The Strechable Sleuth and the Fun-Loving Furball

Elongated Man- Beast

Geez, the wringer they put ol’ Ralph through in the last couple of years…the “Nick and Nora of the super-hero set” were turned into the crucible for “the women in refrigerators” syndrome and further darkening of comic books. But he’ll always be the wisecracking normal guy of the JLA to me.

As for the Beast: For the first issue of the X-Men, Hank McCoy was initially written as a tough guy with the physical attributes of a gorilla. By the second or third issue, it was probably noticed that this characterization was very close to that of the Thing, so he was written henceforth as an excessively erudite, scientifically gifted intellectual with ape-like attributes. By the 1970s, he became furrily atavistic and, while still an intellectual powerhouse, quite the slang-slinging hipster. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was used by various Avengers writers as a surrogate for the then-off limits Spider-Man. He’s lost his fur and gained it back, lost his intelligence and gained that back, and now has a feline bearing. But I don’t know whether he’s being written as a fun-loving furball or an academic these days.

Commonalities:
Like I’ve written elsewhere with slightly different verbiage, my methodology here rests more on who somebody is more than what somebody does. Dibny and McCoy are both brilliant but easygoing, funny fellows who would try to defuse tension in their respective organizations with humor and bonhomie.

Differences:
One is the “stretchable sleuth”; the other is a super-scientist with the bearing of a simian or, more recently, a big cat. And Elongated Man was never in the Teen Titans. In any case, the abortive early ‘80s JLA vs. Avengers crossover posited that the two would be each other’s best opponent therein.

Alternate histories:

EM: Teenage sleuth Ralph Dibny discovers his ability to elongate every part of his body, and becomes the fourth charter member of the Teen Titans: his keen analytical skills are just as key to the team as his elasticity. He leaves the team to work on his own as the Elongated Man and soon joins the Justice League, where he befriends the time-tossed Captain Atom, as a valued and often anarchically-inclined mainstay. He leads an iteration of the Outsiders with some of his fellow ex-Titans before rejoining the main team. Dibny’s talents as a deductive analyst and chemist have proven key in various crises facing the Titans recently, and his elasticity has revealed secondary traits.

BE: Teenage biochemistry wiz and gifted acrobat Henry McCoy self-activates his latent mutant gene, which results in emerging simian qualities. Taking the code name the Beast, McCoy combats criminals on his own and tackles various scientific quandaries with his girlfriend Vera Cantor before befriending many other superhuman operatives such as Mr. Fantastic. McCoy eventually joins the Avengers and serves for many years as a valued and particularly good natured mainstay. As a semiretired adventurer, he is devastated when Cantor is murdered: he has recently joined her on another plane of existence.