ELASTI-GIRL
Real Name: Rita Farr Dayton
Class: Human mutate
Occupation: Actress, superhero
Group Affiliation: Doom Patrol
Known Relatives: Brenda Farr (mother), David Farr (father), Garfield Logan (Changeling, adopted son), Steve Dayton (Mento, husband)
Aliases: Elasti-Woman
Base of Operations: Oolong Island, formerly Midway City, Rhode Island, Key Mordaz, Florida
First Appearance: My Greatest Adventure #80 (June, 1963)
Powers: Elasti-Girl can increase or decrease her size from microscopic to gigantic. As her size increases, she gains superhuman strength. She can also choose to increase the size of a single body part, such as an arm, without changing the size of the rest of her body.
History: (Doom Patrol II #57, My Greatest Adventure #80-85, Doom Patrol I #86-89) - Rita Farr was a spoiled young actress who attracted the attention of the Chief. Chief was choosing test subjects for catastrophe experiments, seeing how individuals would react to life-changing events. In Rita's case she was shooting a film in Africa where she ended up in uncharted terrain. Unbeknownst to her, the Chief exposed her to mysterious vapors that gave her size-changing powers. Rita could not control these powers at first, and suffered a nervous breakdown, effectively ending her acting career. When she gained control of her powers she was contacted along with Negative Man and Automaton by the Chief. Chief convinced them to band together as the Doom Patrol, to show the world what "freaks" were capable of. Rita took on the superhero identity of Elasti-Girl. The Doom Patrol's first mission was to stop General Immortus from accessing the powers of an alien spaceship, and they acquitted themselves successfully. Other early missions included fights against the Nightmare Maker, the Green-Headed League, the Brotherhood of Evil, Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man and another two encounters with General Immortus. On the side Elasit-Girl did charity work for Kids Town, even reuniting a M.I.A. soldier with his adopted son.
(Doom Patrol I #90) - Elasti-Girl and the DP responded to a series of disasters caused by Madame Rouge. During each rescue Rouge waited for the Doom Patrol to arrive, and disguised herself as one of them, attempting to infiltrate and destroy the team. In the end Rouge was discovered, and forced to flee back to the Brotherhood.
(Doom Patrol I #91) - Elasti-Girl was introduced to Mento when he helped the DP defuse a bomb. There was an instant attraction between them, but when Mento asked her to be his lover she refused because she didn’t want to abandon the DP. Mento and the DP defended Earth from an invasion by Garguax and his Plastic Men.
(Doom Patrol I #92) - Elasti-Girl and Negative Man rescued a baby that had accidentally gotten locked inside a bank vault. She went on a date with Mento, but it was interrupted by the appearance of Dr. Tyme. The DP tracked Tyme back to his lair and defeated him, but were unable to bring him into custody.
(Doom Patrol I #93) - Elasti-Girl and the Doom Patrol foiled an assassination attempt on Premier Daniel. Elated at their success, Elasti-Girl kissed Negative Man, and this made Robotman feel a bit alienated. The Brotherhood tricked Robotman into believing that he could have his brain put into a cloned humanoid body. Instead, they put his brain in the Brain's glass jar and put the Brain inside Robotman's body. In this form it was easy enough for the Brain to get the drop on the rest of the Doom Patrol, and temporarily put Elasti-Girl and Negative Man out of commission. The Brain then challenged the Chief to a showdown, but by this time the entire Doom Patrol was back in action. The battle swung in the Doom Patrol's favor, so the Brotherhood fled.
