Stretchy Powers and Magic Powers

 

cover art by Carmine Infantino

A back-up story in Detective Comics #355 (1966), written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Carmine Infantino, starred Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man.

Ralph is driving along one evening when he sees a strange sight--two men who just robbed a jewelry store are flying through the air over him.

Ralph grabs them. The crooks, terrified, confess to their crimes and explain that they have no idea what is pulling the through the air. Then that same force begins to make them fight back. Even after Ralph knocks them unconscious, they continue to throw punches, knocking out the hero. 

Ralph wakes up to see that they left their bag of loot behind. The pearls inside the bag are glowing with energy--perhaps, deduces Ralph--the same energy that was controlling the thieves. He uses one of the pearl as a direction finder to track them down.

The thieves have been brought to a prop store by Zatanna, who is looking for a tripod the two men had stolen at another time. The thieves hadn't known it, but the tripod is magical and Zatanna needs it in her continuing search to find her father.

The prop shop owner overhears this and, learning that the tripod is valuable, decides he wants to recover it from the thieves for himself. Also, he's carrying a book of black magic in his back pocket, which nullifies Zatanna's white magic. Usually, it's a bad idea to bring a gun to a magic fight, but it works out this time.

Well, it WOULD have worked out for him. Ralph shows up, disarmes the store owner and knocks out the thieves. Zatanna has a chance to toss the magic book into another room, allowing her to use her magic and subdue the store owner.

With the book and the tripod, Zatanna is now able to travel to the dimension where she believes her dad is being held. Ralph, in the meantime, buys the stolen pears and gives them to his wife.

Infantino's art is great, especially his use of long, vertical panels during the fight with the "flying" thieves. The story follows a thread of Comic Book Logic quite nicely, though it's a little exposition-heavy for its short length. Also, though I accept Zatanna bringing the thieves to her by magic, causing them to fight another superhero to clear the path for them seems a tad unethical. Even if this was a general part of the spell rather than a specific command to fight Ralph, it wasn't well-thought-out. 

But that's a nitpick. It is indeed a fun story.

Next week, we return to the Lonely War of Willy Schultz.