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Elongated Man Reading Order (Ralph Dibny)

In The Flash #112 published in 1960, writer John Broome and penciler Carmine Infantino told the story of how The Flash went after Elongated Man, suspecting him of being behind multiple crimes. It turns out that he was framed. In fact, he is the opposite of a criminal, he is a superhero detective and his secret identity is Ralph Dibny.

Well, everybody quickly learned who was Ralph Dibny as he was one of the first to publicly reveal who he really was behind the costume. He’s also one of the only superheroes to get married. But he rarely starred in his own series–however, he had a lot of backup stories in Detective Comics.

Apparently, editor Julius Schwartz didn’t know at the time that DC Comics had the rights to Plastic Man when Ralph was created (also, Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen had been Elastic Lad for a time, so no “Elastic” for Ralph). What Schwartz wanted was a new supporting hero and the one he got was not that serious about being a hero.

Fascinated by the carnival sideshow of the “India rubber-men,” Ralph Dibny wanted to become as agile as them, but even years of training were not enough for that. He started to investigate and discovered that contortionists all liked to drink the soda pop called “Gingold.” The name came from the juice of the rare Gingo fruit of the Yucatán. To be sure that the fruit had special properties, Ralph distilled the raw essence of the Gingo fruit and drank it. At that concentration, the extract resulted in giving him the ability to stretch his body to great lengths.

Instead of becoming a contortionist, Ralph Dibny became the superhero named Elongated Man. After his encounter with The Flash, he went to New York where he became a celebrity by making TV appearances–and revealing his secret identity. While going after some jewel thieves, he stumbled into the debutante ball of the rich Sue Dearbon who was immediately intrigued by him. The two of them quickly got married (in Flash #119).

Often presented as the Nick and Nora Charles (from the Thin Man movies) of the DC Universe, Sue and Ralph traveled around the world investigating strange mysteries wherever they went. Ralph became a real master detective and, when his rubbery nose starts twitching, he knows there’s a mystery to be solved. This sometimes led the couple to work with Batman, the Flash, and the Justice League. In fact, Elongated Man became a member of the JLA–and Sue followed him.

While always the happy couple bringing laughs to the readers for decades, Ralph and Sue’s story became really dark and deadly during the Identity Crisis. But in life or death, nothing could stop them from investigating crimes together. Of course, nobody stays dead forever in the comics world, especially when the world is rebooted.

The Elongated Man Comics Reading Order

Ralph Dibny first appeared in The Flash (Vol. 1) #112 and in subsequent issues in backup stories or the main one, up to issue #138. After that, the Elongated Man became a regular in Detective Comics with backup stories in issues #327 to #383.

The best way to read those stories is by putting your hands on one of the now hard-to-find volumes of Showcase Presents:

You can find The Flash stories in more recent collections:

It’s mostly anecdotical for our hero as he’s just a secondary character in it, but in Justice League of America #51, Zatanna has summoned Elongated Man, not yet a member of the team, with Batman, Green Lantern, Atom, and Hawkman. It’s a follow-up to the story published in Detective Comics #355. All of this is collected in JLA: Zatanna’s Search.

Justice League of America Silver Age IconOnce his regular feature in Detective Comics was put aside, Elongated Man reappeared in not-yet-collected backup stories in The Flash (#206, 208, 210, and 212). Then after one more Detective Comics short story in issue #426 (and 430 soon after), he appeared in Justice League of America #100 but only became a regular starting with issue #105.

During that time, there were still, from time to time, new short stories in Detective Comics, especially throughout the 1975-76 publications.

  • Justice League of America: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol. 3
    Collects Justice League of America #147-182, Super-Team Family #11-14, DC Special #27, DC Special Series #6, Secret Society of Super-Villains #15, DC Comics Presents #17, and pages from Amazing World of DC Comics #14.
  • More to come…

In 1985, DC Comics published Crisis on Infinite Earths in which the multiverse was destroyed and a new tentatively unifying continuity was installed. Ralph appeared during the event but didn’t come back immediately afterward to the Justice League. Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis relaunched the Justice League of America which was now sponsored by Maxwell Lord. It worked pretty well and soon a spin-off was launched.

