Identity Crisis #1, published in June 2004, tragedy struck the Dibnys, when Sue was murdered in their home just before she was going to surprise her husband with the news that she was pregnant. Ralph and Sue also appeared as members of the Justice League offshoot the Super Buddies in the miniseries Formerly Known as the Justice League and its sequel story arc "I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League". published in JLA: Classified #4-9. The latter arc was produced before Identity Crisis but published afterwards. Unfortunately, a running joke in "I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League" involves the possibility of Sue's pregnancy, and seems somewhat morbid after Identity Crisis.
[edit] "Crisis of Conscience"
Ralph later appeared in the JLA storyarc "Crisis of Conscience". By this time, Ralph has stopped taking extracts of gingold daily, and lost his stretching abilities. The story revolves around the Silver Age Secret Society of Super-Villains regaining the memories mindwiped by Zatanna and seeking revenge against the Satellite era League's loved ones. After defeating the villains, the League again debates whether to erase the villains memories. Although Zatanna initially refuses to debate this, she does remove the defeated villains' knowledge of the Justice League's secret identities. The questionable morals of the League serve as the foundation for the company-wide crossover Infinite Crisis.
[edit] 52
In the 2006 weekly series 52, just as Ralph Dibny is about to commit suicide, he learns that his late wife's tombstone has been vandalized. Dibny confronts Cassandra Sandsmark, accusing her of leaving a message on the tombstone: an inverted version of Superman's S-symbol, which in Kryptonian means "resurrection." Sandsmark and other members of a resurrection cult supposedly based on Kryptonian theology, which Dibny and Sandssmark refer to as the "Cult of Conner", steal Dibny's wedding ring. Dibny tries to get Booster Gold to help him investigate, but when he realizes that Booster might have been able to save Sue, Dibny attacks him. While Booster later disperses a mob, an actor he hired for a staged battle reveals the truth to the press. Dibny tells reporters that Booster is a fraud.
After Dibny finds Sandsmark, she tells him that the cult believes that Superboy's spirit is holy and can be resurrected, but they need to do a trial run. Ralph agrees to cooperate so that his wife may live again; however, he and his friends disrupt the ceremony, destroying the necessary elements. A straw doll dressed in Sue's clothing crawls to Dibny and calls out to him while it burns. The cult leader, Devem, tells Dibny that because of the disruption, he no longer can resurrect anyone. Dibny, seeming mentally unstable, hides under a bridge and clutches the straw doll's remnants, saying that he will try again.
After Dibny recovers from his mental instability, he receives a visit from Detective Chimp, who brings with him the newly recovered helm of Doctor Fate. The Shadowpact assembles in Giza for a scrying to reveal the helm's recent history. The helmet appears to speak to Dibny (although the others present cannot see or hear anything from it), promising to fulfill his desires if he will make the sacrifices the helm asks of him. Dibny accepts, and he takes off with the helm, beginning his pilgrimage. Travelling through the Lands of the Dead, Dibny receives tutelage in the ways of magic - and, most importantly, in the prices and bargains that must be paid in order to achieve magical power.
On his return to the world of the living, in Week Twenty-Seven Dibny approaches the Spectre, promising to fulfil any bargain demanded of him if the Spectre will return his wife to life. The Spectre, desiring revenge on Eclipso for her manipulations of him during the Infinite Crisis but rendered incapable of taking it owing to his lack of a host, orders Dibny to punish Eclipso in return for his wife's life; Dibny, realising that this means punishing Jean Loring, his wife's murderer, and temporarily granted the power of the Spectre, takes Eclipso back to the point at which she (as Jean Loring) murdered his wife and, restoring Jean's sanity, ruthlessly intends to trap her in a permanent time loop and force her to watch herself murder Sue Dibny over and over for all eternity.
Her sanity restored, a terrified Loring tearfully begs for forgiveness, screaming that she 'was crazy' when she murdered Sue and that it 'wasn't me!'. Dibny, affected by her pleas, his sense of compassion and his own feelings on watching his wife's death, finds himself incapable of such ruthlessness and refuses to complete his pact with the Spectre, returning Eclipso to her orbit around the sun. Angrily denouncing the Spectre and his methods as 'repugnant' - but now aware that there is the possibility of returning his wife to life - Dibny moves on with Dr. Fate's Helm to find another being with whom he could accomplish his goals.
In his latest appearance, he confronts Supernova and claims he knows Supernova's secret identity, but does not reveal it to the reader.
[edit] Powers and abilities
As his name suggests, the Elongated Man can stretch his limbs and body to super-human lengths and sizes. These stretching powers grant the Elongated Man heightened agility enabling him flexibility and coordination that is extraordinarily beyond the natural limits of the human body. He can contort his body into various positions and sizes impossible for ordinary humans, such as being entirely flat so that he can slip under a door, or using his fingers to pick conventional locks. He can also use it for disguise by changing the shape of his face, although this is painful and difficult for him. Ralph's physiology has greater physical limitations than Plastic-Man; there is a limit to how far he can stretch his finite bodily mass.
The Elongated Man's powers also greatly augments his durability. He is largely able to withstand corrosives, punctures and concussions without sustaining injury. It has been demonstrated that he is resistant to high velocities that would kill an ordinary person and that he is also more resistant to blasts from energy weapons that would kill ordinary humans. His physiology is more like that of an ordinary human than Plastic Man and as a result he does not share Plastic Man's nigh invulnerability.
The Elongated Man gets his abilities from a combination of drinking a soda named Gingold that contains the extract of a (fictional) fruit called gingo and his natural latent metahuman physiology. The extract interacts with a latent gene that Ralph has, thus activating his super powers. It was revealed in Invasion #3 that it was a metagene reaction to the Gingold elixir that had always provided him with his stretching powers, meaning that he is, in fact, a metahuman and that an ordinary human would not develop such powers through ingesting the extract. Also, most people are extremely allergic to highly concentrated Gingold. The only other hero in the DCU who uses Gingold is Stretch, a member of Hero Hotline who has been using the compound since the 1940's. Due to prolonged Gingold abuse Stretch had problems maintaining human form. Pre-Crisis storylines had Jimmy Olsen taking Gingold, becoming Elastic Lad, and being an Honorary Legion of Superheroes member.
The Elongated Man is professionally trained as a detective and is highly skilled in deductive reasoning. Often considered one of the most brilliant detectives in the DC Universe (second only to Batman and perhaps the Question), his name is also a play on The Thin Man detective serial. He is a talented amateur chemist as well.
Ralph Dibny is a native English speaker, but can also speak French. He can understand Interlac well enough to translate.
[edit] Other media
The character has appeared in a few episodes of the Justice League Unlimited animated series, voiced by Jeremy Piven. This is the first television series in which he has made an appearance. Elongated Man has two speaking roles. In his first appearance, he and Booster Gold are complaining about being on crowd control. The second time, he and the Flash are complaining about the fact that some other members of the League don't show them enough respect. At the end of the former episode (The Greatest Story Never Told), which is primarily a one-shot about Booster Gold saving the world while the rest of the League are tied up in a battle against Mordru, it is in fact Elongated Man who ends up defeating Mordru off-screen and apparently saving the day, ganering praises from the lead Justice Leaguers themselves. This appears to be quite some feat as earlier in the episode Mordru was easily holding his own against the combined efforts of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and many other minor heroes.
In Franks Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Dibny is mentioned as a man in a bar who was reminiscing about the Silver Age and when he heard mention of Batman, his face sagged and his jaw dropped to the floor. In Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Dibny is seen hawking a "male enhancement" drink in a TV infomercial.
