The Elongated Man's Secret Weapon!

Now onto Ralph's second appearance in The Flash #115. This wasn't the main feature story, just a twelve page backup.

The first page being the splash page!

This particular page plays with a moment later in the story that wasn't depicted quite like that.

This story is written by John Broome and drawn by Carmine Infantino with inks by Murphy Anderson, edited by Julius Schwartz and lettering by Gaspar Saladino.

This might feel pretty standard praise, but take a look at how Infantino's art conveys the scale of the alien invader, and the pressure Ralph is under as well as Barry's seeming helplessness. It might not be high art, but it does a lot in selling this story to you. You want to go ahead and get into the story.

Or else, you probably picked the wrong comic book.

Here we have Ralph doing a show where he apparently can stretch at super speed by catching a girl being fired from a cannon. Infantino is in top form depicting the action with only three panels. The third is triangular-shaped to show what Ralph is doing as well as showing more of the story on this page.

Panel four, it looks as if Barry says Ralph's name out loud, then thinks about how only he knows the Elongated Man's secret identity.

Barry, you should never be allowed to know any secrets, ever.

Final panel on this page is an excellent case for why Ralph should ditch the mask: it makes his face look ugly. I mean, props to Infantino for everything else on the page, but there's too much detail going on here and the end result is that Ralph looks deranged.

Anyway, Ralph has made a fortune from doing stage and TV appearances and is retiring to travel the world. You made good, Ralph. Real good. Retiring at what, 35? Nice.

However, this will be something that'll come back once Ralph moves over to Detective Comics.

I like the handshake panel. If you wanted a nice image to illustrate Ralph and Barry's partnership, there you go. Also, Infantino is in top form.

On these four panels, we see Ralph's trip to Yucatan and his group of Mexican guides. They're depicted pretty well, surprisingly. Broome resists giving them stereotypical dialogue and dialect. Maybe the fact that they do stop when they sense danger might be insulting, but hey, turns out, they weren't wrong.

Panels 3-4, Ralph obviously trails off after he mentions the fruit of the gingo tree and then starts thinking. We begin to see why his secret identity was short lived. Boy can barely keep his mouth closed.

And here is our first glimpse at a gingo tree. And yes, this is the official design and would return later.

One thing I haven't mentioned so far about Silver Age stories is how fast paced they are. In a modern comic, this one page would be at least the better part of an issue.

Again, take a look at how much Infantino puts into the art. You could get the idea of what's happening without the dialogue. Ralph finds the gingo tree, and as he picks a fruit, he sees a bright red light coming from the jungle. He tries to find the source, but runs into an invisible barrier.

Hmm, you know, if this was a modern comic, maybe he'd get squashed against the barrier for a comical effect.

Realizing that this is beyond his capabilities, Ralph calls in his "secret weapon," the Flash! So, basically, the title of this story is "The Flash!" Okay. Nice.

So, Ralph heads to the nearest town (stretching his legs to cover more ground, which is a trick I'm not sure would actually work), then heads back to check out the barrier.

These last two panels are what I want to touch on. While Infantino tries to make it look like Ralph has shrunk, the fact that we see Ralph shoulder up in the first panel kind of ruins the effect because we don't get the entire sense of scale. This is one case where Silver Age comics moving so fast works against it.

Also, while Broome didn't do offensive stereotypical Mexican dialogue, Infantino draws stereotypical Mexicans.

Ralph discovers that there are aliens who have used a device to shrink all living things to "a mite." Since the test is successful, they plan to do this to the entire earth.

Now, apparently the aliens speak in their own language, but they're broadcasting their thoughts in English telepathically for anyone who's around. Maybe this is some super power they have they just can't shut off because it handily gives Ralph all the information he needs to know about them.

Barry arrives in the jungle, but is hit by the same shrinking force. Infantino again fouls up the shrinking effect because it just looks like Barry has entered a heavily overgrown jungle.

However, the towering look of the aliens and Ralph's suddenly limited abilities are well-depicted.

Barry now realizes he's not in a heavy jungle but tall grass. Thank you dialogue for making that clear.

He and Ralph meet up and Ralph fills him in on the alien's scheme. Barry then gets distracted by a rabbit. Now, sure, this infers that Barry is a caring person, but seriously, he interrupts Ralph to point it out.

I do like the image of Barry caring for a rabbit and comforting it, but take a look at what he says. "If those aliens can do this to everyone, scare people too like this—they're evil  and we must stop them."

Barry, Ralph just told you they shrunk everyone and want to do that to the entire planet and take over. I think we're beginning to see why Ralph left to go be a backup in Detective Comics. He needed to hang with someone a bit more on his level. Namely, Batman.

Time to skip a page where Ralph and Barry trail the aliens as they head to the barrier and break through it. Despite being tiny, Ralph and Barry are able to use their powers to take out these two aliens.

Now, I know what I said about how Ralph's stretching out his back should really mess up his center of balance, but apparently, it's no problem at all, so I'll not mention it again. What I will mention is that Ralph seems to have no problem lifting and carrying Barry. In some of his more recent appearances, Ralph was able to expand his muscles, making him far more effective as a fighter. So, although they aren't shown getting larger here, perhaps he's doing something like that.

Also, seemingly, Ralph strangles that alien into submission.

Skipping another page in which Ralph and Barry find the alien camp and overhear them deciding not to wait for the two that our heroes took out and go ahead and activate their device to shrink everyone on Earth. Barry runs to the device and runs back and forth across the end of the machine's barrel, wearing a path into it and making it break.

But for some reason, Barry doesn't run away in time to avoid being spotted and captured. Barry, this is the third time in this story that your actions have been questionable at best.

Also, I'm just going to assume "Gim a dogora" is some alien expletive.

Okay, to get a "stretch boost," Ralph chows down on a gingo fruit. The text says he's just plucked it, but wouldn't it make more sense for it to be the one he plucked earlier? It seems to be perfectly scaled to his hand, as if it had shrunk with him. But if that was true, where did he put it? Maybe that waistband acts as a pocket.

So, this boost lets him save Barry, and the two work together to fire a paralysis ray at the aliens.

And luckily, somehow the ray breaks the shrinking effects because this is the final page and the plot demands a resolution on that point.

The story concludes with Barry deciding to turn the aliens over to the authorities and then running home to Central City to tell Iris about what happened.

Sure, Barry, you just happen to know all about this from a conversation you had with the Flash... It's getting way less convincing, man...

So, Ralph gets to see a gingo fruit, and goes from taking out robbers to taking out space aliens. Also, he's officially retired and traveling the world. Way to go, buddy. Also, Barry Allen is kind of the worst. A few disconnects between the art and text and a couple ugly bits of art. Otherwise, this is one of those wacky backup Silver Age stories that you can't help but love.

Next time, we finally meet the most important person in Ralph's life... The Missus.