Every April Fool’s Day is pretty much the same at IAT. I always forget to come up with anything clever. Vault’s girlfriend will ask about the plush sheep review she did years ago. I still won’t understand how it’s an April Fool’s joke. Anyway, let’s move along and get to Club Infinite Earths Elongated Man.
Last week, I talked a bit about Ram Man’s figure gaining an unnatural importance due to the length of time it took to get his figure. Though that hasn’t happened to the same magnitude, it has happened to the Elongated Man. While Ralph Dibny was abused more than used in recent years at DC, Ralph (& his wife Sue) were prominent DC characters in the 70s & 80s, thanks largely to Ralph’s prominent role in the pre-Crisis Justice League. While we’re still waiting on Mattel to give us a Zatanna in a period-specific costume for our JLA displays, Mattel processed their way through that version of the League pretty well while the line was at retail. Except for Elongated Man.
The reasons for his absence are a little muddy. They could’ve just not gotten to him. Scott “Toy Guru” Neitlich once said that they were getting push back from DC on doing Elongated Man (and then denied saying it despite it being on video), so there might have been some things going on that collectors simply weren’t privy too. In any case, Ralph, despite being a mid-level DC character, started being a bigger and bigger hole in our displays.
I think that graduated importance may have gotten me to expect more when it finally came to Ralph. I hadn’t really paid attention to any early reviews or con pics of him, so I was excited a week or so back when the giant March Matty box showed up. There was a lot in there to like, but when I pulled Ralph out of his white mailer… well, I more or less put him aside and went to checking out my MOTU figures.
When I finally got around to Ralph and got him out of the box, I was a little happier with him. There’s a lot to like – the taller, slender buck is great for the figure. The head sculpt has grown on me, particularly when you can pose him at an angle instead of looking at him head on. (Face forward, Ralph’s neck more or less disappears – not good for an Elongated Man figure). Continue to Page 2…
Excellent pics and captions as always, Noisy. I’m glad that Mattel finally got around to Ralph since the Satellite League would never be complete without him. (Or any proper JLA/JSA display for that matter.) It would have been cool to have had a few more accessories but I wasn’t expecting Plas’ SDCC treatment anyway. I’m glad to see them going with Ralph’s better known costume from the Satellite League’s classic years and the magnifying glass is a great touch.
I could have done without them reminding me of Identity Crisis, though. The whole storyline is no longer in continuity so Ralph’s bio basically just adds salt to the wound. The Elongated Man is still far from a household name. Reminding folks of the absolute lowest point in his life certainly does him no favors.
oh heck, I didn’t even read the bio: “a highly concentrated version of the rare (???) “gingo” fruit”? I thought it was GINGOLD?
also, I forgot to mention below a second head with the extended “twitchy nose” would have been a perfect incentive as neither DCD (or JLU) version have it, either.
When I read that, I figured someone had nu52’ed things a bit…
A twitchy-nose alternate head would have been awesome! Now that’ll go down in the list of Matty could-have-been’s. That list is pretty huge now, for what it’s worth.
“Gingo.” LOL! That’s right, they blew it there, too. I thought it sounded off when I read it.
Ralph has been gone for so long that I’d almost forgotten the elixir’s name. But DC and Mattel both should know better since they’re marketing the guy.
so wait, does Ralph have a “normal” right hand/fist? is that the black thing in the box below his left hand?
and doesn’t he have a “diamond” on his belt, too? …or maybe not?
of my two DCD versions, the older one has a small raised circle, while the stylized Identity Crisis only has ribbed lines on his belt? then again, the older “JLA” wave Ralph also has a neck extension and the IdC has an extending neck and swappable “stretched” (flat/bendy) arms. guess which one I like (slightly) better?
This head looks a bit rough (jaw line seam!), but it’s still better than the Rags Morales styled head of the IdC version, which looks more than a bit like Conan O’Brien. the JLA version is just plain and could double for a number of characters if you swap it about.
Speaking of swapping heads, some customizers swear by “boil & pop”, while others claim that method “damages the plastic” and prefer a hair dryer to soften the plastic and remove parts. It does sound like yours might need a bit of dremeling out the head’s ball socket? It’s always a frustrating decision to correct it or not, esp for such a pricey item that sold out fairly quickly for the DC sub.
