In DC Comics, what’s thedifference between the characters of Plastic Man and The Elongated Man?
Plastic Man had been a crook named Patrick “Eel” O’Brian when he was shot by a security guard and struck by a falling drum full of an unidentified acid, some of which entered Eel’s wound. He was saved by a mysterious order of monks whose example cured his penchant for crime. The acid bath gave him the ability to change his shape. He wore dark glasses and a red-and-yellow costume as flexible as his body. Whatever shape he took, the colors remained the same, so there might be a red-and-yellow chandelier over a table full of plotting gangsters, or a red-and-yellow abstract painting hanging on the wall, but the villains never caught on until it was too late.
Plastic Man soon acquired sidekick Woozy Winks, a doofus who was originally magically enchanted so that nature itself would protect him from harm. That eventually was forgotten and Woozy became simply a dumb but loyal friend of Plastic Man.
According to his origin, as a teenager, Ralph Dibny adored contortionists, or people who displayed feats of agility and suppleness. He learned that all of the body-benders he spoke with drank a popular soda called “Gingold.” Ralph set to work learning chemistry and developed a super-concentrated extract of the rare Gingo fruit, which gave him his elasticity.
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. He and his wife Sue Dibny became effectively partners, solving mysteries and participating in Justice League adventures as equals. They were also notable in having a stable, happy, and relatively trouble-free marriage — an anomaly in the soap operatic annals of comic books. Fans of the characters often referred to Ralph and Sue as the “Nick and Nora Charles of the super-hero set” (a reference to The Thin Man movies).
The Elongated Man has (had) a wife and a great crime fighting career. The Plastic Man has (had) a flunky side kick and an ok crime fighting career. The Elongated Man can contort and bend because of the extract he invented. The Plastic Man can manipulate himself into any form he so chooses but it always has red and yellow in it, which was a dead give away for crooks.
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