TV Review: "Subject 9"

The Flash returns from its Olympics break with Team Flash now being protective of Ralph as it's become clear that DeVoe (portrayed in this episode by Sugar Lyn Beard) is swapping into the bodies of the bus metas to maintain his body and pool the powers of the metas together. Team Flash and DeVoe find another meta, Izzy Bowen (Miranda MacDougall), an aspiring country music singer with sonic powers. After a brief face off against DeVoe, Team Flash takes Izzy under their wing to help her prepare for the next time they face the villain.

Meanwhile, Harry Wells (Tom Cavanagh) returns from Earth-2 and takes Cecile's (Danielle Nicolet) problem of hearing Joe's dreams as a pet project as he develops a device to help control her telepathic powers. But perhaps the device might help Team Flash as well. In addition, Barry (Grant Gustin) is put on indefinite suspension from CCPD.

"Subject 9" was teased by the CW's promo department that Ralph would decide to stop being a hero when he discovers that DeVoe wants his powers (with the side effects of effectively killing Ralph). However, that didn't happen in this episode at all. What we did get was Ralph stepping up in defiance of this. He acknowledges that his life is in danger, but he keeps on anyway. His interactions with Izzy suggest a lot of character development since the first time we saw him.

Certainly, this is not an episode that stands alone, but the character beats made it feel like much more than just a filler episode until the finale.

Viewers in the US may view "Subject 9" at no charge during a limited availability window on the CW website and app. With the current licensing agreement, the entire fourth season of The Flash will be available on Netflix in June, 2018. Digital versions of the episode may be purchased on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu, Google Play and other retailers of digital video content. Blu-Ray and DVD copies of the season are expected to be available for sale in or by September, 2018.

Non-US viewers should check their local listings, the websites of the channels that air The Flash, and digital video retailers.

Museum of Mixed-Up Men!

Detective Comics #331 would bring us the first of what the staff thought would make an interesting feature: having an annual issue where the heroes featured in the comic book would team up for a case that would fill the entire book, in this case, Batman and Elongated Man. Unfortunately, the concept was met with disapproval by readers and was discontinued, except for some much later special issues.

A digital copy is available through Comixology and DC Universe, and, due to the story featuring Batman and Robin, it's been reprinted in not just Showcase Presents the Elongated Man, but also Showcase Presents Batman Vol. 1 and The Dynamic Duo Archives Vol. 1.

The cover returns a familiar artist to handling Ralph: Joe Giella. While Infantino had been inking the solo Elongated Man stories, Giella had been inking the Batman stories in Detective Comics. So this is the first time Giella inked Ralph since he'd last appeared in The Flash.

The cover depicts a moment from late in the story, in which Batman, Robin and Ralph find themselves at the mercy of some invisible force in a museum. As covers go, this one looks interesting enough to pick it up from a newsstand. While the floor is basically the bottom of the cover, Batman's position helps to make the picture quite dynamic.

Batman denies the existence of ghosts. To be fair, the Spectre hadn't yet been revived and Deadman hadn't been introduced, but that statement would age like milk in the DC universe.

"Museum of Mixed-Up Men!" was written by Gardner Fox with art by Carmine Infantino, inks by Joe Giella, lettering by Gaspar Saladino and Julius Schwartz as editor.

The splash page shows us another scene from later in the story. Well, if you picked this up looking for a ghost story, you're going to be disappointed.

However, you can't go wrong with eye popping with Batman punching someone. It's very clear as to who the most popular characters are in order of how close they are to the foreground. But why does Ralph look bald?

Just a warning, this page tells you exactly what it is: it's a Batman story with Ralph as a guest star, not a story where they feature the characters evenly. So as this is an Elongated Man blog, I'm mainly going to focus on the pages where Ralph appears.

The story opens with Bruce Wayne touring the new Americana Wax Museum in Gotham City, and he decides to get a souvenir photo from an exhibit celebrating historic photographer Mathew Brady (they spell Mathew with two Ts, though, which refers to a very different historic figure, check out Wikipedia). When Bruce's photograph is taken, it causes his face to transform into an unrecognizable other person. In addition, this process gives him amnesia. The transformed amnesiac Bruce can't find any identification on himself.

