The Pied Piper's Double Doom!

 Ralph's last appearance in The Flash for nearly eight years was in #138. Nine months after this issue, Ralph moved to a solo backup feature in Detective Comics, but we'll get on the details of that next time.

Seeing Ralph out of the book he debuted in was of course the same team that saw him appear: John Broome writing, Carmine Infantino on art, and Joe Giella on inks.

The front cover continues the tradition of turning a panel in the story into the cover, with a layout change, of course. And this is certainly quite the dynamic cover with how the Pied Piper is directly in the middle with the two heroes clearly in his power. Also, Infantino is clearly having fun with Ralph's body by fitting it around that text, likely the work of Mr. Gaspar Saladino. (But since work went uncredited at the time, it's difficult to pin down exactly who did the lettering for a lot of these comics.)

On to the splash page! Using a three-panel design, the text and image tantalize us with what's to come in the story. Even without the text, the motion indicated in the artwork already suggests that Ralph and Barry are being influenced by the Pied Piper to commit crime somehow.

The story opens with two guards making sure no one enters the Tower of Tower City, which must be near Central City. The text indicates that the Tower was basically a fortress that settlers used to fight off "Indians" three hundred years ago when it was just Tower Town. For some reason, instead of upkeeping the original tower, it's been rebuilt. Well, I guess it was 300 years ago.

Even more bafflingly, a monarch of an undisclosed European country has loaned their royal jewels to Tower City and they're keeping them in the top of the Tower. Under guard, of course. I guess the Tower is the museum they got. But bafflingly, the jewels have been stolen when the story properly starts.

The page cuts to the Pied Piper, who is admiring the Star of India, the stolen gem and thinking about how clever he is to use superheroes as his "plundering puppets." I like that his thoughts use alliterative words.

On this page, we see the Piper's previous plot to steal the Star of India in action as he recognizes Ralph Dibny in a crowd at Tower Town. Using a small pipe, he programs Ralph to do his bidding, which he did the previous night, playing a special turne that makes Ralph leave his hotel room  and use his stretching powers to cross the moat and reach up to the top of the Tower.

This is a really good flashback page. Note the jagged edges around the panels and the profile of the Piper on the left side giving us the idea that this isn't happening in the present, but the past.

You'll notice a woman near Ralph in the first two main panels, which seems to match Sue as we see her later in the story. So they at least don't forget her anymore.

The next page shows Ralph breaking in to steal the jewels, smashing the case, which is a surprise that it doesn't alert the guard who's standing right outside. The page is particularly creepy, which is good since it's featuring Ralph acting out of character. The Piper has Ralph turn the loot over to him, then wipes his memory of what he's just done.

It's important to note that this would be mind control, not hypnosis. Hypnosis only offers suggestions or helps to dig up memories. Mind control in this sense is basically science fiction and can be depicted however they want.

 Ralph reads of the mysterious crimes in the paper, with Sue realizing he'll be off on a case in a moment. This is basically going to be the template for their cases in Detective Comics. Surprisingly, they happen to have a double date with Barry Allen and Iris West that night. Iris and Sue will spend the day shopping. Also something we'll see more of in the future...

Infantino draws the Dibnys as a fairly sweet and loving couple and it's still amazing how much motion he manages to depict in these still images. Sue herself is particularly glamorous, and you can easily pick up on the idea that they love each other very much and that they're from very different backgrounds.

Barry begins investigating the Tower City robbery, but while he's at the tower, the Piper puts him under mind control as well and has him rob the Tower City bank at super speed, so fast no one sees it happen. He boasts at his control of Barry for an hour before sending him back to the Tower and wiping his memory. The only thing is, Barry does the robbery at super speed, but finds the Piper back in his hideout in his standard garb. How did the Piper have enough time to get back, much less change clothes?