(Doom Patrol I #115
, 116) - When the Chief learned that Madame Rouge had been forced into the Brotherhood of Evil by Brain twisting her mind patterns, he invented a psycho-ray to undo the damage. The ray reached all the way to Paris, and began to awaken Rouge's good side. The Brain suspected something amiss in his compatriot, and began a booster treatment to keep her on the side of evil. The Chief's work was interrupted when a news report came in of giant mutants attacking the city. Negative Man and Robotman balked at how hideous they were, and Elasti-Girl reminded them that they were supposed to be on the side of all freaks The Doom Patrol briefly battled Ar, Ir and Ur before the mutants left the field of combat, and warned that the next time they returned it would be to destroy humanity. Back at hq the Chief researched them using his computer brain, and learned that they were all born near early atomic bomb testing sites, and resented all humans for causing their deformities. Elasti-Girl wept for their tragedy. The mutants used their gravitational powers to pull Haley's Comet out of orbit, and as it approached Earth it caused many natural disasters. Negative Man flew Robotman and Elasti-Girl to the scene, but the heroes were soon defeated. Robotman was buried alive and Ur carried of Elasti-Girl. Chief's psycho-ray worked, and Rouge regained her mind after physically defeating her evil side. Chief had Negative Man save Rouge from the Brotherhood's clutches, and sent her to save Robotman. She dug him out, and explained that she was now on his side. Robotman suspected that Chief made such an effort to save her because he was sweet on her, and she retorted that a genius like the Chief had little time for love. Negative Man flew them at superspeed until they found the mutants new location and interrupted their doomsday plot, but the mutants escaped after causing a rockslide to slow down the heroes. Back at DP hq Chief summoned his team, including Beast Boy and Mento. He told them that the military launched a number of missiles at Halley's Comet, but its erratic flight made it near impossible to hit. He split up his team to find the mutants again, and assured them he had a plan. Beast Boy and Mento went to the Himalayas where they encountered the Abominable Snowman, and Beast Boy made friends with him by giving him an Alfred E. Neumann button. Robotman and Elasti-Girl found the mutants again, and tried to inspire them with their own story of being accepted by fellow freaks, but the mutants were still hard hearted. A spaceship landed, disgorging the giant Galactic Gladiator, who claimed to be a non-mutant slave from the planet Selin. He told the mutants they'd be masters on his planet, and Ar and Ir were interested. Ur, however, didn't want any part of a slave culture. He said if there was anything worthwhile humanity had taught him, it was that men would always fight for freedom. He decided to fly into space and destroy Halley's Comet. His fellows were unsure of his motivation, but refused to let him go alone, and they sacrificed themselves by diving into the comet and blowing it up. Chief climbed out of the Galactic robot he created for the express purpose of manipulating the mutants. He returned to hq to have a romantic dinner of fine French food with Rouge.Elasti-Girl (Doom Patrol I #117) - The Chief spent another romantic evening with Rouge, and seemed bothered when Robotman disturbed him after returning from a fight in which he lost an arm and a leg to a madman with an atomic ray, and told him to repair himself. Meanwhile Negative Man was trapped under lead by some criminals, and sent his energy form to get Chief's attention. Chief ignored him, but his energy form found a way to free his host. An argument ensued, and when Elasti-Girl got a call, she made her way to hq to calm things down. Her teammates thought Chief was ignoring them for his new romance, and suspected Rouge of being a spy for the Brotherhood of Evil. Elasti-Girl chided them, reminding them that they owed their entire lives to the Chief, but the boys were still hopping mad and quit the DP. Elasti-Girl suspected that they resented their father figure pursuing a woman they disapproved of. Rouge dismissed them as children, and after a heated argument with Elasti-Girl, they stormed out and left Chief by himself. Chief was soon attacked by a condor, and then hummingbirds with poison-tipped beaks, but fought them off with the firepower in his wheelchair. The birds master, Black Vulture, soon appeared, and told the Chief he had a score to settle, even though the Chief didn't recognize him. The Chief hid behind a steel door, and when that failed, a wall of flame, but the Vulture kept pursuing him. Robotman questioned why he ever left, and after saving a blind man's life, realized he needed to stick with his fellow freaks. Negative Man unwrapped his bandages and flew a plane into the sky to do some thinking. He realized he still had feelings for Elasti-Girl, and also resolved to return to the Dp. The boys and Rita made it in time to save the Chief, but the Vulture summoned bats whose combined sonar knocked out the DP. A tribe of Mohawks busted into the DP hq, and made short work of the Black Vulture, unmasked as Mr. Decker. Decker had produced a forged claim on Mohawk land, and Chief exposed him through radiometric dating. The grateful White Feather promised to one day return the favor, and he was good to his word. Once Rouge was coaxed back, the Chief told the DP that as father figure he made the rules, and they agreed to accept his new romantic interest.
