Meet The Dibnys

[ Ralph Dibny, Hero and a Loving Husband ]

Written by Kal-El

What is the common theme superpowers does these 2 men have? - Mr. Fantastic and Plastic Man? Of course we know that they all can stretch them selves into tight situations. But there's one more guy who is always in the shadows of these two stretch-a-ble men, He was a reserve member of the Justice League, His abilities is quite equal with the two, his name was Elongated Man aka Ralph Dibny.

As a teenager, Ralph Dibny adored contortionists, or people who displayed feats of agility and suppleness. He learned that all of the body-benders he spoke with drank a popular soda called "Gingold." Ralph set to work learning chemistry and developed a super-concentrated extract of the rare Gingo fruit, which gave him his elasticity.

[Elongated man was one of the special reserve members of JLA]

Ralph Dibny was one of the earliest Silver Age DC heroes to reveal his secret identity to the public, and also one of the first to marry his love interest. He and his wife Sue Dibny became effectively partners, solving mysteries and participating in Justice League adventures as equals. They were also notable in having a stable, happy, and relatively trouble-free marriage.

In Identity Crisis #1, published in June 2004, tragedy struck the Dibnys, when Sue was murdered in their home just before she was going to surprise her husband with the news that she was pregnant. This is what they call, a Death in the Family.

[Sue was found burnt and murdered]

In the 2006 weekly series 52, Ralph Dibny has a gun to his head when he is informed that Sue's gravestone has been vandalized with an inverted version of Superman's 'S' symbol. The Kryptonian symbol for resurrection. He confronts Cassandra Sandsmark, and she tells Dibny that she is in a cult that believes that Superboy can be resurrected, but that they would like to try it first with Sue. Despite his initial agreement, Dibny and his friends disrupt the ceremony, but the effigy of Sue crawls to Dibny and calls out to him as it burns; Dibny suffers a nervous breakdown as a result.

A voice from within the helm of Doctor Fate speaks to Dibny and promises to fulfill his desires if he makes certain sacrifices. Dibny journeys with the helm through the afterlives of several cultures, where he is cautioned about the use of magic. The Spectre promises to resurrect Sue in exchange for Dibny's taking vengeance on Jean Loring, but Dibny is unable to do so.

Ralph and Sue reunited as ghosts. At Nanda Parbat, Rama Kushna tells Dibny, "The end is already written." In Dr. Fate's tower, Dibny begins the spell to resurrect Sue, puts on the helmet of Fate, and shoots it, revealing Felix Faust, who was posing as Nabu. Faust planned to trade Dibny's soul to Neron in exchange for his own freedom. Ralph reveals that he was aware of Faust's identity for some time, and that the binding spell surrounding the tower is designed to imprison Faust, not to counter any negative effects of the spell. Neron appears and kills Dibny, only to realize too late that the binding spell responds only to Dibny's commands: Through his death Ralph has trapped Faust and Neron in the tower, seemingly for eternity, though this victory is short lived as both villains are able to escape seemingly almost immediately.

At the end of Week 52 it is revealed that Dibny's magical, wish-granting gun, it was a souvenir from "The Anselmo Case", a reference to The Life Story of the Flash that worked and that Ralph and Sue are now reunited as ghosts, investigating a school where a paranormal phenomenon has just occurred.

The Elongated Man gets his abilities from a combination of drinking a soda named Gingold that contains the extract of a (fictional) fruit called gingo and his natural latent metahuman physiology. The extract interacts with a latent gene that Ralph has, thus activating his super powers. It was revealed in Invasion no.3 that it was a metagene reaction to the Gingold elixir that had always provided him with his stretching powers, meaning that he is, in fact, a metahuman and that an ordinary human would not develop such powers through ingesting the extract. Also, most people are extremely allergic to highly concentrated Gingold. The only other hero in the DCU who uses Gingold is Stretch, a member of Hero Hotline who has been using the compound since the 1940s.

Due to prolonged Gingold abuse Stretch had problems maintaining human form. Pre-Crisis storylines had Jimmy Olsen taking a similar gingo extract, becoming Elastic Lad, and being an Honorary Legion of Superheroes member. Also, The Question's faceless mask utilizes Gingold, although there is no stretching involved. As his name suggests, the Elongated Man can stretch his limbs and body to super-human lengths and sizes. These stretching powers grant the Elongated Man heightened agility enabling him flexibility and coordination that is beyond the natural limits of the human body. He can contort his body into various positions and sizes impossible for ordinary humans, such as being entirely flat so that he can slip under a door, or using his fingers to pick conventional locks. He can also use it for disguise by changing the shape of his face, although this is painful and difficult for him. Ralph's physiology has greater physical limitations than Plastic Man; there is a limit to how far he can stretch his finite bodily mass. The Elongated Man's powers also greatly augments his durability.

He is largely able to withstand corrosives, punctures and concussions without sustaining injury. It has been demonstrated that he is resistant to high velocities that would kill an ordinary person and that he is also more resistant to blasts from energy weapons that would kill ordinary humans. His physiology is more like that of an ordinary human than Plastic Man and as a result he does not share Plastic Man's nigh invulnerability. In addition to his stretching abilities, Elongated Man is professionally trained as a detective and is highly skilled in deductive reasoning. Often considered one of the most brilliant detectives in the DC Universe (on par with Batman only differing in the actual course of their logic), his name is also a play on The Thin Man detective serial. He is a talented amateur chemist as well.

[ Sue and Ralph re-united]

After his sacrifice, he and Sue are ghosts, with all the powers that a ghost possesses such as flight/levitation, intangibility, invisibility and maybe others. May they rest in peace with Harmony and Love. Thanks for Reading guys.