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.
Can you imagine a story in which Batman, Sherlock Holmes, the Elongated Man, Slam Bradley and Robin team-up to stop the ultimate master plan of Moriarty? Well, it happened in 1987's Detective Comics #572.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Detective Comics, DC made a 54-page special issue featuring the three most iconic detectives in its history, along with Sherlock Holmes, the big papa of all detectives, who, oddly enough, was also celebrating his 100th anniversary!
Double birthday cover: Detective Comics' 50th and Sherlock Holmes' 100th.
When Mike W Barr's run on 'tec started, it was decided to make the title exclusively about Batman in a single feature format, however he decided to take a break of sorts and feature more detectives and multiple features to celebrate the occasion. In his words:
The story is structured in 5 parts, the first four feature the individual efforts of each of the star detectives and the fifth part is the climax. Well, more or less.
The first two chapters star an aged Slam Bradley and feature a cameo by Batman and Robin. Slam was the earliest long lasting feature of the title, so this was a very fitting choice.
The third chapter is basically a classic Elongated Man feature illustrated by Carmine Infantino, just like the ones that characterized Detective Comics during the brightest days of the silver age of DC Comics, by then, at the middle of its run.
Then, we have the Holmes part, a postmodern trip to the classic and most iconic era of the detective fiction.
The final chapter has Batman leading Slam and Dibny against the thread that brought them together. The current, longest and most important star of the book, leading past stars under the guiding hand of their inspiration against the ultimate foe of detective fiction. As you can see, quite a solid premise!
A great strength of the story is characterization. Batman has his 80s dark and tough personality, and there's somewhat of a free card with Robin II, who was relatively new. Not much of a challenge so far. However, Ralph is done in his full silver age glory, always the creative and optimistic sleuth; Sherlock is brilliant,
polite, elegant - he is spot on; and the most changed character is a Slam Bradley...
A lot has changed for old Slam.
In this story, Slam has been reasonably watered down by age. However, that change makes sense. Slam was never a sophisticated detective, although streetwise, he was a choleric bully who saved the day by beating the answers out of whatever minority or poor looking person that crossed his path. His original stories read like a hilarious Saturday Night Live skits these days. In "The Doomsday Book", Slam has lost his sidekick ("Shorty" Morgan, his codependent lap dog) and his strength has been worn down by age. But don't worry, he's still tough as nails (not even Guy Garner has the guts to tell Batman what he can do with his orders), only he has to save the guns for special occasions and now resources to street trickery more often. The great part about this change is that Barr uses elements from hardboiled detective fiction are used to compensate Slam's brute force.
Tough, isn't he?
His butt kicking days are over, but that's nothing that some old school tricks can't compensate.
The flawless characterization is related to the fact that this special is a fine example of pastiche in comics. The part lead by Slam Bradley, as I said, is done in hardboiled and golden age of comics style, the Elongated Man part mimics silver age style and that of Sherlock Holmes feels like a classic Victorian crime mystery.
All wrapped in the modern setting of Batman and Detective Comics. There is some metafiction (the Holmes chapter) and even a snarky protagonist (Slam), so, it can be said that this is a great example of postmodernism is comics.
Same old Ralph toying with his food.
Chapter three might as well have been written by Gardner Fox and Julie Schwartz themselves. As in any Elongated Man story, he happens to run into something odd to investigate, a lot of amusing thug beating and a lighthearted mystery that only Ralph can solve. The only thing missing was Ralph's nose twitching and Sue being send to shop or something at the beginning of the story (the later happens off-panel, though). Ralph's main function in the overall story is as an expert on Holmes history.
Isn't he awesome?
Barr scripted the Holmes story with even more chameleonic mastery than he did for the Elongated Man one. If features every trademark scene of a classic Holmes mystery:
Watson being introduced to a client that just arrived, Holmes shocking the client by deducing key elements of his identity, the client's exposing a really of the case, Holmes rushing to action once he confirms that his unlikely deductions are real and the confrontation with the culprits, whose plot is almost outlandish. Like in many stories, what seems like an unimportant oddity turns out to be a very complex scheme of grandiose ambitions.
It's go time!
After all the pieces are delivered and the heroes figure out the evil scheme that needs to be foiled, the story turns into Barr's characteristic Outsiders and Brave and the Bold action. It's Batman leading a team of specialists to a Mission: Impossible type of task. The type of stuff that made people say "how the hell did he pull that?" -- "He's Batman". The Goddamn Batman in all his glory. Luckily, Ralph gets to play MacGyver #2 in this part.
MacGyver #2 isn't far behind. This is why they are the two Justice Leaguers.
