Reviews, comments and observations on stories that feature DC Comics' best detective (cough, afterbatman, cough) and the sensational Sue, his spoiled wife. I'll be pointing the best ones, the key ones and the lousy ones.
"The Elongated Man's Other-Worldly Wife" (Detective Comics #332) started one of the earlier traditions of the Dibny: The birthday mysteries.Every year, around Ralph's birthday, March 21, Sue prepares a mystery for him to solve. She does so many of those that, at some point, the Daily Planet runs an entire section on them.
Some of his partners in crime include the Sue's uncle Jim, Flash, Green Lantern, Alfred Pennyworth, the entire Justice League International and his last was going to be Green Arrow.
Since Ralph turned 55 on Tuesday, in order to keep the celebration going, I decided to make the list of birthday mystery stories.
BIRTHDAY MYSTERY I
Detective Comics #332 (October 1964), "The Elongated Man's Other-Worldly Wife" - Ralph discovers that Sue is the beautiful leader of an alien invasion. Written by Gardner Fox, with art by Carmine Infantino and Sid Greene. This is the one that started the tradition. Epic art, Carmine is the master of design Sue looks incredible as an alien queen. This is by far, her most elaborated scheme.
BIRTHDAY MYSTERY II
Detective Comics #350 (April 1966), "Green Lantern's Blackout" - Hal can't remember that he is the Green Lantern, so, since Ralph and Sue are in Coast City, Pieface recruits him to save the day.
This birthday Ralph got a very memorable present from Sue (and Paul Gambi?). Written by Gardner Fox, with art by Carmine Infantino. Somehow, this one has a dark feeling, a bit hardboiled for an Elongated Man story.
BIRTHDAY MYSTERY III
Detective Comics #375 (May 1968), "The Face That Stopped Clocks" - In Wayside City, a man can stop clocks by staring that them. Even though Ralph is expecting Sue's mystery and his nose doesn't twitch, he agrees with her to follow him.
Written by Gardner Fox, with art by Mike Sekowsky and George Roussos. Out of all the DC superheroes of the 60s, the Elongated Man feels the most like a sitcom of that era. This story is just like watching Bewitched, The Dick Van Dike Show or My Favorite Martian.
BIRTHDAY MYSTERY IV
Detective Comics #449 (July 1975), "The Mystery Man Who Walked On Air" - Sue spots an old man walking on air outside their hotel room in Key West, FL. Written by Mary Skrenes, with art by Dick Giordano. I don't know if its the 70s, or the "old man", but the only thing missing is a scary monster to make it a Scooby Doo story.
BIRTHDAY MYSTERY V
Justice League Quarterly #6 (January 1, 1992), "Take My Wife--Please!" - Sue goes missing in Seaside City and the Ralph gets help from the Justice League International to find her.
Written by Mark Waid, with art by Eduardo Barreto, this is often considered the best birthday mystery by fans. Personally, I have to agree; this one feels like Ralph and Sue take the JLI gang on a roller coaster of mystery, keeping both the Giffen-DeMatteis line of humor and the silver age vibe of the Elongated Man stories.
Ralph is perhaps the only silver age superhero that kept his mid-60s spirit, this feels like a celebration of that.
BIRTHDAY MYSTERY VI
Identity Crisis #1 (June, 2004) - "Chapter One: Coffin" - Ralph thinks Sue is only going to get him a magnifying glass he saw in Belgium, but at their Opal City home, she has a bigger surprise and a mystery set with Green Arrow on board... We end on a sad note...Written by Brad Meltzer, with art by Rags Morales. It's controversial... I'm not touching that one with a 60-feet pole.
And that was the last one. Hopefully, the new DC horizon will bring us many more.
THE END
OR IS IT? (Update: 06-30-2015)
Nope, it wasn't. And that's great news.
BIRTHDAY MYSTERY VII (or VI b)
The pic is from Justice League 3000 #12 (feb 2015), and it shows the Blue Beetle and Booster Gold of what I like to call "Earth-Bwah-Ha-Ha" (hey, the term kind of got a blog laugh from J.M. DeMatteis), a continuity in which the events after I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League are completely different from what was published by DC. This means that Identity Crisis, Countdown, 52 and all the stories that turned the lives of Ralph and Sue, along characters like Maxwell Lord, Blue Beetle and Rocket Red into deaths and tragedies didn't happen. Instead, we get a number of extra birthday mysteries for Ralph, including the one Blue Beetle is talking about in the picture.
