Elongated Man's History
When Ralph was a child he adored cartoonists and people who displayed feats of agility and suppleness - contortionists. Trying to get into the secret of these abnormally flexible persons he found out that all the people he talked to who were body-benders had a similarity: they all drank a soda called Gingold. Once this discovery was made, Ralph set to work studying chemistry and made a super-concentrated extract of the rare Gingo fruit, which gave him his elasticity.
Married
Ralph was one of the first costumed heroes 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. Ralph was devastated and his first suspect for who was responsible for the loss of his wife was Dr. Light as he had at one time sexually assaulted Sue and threatened to find her again. It was revealed that Sue was murdered by Jean Loring, the ex-wife of Ray Palmer (the Atom) in an attempt to reconcile with her ex-husband.
Crisis of Conscience
During this arc, Ralph stopped taking his daily intake of Gingold, gradually losing his ability to stretch and become elongated. During the crisis, the Super-villains that had their memories wiped were starting to get them back. Zatanna wanted to re-wipe their minds but in the end only erased their knowledge of the League's secret identities.
52
Ralph's life had 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 Kryptonian symbol on the tombstone which means resurrection. She and the Cult of Conner steal Dibny'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 the disruption of his only hope to retain Sue in his life, he suffers a breakdown, vowing to "try again". Recovering in Marsailles, he receives a 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. Traveling the Land of the Dead, Ralph 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 brings his wife back. The Spectre, desiring revenge on Eclipso for her manipulations of him 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 Sue, 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 sends 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.
Blackest Night
Ralph and Sue are reanimated by the power of the Black Power Rings, and become part of the Black Lantern Corps. As one of their first actions as Black Lanterns, Ralph and Sue ambush Hawkman and Hawkgirl at Carter Hall's museum. He mauls Hawkman using the hero's own Nth metal mace against him. Being resistant to physical blows, there is little Hawkman can do to stop Ralph from beating him, then extracting the fallen Hawkman's heart for consumption by the black rings. Ralph is then seen in Gotham City with the Black Lanterns Martian Manhunter, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Sue, and Firestorm preparing to kill the Flash and Green Lantern. He then proceeds to torment Barry Allen before Indigo-1 shows up and destroys him using Hal's ring and willpower with her own.
