ICYMI: A Classic DC Character Returned To Form In ‘Secret Six’ #12

Gail Simone’s return to Secret Six in The New 52 has gone by without much notice. As good as it is, there hasn’t been as much of an outpouring of love and support as the previous volumes received. Yet with classic Secret Six characters like Catman and Black Alice mixing it up with New 52 creations such as Strix or Porcelain, it’s still just as good as you remember.

And hiding in plain sight the whole time was one character that readers know only too well from an earlier DC era. In the book's most recent issue, by Simone, Dale Eaglesham, Tom Derenick and Jason Wright, we finally saw him spring back into the form we know and love.

It was revealed fairly early on in the newest volume of Secret Six that the gruff but loveable lug Big Shot was actually The New 52 version of Ralph Dibny AKA The Elongated Man, but he was undercover while trying to rescue his wife Sue from the clutches of The Riddler, who had become infatuated with her. In the most recent issue, Sue returned home to Ralph, and she brought with her an important change of clothes for the love of her life.

Elsewhere in the book, the former Talon known a Strix had willingly surrendered herself to Lady Shiva and the League of Assassins, in order to save her friends from Shiva’s wrath. The team decides they’re going to get her back, and Ralph makes the decision to rejoin the Six to rescue Strix.

Now that Ralph and Sue Dibny are officially back in action, we can hopefully put the mess that was Identity Crisis behind us. I wonder if there’s room in the Rebirth schedule for a Ralph and Sue detective book? Erica Henderson recently suggested that Dibny Detective Agency would be her dream DC gig, and she’s only drawing two monthly comics and an OGN at the moment, so maybe she can fit that into her schedule...