In this continuity, sometime after the events of I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, disappear when the Super Buddies were having a surprise party for Ralph and wake up some 3000 years in the future. This means that, although they didn't plan it, their disappearance became the 7th published birthday mystery, and, since Ralph obviously didn't find them, we can assume it's the only one he never solved...
Front center, a great place for the World-famous Elongated Man.
This page was created for the cover art of Absolute Identity Crisis released October 12th, 2011. This has to be the greated thing DC has done for the Elongated Man this year.
Artists often forget how tall is Ralph supposed to be, but that's clearly not the case here.
What gets a 30 years old dude obsessed about comic books? At least enough to make him to blog about his favorite character. Well, that's complicated. My bet is that nerd psychology is a very complex topic; one that I'm sure I'm not professionally qualified to discuss. I could research it and post some references and quotes -- but I don't wanna. Instead, I'm going to give you my top reasons for sticking with comics.
It is not really ranked according to a measurable rationale. A lot of simplistic reasons might be ahead of great art just because they came at the right time in my life. I hope you enjoy reading about them:
20. The Venture Bros.
Pure fun for nostalgic adults, showing sad versions of characters from DC, Marvel, Hanna-Barbera, VH1 Classic, pulp fiction and sci-fi films gone hilariously and pathetically wrong. The Venture Bros. made me realize that super beings are not black and white they are probably just losers trying to feel relevant. The characters, normally failures and shadows of what they used to be, go trough their existential crisis surrounded by a surreal remix of everything I watched on TV while growing up. They also save the day now and then, but that's mostly incidental.
Created by Jason Publick, a Tick alumnus, The Venture Bros. is like The Simpsons for geeks; every line is not only loaded with sarcasm and jokes but also a condensed of vintage pop cult references from the 70s and 80s (yes, even more than Famiy Guy). With so many Venture cosplay already happening in comic conventions, I can't wait to see how are mainsteam comics going to react to to it. 19. Identity Crisis, Hush, Batman/Superman and 52
After Batman: No Man's Land I was bored with DC Comics for a while. Understanding Comics reinfused me with love for comics, but not for DC. Our Worlds at War was so cloying, I gave up. What was Batman going to do next, anyway? Gotham was running out of disasters. But then, out of nowhere, everybody started to talk about the murder of Sue Dibny, and how great the mystery was, so I had to see what the fuss was all about. So I read it, and I loved it. It was a pull back, making the satellite era cool and relevant again. The characters that were most commonly associated with DC were at the front center again. To me, it looked like the actual DC Comics Super Friends facing their own secrets, fears and flaws.
Identity Crisis lead me to follow up with what seemed like a great DC bonanza of awesome stories in the same spirit: Batman/Superman, Hush, For Tomorrow and Formerly Known as the Justice League from before, and then with I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League, Green Lantern: Rebirth, Countdown, The Dark Knight Strikes Back, All-Star Superman, All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, Infinite Crisis, 52, Dark Detective, Brad Meltzer and Dwayne McDuffie's Justuce League of America run, Paul Dini's 'tec run, Grant Morrison's Batman runand Final Crisis. (Note that at the same time they were airing Justice League Unlimited). DC was shuffling it's greatest properties with the greatest talent available: Meltzer, Lee, Morales, Miller, Morrison, Dini, McDuffie, Waid, Hughes, Giffen, DeMatteis, Cooke, Johns. Yes, a lot of bad things were happening to some of the best characters: Sue, the Elongated Man, Rocket Red, the Question, Blue Beetle II, Aquaman, the Martian Manhunter and the original Ventriloquist died; Wonder Woman and Batman did some questionable things and Captain Atom and Maxwell Lord became villains. However, at the time it seemed to me that they were just making things darker before dawn. The return of Supergirl and other silver age elements seemed to indicate that with Infinite Crisis or Final Crisis
they would reboot DC to make it a brighter place with a reset. That never happened (to his credit, VP Dan DiDio did try, but he was blocked by higher powers); it was done out of time, too little, too late, too half way with Flashpoint and "the new 52" and I ended angry and disappointed, but I had a nice run and that's hard to deny.
