Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Elongated Man: Europe '92






The Elongated Man is a character I first came into contact with while watching the Justice League Unlimited animated series. He was funny on the show, but seemed like just another stretchy guy, like Mr. Fantastic or Plastic Man. But then i soon discovered two things about that character that piqued my interest. One, he was a detective. I love detective fiction, and detective characters, be it Sherlock Holmes, Phillip Marlowe, or Nick and Nora Charles. And in fact, the Elongated Man has a partner in solving mysteries, just like Nick Charles has his wife, Nora, to help him in the Thin Man novel or Film series, one Sue Dibny (the Elongated man's real name being Ralph Dibny.) The series is in 4 issues, written by Gerard Jones, and Penciled by Mike Parobeck,(now deceased, sadly) and inked by Ty Templeton. Mike Parobeck has been one of my favorite artists for years, his work on the Batman Adventures comics is great, cartoony and well thought out. Ty Templeton is a great artist as well, and i believe has drawn and inked Batman Adventure comics, among alot of other work. Gerard Jones has written many comics and novels.
The series concerns The Elongated man and Sue investigating attacks on peace conferences in europe, perpetrated by men in silly costumes. Copperhead makes an appearance, he was a favorite of mine from the Justice League tv show. There are also squid men, and a team of men dressed as sausages. If this sounds silly it is, and thats half the fun of the series. The relationship between Ralph and Sue gets tried a little, but they're fun characters to read about, and this series was well worth it. I don't think it's collected in trade form, i ordered the issues from amazon.com, but if you like your superhero books on the light side, try this out.

1 comment:

Desiree Fabela said...

I want a man dressed up as a sausage!

And Mrs. Elongated Man looks a lot like Dr. Girlfriend from the Venture Bros