Continued from yesterday's cover, Ralph goes back to his classic duds to single-handedly take on the world-devourer.
If it were up to me, Ralph Dibny would be a flagship character in the DC Universe. The guy just gets no respect. Things really began to go downhill for him once Plastic Man took his spot in the JLA. Soon his wife was brutally killed and he was knocked off not long after. They even killed him off-camera on TV's The Flash! Yes, I know he's been brought back in some unrecognisable form in a New 52 comic, but that's not good enough for me. Let's get an all new Elongated Man Rebirth series going! Who's with me? Anyone? Bueller?
Um, he's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ralph pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem with Ralph is that his abilities are like Hourman's - they come from "drugs" or "chemicals". He and Hourman can be perceived as juicing; or promoting a chemical dependency. The only way to "fix" Ralph is to make his powers due to a similar accident like Plastic Man.
ReplyDeleteI'm still pretty upset by Alex Ross' Plastic Man - Elongated Man debate in Justice.
I'm a long time fan of Elongated Man and am right there with you.
ReplyDeleteInspired by yesterday's E-Man appearance, I penciled down my retro-era Justice League dream team: Elongated Man, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), The Question (Vic Sage), The Creeper, Zatanna, and Black Canary.
I want to do the same for a Marvel Team. And then maybe pass the whole thing along for you to noodle on. ;)
For me, Elongated Man only works when he is paired with his wife Sue as a mystery-solving couple like Nick and Nora of the Thin Man movies.
ReplyDeleteI am entirely with you. ANY character can be a good one, and Ralph was a light hearted - but not silly - character until the writers started making him the butt of jokes.
ReplyDeleteAny time writers make fun of one of their company's characters in stories, an editor hasn't done his job. The sole exception is a character CREATED to be mocked (such as Spider-Man). Otherwise, why hire someone who would denigrate their employer's property? Do you think a car salesman would last long mocking one of the company's models?
Ralph was a solid detective character with a solid supporting character in his wife, and interesting powers - we can tell that from Mr. Fantastic and Plastic Man. I agree; there should be a good venue for him.
The problem with Elongated Man is WHY would anyone gaining any form of power call himself ELONGATED? Yes, Plastic Man, Thin Man, Mr. Fantastic was 'Stretcho', so Stretch Man was out. Even Elastic Lad with Jimmy Olsen was unavailable, and you didn't want to call yourself Rubber Man. With American slang, you'd end up with a tittering team-up between Rubber Man and the Thing.
ReplyDeleteIt was supposed to be the same formula that made the Indian Rubber Man (and WOW, can you imagine the potential complaints for a red-haired white man calling himself INDIAN?).
But for the era, Silly Putty Man would have worked better than Elongated, or just Putty Man. Anything!
Even still, I thought the character worked remarkably well in the JLI stories, and yes, his wife was definitely part of that characterization. When I heard she was killed off (never seen any of the books and don't care to) then gathered something happened to him as well, I was like forget it. I'll enjoy the old JL books more.
It was pointed out that any time Elongated Man, Plastic Man and Rubber Duck (hmm, worked in the Zoo Crew) stood in a crowd, they had to stretch their neck like an exaggerated goose.
ELS, I remember Marvel 'sacrificing' or 'trashing' their characters for the sake of newer ones more than DC doing so, which was always odd to me.
ReplyDeleteNew characters would join teams, like Luke Cage joining the Fantastic Four (which at least was story related) and then the Defenders, which was a non-team.
But later, characters were trashed to promote other characters deemed more popular, such as the Thing suffering wounds at the claws of Wolverine (when in the early seventies, the Thing was perhaps second only to Spiderman in popularity).
Or Dazzler defeating Galactus, which endeared her to no readers anywhere.
And then there was She-Hulk joining and staying in both the Avengers and the FF. It was just put these characters anywhere to make them more popular and get them exposure.
Ralph is a great character and is only used for his "elastic" abilities, but hardly ever for his detective skills. It was once said that he is only second to Batman as a detective. So he's potentially an even better detective than Nightwing. He should be in Detective Comics as a back up character and solve mysteries (remember how his nose twitches when he smells a mystery?)
ReplyDeleteAs for someone's comment on the fact that his powers are linked to drinking Gingold, it could indeed be seen as a drug, or it could be cleverly seen as drinking fruit juice, in order to get these "special vitamins" or whatever to get his powers. There could be a message of "eat healthy and be a hero" if used properly. Otherwise, one can change his ways of getting his powers.
I wonder what Ralph's secret weapon could be? Certainly not the Ultimate Nullifier! I'm sure Galactus put that in an even more secure hiding place after the Watcher helped Reed Richard lay hands on it, way back in the early Silver Age. My wild guess? He's going to use one of the Atom's shrinker belts to go inside Galactus' brain via one of his one ears...and do to Big G what Crazy Jean Loring did to poor Sue Dibny.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on a new Elongated Man comic. I loved seeing him less as a stretching superhero than as a detective superhero with stretching powers; he was usable as such either in a solo situation (with Sue along, as Anonymous above posited) or as part of a team.
ReplyDeleteSo, if there really was to be an Elongated Man comic in any form, I'd happily write it; I do light-hearted detective stories quite well, if I do say so myself. Ross, you can edit, and David on pencils. Now we'd just have to get permission from DC (tall order there).
Galactus vs Ralph Dibny ????
ReplyDeletePrediction - Galactus uses him like a piece of bubble gum !!!!
I agree, Ralph was a great character. He was a detective who could stretch (if I recall his origin, he found the gingold as he was investigating the mystery of the Indian rubber men.) I also liked the humor, and his relationship with Sue. My favorite stories were the backups, only 4-5 pagers but very interesting. The more I hear about reboots and "new improved" comics, the more I prefer back issues!
ReplyDeleteThis isn't exactly the best picture of Silver Surfer, but it seems to fit in with the cover!
David Wendt said...
ReplyDelete“Inspired by yesterday's E-Man appearance”
That’s not ‘E-Man’, this is E-Man: https://braveandboldlost.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/E-Man .
David Foissard said...
“Ralph is a great character and is only used for his "elastic" abilities, but hardly ever for his detective skills. It was once said that he is only second to Batman as a detective.”
‘Second only to Batman’ as a human detective, anyway: A certain chimpanzee has been known to express his own opinion about all-species rankings…
^_^
Actually, the _true_ E-man can be found@ www.internationalhero.co.uk/e/eman.htm
ReplyDeleteAlong with his belly-dancing wife, Nova Kane.
*SPOILERS* Gail Simone ended SECRET six with the return of the Ralph & Sue y'all know and love.
ReplyDelete@AirDave: "Drugs?" I'll have you know that Gingold is 100% all-natural fruit juice concentrate! ;)
ReplyDelete@AirDave: "Drugs?" I'll have you know that Gingold is 100% all-natural fruit juice concentrate! ;)
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, I'm more of a Plastic Man fan but DC has the characterisation wrong there too - he always worked best as the straight man with silly powers an insane world, as jack Cole intended him to be. That's also why woozy winks was such a great sidekick: he played against Plas well.
ReplyDeleteSchwartz said if he'd realised DC already had the rights to Plas, they wouldn't have created the Dibnys...
I don't mind Ralph and Sue but there you go.