In the letters page, Batman continues to dominate the conversation, but there's a few comments on "The Bandits and the Baroness." Robert Allen of Attica, New York thought "the story came out great. Plot, art were all up to par (yawn) and the humor was as terrific as ever. This will go down as an average Elongated Man story but if you keep your average up where it's been (about 99% better than your competitors), then you'll keep my happiness up too."
Mike Friedrich of Castro Valley, California thought Ralph's story was better than Batman's story from the issue. "Elongated Man was far better. Two different sets of crooks working separately, with one trying to rob the other, and six other Ralph Dibnys stretched (if you'll pardon the expression) the story into another winner. It seems like the EM stories are in the same position as Robin is in. Without him backing up the star performer, the latter would be sorely lacking; yet he gets very little publicity or reward for his vital part in the overall setup.
"Incidentally, you (or rather the author) made a minor mistake in the EM story. You called Ralph Dibny the only costumed hero to reveal his other identity. Remember Metamorpho!"
Finally, Ben Creisler of Crescent City, California enthuses about the issue, though doesn't have any specific comments: "And now for that Man of a Million Measurements, that rubberband maker, the Elongated Man! You manage to involve him in a mystery every month and in turn give readers a mystery-to solve, a cascade of thrills."
"Peephole to the Future!" is written by John Broome with Carmine Infantino on art, Sid Greene on inks and Julius Schwartz as editor. The splash page is very eye catching with a nicely drawn Ralph being knocked out, his neck stretching back towards the reader. (And his butt looks very nice in that costume.) The text teases that Ralph has suddenly been able to see into the future. The bank robbers knocking him out say that he suddenly went into a trance and that "He looks so dreamy, he shouldn't mind being put to sleep with this haymaker!"
Sue asks Ralph for money to buy a fancy new hat, and he suddenly goes into a trance before giving her an exact sum. She thinks that this more than she wanted to spend, but since Ralph offered, she won't turn it down. I think this should be dialogue, but I suppose it works just as well.
Ralph is suddenly able to predict room service arriving and the phone about to ring and is beginning to be suspicious of his new ability.
Sue is on the phone, excitedly telling Ralph that the hat she bought costs exactly what he gave her. She heads back home and tries on the hat while Ralph is puzzling over his new ability, that he suddenly goes into a trance and sees a quick view of the future. He tries to demonstrate by looking at a newspaper and reads a completely different headline by what's on there. However, Sue doesn't seem to get what he's talking about as he decides to go see if he can stop some bank robbers.
Ah, casual sexism. We know, you've been here the whole time, but now you raise your ugly head again.
However, Ralph has a quick vision of the crooks leaving the bank, and thanks to entering the trance, it allows them to knock him out, now in a much smaller version of the scene from the splash panel. It's not quite as dynamic either. The cramped panels prevent this from being a great Infantino fight scene as well.
The crooks escape out the back as the police arrive. Ralph didn't stop them, but he did prevent the robbery. Back at his hotel room, Sue nurses his sore chin.
The paper Ralph saw is now out, letting Sue see the paper Ralph saw and she mentions that it would've told him that he didn't bring the crooks in.
Meanwhile, the crooks are also reading the paper and see that Ralph was interviewed and mentioned his vision of the future. They decide to try to get even with Ralph and make a profit as well.
Ralph is heading out to perform at a charity bazaar, but when he gets into the elevator, a smoke bomb is tossed in that knocks him out. At the ground floor, the crooks take to their hide out, having chemically weakened Ralph and giving him a truth serum so they can show him the paper and hope to profit from the next day's news. He can't give them stock market predictions or the winning lottery number, but he can see race results, which he gives them and they use it to place bets at the race track and turn $10 into $819,500.
As they leave, it's revealed that Ralph is hiding between the ceiling tiles, despite feeling very exhausted. He slips down and manages to get to a window, getting some fresh air to restore his strength. (How that works, I don't know.) He manages to stretch his foot down, kick one and knock the others out with his fingers as he descends.
As the police arrive to take the crooks to jail (attempted robbery and kidnapping is still a crime), they see that they were captured at the George Washington Hotel, not the George Washington Bridge as they suspected from the future headline.
Sadly, there's only a litle bit of Ralph fighting the crooks in the story and it's not up to Infantino's usual snuff.
By the way, this panel of Ralph and Sue in their room, Ralph looks particularly attractive.
Ralph goes onto explain that his new super power has vanished. He suspects that there was an impurity in his gingold that he was using at the time.
This is the first instance of something that only comes up once again as far as I know, that if something's wrong with Ralph's gingold, he develops new superpowers in addition to his regular elastic abilities. Given that Ralph was later confirmed to be a metahuman with his elastic powers triggered by gingold, it may be that he actually has several superpowers that he doesn't know how to trigger and the couple of times we saw were times when they were triggered.
The final panel shows Ralph and Sue discovering that it is raining for their picnic after all. Ralph says he'd prefer not to know the future so he can solve mysteries.
Speaking of solving mysteries, this is really just a crime story with some superpowers, no real mystery. Which would be fine, except that this is Detective Comics, so the focus should be on mystery stories. It's really not too bad, despite the casual sexism with how Sue was depicted, but it could've been better if some mystery could've been set up.
Next time, Ralph gets a new costume, but it's not what you think.
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