The Robbery That Never Happened!

 "The Robbery That Never Happened!" first appeared in Detective Comics #333. It was later reprinted in #442 and of course, Showcase Presents the Elongated Man. The digital edition of #333 may be purchased through Comixology or read on DC Universe.

The story is by Gardner Fox with pencil art by Carmine Infantino, Sid Greene on inks, (presumably) Gaspar Saladino on lettering and Julius Schwartz as editor.

The splash page gives us a dramatic scene from the story, very dynamic, good enough to keep you reading.

A man is pushing a safe at Ralph. I suppose they're using a wheeled safe because of course you want a safe to be easily mobile. I'm being sarcastic. Infantino and Greene do good work here setting up the scene. I like the look on Ralph's face showing bewilderment.

Our story begins with Sue at a jeweler's shop. The owner, Richard Bell, asks her opinion on a bill. It's a hundred dollar note, and he relates a strange story to Sue.

The bill was to pay for a watch crystal replacement job placed the previous day. Cashing out the payment, he processes a hundred dollar bill. However, the customer tells him that it's a ten dollar bill, and Bell checks again to see that it's correct. But now that the customer has left, he sees that it is a hundred after all.

The art on the first page is fairly good, though Sue's hair looks a bit awkward. It gets better on the next page as Sue gets Ralph intrigued about the case. He decides to go investigate rather than going out for dinner with Sue, telling her to order room service.

What I find the most fun about this page is they dedicated the entire right-hand quarter of the page is dedicated to Ralph stepping out of the window and onto the street below. Now, sure, this is supposed to help Ralph move faster, but I can't help but feel that he's showing off. No better way to announce that the Elongated Man is in town.

Hurrying to the store (the third page has a great shot of Ralph walking on elongated legs), Ralph arrives and finds it closed but the door is ajar. He spots someone inside and going in, finds someone raiding the safe. He gives the crook a warning tap on the shoulder before a sock to the jaw.

The crook begins to fight back, throwing a couple small clocks at Ralph, which he dodges before the crook pushes the safe at him. They're about to make blows at each other when Ralph finally gets a good look at the other guy: it's Richard Bell himself.

Surprised, Ralph is knocked out by Bell, who fills up a bag of money and jewels from the safe. Recovering, Ralph trails Bell and spots him putting the bag in a trash can, presumably for someone else to pick up shortly. Ralph slips into a mailbox to wait

Greene and Infantino do a very good job with the shading here to convey a dark room and even that it's night time.

Ralph waits and soon a man arrives and picks up the bag. Instead of tackling him, Ralph trails him and overhears the man talk to his partner about how the ticking of his watch hypnotized Bell. To test it, he pulled the hundred dollar switch that Bell talked to Sue about, then commanded him to drop off the money and jewels.

The two decide to leave town, then Ralph reveals himself from the window by snatching the briefcase they've emptied the loot into, which then conveniently disappears.

Ralph knocks a gun out of the main crook's hand by extending his knee, then shoots his neck out and knocks over the other one with his head as they were lifting a heavy metal vase to hit him with.

The first crook tries to lunge at Ralph, but Ralph moves out of the way, then snaps his back to slam the guy against the ceiling.

Basically, I think this is another one of those bits where it's clear Infantino liked drawing Ralph fighting crooks with his stretchy body.

Ralph calls up Bell, who had no idea about "robbing himself" and has him come to the police station as he turns over the crooks.

Ralph fills in Bell and the crooks before coming back to the hotel to Sue, who he brings home a jeweled brooch for. He explains that it's a gift from Mr. Bell for getting Ralph involved and saving him from robbery.

So, overall, we get a pretty good story. Not great, though. It's rather forgettable and uses the brand of hypnotism you'll see all over Silver Age superhero comics. This one plays the goals of this type low key, which works pretty well.

The art is great as usual, and with Sid Greene inking, even Sue's hair begins too look better than previous stories.

So, there we go. I want to apologize for the length of time it took to write this. Between my job and other commitments, this fell by the wayside, and sadly, I can't promise I'll be more timely in the future. I'm not getting paid to do this, after all.

Next time, one of the silliest Elongated Man stories ever.