When It Began

When Ralph was a child he adored cartoonists and people or people who displayed feats of agility and suppleness. He found out that all the people he talked to who were body-benders all drank a soda called "Gingold". Ralph set to work studying chemistry and made a super-concentrated extract of the rare Gingo fruit, which gave him his elasticity.

Ralph was one of the first costumed hero to reveal his secret identity to the public, and one of the first to marry his love interest. Ralph and his wife Sue Dibny became effective partners participating in Justice League Of America adventures solving mysteries. The two had a stable, happy, and relatively trouble free marriage, which is very uncommon in the lives of superhero marriages.

Identity Crisis

During this crisis tragedy struck their marriage with the death of Sue right before she was going to surprise Ralph with the news that she was pregnant. She was murdered by Jean Loring.

Crisis of Conscience

During this arc Ralph stopped taking his daily intact of Gingold losing his ability to stretch. During the crisis the Super-villains that had their memories wiped were started to get them back. And Zatanna wanted to re-wipe their minds but in the end only got rid of their knowledge of the Leagues secret identities.

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His life has turned towards depression since the death of Sue. He was about to commit suicide when he learned that her tombstone was vandalized. He confronts Wonder Girl and accuses her of the act because of the inverted Krytonian symbol on the tombstone which means resurrection. She and the Cult of Conner steal Diby's ring. Ralph then goes to Booster Gold for help in the investigation but stops when he realizes that Booster might have been able to save Sue's life and Ralph attacks him in anger. While Booster later disperses a mob, an actor he hired for a staged battle reveals the truth to the press. Dibny tells reporters that Booster is a fraud.

After Dibny finds Wonder Girl she informs him that they may be able to resurrect Superboy but need to have a trial run, Ralph agrees to cooperate so that Sue might be brought back to life and be with him again, however his friends disrupt the ceremony and destroy the necessary elements for it to work. The straw doll that represents Sue calls out to him while it burns. The cult leader, Devem, tells Dibny that because of the disruption, he no longer can resurrect anyone.

After this,he suffers a breakdown, vowing to "try again". Recovering in Marsailles he receives an visit from Detective Chimp who brings with him the helm of Doctor Fate. The Shadowpact assembles in Giza for a scrying to reveal the helm's recent history. The helm speaks to him and tells him that it will grant him his wishes if he makes the necessary sacrifices for it. Dibny accepts, and he takes off with the helm, beginning his pilgrimage. Travelling the Land of the Dead he learns his ways in the act of magic and most importantly in the prices and bargains that must be paid in order to achieve magical power.

On returning to the land of the living he approaches the Spectre telling him that he will do anything asked of him if the Spectre bring his wife back. The Spectre, desiring revenge on Eclipso for her manipulations of him during the but not being able to do anything himself tells Dibny to punish Eclipso in return for his wife's life. Realizing this means taking revenge on the women who murdered he takes her to the point in which she murdered his wife and intends to put her in a time loop forcing her to watch herself murder Sue Dibny over and over for all eternity.

After coming to her sanity she begs Ralph for forgiveness and vows that it wasn't her that killed Sue. Dibny, affected by her pleas, his sense of compassion and his own feelings on watching his wife's death, finds himself incapable of such ruthlessness and refuses to complete his pact with the Spectre and yells at him and sending Eclipso back to orbit the sun, but now aware that their is a way to return his wife back to life. He moves on with the helm to find another who could help him in his attempts to return sue back to life. Arriving at Nanda Parbat, Dibny is attacked by a yeti-like creature, but is rescued by Yao-Fei, a Chinese 'super-functionary', whom he later helps to capture the creature. He receives and audience with Rama Kushna and he tells him that "Death is only an illusion of being in time; a trick of the light". Seemingly disillusioned, Dibny travels to Central City, where he recovers the gun he intended to kill himself with after the Crisis. He then later retrieves the ring of "Shackles of Arion" hidden in the destroyed ruins of Atlantis, guarded by a crazed and amnesiac Aquaman, by trading his wedding band for the link of chain.

Powers

Finite ability to stretch and shape his body. Able to sustain a significant about of damage with out sustaining injury.