In the meantime, someone who looks and sounds like Bruce Wayne with his identification takes out half a million dollars from his bank account.

Over at stately Wayne Manor, Dick Grayson is wondering where Bruce is. When his Aunt Harriet gets a strange phone call, Dick recognizes it as a hotline call from Commissioner Gordon. Calling him back in the guise of Robin, he hears about some jewel thieves. He heads out alone to take care of them, packing Batman's costume with him just in case. The amnesiac Bruce happens to notice the Batmobile and decides to follow it.

As Robin is nearly overwhelmed by the jewel thieves, Batman reappears, Bruce having regained his face and memory and gotten the Batman costume. After taking out the thieves, he explains that he was out for twelve hours. Dick informs him that he had contacted Bruce's clerk at the bank who told him that Bruce had taken out half a million dollars. Bruce is curious as to if he did this or not.

On the bottom half of page 11, we finally find Ralph and Sue who happen to be visiting Gotham City. They happened to visit the same museum the previous day and Sue happened to take Polaroid photos of their visit. Looking them over, Ralph finds something suspicious.

Good point on them having a Polaroid camera: these cameras would dispense a fully developed photo, removing the need to wait for them to wait to have their photos developed. Good touch for a couple who lives on the road.

Ralph notices that Sue took two photos of a man who wears the exact same clothes and hat. Sue claims she took the photos five minutes apart from each other, leading Ralph to believe that they must somehow be the same man, so he decides to go investigate at the museum.

Looking over this page has actually made me miss when Giella inked Ralph on the regular. He had a good method of putting bold, solid lines on Infantino's work. They simply made some good-looking comics together.

That said, I can see the criticism of Sue's hairstyle that popped up in the letters page. For some reason, what worked for Shirley MacLaine isn't working in artwork.

Bruce approaches his banker and looking over the records of the withdrawal the previous day, sees that it was a forgery. Another businessman reveals he's missing a million, but the bankers tell him he withdrew the money in person. (The businessman is the same one Sue photographed.) When he reveals the last thing he remembered was attending the museum, Bruce decides Batman and Robin need to check out the museum. Ralph has entered via the back door's keyhole.

Robin notices Ralph, wondering if the wax statues have come to life as he sees only Ralph's elongated arms. When Robin slips on some wax on the floor (how did THAT get there?), Ralph helps him and Batman recognizes him. The two detectives quickly compare notes.

Suddenly, the motion of the heroes is impeded by invisible forces, leading to the panel the cover is based on. The more cropped nature of the panel emphasizes the action, making me like it more than the cover. This ends up with Ralph stretching to the ceiling, knocking himself out, and Batman Robin fall against displays.

Batman recovers first and heads to the Mathew Brady exhibit and finds the camera activated, trapping him in a paralyizing beam, meaning the camera is about to swap out his face.

The story cuts over to the operators of the camera, who use their "electrofaciograph" to swap people's faces, and it was also used to mess with the heroes. (Because it can.) The camera's effects last twelve hours. They now plan to get Batman's secret identity by swapping out his face, sell it to the highest bidder and then clear out of town.

Ralph now becomes a hero by stretching his neck out in front of Batman's face, making the camera take his face instead. This is probably one of the more ingenious and heroic uses of Ralph not having a secret identity: he can use it to prevent other heroes from losing theirs.

Ralph's new face is from a blond man with a receding hairline, not the bald guy seen on the splash page.

Batman finds the hidden base where the operators are hiding and in the scuffle that leads them to flee the museum, they destroy the electrofaciograph.

Robin helps the amnesiac Ralph take on a few men themselves. Batman follows the fleeing men outside, and takes out more of them.

 Ralph helps round up the last few before they turn the crooks over to the police.

I decided to do a count of how many of the operators there are. There are twelve. If they'd managed to escape, that would've been 1.5 million dollars among twelve people. This is how you know this story is in the early 60s.

Sue sees Ralph and is surprised to see his face swapped. Batman explains, and in twelve hours, Sue has her husband back and it's her turn to explain the closing of the case to Ralph.