The plot is excellently crafted down to the climax. Well, actually, down to just before it. In the climax of good mystery story, the heroes face the culprits the clues led them to discover who they are and what they are doing. In this case, the clues that lead to Moriarty's big plan are pretty explicit. It's also a bit unsatisfying that the title, the one big clue and the master plan are not that tied. One would expect Moriarty great grandnephew to be a little neater.
The ultimate mastermind.
That being said, I'd still give it 9 out of 10 stars; the story is one hell of a ride, and it can't be said that the heroes didn't work their way to catchMoriarty. Detective Comics #572, "The Doomsday Book" is an obligatory must for Slam Bradley fans, Elongated Man fans, Sherlock Holmes fans, Mike W. Barr fans, Detective Comics fans and, in general, fans of detective fiction. DC Comics should dust this issue and revaluate what makes Detective Comics great.
Googling Elongated Man pics I run into a very interesting one pitting Platic Man and him agains Mr. fantastic. It turns out that some people from the Comic Vine have made a battle contest for artists in which they should portray the two stretchers and the shapeshifter in a 3-way fight. The idea was conceived byJ_Evan:
"So, I really wanted to do a battle contest between two rubbery characters but I couldn't limit it to one or the other DC characters, so I'm giving you guys some flexibility (pun intended) with this one. Draw a battle scene between at least two of the following three characters: Mr. Fantastic, Plastic Man and the Elongated Man."
KEROGA's post reminded me of the Three Stoonges (which are getting a new movie with a great cast, btw):
And finally, Payno decided to leave it between the two stretchers:
Fun to see how in two of those pics Ralph's uniform is the one from Justice League Unlimited and the other, KEROGA's, has the original version (the one from the 80s). Maybe it's because the other one is too similar to Plasti Man's.
KEROGA and Payno took some free license with the stretchers, since they cant really shapeshift (although Ralph became a bit of a molder in the 90s).
Here is the link to the original thread in Comic Vine, The contest started three weeks ago ans is still going on, so you might want to check it out now and then.
Merry Christmas, Jean, Sue, Ralph, Iris, Barry and Ray!
Merry Christmas Julie, Gardner, John, Carmine, Murphy, Joe, Len, Dick, Gerry, Mike, Ty, Keith, John Marc, Bart, Mark and Brad.
Merry Christmas Frank, IndiaInk, Shag, Jay, Michael, Matt, Saranga, Rafael, Aleus, Martin, Busterella, Daniel and the rest of my very appreciated readers.
... and very Elongated holdays!
I tried to find a decent Christmasy picture of the Elongated Man and all I got was a weird Justice League story from the issue #152 of the original run and the one you are seeing, which comes from Earth-51, from Countdown to Final Crisis #19. I guess a better pic of Ralph (or Ralph and Sue) would be in my X-mas wish list, haha. By the way, I'm not sure about Jean, but there's one tiny Jew in that party, so the pic also works for the season holidays in general.
Brazilian Deviantartist, Daniel "Morpheus", created this Justice League International picture to see what a movie with his ideal cast would look like. Here is his pitch:
"This is a poster that I've made with my cast for a Justice League International Movie.
To direct the movie no one better than Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead). I always imagine this movie as a British comedy, with the perfect balance between comedy, drama and action.
I think the cast couldn't be better (how about that Mary Elizabeth Winstead?!! huminahuminahubba!!). I'm really sold on this idea. Very few actreses are charismatic and cute enough to play Sue, but only Zooey has what it takes. Lewis, on the other hand, has an odd face for Ralph, who should rather look like a young Dick van Dike; however, he has the built, the red hair and he can really pull clever. Winstead definitively has the body type (tall, curvy, great shoulders), but I'm not sure she can play a sassy, loud and spicy girl from Brazil. Tom Cruise as Maxwell Lord takes the prize. It's just brilliant; between his "show me the money" and this, Max definitively falls between Cruise's range.
I love how the picture integrates the most memorable members and elevates them as pop cult icons portrayed by contemporary celebrities. I just love that colorful reticule. Not to mention the impressive portrayals and their rendering.
That is a movie I'd like to see. I can even imagine the plot: The entire JLA but the Elongated Man gets lost in a battle against Despero and, after months of absence, Maxwell Lord recruits him for the new JLI, a project in which nobody has faith. Despite their limited competence, after accidentally saving Paris from a Bialyan attack (after the French had a misunderstanding with the Gadaffi-esque Rumaan Harjavti) little by little they gain the public trust. After gaining other battles (which will serve as opportunities for cameos by the Injustice League, Manga Khan, Starro and Mr. Nebula) and, with them, more popularity, they run into an a surviving Batman and the Martian Manhunter, who assign them a mission to rescue the rest of the real League. They accomplish their mission, but end up about to be blasted by Despero. However, the real JLA pulls a last minute deux ex machina. Finally, both leagues are restored, with Batman and the Martian as liaisons. How about that?
