Peril in Paris!

Detective Comics #344 has a cover date of October 1965. Once again, it's available on Comixology and DC Universe. This tale was reprinted in the Showcase Presents Elongated Man book.

Over in the letters page, readers were puzzling over the identity of the Outsider from recent Batman stories. It's not until the second column that George Wirth of New Orleans, Louisiana comments on "The Mystery of the Millionaire Cowboy." He thought it was better than the previous story. He calls the story ingenious and the artwork (crediting both Infantino and Greene) great.

Meanwhile, Mark Dillman of Topeka, Kansas found the Batman story from the previous issue "too far-fetched" but thought the Elongated Man story was the best he'd read in months. He then points out that Ralph drives a Mustang in the story unlike previous tales. The editor confirms the fan theory that Ralph and Sue must use rental agencies. Surprisingly, the editor further states that the story was written by John Broome, not Gardner Fox as is reported on many sources.

"Peril in Paris!" was written by John Broome with Carmine Infantino on pencils and Sid Greene on inks. Julius Schwartz served as editor and Joe Letterese lettered it.

The splash page sees men from a boat firing on Ralph, who's just barely visible here. He's supposed to be stretched very thin so they can't hit him, but it looks like a rush job from Infantino and Greene on Ralph when the rest of the page is good. The overly-verbose gunman calls Ralph "L'homme Étendu," which translates to "the Extended Man." Meanwhile, the crowd cheers Ralph on.

How we know this is a John Broome story: the crooks are trying to get away and opening fire with a ton of witnesses present.

Okay, onto the story. The opening text says that Paris is one of Ralph's favorite cities, but this is the first time he's visited with Sue. I suppose he must've visited between his second and third appearances in The Flash. Bit of a stretch there.

Ralph is on the balcony of his Parisian hotel room and spots Sue coming back. That is one weird looking car just past the lamp post in that first panel. Sue returns buzzing that somehow, she can now slip into fluent French despite never having learned it. She's soon able to read the French newspaper as well. It sends Ralph's nose twitching. He continues to read the article about the theft of perfume essence and thinks he'd like to nab the crooks when suddenly, Sue leaves abruptly. Getting a tip from the hotel doorman, Ralph follows her to the Eiffel Tower.

Sue goes over to a couple of men dining at a table and begins to talk to them about a plan. Going over what I can find, they would be at the Champagne Bar at the top of the Eiffel Tower. The men are baffled as they don't recognize Sue, but decide to go question her privately.

Ralph intervenes and Sue claims she doesn't know who Ralph is and he's not her type, and that her name is Monica. At this, the men decide to take her with them and then shove Ralph off of the tower.

For some reason, instead of a more dramatic panel of Ralph falling to what would otherwise be his doom, we get a frankly useless panel of Ralph in mid-air, thinking before we get to the logical next panel of him using his powers to save himself with the crowds below cheering him on.

Also, in the panel where Ralph is saving himself, the scale of the people and the Eiffel Tower looks totally off.

Getting back onto the tower, Ralph uses a pair of sight-seeing mounted binoculars to spot Sue and the crooks heading to a houseboat. Yes, somehow they managed to get to the ground in the mere seconds it took for Ralph to save himself. Ralph descends from the tower and makes a quick bow to the gathered crowd. The panel's art looks a bit less like a bow and more like Ralph is suddenly having a case of food poisoning.

The crooks are baffled about Sue and wondering where their accomplice Monica is. They decide to go on without her, but of course, Ralph is on the trail and pulls the boat back. The crowds watch Ralph as he evades one of the crook's gunfire (a gun inexplicably appears in the crook's hand, but given he's supposed to be a magician, I think it might be a wrist-mounted pistol) by stretching and twisting to dodge the bullets.

Ralph then splashes water onto the boat, then knocks them over and punches them out.

This is definitely not one of Infantino's best fight scenes for Ralph. In fact, I could say it's forgettable. The most interesting panel is the one with Ralph twisted up nearly like rope, but dodging a bullet aside, there's not much else going on.

The crooks are—of course—the perfume essence thieves Ralph read about in the newspaper. A silent Sue is taken by Ralph back to their hotel. Arriving, a strange woman happily greets Ralph and kisses him, making Sue snap out of her reverie and threaten the woman, who is the real Monica.

Monica, being an accomplice of the crooks, is arrested, and Ralph figures that Monica and Sue somehow had their personalities and minds switched when the magician crook hypnotized them. He compares this to Jekyll and Hyde. Sue figures the sight of Monica kissing Ralph was what snapped the two women back to normal. Ralph and Sue go back to touring Paris, with Sue being clueless as to what people are saying in French.

Okay. We have problems here.

We are not told at any point that Sue went to any magic show until Ralph begins piecing things together. Ralph also surmises that Monica is actually the gang leader, so why would she be working in a magic act when she's trying to smuggle high-profile stolen goods?

Hypnosis simply can't do a mind transference, though I know, this is a comic book.

Even Ralph's comparison of Jekyll and Hyde falls apart because Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde weren't body-switching, they were two sides of the same person.

Well, this story is another mess. While Broome was able to handle Ralph all right when he was playing second fiddle to the Flash, he simply can't seem to have him lead a mystery story that hangs together well.

Come back, Gardner Fox. I miss you.

Next time, the crooks who give you money!