Meanwhile, Bruce has invited the Dibnys to dinner, and he reveals to Dick that he told Ralph his secret identity, but since Ralph had had his face swapped, he wouldn't remember it later.

Some gratitude, Bruce.

Overall, it's a wacky Silver Age story, one that I'd thought Detective Comics had largely been moving away from, but there's plenty of action, well-rendered by Infantino and Giella. Aside from the moment where Ralph saves Batman's secret identity, he doesn't have a lot to do here. You can tell that this was mandated to have a book length story that had Ralph team up with Batman and Robin rather than the usual have a Batman story then a backup Elongated Man story.

So, not bad, just not highly remarkable, and luckily, Batman, Robin or Ralph were not "nerfed" in playing out the events of the story. And if you were nostalgic for Ralph's first appearances in The Flash, Giella gives you that look, just now with Batman instead of Barry Allen.

Next time, Sue is an alien.

So what can Ralph do?

"Before you read this, remind me to tell you the difference between Plastic Man and Elongated Man." — Seth Cohen, The O.C.

 The question of Ralph Dibny's powers pops up occasionally. What can he do, what are his limits, and what differentiates him from other superheroes with similar powers like Marvel's Mister Fantastic, DC's Jimmy Olsen as Elastic Lad, and Plastic Man, the first elastic superhero that DC acquired from  Quality Comics?

If I'd been writing this about ten years ago, the answer would be quite simple, but now there's been at least two new incarnations of Ralph: the one that showed up in DC's New 52 continuity in 2014 to 2016 during Gail Simone's Secret Six run, and the new one on The Flash TV show. These new versions are different from the original one that first debuted in The Flash #112 in what they can do.

Please note that this may include spoilers, particularly for that run of Secret Six and Season 4 of The Flash TV series.

The original Ralph initially got his powers from drinking a fruit extract that allowed him to stretch. Eventually, it was revealed that this reacted with a metagene he had the entire time, but the gingo extract triggered his powers. This would let him stretch his body for about 100 yards (as mentioned in Detective Comics #340). Ralph can alter his body to an extent: he cannot change colors and he generally has to keep a humanoid form. He can flatten his form, but he can't go so thin that his blood can't flow properly or else he'll pass out. Eventually, Ralph attempts to disguise himself by molding his face. (Some attempts do show him with a different hair color.) It's important to note that as various writers and artists handled the character, they played a little loosely with what he could and couldn't do.

Original Ralph is quite comparable to Mr. Fantastic in his power set, with one interesting exception: Ralph cannot be made to stretch or change shape by external force. There are instances of him being knocked out and he always dodges bullets. (If he's bulletproof, he's not testing it.) Mr. Fantastic can be overpowered and made to change his shape (seen in Fantastic Four Annual #1).

The Ralph we meet in Secret Six is a little more of a conundrum in that it appears his powers are permanent, but we don't know how he acquired them. He's seen drinking from a flask in the first issue, which might be a callback to Ralph drinking gingold from one in 52, but whatever is in the flask is not specified, and as Ralph mentions "hair of the dog," it's presumably alcoholic.

Ralph spends most of the run of Secret Six disguised as a man named Damon Wells with the codename Big Shot. Big Shot is heavyset, which varies. Sometimes he's just a man with an imposing frame and black hair, other times he has a huge gut, and in issue #5, he transforms into a near mountain of muscle. Yet it's also #5 that shows us Ralph before the series, and he appears similar to the original Ralph with a slim frame and red hair. When Ralph resumes being the Elongated Man at the end of #12, he returns to his slim frame and red hair. So seemingly, this incarnation can change color to some extent.

Personally, I believe this incarnation is more in line with the Ralph we see in the CW's The Flash television series. First seen in the season four episode "Elongated Journey Into Night," it's revealed that Ralph was riding a bus that was inundated with dark matter when Barry was broken out of the Speed Force. He and the other passengers were transformed into metahumans with superpowers that they eventually discovered. This version of Ralph is able to be stretched by external force and has been demonstrated to be invulnerable to bullets and is able to contain explosions by ingesting the explosives.

