Elongated Man was created by writer John Broome and penciler Carmine Infantino, with significant input from editor Julius Schwartz, who wanted a new supporting character for the Flash.

[3][4][5] In his 2000 autobiography, The Amazing World of Carmine Infantino, the artist wrote, "I really liked Elongated Man because it was comical and I enjoyed drawing comedy.

Ralph set to work learning chemistry and developed a super-concentrated extract of the rare "gingo" fruit of the Yucatán, which gave him his elasticity.

[8] In his first appearance, the Flash suspects Elongated Man is behind several crimes, but he helps capture the criminals, who reveal they used a helicopter to frame him.

[9] 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.

The couple was also notable in having a stable, happy, and relatively trouble-free marriage—an anomaly in the soap operatic annals of superhero comic books.

In the 2006 weekly series 52, a grief-stricken Ralph Dibny is contemplating suicide when he is informed that Sue's gravestone has been vandalized[10] with an inverted version of Superman's 'S' symbol—the Kryptonian symbol for resurrection.

[12] During Week 11, after scaring some cult members and chasing them off, he gets a report that someone broke into a storage container in Opal City and stole Sue's clothes.

[15] During Week 18, other members of the Croatoan Society (Detective Chimp, Terri Thirteen, and Edogawa Sangaku) find Tim Trench dead with the helmet of Doctor Fate, Nabu.

A voice from within the helm of Doctor Fate, unheard by the other members of the group, speaks to Ralph and promises to fulfill his desires if he makes certain sacrifices.

He begins the spell to resurrect Sue, puts on the helmet of Fate, and shoots it, revealing Felix Faust, who was posing as Nabu.

[volume & issue needed] At the end of Week 52, it is revealed that Dibny's magical, wish-granting gun (a souvenir from "the Anselmo Case", a reference to The Life Story of the Flash) worked—Ralph's last wish was to be reunited with his wife, even in death—and that Ralph and Sue are now reunited as ghost detectives, investigating a school where a paranormal phenomenon has just occurred.

2) #5, it is revealed (after appearing unknown in the previous two issues) that Ralph and Sue have gained or discovered the ability to possess human bodies, similar to Deadman.

Sent by Zatara who, as a member of the Hell Resistance Movement, hopes to take advantage of the war, they ask Doctor Occult to aid him in his plan.

[21] In Blackest Night, Ralph and Sue Dibny are revived as Black Lanterns before being killed when the Indigo Tribe destroys their rings.

These stretching powers grant him heightened agility, enabling 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.

A meta-side effect of his powers coupled with his detective skills is enhanced olfactory sense, allowing him to "smell" when something is "not right", or if a clue or mystery is at hand.