I do think Ralph was delayed for a bigger push on Plas as part of the “Super Powers Redux Plan”, and then just fell off their radar/production schedule (re: St Walker, Larfleeze, etc), even tho everyone demanded him as soon as Plas was revealed. It might have been DC pushing for this costume when one of the various purple ones would have differentiated them a bit more? then again, I was never partial to the purple outfits, one variation of which did make it to the JLU line long before Plas showed up towards the end.
Fun Fact: Ralph was only created because no one was sure if DC actually had the rights to Plas when the then Flash creative team (Broome & Infantino) decided to bring him into that book in 1960. At least we got a good thirty-sevn years out of him before Meltzer screwed that up. Not even his ’52’ arc could fully redeem his character.
Did Sue & Ralph even appear in the DCU after ’52’ turned them into “ghost detectives”?
To add insult to injury or vice versa, Ralph’s packaging claims he comes with one accessory, while in fact he has two, one extra hand, and one magnifying glass.
I got his head off using the hot water trick. Don’t bother. The post for Ralph is smaller than the one for Eels. Also, the flesh-tone extension just didn’t lign up right. There was a bit of a gap there, at the joint, which just looked aweful. Still, matty could have made a neck-extension for Ralph. Would have gone a long way towards making the fig more interesting. Oh well. At least he’s here now, if not perfect.
in the realm of “stuff that’s virtually impossible,” you’d think mattel using the same neck piece and flesh tone paint for elongated man and plastic man’s neck wouldn’t make the list…
and while we’re on the subject, when is vault going to make an honest woman of maneko? it’s about time homes, this “girlfriend” crap is too degrassi.
fffffttttt
Oh. but they couldn’t have re used plastic man parts on Elongated man, ’cause that would’ve taken away from Plastic Man’s value as a SDCC exclusive! Thanks Matty! (sarcasm)
>:( Another April Fool’s Day wasted!
Between the 1 year celebration planning and the toy line I didnt quite get to do my April fools bit either (I was gonna review toy reviews from sites like this) but PrfktTear maneged to save the day with a great one. On to Elongated man..I hate his head! it looks nothing like the Ralph Dibny I know and love from the comics, but beyond that this figure look pretty good
Really wanted to want this figure. 30 bucks for a mediocre effort; just couldn’t justify the purchase. Now, 30 bucks for a WOW effort, no brainer. Matty, your losing me. Sad, ’cause I love your properties, but not what I’m getting for my scratch.
true mattel could have been nice and if nothing else at least tried and used plastic mans body for elongated man . or given hims some extra e\assesories like plas got. espically given how long fans had to wait to finaly have him. as for dc pushing mattel to make him. mattel and scott have stated time and time again warners and dc have final say on who gets made as a figure and some times they tell mattel wait to make this character for we have plans for him or her but not ready yet to okay this character.
It just amazes me how Matty continues to put out mediocre stuff with massive amounts of parts reuse, yet when they have a character thats a NO BRAINER for parts reuse…..especially considering Plastic man had all new tooling and no reuse so far….they completely passed on it.
And yet AGAIN…another Matty figure that is almost a carbon copy of the DCD version. At least the DCD version got 2 stretched arms AND they were bendy
It seems like another fairly tepid response for this month’s subscription offering. Looks like folks are happy to have the figure for the sake of completeing their collection, but once again Matty’s execution has left us kind of wanting. Personally, I like the figure, but i’m not like, ecstatic over it. I always liked Ralph’s JLE costume better, but the satellite-era is the obvious choice.
I’d like to see AFI maybe do a year-in-review of the subscription service. Maybe show all the figures together in comparison to the cost of the sub and we can judge if it really was worth it once all the dust settles.
Here, here. But they wouldn’t because they’re clearly not as into looking out for their customers as they’d like to have you believe, thus the the constant flow of mediocre figures. I tell you what, the Four Horsemen must get paid a lot to deal with this type of crap from Mattel/DC, because if I was them, I’d seriously be pissed about all the shortcuts they’re taking that affects the overall quality of the figures the Horsemen make, thus making them look bad by association.