The CW's Ralph doesn't use gingold to activate his powers, but Iris does find a bottle of gingo extract in his office, and later Ralph orders "gingold on the rocks" at a bar. The use of gingold is given a brief tribute as Ralph is able to stretch when he's first seen, but not able to resume his normal form until Caitlin Snow creates a serum that stabilizes his powers.

The CW's Ralph is seen molding his hand into the shape of a balloon animal and in a bonus scene, transforms his body into the shape of a snowman. In the most recent episode, he exhibits more or less the same power seen in Secret Six as he discovers he can shapeshift and disguise himself as different people, changing hair, eye and skin color.

For this (and the CW's Barry Allen suggesting the name as an Easter egg), a number of people have presumed that the CW's Ralph is operating with Plastic Man's power set, some still presuming that Ralph is Plastic Man.

Plastic Man's power set has been depicted as being far more extensive than Ralph's, often turning into shapes that would otherwise be inanimate, he can also compress into tiny shapes and has been shown doing this while Ralph hasn't. The short version of the difference between Plastic Man and Ralph used to be "silly putty vs. a rubber band." However, the CW's Ralph has been described on the show as being like silly putty, having his cells "polymerized" by the dark matter. But this Ralph by being able to change color is actually a bit more like Plastic Man's son Offspring than Plastic Man in that regard.

The CW superheroes have always played loosely with comic book lore, and likely for their Ralph, rather than work with the comic's limitations, they just opened it wide as it's not likely they'll adapt Plastic Man or Offspring.

I did mention Jimmy Olsen taking the identity of Elastic Lad, which happened in a number of issues of Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen. This identity first occurred after exposure to liquid kryptonite, then reoccurred thanks to a serum developed by professor Potter. (An issue of DC Comics Presents claims gingold is part of this serum.) Jimmy's powers often just had him stretch nearly infinitely. (One issue had him stretch his fingers into a confusing maze that stumped a villain trying to escape.) When surprised by a runaway steamroller, Jimmy was flattened but was able to resume his normal form with no ill effects. Probably most impressive was a story opening with Jimmy as Elastic Lad not only being a human cannonball, but also being the cannon and safety net. Thus it's fair to say Jimmy's powers while using the serum were very comparable to Plastic Man's.

So, that's how Ralph stacks up to the other main elastic heroes of comics. The original version of Ralph had a variety of limitations that seem to have become less in his new incarnations in Secret Six and The Flash TV series.

But of course what really set Ralph apart was his penchant for solving mysteries and his detective skills. His ability to spot things that were off and deductive reasoning gave him something besides just his physical superpowers to make him a standout superhero.

And yes, we're sticking with the explanation in Identity Crisis that sniffing out a mystery was just a developed twitch for show.

Desert Double-Cross!

 Detective Comics #330 featured Ralph's fourth solo outing and a digital copy can be purchased on Comixology or read via DC Universe.

"Desert Double Cross!" was written by Gardner Fox with art by Carmine Infantino.

The splash page shows us Ralph turning over a bag of stolen jewels to a crook who has him at gunpoint. The dialogue reveals that the crook has forced Ralph to steal for him, but Ralph has pulled off a double cross and is expecting the crook to fire at any point.

While it teases the plot all right, this isn't a particularly exciting splash page. I think a big part of it is that instead of drawing the ground, Infantino has both Ralph and the gunman standing on the straight line at the bottom of the page. A slightly more angled look at the scene might've made it more dramatic.

While driving in the Mojave Desert, Ralph and Sue's car breaks down. Luckily it's in front of a house, so Ralph goes to ask to use the phone.

Writing that just made me think of The Rocky Horror Show. However, this story is anything but.

 A young woman who lives there calls Ralph her "cousin Jim Parker from San Francisco" and gives him a kiss. Sue comes up and is similarly greeted. Suspecting that something's up, Ralph wiggles his nose to Sue to play along.

Entering, the young woman introduces her father and their house guests. However, a mobster named Bill Hastings steps out with a gun and reveals that he has these people held hostage. He reveals he and his men were going to steal the Banley Jewels from a highly secured house, but now he'll have Ralph do it for him. He drives Ralph out to do it, and Ralph plays it as if he's doing the theft, but in the end tricks Hastings by picking up some regular stones instead.