Anyway, there's more art where that came from. Daniel is a very gifted artist and is blessing us with a lot of samples of his art at his Deviantart page.
I found new fan art form favorite of this blog, Busterella, whose Dibny portraits always catch perfectly the true spirit of the couple. It's called "Superbuddies-Pokemon Rangers", check it out:
Top to bottom and left to right: Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Sue and Ralph Dibny, Fire & Ice, Guy Gardner and Maxwell Lord.
It's the second pic I see from a Deviant artist combining elements of JLI / Super Buddies with Pokemon Rangers (which, I suppose, is a later incarnation of the Pokemon thing). However, there's no actual connection between the the two of them and I'm still trying to find out why is this a thing. According to Busterella, Pokemon crossovers with anything are common. She describes is as "Silly scribble-y crossover tomfoolery".
The other one is even more eclectic, it throws Aladdin and a character from Batman: The Brave and the Bold into the mix (what, no fire?).
Ice, the Dibnys, Guy and Captain America, Flash and his wife, Linda Parker, Aladdin and Jasmine, and the Music Meister.
Art by Clazziquai.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg, Busterella has impressive pics done with digital media. She's crazy-talented when it comes to coloring (you hear that, DC?). For more of her fantastic art, go to her Deviantart profile: http://busterella.deviantart.com/ . She's a talent to watch!
Like most of the characters in serial fiction, the Elongated Man's personality has suffered changes throughout time. As faithful as some can be, every writer has a different vision of the character. Even his fans have different perceptions of the ductile detective.
In his first six adventures, John Broome portrayed him as a superhero with an odd behavior. There wasn't much to his personality, only that he was a little more easy going that Flash (who was an easy going superhero himself). Neither of them gave the overly dramatic/heroic speeches that Batman or Superman use to give. Additionally, Ralph was eclectic and creative in his decisions. He didn't have a base operations, used his super powers to make a fortune, got married (which wasn't common for superheroes at the time) and gave up his secret identity.
Even though his dialogue is plain in these early appearances, his actions speak plenty for him. His temperament is established as primordially sanguine and secondarily phlegmatic. He's laid back and a great entertainer; he's rarely angered and always open minded and optimistic. His actions are bold and he is a success magnet: first, he arrives to Central City and, as a rookie, he overshadows the fastest man alive in his own game; he still becomes Flash's best friend; then, he becomes a showman and makes a fortune in a sec, retires, marries Sue Dearbon, a beautiful heiress, and starts to travel the World with her on a perpetual honeymoon. This extreme path of success follows them the rest of their adventures, throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s, they become intimate friends of the most powerful people in the DCU, he is awarded membership of it's most powerful superteam team (12th member and one of the longest staying) and he did all of that almost effortlessly and while having fun. Not to mention that she becomes a talented hacker, Bureau Chief of the Justice League Europe and a best selling mystery writer. It's a canon fact that Ralph Dibny takes the best in life and is very serious about enjoying every bit of it. However, he's very methodical and diligent.
During this period a mild enthusiasm for mysteries start.
Ralph begins to be portrayed as a detective in Flash #138, his 7th appearance.
After his 7th appearance, writer Gardner Fox took over and made him more eclectic, his enthusiasm for mysteries became love for them. He also became a bit of a laid back joker (nothing extraordinary), a media hound and a spoiling husband. He had a relaxed, "everything will work out" attitude since his first appearance, and it was only reinforced when his solo adventures started. He and his wife were modeled after Nick and Nora Charles, from The Thin Man film series. They would tease each other about their habits, but they respected and indulged each other's mild hedonism and had a drama-free marriage. This portrayal was kept during the 70s, in his Detective Comics and Justice League of America appearances.
Nora and Nick Charles, the main influence on the Dibnys.
The begining or Ralph's clowning.
During the 80s there was some exploration. When Batman retired from the JLA, writer Gerry Conway made Ralph the idea guy of the team; casually stating his deductions and suggesting plans of action. Meanwhile, Mike W. Barr proposed that his sense of humor was a defense mechanism to avoid thinking about the tragedy of the cases he often took. He also defined Ralph as a detective fiction expert, to the point that he was a World authority on Sherlock Holmes literature.
The Elongated Man meets his idol, the Great Detective.
