"Case of the Curious Compass" debuted in
Detective Comics #338, cover date April, 1965. The story was handled by the standard crew: Gardner Fox writing, Carmine Infantino on pencils, Sid Greene inking and Julius Schwartz serving as editor. Whatever that means.
This issue is available for digital sale and DC Universe and the story has only been reprinted in
Showcase Presents the Elongated Man.
Over in this issue's letters page, Kenneth S. Gallagher compares "The Battle of the Elongated Weapons" with the Batman story that accompanied it, enjoying that both stories ended with the heroes having unanswered questions about the foes they faced. "The
Elongated Man story... was notable for the reason that Sid Greene did a pretty decent job of inking Infantino's pencils," he writes. Edward Thomas was more enthusiastic about the story saying it "had excellent artwork and an interesting story-twist in the robber's methods." He continues to say why Ralph is his favorite superhero and then adds "I am looking forward to the time when the Elongated Man becomes a member of the
Justice League of America." Julius Schwartz responds with a tease that Ralph might soon make a guest appearance with the Justice League. Mike Fredreich is far more critical, saying it wasn't very good. "I didn't care for the story and the art was way off." He blames the inking for the art and doubts it's Sid Greene, when in fact it is.
The splash page of this story teases Ralph breaking up a smuggling ring on an ocean liner. The dynamic art shows Ralph punching three thugs at once by elongated parts of his arm. Good stuff, though it does make me ask
what exactly is Ralph elongating?
Sue is surprised at a change of plans, where she and Ralph are going on a ship when she was told they were going to go home by jet. Ralph explains that the Captain informed him of a ship model in the lounge that has a compass with a needle that usually points north, except for its second day at sea, when it mysteriously points in another direction.
Ralph introduces Sue to the activities director "Big Bob" Wilkes. Then Ralph meets with the Captain who shows him the model that has the strange compass.
As Ralph prepares to hide out in the lounge, Sue expresses a wish that he can wrap up the case by tomorrow night so she can join him in the masquerade. Sue wants to enjoy her night, and she wants to enjoy it with Ralph. I just find this little moment of Sue wanting to have a normal night sweet.
That night, Ralph spots three suspicious-looking characters picking up the model and taking it to room 23A. Ralph goes around to the window of that room and manages to lip-read that the men are diamond smugglers. The model ship may or may not contain the diamonds. He then decides to make his move and pops open the window.
I haven't said much about Infantino's art yet because there's not a lot to mention about it. It's looking great so far. I might mention that "Big Bob" Wilkes and the captain look pretty similar and might be confused, but to do that, you'd have to ignore that they're clearly shown with different colors of hair. The fourth page does a good job of making Ralph's elongating look graceful, and also shows off his butt. However, that panel also has another infamous "colored in" neckline for Ralph's costume.
The next couple of pages shows Ralph taking out the smugglers, Infantino clearly having fun again.
First Ralph uses his right hand's fingers to take control of the smuggler's weapons, then he uses his left arm to wrap them up by their ankles.
Infantino does a lot of having Ralph snake around on these pages, the panels expressing enough motion to imagine how fluidly he must be moving. And as the crooks note, Ralph isn't even in the room fully yet!
The next page shows the conclusion of the fight as Ralph slams them onto the floor, then punches them out with the strange elongated punch we saw on the splash panel. I guess that's his elbow, his wrist and his knuckles he's stretching.
Ralph then checks the model ship and no, the diamonds aren't hidden inside of it. The captain confirms that the compass is working properly, so while the crooks played their hand and got caught, no funny business was going on.
Almost hidden away on this page is two panels of Ralph and Sue enjoying their time on board the ship.
In the first panel, Ralph uses his powers to win at shuffleboard, Sue reproaching him for it, and he protests that there's nothing in the rules about it.
In the next panel, they walk through the lounge and Sue comments that Ralph acknowledged his unfair advantage and disqualified himself from the game, but Sue won first prize.
You could infer from this a hint that this isn't Sue's first game of shuffleboard.
Ralph notices that the compass on the model ship is again askew and decides it's time to act.
The next page finally shows the thief: "Big Bob" Wilkes. The compass points to the hiding spot of the smuggled diamonds. He thinks about his diamond smuggling gang, revealing his whole scheme to the reader. As activities director, he's able to smuggle the diamonds as his luggage is never searched.
This time, the hiding spot of the diamonds is a red urn in the lounge and as he snatches the diamonds, a hand comes out of the urn. Ralph is on top of the scheme!
He shakes Bob's hand before smacking him against the urn and coming out. As he prepares to arrest Bob, two other crooks come on the scene and bash Ralph's head with a flowerpot. It doesn't fully knock out Ralph, though, and he manages to roll the urn to knock them off their feet.
The last panel of the fight shows Ralph rolling the urn over the three men, which seems... kind of unnecessary. And kind of cruel. It's depicted as very heavy, so rolling it on them could cause serious damage. I'll just assume Ralph is really angry.
The final panels show Ralph giving the full details to the captain. The captain gives Ralph a model ship as a reward. Ralph remarks that he and Sue can have fun now.
Sue remarks that the activities director is in the brig, so there's no one to run the fun. Ralph says he'll fill the role.
The final panel sees Ralph surrounded by other ladies, with Sue keeping a careful eye on her husband, wishing he was solving a mystery instead.
All I'll say about the art is that Sue's eye looks really off in the second panel.
So, that wraps up this story. It hangs together neatly with an okay mystery, the only question being what was up with the guys Ralph apprehended the first night? They knew about the smuggled diamonds, but you'd think the only people on board who would know would be either be the people dropping them off or "Big Bob" himself. But those guys didn't know how the scheme worked. The art is pretty good with a couple weird oddities.
Next time, Sue gets arrested and Batman pops up.
