10 DC Characters Who Survived Terrible Debuts

The Elongated Man was created because his own editor didn’t know that his company owned the rights to a similar character. Ralph Dibny, the “world famous” Elongated Man was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino with significant input from editor Julius Schwartz. Julie was looking for a stretchy secondary character for the popular Flash character. The editor later admitted that Dibny was only created because he didn’t realize that DC had acquired Plastic Man in its acquisition of the Quality Comics properties.

The Elongated Man was another victim of the “bad science” that plagued many Golden and Silver Age creations. Ralph loved contortionists and noticed that they all drank Gingold Cola. He learned that the core ingredient was the Gingo fruit from the Yucatan. Learning chemistry, he created a super concentrated extract of the fruit and it is this that gives him his stretching power. That’s a bit like saying concentrated orange juice gives you heat vision.

Ralph does have a few unusual aspects to his character that make him stand out. He was one of the first Silver Age characters to make his identity public. He was also one of the first to marry his love interest, Sue Dearbon, and the pair had a stable, happy, and loving marriage until her murder in the controversial 2004 comic Identity Crisis.