18. Supreme
I used to think that, unlike Batman, Superman never really got his quintessential story in comics (maybe they should just adapt the Mario Puzo script and be done with it); that he doesn't have a Year One or The Dark Knight Returns. However, in the mid 00s I had the pleasure of discovering that I was wrong. Well, kinda. We can always squint and pretend that the Supreme stories by Alan Moore are it.
It seems like, at least by the 90s, Moore was a bit sick of torturing heroes with realistic tragedies that challenge their vision of what's right and wrong, so instead of a grim Superman, he made a pastiche of all the previous portrayals of Superman there had been so far.
Supreme is basically like Byrne or Jurgens' Superman facing everything he did under the most notorious writers that came before, mainly Otto Binder. In the story, we get a new Supreme entering reality after a revision; he goes through all the aspects of his past as he fixes loose ends and fights returning villains (part of the fun is trying to identify the DC characters that the supporting characters are supposed to represent). This way, the entire run, along with Judgement Day and other isolated issues, are the ultimate tribute to the process of comic superhero revision.
17. The Tick
SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONN!!!
I wish I could say that I know the character through its comics, but I was actually among the wave of fans that met the character through the animated series, which was part of a hype of superheroes in other media. After the success of Batman: The Animated Series, X-men and comics events like the The Death of Superman, Knightfall, Maximum Carnage, there was an era in which superheroes took over Saturday morning cartoons, now with a more serious tone than the series of the syndicated era (Thundercats, He-man, etc.). And The Tick did the exact opposite, showing a metropolis overcrowded with guys in tights so tight that their butt cracks were actually visible, only they were all neurotic, delusional and utterly incompetent and impractical nutjobs. And among them, generic within their own diversity, the Tick, whose name and costume didn't even make sense, was king. He was a nice, overwhelming, bigger than life, blue block with a Quixote attitude and a really small brain concealed by a really small head.
This cartoon was the first to show me that even humor has a place within superhero comics. Ever since The Tick, I've always been a fan of comedy with superhumans, which is probably why I just fell in love with JLI.
16. Freakazoid!
I can't believe nobody turned this property into an actual comic book! What are you waiting, DC?!
I still remember watching that first episode in shock: It was half Batman: The Animated Series, half Animaniacs, a bit Spider-man, and all surreal. Three of my favorite FoxKids shows in one!
It was fairly obvious from day one, but, eventually, I learned that it was originally about Bruce Timm, the creator of Batman: The Animated Series, pitching a series about a superhero version of the Joker, which then became more like Spider-man (which is why they have an unused Archie-like cast in the early episodes), ended as another Tiny Toons or Animaniacs type of show after he bailed and was then turned into a Monty Python type of thing. The best of the humor was done by Paul Rugg (who voiced Freakazoid) and good friend of the blog, John P. McCann.
It had it all: comedy, action, parodies, a terribly great rogues gallery, excellent art and even Henry Kissinger. What else could a kid want in a show? Laugh with me. Laugh with me!
15. Tim Burton's Batman
The 1989 Batman film directed by Tim Burton caused an epidemic wave of batmania among my generation. I got it and I got it pretty bad. I still remember the first time I saw it. I was siting a hammock with my brother and my cousin. My aunt, a good hearted spoiler by nature, was afraid that it might be too shocking for the three buggers, which is the reason we had to wait for the Betamax (it's a real thing, look it up) to come out. Along with Superman, Batman Returns, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Wayne's World any Star Wars and Back to the Future, it has to be one of the movies I watched the most.
Dark = cool. Although I still watched the wave of reruns of the 60s Batman show and Super Friends that came with the '89 batmania, anyway, but the lesson was pretty clear: the darker, the better. In the eyes of moviegoers, Burton's film lend credibility to superheroes. After it, both Batman and Superman had serious and acclaimed portrayals outside their original medium. Animation followed the example with Batman: The Animated Series and X-men, both of which inspires a lot of similar series. There were also the Batman film sequels and the similarly dark and serious (for the 90s) TV series of The Flash and Lois and Clark.
14. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
As a kid, it was the awesome cartoon about charming turtles that fight other animal mutants lead by a ninja and an alien; as an adult it became an awesome pastiche of vigilante, ninja and sci-fi genres with an over the top B-movie type of title. Reading the original comics, wonderfully redone in the 2003 cartoon, feels like a roller coaster of never ending weird adventures; an aspect that the 80s cartoon never quite capture. Batman, Spider-man and most superheroes tend to fight the same villains in the same settings all the time, the the turtles went from ninjas on rooftops, to robots in the sewers, anthropomorphic triceratops in outer space and demons in medieval times. It doesn't get more surreal than that, which is why I love that the TMNT keep returning since I first watch them as an 8 years old kid.
13. Daredevil and Batman: Year One
I don't now if they are more "realistic", but the serious tone that Frank Miller added to classic vigilantes certainly increased their coolness and the sense of danger that we get from their adventures. Pulp fiction goes greatly with vigilantes. The Batman that I got when I started reading comics in the early 90s was mostly an echo of Year One. I didn't read the real deal (Year One, The Dark Knight Returns) until the late 90s and I just read Daredevil throughout the last decade, which is why I don't rank this higher.
I'm not sure how to describe them, although Miller went over the top with DKR, these works made superheroes feel solid, grounded and badass; something that is really hard to get from other writers. Besides, without Miller, we wouldn't have so many great stuff: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Burton and Nolan Batman movies, the post-Crisis Batman, Batman: The Animated Series, and, I dare to say, the British invasion and Vertigo.
12. Angry comics of the early 90s.
After the first time they ran Batman: The Animated Series and X-men, somebody from my classroom showed up with the Knightfall and Death of Superman translated trades (none of us understood English back then). They were Batman and Superman, the guys from Super Friends but they were "serious stuff", the "official versions", not for kids anymore (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha); which was really cool and mind blowing for the pack of pre-teenagers taking turns to read it in the class room. Knightfall caught my eye a bit more, with the run against all the villain characters I knew from BTAS and the 60s show. Then there was Maximum Carnage, The Reign of the Supermen, Fatal Attractions, Emerald Twilight and a number of trading card series, describing cool, tragic and really violent events in the lives of DC and Marvel characters, most of them incredibly pumped with skin tight costumes with lots of utility belts and coats. Yes, most of those stories are better forgotten, but all in all, they are what introduced me to comics.
11. Batman
I have to be fair with Adam West, Burt Ward, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, Vincent Price and the rest of those guys. That show was my first impression of DC Comics and the only concept I had of Batman until I first watched the Burton film (when I was 8).
I know it seems really silly now, but to a 5 years old, it looked about as interesting as it gets. And we shouldn't be too harsh on it, if something was proven by Batman: the Brave and the Bold, is that every interpretation of Batman is equally valid. Batman wasn't that different from the comics or even other TV shows of the era and it was even done by some of the finest Hollywood talent of the late 60s!
I sustain that it was a great gateway to DC comics. Bizarre villains with flashy costumes, over the top fight scenes, mortal traps and lots of riddles, what else could a kid want from a live action TV show. I liked Hulk and Wonder Woman as well but, without the colorful antagonists, I used to fall asleep after the first 10 minutes. I for some reason really liked the later when I was 14, though...
10. X-men
The power of "As seen on TV".
18 years ago, this animated series introduced me to the world of comics. As I mentioned before, it came along with a wave of trading cards and comic events that got me hooked on DC and Marvel. Batman: The Animated Series reintroduced me to superheroes, but it was too alienated within its own gorgeous and timeless universe. X-men, on the other hand, benefited from adapting the vast and wonderful body of X-men stories from the books; consequently, it was more of a middle ground between TV animated series and comics. Its art, continuity, stories and even its season format was a lot like the X-men comics of the time, which is something that was never done before and, now that I think about it, was rarely done afterwards in another series. About every character I saw in that series had an almost identical story in the comics, so, once I fell in love with them, it made a great transition to comics, where I could get even more of that candy.
