The Case of the Costumed-Made Crook!

Detective Comics #351 has a cover date of May, 1966 and should be on digital services shortly. Over in the letters page, none of the printed letters chimed in on Ralph's adventures.

"The Case of the Costumed-Made Crook!" was written by Gardner Fox with both pencils and inks by Carmine Infantino, Gaspar Saldino lettered and Julius Schwartz served as editor.

When we last saw Ralph, he had just gotten a new costume, now, he has to figure out what to do with the old one.

The splash page teases that someone stole the old uniform and is using it to do crimes with. The art shows us the crook firing some sort of large missile at a tired-looking Ralph.

Ralph's left arm looks flat while his right arm looks really skinny past the elbow and supposedly, he just stretched onto the roof given his elongated left leg. Also, Infantino's signature is in the lower right corner and Ralph's old costume is seen next to the title.

The story opens in an unnamed city which is said to be between Coast City (the location of the last story) and Central City, the home of the Flash. This is really vague because Coast Central is generally held to be in California, while Central City is either in Missouri or Ohio, which is quite some distance. Just Missouri to California is about two days by car.

Anyway, Ralph is checking himself out in his new costume and Sue lets her know she's feeling really hungry and she'd like to go to dinner.

Ralph announces he's going to donate his old costume to the Flash Museum in Central City, and Sue complains that she's hungry again.

Opening his suitcase, Ralph discovers his old costume is gone, so his nose gets to twitching and he decides to set off back to Coast City to recover it and sends Sue to Central City. "Not before I have my dinner!" Sue protests. "I'm famished!"

Go get some food, Sue!

Last time Infantino inked himself, the artwork looked a bit wonky. This time, it looks pretty good. Maybe he refined his technique a little. Or else maybe the crediting I found for this issue is off.

Ralph gets in a rental car and heads back to Coast City. Was Sue going to fly the rest of the way or do they know a really good route?

Asking at their hotel, Ralph discovers the bellhop who took their bags to their car promptly quit. Ralph then goes to the local paper and asks for copies of the photographs that were taken at his event. He spots the bellhop in them and then asks to look through the mug files.

The police then tell Ralph they're looking into a crook who seemingly vanishes after committing crimes. After hearing a couple descriptions of the crimes, Ralph deduces the crook is using his old costume to pull himself away from the scenes of the crimes almost instantly. With the police's help, he gets dropped off onto a building from a helicopter that night to keep an eye out for the crook.

 Ralph quickly spots him and apprehends him when he springs back to the roof of a building. Ralph punches the crook, which the old costume springs the man high up in the air and suspends him briefly, before he springs back down and hits Ralph.

This briefly knocks out both men, but the crook gets up first, and prepares to use the old costume as a weapon against Ralph.

Ralph gets back up to hear the crook threaten to "whale the elasticity out of you—" and responds "Talk is cheap! It's action that counts!"

For some reason, Ralph stands still as the crook whips around a makeshift bola which wraps around Ralph. It whips Ralph in the face and then makes him spin around.

It's here the crook reveals why he took the old costume. "I stole your old uniform with the idea that the wearing of it would give me the power to stretch the way you do! But when I discovered it didn't, I came up with another idea—"

Crook is a moron.

Anyway, it's now we get the moment that made the splash panel as a ventilation shaft cover is turned into a missile to fling at Ralph, but he manages to just dodge it and snaps it back at the crook, which knocks him out. Presumably, Ralph will turn the crook over the police, saying they can recover the rest of the loot.

It says the next day is the presentation at the Flash museum. This story has taken place over the course of three days:

Day 1: Ralph discovers his costume is stolen, returns to Coast City. Sue goes on to Central City.

Day 2: Ralph finds clues and deduces what happened to the costume. That night, he faces the crook, sends him to jail and recovers the costume.

Day 3: Presentation at the Flash museum.

Now, perhaps the lack of placing Coast City and Central City in any specific place back in the Silver Age meant this was no problem. But trying to figure this story with details revealed later means that Ralph and Sue had to have flown to Central City. Unless Green Lantern helped out again with that teleport beam.

Anyway, last page, Barry asks Sue where Ralph is, and she silently hopes Ralph will pop in, which he does, old costume in tow.

Ralph later explains the crime to Sue, who cutely watches him and kisses him as he explains that the crook didn't get the powers he wanted, finishing with "All of which proves, darling—that it's the man who makes the uniform, not the uniform that makes the man!"

Overall... This was actually good. The plot's tight and flows well. I just don't get why they say "wearing of it" in there. Infantino's art is good, but starts to look rougher as the story goes on. Still, nothing notable to complain about. Good work to the whole team on this one.

Next time, Ralph and Sue get down in Monte Carlo.