Elasti-Girl The Good Parts Version 7

You know how it is.  You're tooling around the internet looking for fun size related comics and you come across something so awesome that you just have to share it with the world, but you don't want to get sued by DC/Time Warner for posting complete comic stories that legally belong to them so you abuse the hell out of the fair use clause of copyright law and just show the parts of the comic that are relevant to your interests and hope that their legal team is too busy going after people on Youtube who are posting that week's episode of Supergirl to send a cease and desist to your penny ante blog.

That's how this series started.  I'd known about Rita Farr aka Elasti-Girl for a damn long time, but had never read any of her original adventures with the Doom Patrol.  I was impressed by the art and the character treatment and decided to share what I'd found with the five or six people who actually read this blog.

Fair warning.  I'm mostly just cutting bits of Rita doing her size thing.  If you want the full stories you'll have to go elsewhere.  I don't even want to give full plot synopses of these issues since I am amazingly lazy don't want to be sued.

We're up to the seventh appearance of the Doom Patrol.  This issue marks the point where My Greatest Adventures renamed itself The Doom Patrol.  They kept the same numbering cause first issues weren't as big a thing back in the day.  So this is issue 86.

I've been keeping track of when Rita is size shifted on the cover.  She's not this time around, but I thought I'd include the cover this time to show the new title.  And Rita is looking pretty cute.

Oh, and there's a machine gun gorilla and a talking brain.

Seriously, isn't she just adorable?

The first page of the newly renamed comic features a recap of the origins of the various members, but we're really only interested in one of them.  I've mentioned before about how they shifted her name from Elasti-Woman to Elasti-Girl after the first few stories.  Now that they have a rebranded comic they waste no time making sure you know what each character's super hero name is even if they still mostly refer to themselves by their first names.

I'm going to include this page even though there isn't any size play going on.  Well, there is a giant robot.  And Rita is parachuting down on top of it.  I wonder if there's going to be some sort of fight?  Better keep reading to find out the answer to that head scratcher.

Spoiler warning: They fight.

It's the Chief's birthday.  Only it isn't.  Only it is.  For what's really going on buy the book and tell DC that I told you to.  Their lawyers may take that into account.  

Rita uses her powers to avoid being gouged for engraving fees.  I know what the salesman says, but I'm pretty sure his next line was going to be "I suppose we COULD do it as a rush job.  Our man doesn't like that though.  It'll cost you at least two ... three hundred."

"Fuck you engraver's union."

I'm pretty sure that calling your boss "exasperating" isn't the best way to go about things, but then I remembered the shenanigans the Chief pulled last issue and I gotta side with Rita.

It's a good thing he wasn't called the Professor.  I can only imagine the stuff
Rita would have pulled out of her butt for that one.

A seed is planted for a romance plot between Larry and Rita, but I'm not going to dignify that by showing it.  Yet.

Oh, look.  It's a giant robot destroying a bridge.  Just like in Monsters vs Aliens, only 30 years earlier.  I wonder if a giant lady is going to show up and kick his metal ass?

I have to admit, that's a pretty sweet ride.

Unlike the fight scene in the aforementioned Pixar movie, this giantess is able to match the robot in terms of size.  Which I greatly appreciate cause I grew up watching Godzilla and Gamera movies and it's just better that way.

We once more get to see Rita's "size step."  I've noted before that the shrinking/growth visual (like the one in the panel below) bugs me.  It seems to me that showing her going straight up instead of up and to the left would be more "realistic," but it's only a minor quibble.  And maybe they're trying to indicate that she is on the move, which does make a lot of sense in this situation given the giant robtoness that is coming down on Rita.

Yeah, and the villain riding around in that robot is named Mr. Morden.  As a Babylon 5 fan I just soiled myself.

"What do you want?"

Apparently Mr. Morden isn't that thrilled with picking on someone the same size as his giant robot so he goes the path of the chickenshit and threatens Rita with the deaths of her comrades.  Forcing Our Lady of Size to leave the field.

Or maybe use Cliff as a pair of brass knuckles.

So some stuff happens and we get to meet the Brotherhood of Evil and find out why the hell Morden is doing all this.  Setting up the second battle with the giant robot and the Doom Patrol.  And for some reason carrying Cliff around in its teeth like a giant robot chew toy.

Or the wrapper on a condom that someone
tries to open with their teeth thinking it will
look sexy when it's just weird.

So here comes the fun on battle that we've been waiting for.  Rita swings in kicking and saves Cliff, but manages to fall victim to that trope where women are helpless is you grab them by their arms from behind.  At least they had the decency to have the giant robot use some cables so it didn't looked so lame.

Giant woman.  Check. Giant robot.  Check.
Giant robot bondage scene. Check.

 And just because  I liked it so much here's a bigger shot of Rita kicking in skulls.

Metal and glass skulls, but you see where this is going.

But Rita isn't out of this.  She manages to find a weapon and, using the skills that made her lawn jart champion of 1964, takes the robot down.  And for good measure just hefts him up over her head and WWEs him to the ground.

I defy anyone to find Sue Storm doing anything this cool
in the pages of a 1960's comic.

Just to put that into perspective, she's picking up a robot that is as big as her and just lifting it over her head.  I couldn't do that.  And don't just blow it off as Rita being in full giantess mode either.  Sure she's big, but so is the robot.  Scale it down to normal sized people and she's hefting something that has to weigh a relative half a ton over her head.  That would be hard work for Bat Man.

"Ve shall discuss thees over fondue, Monsieur Morden."

I was going to leave you with an image of a super intelligent French ape being chased away by Rita's size 5,000 boots.  It is the last size based image for this issue, and that has been the point where I usually call it quits, but I thought I'd end with that romance subplot that I'd mentioned earlier.

I'm not exactly thrilled by the direction this is going.  Not that I'm anti-romance.  I am actually a sucker for that sort of thing.  My big concern is that most female supers of the era were defined as the female love interest and nothing else.  I'm a little worried that this is the start of Rita becoming second banana to the rest of the team.  I've read enough spoilers to know that Larry/Rita isn't going anywhere, but I'm worried about what happens when her true ship does sail in.

Until next time Tall Believers!  Make mine Rita!