Desert Double-Cross!

 Detective Comics #330 featured Ralph's fourth solo outing and a digital copy can be purchased on Comixology or read via DC Universe.

"Desert Double Cross!" was written by Gardner Fox with art by Carmine Infantino.

The splash page shows us Ralph turning over a bag of stolen jewels to a crook who has him at gunpoint. The dialogue reveals that the crook has forced Ralph to steal for him, but Ralph has pulled off a double cross and is expecting the crook to fire at any point.

While it teases the plot all right, this isn't a particularly exciting splash page. I think a big part of it is that instead of drawing the ground, Infantino has both Ralph and the gunman standing on the straight line at the bottom of the page. A slightly more angled look at the scene might've made it more dramatic.

While driving in the Mojave Desert, Ralph and Sue's car breaks down. Luckily it's in front of a house, so Ralph goes to ask to use the phone.

Writing that just made me think of The Rocky Horror Show. However, this story is anything but.

 A young woman who lives there calls Ralph her "cousin Jim Parker from San Francisco" and gives him a kiss. Sue comes up and is similarly greeted. Suspecting that something's up, Ralph wiggles his nose to Sue to play along.

Entering, the young woman introduces her father and their house guests. However, a mobster named Bill Hastings steps out with a gun and reveals that he has these people held hostage. He reveals he and his men were going to steal the Banley Jewels from a highly secured house, but now he'll have Ralph do it for him. He drives Ralph out to do it, and Ralph plays it as if he's doing the theft, but in the end tricks Hastings by picking up some regular stones instead.

Hastings draws on Ralph, who manages to stretch out of his path and take him out with some good punches. Putting Hastings in the trunk of the car, Ralph disguises himself in Hastings' clothes so as to trick his men when he returns to the house. When asked for a signal, Ralph goes on the offensive with his elongated punching arms.

Stepping inside, Ralph happens to stand behind a screen and is told to freeze by a gunman, but manages to stretch his elbow around through the window and strikes the gunman that way, quickly pulling the hostages out of the way with his other arm.

I haven't been saying much criticizing the art or the story. The reason is that the story is rather uninteresting. While they have Ralph use his abilities to get out of this situation, I feel like you could use just about any other superhero and have them use their specific abilities to do it. It's not that the story is bad, it's just that it's not that good either. It's not a mystery, it's just Ralph handling a bad situation.

In the penultimate page, Ralph takes out the two gunmen by tricking one into lunging at him and cracking their heads together, which can't really be good for either, but hey, maybe don't go into crime and Ralph won't be causing you possible serious damage.

So, here's what I have to say about the art, now that we've seen a number of stories with this style, there's not much to remark on. The best moments are when Ralph is using his abilities to fight the crooks. I suppose this is due to the story not really calling for a lot of visually interesting moments. Even then, Ralph's actions don't feel quite as fluid as he has in the past.

Mediocre story aside, I assume with also having to do The Flash and Detective's Batman feature this month, Infantino might have been feeling stretched himself when it came to this story.

Wrapping up the story, Sue congratulates Ralph on saving the day while Molly and John Parker (whose names were revealed in a description in a page I didn't show) apologize for getting Ralph involved, although Sue says it's no problem.

Ralph reveals that he did take a gamble on the greed of crooks and then that Hastings is in the trunk of the car. Presumably in his underwear since Ralph used his clothes to disguise himself, which is the most amusing thing of the whole story, but we don't even see it.

The story ends with a teaser that the next issue will see Ralph team up with Batman.

So, there we go. Sadly, a middling effort by Fox and Infantino, who typically did good work. But hey, next time we see Batman!