In the late 80s, Gerard Jones, Mark Waid, J. M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen accentuated him as a guy who loves attention, even if it takes slapstick humor and self deprecating jokes to get it. This is the way he remained during the 90s. In the early Justice League Europe stories, Giffen and DeMatteis had him as a witty guy who joked with his wife but also encouraged and appreciated her talent, they also explored his relationship with Wally West, the current Flash and the former sidekick of his best friend; when DeMatteis was replaced with Jones, the character development stopped and when Giffen left, he became an inept clown, by far, the worst and most destruct destructive portrayal of the character. My theory is that it ruined the character for other writers during the rest of the 90s.
Ralph portrayed as a really goofy character.
In 2003, Giffen and DeMatteis took away the slapstick and went back to witty humor with his wife, echoing their Thin Man influences.
His appearances in Justice League Unlimited was very similar to it.
Brad Meltzer made a serious and thoughtful sketch of Ralph as a person and husband in Identity Crisis and then, in 52, after the death of Sue, Mark Waid and Grant Morrison turned him into a more serious and detective. Both stories portrayed him as a really sharp detective, very similar to Sherlock Holmes in his method.
Ralph's portrayal in Identity Crisis #1.
Now, from what I perceive, fans of the Elongated Man share a common vision of the way he should be portrayed. We all seem to agree that, as Barr, Meltzer and Waid portrayed him, he's primordially a detective. I think that he should keep what I consider his two biggest influences Nick Charles and Sherlock Holmes. Since his first Detective Comics story, he became the type of sleuth that can make great deductions from observing details in scenes or people. Identity Crisis indicated that he's able to memorize all those details even under great stress. New stories should focus on this. Check it out, it can be really cool:
Despite his sanguine temperament, he's very methodical and diligent. He does stuff like memorizing details about people and scenes and he's rarely late or stressed by work, all trademarks of phlegmatic people. It wouldn't be a bad idea for the next writer to expand on his habits. I bet he dedicates part of every day to activities like practicing his memory skills, training his body, spending time with Sue, reading the news and, as Barr established, some detective fiction classics. Regarding his physical skills, the brightest observation I have ever heard from another fan is that he is likely to spend time every day on them. Training his body to get the most out of his super stretching: controlling mass, balance, shape, strength. Even his senses must be affected by this. Around the satellite era, he started to shapeshift to change his face, by the JLI era, he was able to create a bulldog head out of his hand.
There is also the matter of the extent of his super power. I has never been said, but the way he often made his hands huge and lifted men with each imply that he has super strength. Bigger hands don't have more mass, just the same mass in a bigger volume, which means less strength. An ability that has been mentioned but is not that famous is the speed of his stretching; some stories mention that he can reach dozens of feet within a fraction of a second, other show him using his knuckles or his chin as projectiles that knock out villains, which indicate an enormous speed and strength. Something that rare writers explore are the possibilities implied by stretching, like tuning his senses so that he could see, hear and smell beyond normal human capabilities. If he can stretch his chest and head cavities, he can basically produce any sound. He's also able to resist and absorb great impacts (he once stopped a truck). He has used his body as a rubber band (even serving as a bow for Green Arrow) and he can become thin as a sheet; in theory, this means that he can project himself into the air and then control his shape to navigate the wind (That's when he's not using his arms to move across the buildings like Spider-man).
When it comes to his sense of humor, consensus seems to indicate that it is a trademark that is should be kept. However, there are certain aspects from it that don't work. Here, Plastic Man is often used as a point of reference. He also became a big joker in the late 80s, only he was even bigger on slapstick; so it's commonly said that Ralph is like Jerry Seinfeld while Plas is more like Jerry Lewis (or Jim Carrey). Personally, given his profession, I think Ralph should have the observational humor of Seinfeld but with the quick wit of David Spade and maybe with the cultural references of Dennis Miller (EM strikes me as the kind of guy that pays a lot of attention to the news). Maybe a bit of Conan O'Brian's playfulnes wouldn't be so far from the Nick Charles mold. He's not the type that would make mean jokes about other people, but I can definitely can see him making "that's a shame" kind of comments about the goofiness of some of his friends.
I believe that a thoughtful portrayal that works expanding the trademarks that Gardner Fox, Mike Barr, Gerry Conway, Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Brad Meltzer and Mark Waid left would make him a more solid DC character. Writers just need to use Ralph and Sue's rich profiles in classic detective fiction formulas (with the superhero twist, of course). They just need to do with him what TV has already done with characters like Nick Charles, Columbo, Jessica Fletcher, Poirot, Monk, Murdoch, Shawn Spencer or Patrick Jane. Cold open, crime scene investigation, a series of interviews revealing clues to the readers, intercalated comic relief shenanigans, reconstruction of events, climactic chase and epilogue or denuement (usually the regular characters solve their mild conflict of the day).