Hastings draws on Ralph, who manages to stretch out of his path and take him out with some good punches. Putting Hastings in the trunk of the car, Ralph disguises himself in Hastings' clothes so as to trick his men when he returns to the house. When asked for a signal, Ralph goes on the offensive with his elongated punching arms.

Stepping inside, Ralph happens to stand behind a screen and is told to freeze by a gunman, but manages to stretch his elbow around through the window and strikes the gunman that way, quickly pulling the hostages out of the way with his other arm.

I haven't been saying much criticizing the art or the story. The reason is that the story is rather uninteresting. While they have Ralph use his abilities to get out of this situation, I feel like you could use just about any other superhero and have them use their specific abilities to do it. It's not that the story is bad, it's just that it's not that good either. It's not a mystery, it's just Ralph handling a bad situation.

In the penultimate page, Ralph takes out the two gunmen by tricking one into lunging at him and cracking their heads together, which can't really be good for either, but hey, maybe don't go into crime and Ralph won't be causing you possible serious damage.

So, here's what I have to say about the art, now that we've seen a number of stories with this style, there's not much to remark on. The best moments are when Ralph is using his abilities to fight the crooks. I suppose this is due to the story not really calling for a lot of visually interesting moments. Even then, Ralph's actions don't feel quite as fluid as he has in the past.

Mediocre story aside, I assume with also having to do The Flash and Detective's Batman feature this month, Infantino might have been feeling stretched himself when it came to this story.

Wrapping up the story, Sue congratulates Ralph on saving the day while Molly and John Parker (whose names were revealed in a description in a page I didn't show) apologize for getting Ralph involved, although Sue says it's no problem.

Ralph reveals that he did take a gamble on the greed of crooks and then that Hastings is in the trunk of the car. Presumably in his underwear since Ralph used his clothes to disguise himself, which is the most amusing thing of the whole story, but we don't even see it.

The story ends with a teaser that the next issue will see Ralph team up with Batman.

So, there we go. Sadly, a middling effort by Fox and Infantino, who typically did good work. But hey, next time we see Batman!

TV Review: "True Colors"

The Flash prepares for a two week hiatus by shaking up the season's plot once more.

Discovering that warden Wolfe (Richard Brooks) of Iron Heights is planning on selling the metahumans in his custody to Amunet Black (Katee Sackhoff), Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) hatches a plan to break out of prison, which relies on him enlisting the aid of the very metahumans he's put into prison since returning from being trapped in the Speedforce.

While attempting a visit to Iron Heights, Iris (Candice Patton) and Cecile (Danielle Nicolet) discover the warden's plot.

Ralph runs into Earl Cox (Paul McGillion) who makes a shady offer to him. When Ralph turns it down, Earl assures him that he'll eventually let his new friends down just as he's done to his old friends in the past, making Ralph question if he belongs on Team Flash.

While attempting to tell Team Flash about Earl, Ralph discovers he can shapeshift into the forms of other people. (There's basis for this in the comics, which is a long ways off in our comic breakdowns, but the show does raise Ralph's abilities up a notch by having him match skin pigmentation, hair and eye color.) Iris enlists his help in trying to cancel Wolfe's sale to Amunet.

"True Colors" features some twists and revelations for the season going forward, including one particular twist that yours truly found rather weird, and I'm the guy who's a fan of elastic powered superheroes. This is certainly not a standalone episode, serving mainly to whet our appetites for the remaining episodes of Season 4. As such, it's hard to say what I like about it, though I didn't dislike it either.

Viewers in the US may view "True Colors" at no charge during a limited availability window on the CW website and app. With the current licensing agreement, the entire fourth season of The Flash will be available on Netflix in June, 2018. Digital versions of the episode may be purchased on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu, Google Play and other retailers of digital video content. Blu-Ray and DVD copies of the season are expected to be available for sale in or by September, 2018.

Non-US viewers should check their local listings, the websites of the channels that air The Flash, and digital video retailers.