After Lord recruited Ralph for the new Justice League Europe (in Justice League International #24), he and Sue moved to the Justice League International embassy in Paris in Justice League Europe #1.

With Justice League Europe #36, the big “Breakdown” storyline ended and the creative team changed. It’s a good time to read the Elongated Man miniseries by writer Gerard Jones and artist Mike Parobeck. Among the changes, in Justice League Europe #37, Sue is named bureau chief of the Justice League Europe.

  • Elongated Man #1-4
  • Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 3
    Collects Justice League America #51-60, Secret Origins #33-35, Justice League America Annual #5, Green Lantern #18, Justice League Quarterly #2-5, JLA 80-Page Giant #1, Formerly Known As The Justice League #1-6, JLA: Classified #4-9, Justice League Europe #26-36, DC Retroactive: JLA–The ’90s #1, Justice League Europe Annual #2, and Justice League International Special #2.
  • more to come…

Justice League Europe “ended” with issue #50 and was retitled to become the second volume of Justice League International (starting not with a #1, but with #51). Those issues have yet to be collected. The series continued up to issue #68. Then came the Zero Hour: Crisis in Time event. When the Justice League was relaunched sometime later, the Dibnys were not part of the team.

After brief appearances as guest stars in other titles, Elongated Man and his wife disappeared for a time. They finally came back as recurring characters in the Starman series by James Robinson. They are secondary characters, but help the hero of Opal City to stop criminals, starting in issue #56, and then appearing in most issues between #61 and 75.

  • Starman Compendium Two
    Collects All-Star Comics 80-Page Giant #1, Batman/Hellboy/Starman #1-2, JSA All-Stars #4, Starman #43-81, Starman #1 (1998), Starman/Congorilla #1, Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #0, and The Shade #1-12.

Not long after the conclusion of Starman, Ralph Dibny worked with the Doom Patrol during three issues

In Gotham Knights #41, Batman recruits Ralph to solve a case and Sue becomes a best-selling mystery novel author. 

In 2003 and 2005, Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Joe Rubinstein got back together to write two miniseries working as a sequel to their Justice League International run: Maxwell Lord decides to open a super-team-for-hire in a suburban strip mall, but first he’ll need to recruit the team itself! Naturally, he turns to his old pals from the Justice League, but are Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Fire, Elongated Man, Captain Atom, and Mary Marvel up for the idea?

Then, everything changed for the Dibnys with the infamous Identity Crisis as the story starts with the brutal murder of Sue. The event revolves around the search for the culprit that exposes long-buried secrets of the heroes threatening to tear apart their community before they can bring the mysterious killer to justice. For more information, go to our Identity Crisis Reading Order.

We later reconnected with Ralph during the “52” miniseries. Still grieving, Elongated Man goes on a quest that will lead him to be reunited with Sue in death. Together, they become ghost detectives. They appeared as such in Batman and the Outsiders Vol. 2 #3-4 helping the team by taking control of multiple individuals. And they also hosted the first DCU Halloween Special.

Finally, with dead people coming back left and right during the Blackest Night event, it’s not surprising that the Dibnys were also Black Lanterns for a short while. But unlike other heroes, they didn’t come back to life afterward.

For some time, Elongated Man was already underused, and being dead didn’t help. However, in 2011, DC relaunched its universe, entering the famous New 52 era in which the Dibnys were alive. But they didn’t get a lot to do together anyway. Ralph made his comeback in Secret Six (Vol. 4) #1 by Gail Simone and Ken Lashley teaming up with a group of unlikely allies.

Then came the Rebirth era during which Ralph mostly made cameos and sporadic guest star appearances. In Detective Comics #1000, the Dibnys appeared as part of the Guild of Detection next to Slam Bradley, Martian Manhunter, Detective Chimp, The Question, Hawkman & Hawkgirl, and of course Batman. It’s anecdotical, as the characters are just present, but at least they are alive and well.

The Elongated Man once again joined the best detectives of the DCU during the Event Leviathan storyline by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev. He got a few lines of dialogue this time. Hopefully, soon enough the Dibnys will have the opportunity to investigate more mysteries.

Did we forget an important issue? Did we make a mistake? Let us know in the comments!

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