9. The Dark Knight
I must have seen this one like 5 times in theaters. Batman (1989) was great, but it missed something. I love Michael Keaton's "I'm Batman" Batman, but it wasn't quite the Batman from comics (for starters, he killed). Batman Begins captured the best aspects of the contemporary Batman mythos, but didn't cause much of an impact. Now, TheDark Knight, hat it all. It captured the best aspects from the comics, it had the perfect Batman (well, save for the voice thing), caused a huge deal of an impact and on top of that, gave superhero movies a lot of recognition. Unlike Batman Begins, to me, this sequel not only lived up to Batman: Year One, it as actually better!
8. Bwahaha
I discovered it too late around 1995, but it was so awesome to see DC Comics characters acting almost as if they belonged to a sitcom or The Tick universe (both franchises were created about the same time), that I starting collecting whatever Justice League International (JLI) issue I could throughout the rest of the 90s. Formerly Known as the Justice League (2003) and I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League (2005)became my favorite and I completed Justice League Europe eventuallyafter that.
Just like the DC-Vertigo characters make the DC Universe more exiting by having a really serious, surreal and eerie corner; the stories of Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis do the same by adding a silly side. While guys like Moore or Miller deconstructed the superhero genre by grounding its world to realism, the JLI team kinda deconstructed it with the funny aspects of reality: our daily life comic situations, incompetency, gossip, vanity, bureaucracy, etc.
Also noteworthy is that when the average hero of the late 80s was pessimistic, violent and snarky, the Justice League, despite their flaws, were kind and, deep down, idealistic. They might joke about it, but in the end, even their sleazeball manipulative boss had a heart of gold. Ralph, Sue, Max, Ted, Michael, Tora, Bea, Guy, J'onn, Karen and Dmitri are some of the best characters DC has ever seen and Giffen and DeMatteis are geniuses for this take. It doesn't matter qhe other writers did with them, I'll always go back to those stories. (By the way, their recent Booster Gold run and Justice League Retroactive:the 90s, rocked just as much).
7. The DC-Vertigo characters.
Pushed by the success of X-men and, mainly, Daredevil, DC Comics responded by hiring some serious writing talent from wherever they came. First Len Wein discovered Alan Moore, then they brought Frank Miller from Marvel (not a Brit, though), and later, after they lost both, they headhunted Jaime Delano, Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan and Grant Morrison. The body of work these people created, constitutes a dark and very sophisticated corner of the DC Universe.
When I was 20, it seemed to me that comics had nothing to offer. It was just Batman, Superman or Spider-man going over their rogues galleries over and over in adventures that every time seemed more dull to me. But then, I got a series of great tips that lead me to the works of Moore and the guys that followed in: Swamp Thing, Sandman, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, The Books of Magic, DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore, Hellblazer, Shade, etc. Along with the wave of new stories that followed Identity Crisis, these collections allowed me to keep enjoying DC Comics for many years.
6. The New Frontier
Good doesn't mean postmodern and dark. If the guys that can make great contemporary stories with superheroes are few, the ones that can make them also heroic and bright are even fewer. I'd say that Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Mark Waid, Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross, Paul Dini, Dwayne McDuffie (R.I.P.), Alan Burnett, Bruce Timm, Alan Moore (after the 80s) and Darwyn Cooke are among the few storytellers that insist on the perpetuation of the modern (modern as in "before postmodern") and heroic portrayal that the DC superheroes originally had. Few of them work with the canon of DC Universe. There's Waid's The Silver Ageand Ross' Justice, but to me, Cooke's DC: The New Frontier is the flagship story. It was relevant, multi-layered and captured the true spirit of the DC superheroes.
I actually hoped that after Final Crisis the DC Universe would be rebooted to be more like The New Frontier or the Diniverse.
5. Scott McCloud
I'm telling you, this guy is the messiah of comics! Reading Understanding Comics opened my eyes to the full possibilities of the medium and made me a proud reader. Comics went from just being my guilty pleasure, to a form of art that I follow enthusiastically, "sequencial art". After years of being fed whatever DC and Marvel put on the shelves, I was finally able to appreciate the greatness of a number of writers and artists: Gaiman, Moore, Spiegelman, Miller, Moebius. And I still have a long way to go; DC has occupied way too much of my time.