Barry has noticed footprints that are too far apart for any normal human, and finding Ralph at the Tower City Bank, he tells him that only he could have committed the robbery at the Tower. (I guess the DC staff hadn't yet decided Plastic Man existed in this world or Barry doesn't know about Jimmy Olsen as Elastic Lad.)

I'm pretty sure at the time of writing this story, it wasn't the plan for Ralph to move into a backup feature in Detective Comics and the plan was that he'd be back in the The Flash, but in this moment, we have an echo to his first appearance where Barry suspects he might be responsible for crimes. And it just so happens that it's his last regular guest star appearance for a very long time. So, this moment serves as nearly a fitting bookend for this chapter of Ralph's appearances in The Flash.

Ralph informs Barry that the clocks stopped in mere milliseconds from each other. The only one who could move that fast would be Barry himself.

The two realize they must have been forced to do these robberies and forget, which is a totally reasonable line of thought. They go back to Ralph's hotel room, where they decide to take precautions if it ever happens again.

The two heroes paint the soles of their feet with special paint that'll leave infra-red traces for them to follow. I love how Ralph has elongated his leg to easily paint his foot, just showing off what he can do with his powers.

Barry then asks Ralph for some gingold, which he claims should allow him to stretch. Given what's revealed about gingold later, this shouldn't work, but because it's only been established that it gives people elastic powers, it works just fine.

Ralph notes that a half hour vanishes as Barry drinks the gingold, meaning they've been made to do another crime. They leap into action with the infra-red lamp, showing their prints.

I really hope The Flash TV show has Ralph ride on Barry's shoulders sometime. It's a classic position for them.

The Piper is informed of Ralph and Barry arriving by his "musical radar system." If you're going to balk at a musical radar that has specific alarms for the wavelengths of the heroes, you just haven't been paying much attention. It's the Silver Age, after all.

Being alerted to the heroes arriving, the Piper steps outside and uses his mind control to make Ralph stretch and twist himself into a super long corkscrew, and this is of course where the scene depicted on the cover comes from. Barry runs on empty air as if he's stuck on a treadmill. Because gravity doesn't matter with super speed.

Infantino of course draws this absolutely insane sequence with nearly cinematic visuals.

Using the powers granted him by gingold, Barry manages to stretch his arm and knock the pipes away from Piper, breaking his control of the heroes. He runs back inside to get another pair of pipes because he forgets that he's up against someone with super speed.

Barry stops to help Ralph untwist himself, which causes a small tornado due to Barry doing it at super speed. This wrecks the Piper's house, preventing him from using another pair of pipes, Ralph snatching him out at the last minute. Barry then stops the tornado from damaging anything else in the city.

Ralph manages to meet Iris and Sue in time for their double date, but Barry arrives ten minutes late, due to dealing with reporters at the police station and returning the stolen goods to their owners. Iris gives him a tongue lashing, but what can he do?

Ralph and Sue totally know Barry's the Flash, right? Why else would they pair up with Barry and Iris—a police scientist and a reporter—for a double date?

So, here we are at the end of Ralph's appearances in The Flash as a guest star for awhile. When he returns to the pages of The Flash in #206, it's only for a small run of backup stories. I wish I had the story of why they decided to give Ralph his backup in Detective Comics and why five solo stories ran in The Flash. If anyone knows, feel free to drop a comment.

But what about this story? Frankly... it's a fun story at first glance. When examined closely, it begins to show some glaring weaknesses. Suddenly Piper must also have super speed to do some of the things that he does. I'm not sure why Barry had to stop to help Ralph recover instead of letting him snap back to normal instead of just apprehending the Pied Piper. But hey, we wouldn't have gotten those cool panels with the tornado that I didn't show you.

So, once again, we get some "nerfing" going on in a team up, though it's not quite as glaringly bad. Perhaps this is why Ralph disappeared from The Flash for so long: they were having trouble coming up with stories that used him without becoming a detriment to both characters. But hey, we got more Sue!

Next time, we get to Detective Comics at last.