The Dibnys and the new Crisis-Free DC Universe!

From Newsarama.com
By Graeme McMillan
October 3rd, 2011

"Add this to the mild-confusion over continuity in the new DC Universe: No Crisis event has taken place in the New 52niverse. Or, at least, so said Dan DiDio on Facebook over the weekend:

"This doesn’t just knock out Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis, but also Zero Hour, Final Crisis and, potentially, Identity Crisis, which opens up all manner of new possibilities for characters and storylines for creators to play with. Perhaps understandably, DiDio was forced to clarify this statement a day later:

"What I really want to know is, does this mean that Ralph and Sue Dibny are still alive now? Because, if so, I really, really want to see them have their own strip in DC Universe Presents sooner rather than later".

I somehow I don't think the Dibnys are going to get lucky. At least not anytime soon. Don't ask me how, but I know as a fact that DiDio says that he has no plans for them. For some reason, I think he doesn't like them (albeit it seemed the same way with Aquaman - and look at him now!). Then again, I managed to ask their opinion to 3 or 4 of really talented writers and they prefer the real deals to come back instead of the detective ghosts.

Please, read the original article and its reply posts at Newsarama (DC Comics: Crisis-Free Since 2011).

Update - October 6th, 2011

Cyriaque Lamar, from io9.com, just published 10 "Crises" We Won’t Miss Now That The DC Universe Rebooted Itself, an article sharing interesting thoughts on the negative aspects that won't be missed from the Crises events. Sue gets to be the negative aspect #4:



4.) Sue Dibny Gets Thrown Under The Bus
"Sue Dibny was the plucky, no-nonsense wife of Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man.



Not an image I like either.



"For a long while, Sue and Ralph were a goofy couple who were mostly used for comic relief. But in 2004's Identity Crisis, Sue was brutally murdered in the first issue.



"Readers next discovered in the second issue that Sue had been secretly raped by Dr. Light, a bumbling doofus supervillain. If you're confused as to why this was a big deal, replace the names "Sue Dibny" with "Mary Tyler Moore" and "Dr. Light" with "Abbott and Costello." Now you know why absolutely nobody liked Identity Crisis".

Please, go to io9 to read the full article. 

Speculating about the Elongated Man's life in the DCnU

So far, we know only a few things about this DC new Universe that is being created, some can help to make suppositions about Ralph Dibny. Superman debuted 7 years ago, the Justice League was formed about 5 years ago and the Identity Crisis happened, the later assures us that the Dibnys existed, Ralph was part of the Justice League and that Sue died. We have not seen the Elongated Man in the new solicitations, and I think it's a safe bet that he died in a similar way to 52. That makes Ralph tenure as a hero was roughly 5 years as well.

The Justice League characters of the DCnU.



They chose to set Superman's debut, 7 years ago. So Superman debuted at some point during 2004. If we make that  July 2004, that would be a month for each of his 73 years of existence. Considering the was really created four years before DC acquired him, the date could be changed to March 2004. Condensing the entire DC continuity to 7 years or so makes little to not sense (too little time to train 5 Robins or make reasonably long JLA incarnations); it'd be easier to just start the continuity from the first year after a DC: The New Frontier sort of thing and to reintroduce all the younger characters eventually. However, if, for some crazy reason, they want to keep continuity luggage (probably a trick too keep selling trades of the old DCU), and still have younger golden and silver agers for a while, turning years into months is the best pretext (check this article to see what would the DC timeline would look like).

The new version of Superman in his early years.

Going with this "years = months" theory of mine, this is the World-famous Elongated Man time line:

• May 2007 (1960): The Elongated Man debuts in Central City, sharing the "Man of the Year" award with the Flash (who debuted in January). If the continuity is rigid, he makes his fortune the rest of that month and retires to explore Yucatan, but I guess in the DCnU, he visited Central already being rich and famous, which would mean that he discovered the Gingold elixir in mid 2003.

•  June 2007 (1961): After giving his secret identity away, he meets and marries Sue Dearbon (man, he works fast!!).

• September 2007 (1964): The Dibnys start traveling USA. The Elongated Man meets Batman.
• November 2007 (1966): Ralph meets Green Lantern and Zatanna.
• December 2007 (1967): Ralph teams with the JLA to help Zatanna find her father. Later, he rescues the Atom from Chronos.
• June 2008 (1973): The Elongated Man becomes a JLA member.

• June 2008 - January 2009: At some point Sue is attacked by Dr. Light.

• March 2008 (1981): The Dibnys solve the mystery of Edgar Allan Poe's death.
• May 2009 (1985): Aquaman dismisses the part time JLA members (Ralph, Zatanna, and the returning Martian Manhunter) and moves the remaining team to Detroit. Sue moves to their headquarters with Ralph.

• June 2009 (1986): Ronald Reag... I guess that's Barack Obama now, disassembles the JLA. Another group of heroes forms a new Justice League after the President changes his mind, they change their name to Justice League International (JLI).
• August 2009 (1987): Ralph teams up with Sherlock Holmes, Slam Bradley, Batman and Robin to stop Edgar Moriarty.

• October 2009 (1989): Ralph joins the European branch of the JLI. Sue also joins as the team's monitor.

• January 2010 (1992): Sue becomes Bureau Chief of the Justice League Europe.
• May 2010 (1996): after 11 months of a wildly rotating roster, the JLI is disassembled.
• Some point between May 2010 and January 2011 Maxwell Lord, along with other long staying members of the JLI, recruits Ralph and Sue Dibny again. The Dibnys settle in Opal City. This time for a superhero team called "Super Buddies". Meanwhile, Sue becomes a popular mystery fiction writer.
• January 2011 (2004): Sue Dies.

• March 2011 (2005): Ralph starts a quest to reunite with Sue.
• April 2011 (2006): Ralph sacrifices himself to foil Felix Faust and Neron. Sue and he become ghost detectives.

• August 2011 (2011): Some kid tries to become "the Elongated Kid" but dies. They start
• September 2011: NOW.

In theory, turning each year of DC publication history into months seems logical, but then, there are weird messes. A month is way too short for the JLA Detroit, and half a year is way to little for JLI. There's also Ralph's marriage. While I think he and Sue might be impulsive enough to marry soon, a month is way too short, specially considering her age (she was 18 tops). Some changes that wouldn't surprise me if this whole theory is right would be:

• June 2007 (1961): Ralph meets Sue, only this doesn't happen at her Debutante Ball (she shouldn't be 17). It was some other high society event. They click and start living together almost right away.
• June 2008 (1973): They marry, and he was invited to join the JLA soon.

Apparently, even Ralph had a skyrocketing life in 4 years of fame and fortune. And this is just the life of the Elongated Man, a character that, during his entire existence, only had a backup feature every three months in average. Imagine the kind of nightmare that will be sorting out the timeline of Batman or Superman (characters appearing in 3 to 9 books monthly).

Everything seems to indicate that the Dibnys are still dead, which means that the best hope for their fans (besides going back to waiting for plan "resurrection") is to see them just the same way we saw them the last time...

Related articles

If you enjoyed this post, here are some articles that provide its background information.

• The Elongated Man and the Silver Age Timeline! - See what the Silver Age of DC Comics was all about event by event in chronoogical order.
• Part I: Pre-Classic (1947 - 1956).
• Part II: Classic (1956 - 1969).
• Part III: Post-Classic (1969 - 1973).  
• The Elongated Man and the Bronze Age Timeline! (1973 - 1985).
• Survivors of the Golden Age! - This article will help you identify character counterparts between Earth-One and Earth-Two.