Now, the day the mainstream industry realises that they need to do exactly what this guy described in Reinventing Comics, (oh, boy!) the medium will start reaching its potential. We need diversity!
4. Maus
Right after reading Understanding Comics, around 2001, I decided to get on the right path and read a monthly dose of decent comics, and this was on top of my first stack. McCloud couldn't be righter, Maus is pretty much the piece of storytelling that proves that comics can be great. In somebody else's words it is "at one and the same time a novel, a documentary, a memoir, and a comic book." It's the Godfather of comics; few or no movies are as tuching or compelling as this humble story of a Jewish survior of the holocaust, written and narrated by his own son during the last days of his life. Once I started, I wasn't able to drop the book and I think I made averybody in my family read it, ha, ha.
At the same time, it's a homage to the possibilities of comics and its redemption. Its style is quite cartoony (they are all cute animals), which makes a high contrast with the harshnes and realism of the narration. Incidentally, this way it becomes the utter proof that comics and cartoons can be an effective vehicle for trascendency.
My weird obsession with this couple doesn't go that far back. Formerly Known as the Justice League and Identity Crisis made me notice the non Plastic Man guy that was always hanging with the league in the big events of the early 90s. I was like "yeah, I remember that guy". I didn't even knew his real name before that - Spanish translations he was known as el Hombre Elástico (Elastic Man). The DeMatteis / Giffen / Maguire made me like the Dibnys and [ïronically] Brad Meltzer made me care about them. Once I realized that the Elongated Man got his powers from a fictional fruit that grows in my native Yucatan, I got really interested and, after reading Showcase Presents: the Elongated Man, it was decided: the Dibnys became my favorite characters. Handled directly by Julius Schwartz, John Broome, Carmine Infantino, Gardner Fox and then Len Wein, they were rooted at the heart of the silver age. As eclectic, eccentric and hedonistic as they are, they are the best examples of emotinal intelligence DC has to offer, which is something I deeply admire. They are honest, goodhearted, creative, generous and, unlike most of the average DC characters, they are not just reactive to to the drama, they are proactive, love what they do and live a plenty life.
See what I mean?
1. Batman: The Animated Series and the DC Animated Universe
(a.k.a. BTAS and the DCAU)
Can you believe that Bruce Timm was once rejected from DC comics? Yet, somehow, he managed to revolutionize aimation in a series that marries the Batman tradition with a sophisticated retro but fresh style. As far as I'm concerned, Bruce Timm, along with Paul Dini, Eric Radomski, Alan Burnett, Stan Berkowitz, Glen Murakami, Andrea Romano, Darwyn Cooke, Dwayne McDuffie and many others, created an universe that is actually better and more elegant than the regular DC Universe. Superhero cartoons were never taken seriously until this series came. The content of BTAS is not just for kids, but for all ages.
As I said before, Batman: The Animated Series, made me rediscover the DC characters and was my main reason to start collecting the comics; however, I never loved them as much. After the third episode I saw I was officially obessed. For over ten years I only drew imitating the style of Bruce Timm. I made tons of turnarounds trying to adapt classic DC characters to his style. A lot of people still do the same, and even DC decided to change characters like Metallo, Supergirl or the Parasite to look like Timm's designs. I only read comics because they were the best next thing after reruns.
One of the greatest things about the BTAS universe, is that it kept coming back with different angles. First it was Batman: The Animated Series, then, with more Robin it became The Adventures of Batman and Robin, the next series; Superman: The Animated Series, repeated the original formula with a new main character, The New Batman Adventures had Batman leading a team of Gotham Knights (Robin II, Nightwing and Batgirl); Batman Beyond deal with their distant future and Batman's legacy, The Zeta Project expanded that futuristic universe; Static Shock, a series about a teenage hero dealing with juvenile gangs,became linked to this DC animated Universe (DCAU), and finally, they did Justice League, which became Justice League Unlimited and tied all the events and characters of the previous series.
There were also four movies: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-zero, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker; and Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman.
Justice League Unlimited was like going out with a bang. It featured a really large cast that included almost all the DC characters I wanted to see, a lot that I'd have never expected and a bunch that I didn't even know. It was like a child fantasy come true. Like Super Friends, but with better art, better writing and a hundred times more characters.
