Because you're RICH!

Where was I? Oh, yes; making the point that the Dibny's --the sainted sacrificial goats of the Silver Age -- were terrible people.

Did you know Ralph was the only super-hero who publicly revealed his true identity?

FLASH FACT!

And why?  Because he wanted to use it to get fame, and money, and a rich and famous wife.

"I WON you! Like the lottery!  And, like the lottery, you come with a lifetime supply of MONEY!"

Ralph was a vain, self-centered jackass.  Sue was an air-headed heiress who spent all her time shopping and laughing at Ralph's pretentions to fame.  This is not some later interpretation by a cruel, crude writer; this is how they were created.  All these panels are from 1964. 

Sue can barely contain her laughter at Ralph making a fool of himself.
"Sure, honey; tell 'em who you are. THEN we'll see what they say! *snort*"

Sue may not have a superpower (that she drinks from a bottle) but she does have Olympic-level passive-aggressive emasculation and derision skills. She trained with Iris West.

"I'm sure SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE must have heard of you!"
Holy crap, these two make Diana and Ching look like a mutual admiration society.

"Maybe you can HIRE someone to tell people who you are, so that I don't have to listen you to do in 24/7!"  Sue, born into fame and wealth as the heiress to the Dearborn fortune, is always amused by Ralph's bourgeois pretensions.

You think they were some kind of crime-solving duo, don't you?  Ha. Think again.  Sue has little time for Ralph's grubby field work, and would go shopping or to the theater while Ralph was doing his goofy, stretchy detecting.

"Here's a wad of cash that was in the glove compartment; knock yerself out."
"ooo! Great, honey! Hey, wait...! WHO'S GOING TO DRIVE MY CAR??!"

Because that's what matters most, Ralph.

World-famous elongated douchebag.

The Dibnys were terrible people, and your memories of them are false.

Here's a little haiku for Haikuesday. I call it, "Because You're Rich!"

BUT NOW I KNOW THAT
WINNING YOU WAS REALLY THE
HIGH POINT OF MY LIFE!


What haiku can you compose condemning the Dibnys, the heralds of our current culture of fame-seeking?

The Dibnys were terrible people and your memories of them are false

"Oh, the poor sainted Dibnys! How fun and innocent they were and how much we all loved them!"

How often have I heard someone say this about the Elongated Man and his wife, Sue?

Look; no one likes what Brad Meltzer did in Identity Crisis, and, yes it was a tawdry, pointless tarnishing of the Silver and Bronze Ages in a tasteless, muddled attempt to make the comics of our childhood seem more adult and less embarrassing, with an incoherent, unsolvable "mystery".  

On the other hand. it did give us this:

Ah, Jean; always so radiant.  Like plutonium.

Never look back, Jean; never look back.

But, somehow, the backlash against Identity Crisis has retroactively bleached the Dibny's into the symbols of comic book fun and niceness.  And people who don't know any better just keep parroting that as some sort of Given Fact of Continuity.

Well... I call bullshit.  

Most of the people who talk like that about the Dibny's haven't actually ever read one of their stories. Those who have, haven't done so since they were kids.  

Okay, sure, Ralph fought crime and Sue, well, she put up with Ralph.  But weren't anybody you'd want to know. Ralph was a fame-hungry gold-digger and Sue was a self-centered debutante.  Here's a prime example of the fun-filled Dibnys....


The Dibnys take vacation somewhere no one knows them and then are disappointed that no one knows them.

"Why read the paper if I'm not in it?"
Thank god these two died before Facebook and Twitter.

Then Sue has a paper-shredding conniption because she's not one of THE TEN MOST ADMIRED WOMEN IN AMERICA.  Why would anyone admire you, Sue? You married the Elongated Man.

"Never been so humiliated in your life"?!
Don't be ridiculous, Sue: You married the Elongated Man!

Ralph's only thought it, "Well, it's a pity you can't be more like ME, dear!" He can't even be bothered to cough up a "Oh, honey, I think you're MUCH prettier than Bella Abzug!"  

Although nobody rocked a high hat like Abzug.

Then Sue hulks out, because Sue is a crazy person.

Let's see Bella Abzug do THAT.

Why isn't there a Convergence issue where Sue Dibny and Jean Loring have taken over a domed city by simply killing everyone in it, one by one?  I'd read that. Repeatedly.

Ralph, being the jerk that he is, abandons his bridezilla to her envy-rage with a condescending PEK, because apparently Sue does this all the time, and he'll just buy her something later.

"I'll pick up a dozen American beauty roses and---charge them to Sue, because she's the one with all the money."

The Dibnys were terrible people and your memories of them are false.

Ralph was always a jerk

I've previously mentioned what an awful person Ralph Dibny was, and, in particular his hypocrisy in criticizing Booster Gold for being self-promoting.

So I wanted to share this, with anyone who still thinks I was too harsh on Mr. Dibny:

World-Famous Elongated Irony

I tend too much to assume that everything I know about comics is common knowledge. It isn't; yesterday I almost fired someone for not knowing who Mr. Mxyzptlk is.

I always feel silly when I blog about, say, Egg Fu or the Composite Superman, because, well, everyone's heard of them, for pity's sake. But they haven't, and lots of people seem to be happy to learn about such things.

So, here's another observation along those lines, for those of you reading 52 Week 7:

You DO realize the irony of Ralph Dibny criticizing Booster Gold, right?

In essence, Ralph "Elongated Man" Dibny was the pre-Crisis version of Booster Gold. Not in the sense that being a stretchable sleuth is anything like being a flying future-tech vigilante! No, I mean in their approach to the "job".

Ralph Dibny was the first hero to actively seek out publicity, to eschew a secret identity, to strive for celebrity. You know who named Ralph "the World-Famous Elongated Man"? Ralph did. Ralph didn't get his powers by accident; he sought them out so he could become famous through them. His first story consists mostly of him stealing the limelight from the Flash in Central City.

Ralph showed up at a debutante ball -- uninvited, as I recall -- in costume, so as to be the center of attention. Then he parlays his fame into other benefits by charming, wooing, and marrying a wealthy heiress. She, in turn, used her wealth and position to land a superhero husband giving her the kind of excitement and access that (usually) even money can't buy.

It was a perfecct match, but let's not pretend it was A Love So Pure that they would have noticed each other or fallen in love if their circumstances and advantages had been different. And, no, I don't hate them; I like them fine, always did.

Ralph was, for the most part, a dilettante, whose first agenda item was to make a pile of dough in show biz (which he did, by the way). No, he never had "corporate sponsors", but he never really needed to look for any, did he?

So when Ralph Dibny, the original self-shilling superhero, disses Booster Gold for being a publicity-seeking gloryhound, well...

that's Comic Book Irony, folks.

Particularly, when he says, "All cameras, all microphones, right here, on me!"

P.S. It wasn't Booster's responsibility to think about whether your wife would come to harm because of your fame-seeking, Ralph; it was yours.