One of the coolest aspects of the DCAU is that it actually had epilogues, unlike the reguar DC universe, it told the full story of a lot of its protagonists: Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Lex Luthor, Darkseid, the Joker, Harley Quinn, Superman, Grodd, John Stewart and Amanda Waller.
All this work was produced in 14 years, and all that time I kept returning and being further introduced to the characters of DC. BTAS could have been a fad, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or The Ghostbusters before it, but it kepts returning with series lived up to the established quality, so, the DCAU kept me hooked, loving the wonderful world of DC.
"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.
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".
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.
As sources have been informing this day (check the Bleeding Cool article, for instance), after the Flashpoint event ends, DC is restarting its entire line with 52 #1 issues. The change will also reset the continuity and focus on the main heroes at early points in their careers... Which means that there's a big chance for Ralph and Sue, along with Blue Beetle II the original Question and other characters like Rocket Red No. 4, the Ventriloquist & Scarface, Black Mask, the Fiddler and the KGBeast, to return from death without even needing to resurrect. I really, really hope so.
While Ralph was not seen in Flashpoint #1, a mysterious "Elongated Kid" appeared in Flash #9, part of the prologue of the event. Let's hope that means something good for the Dibnys. At least we know that the Elongated Man is still in the mind of Geoff Johns.
Update
Among the list of titles DC has revealed for September, we can notice the following changes:
1. Barbara Gordon can walk and is Batgirl again!
2. Roy Harper (a.k.a. Speedy, Arsenal or Red Arrow) recovered his right arm.
3. Arnold Wesker, a.k.a. the Ventriloquist & Scarface, is alive.
These changes, specially Wesker's return, open the door for the Elongated Man and Sue, the original Question, Blue Beetle II, Rocket Red No. 4, Freedom Beast, Black Mask, Copperhead and the KGBeast to return.
So, the big question is: Are Identity Crisis and 52 still in continuity? Personally, as much as I love those stories, I hope not. If they don't get to be part of the new continuity, it would be like having a cake and eating it too. Those great stories would still be part of a past continuity, but we get some classic characters back in the current one. It's just a matter of crossing fingers now.
Update - Jun 9th
Along with a team that could give nightmares to Marilyn Manson, the Elongated Kid seems to be making a comeback in the upcoming Teen Titans #1.
Is this good? To me, it all depends. If he turns out to be Billy Warner, the classic Elongated Man #1 fan from the silver age, I might become a fan (despite not liking the uniform); if that's Ethan Kramer, I hope he doesn't survive the first issue. I'm sorry, but I'm just not into Diet Coke or I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, I dislike replacement legacies.
I'm still hopping we get to see the real Nick and Nora Charles of DC Comics alive.
Update - Jun 15th.
Well, it seems like it's not going to happen after all. In an interview with Comic Book Resources DC's Editpr-in-Chief Bob Harras and DCU Executive Editor Eddie Berganza, revealed that events like Identity Crisis are going to form part of the new continuity:
Berganza: Right. Just because we're starting with new #1s doesn't mean we're getting rid of the history attached. A lot of those big, important storylines are remaining in tact. What happened in "A Death In The Family" stays true, and so does "Blackest Night," "Brightest Day," "The Killing Joke"... Harras: "Identity Crisis." Again, this is a well thought out process before we went forward.
I think 52 is also likely to be part of it. What was done with the Ventriloquist and Arsenal seems to indicate that Robinson's stories might not be part of the DCnU, though. So it seems like we're back to crossing fingers for more those promised ghost Dibnys cameos or a resurrection...
Update - Sept 13th.
Here's a nice post about it by Bill D. from Trusty Plinko Stick:
Friday Favorites: The Elongated Man (and Sue, of course)
"If you read superhero comics, you know DC spent the last few years being very, very unkind to the Dibnys (...) However, as they're quick to remind everyone, DC's running a whole new (or at least really, really revised) ballgame right now. Some of the old continuity remains, a lot of it seemingly doesn't. Seems to me that some of the more unpleasant bits could easily be swept under the rug, don't you think? Come on, DC, give us back Ralph and Sue"...