The Doom Patrol sacrificed themselves to an explosion in order to save a small island from General Zahl and Madame Rouge. The Chief secretly erected a force field to save everyone except Elasti-Girl. Chief was curious if the explosion might have further mutated Elasti-Girl, but sadly it did not, and she seemingly perished.
(Doom Patrol V #13 (fb)) - Chief scavenged the remains of Codsville for any pieces left of Elasti-Girl, and found a skull fragment. He regrew her in his nanite tank, recreating her as sentient protoplasm. He chose not to tell her the truth about her rebirth, and simply told her she’d never died.
(Doom Patrol V #6 (fb)) - Chief wanted to bring back the original Doom Patrol, and Robotman and Negative Man were skeptical, but when he revealed that he'd resurrected Elasti-Woman they couldn't say no. She was their dearest friend, and the glue that held the team together.
(Teen Titans III #32 (fb, BTS)) - When Superboy Prime punched the walls of reality he caused havoc with spacetime. Elasti-Girl and the Doom Patrol were removed from time and forgotten by the world. The DP even forgot most of their own past.
(Doom Patrol IV #9 (fb)) - <six month ago> Hank Gambol sold the mutant ape Grunt to Rita an the Doom Patrol for scientific study. Nudge, Grunt’s handler, used her telepathic power to make sure the DP took her along with them so she could care for Grunt.
(JLA #94-99) - With Chief’s old enemies the Tenth Circle making a bid to return to Earth he sent Nudge and Grunt out as bait, knowing Crucifer was collecting metahumans for his vampiric lords to possess. Nudge and Grunt were sick of the DP, and since they were leaving anyway Chief placed trackers on them. Negative Man tried to stop one of the Tenth Circle’s abductions, but failed. Green Lantern John Stewart was also on the case, and he informed the JLA that the DP were also pursuing the Tenth Circle. Batman and the JLA went to the DP’s Key Mordaz hq to compare notes. Chief’s tech was able to find Atom in Manitou Raven’s telling stones, where he’d found a side-door dimension that Crucifer used for transporting his cultists. The JLA, Rita and the DP teamed up and confronted Crucifer in Barnes, Saskatchewan, where he prepared to transfer the souls of his vampire lords into the metahuman children he’d collected. The heroes drove him off, and Atom destroyed the vessel containing Crucifer’s heart he had stored in the side-door dimension. Crucifer was weakened enough for Superman to break Crucifer’s hold over him and destroy him.
(Doom Patrol IV #1, 2) - Rita and the Doom Patrol responded to a disturbance at the abandoned penitentiary where the Chief kept old DP villains. Wormhole had freed Barrage, Megalith, and Snake, and they allowed themselves to be possessed by vampire masters of the Tenth Circle and captured the Chief. The DP found themselves on the losing end of the battle until Faith and Nudge expelled the vampires from their host bodies and exposed them to sunlight, destroying them. The DP followed Wormhole to Crucifer’s mansion, where the JLA were waiting for the villain. They destroyed Wormhole by exposing him to sunlight, and the JLA destroyed Crucifer’s mansion.
(Doom Patrol IV #3, 4) - Inspired by the JLA Rita designed DP costumes. Chief sent the DP to the Soames Lake Project in the South Pole after the base was attacked by monstrous beings. The DP contended with more of the monsters that originated from the underground lake, but the monsters quickly died when exposed to the environment. Rita and Cliff went underground to examine the lake, but they lost radio contact with the Chief and found themselves surrounded by monsters. They found that the creatures were prehistoric, and having been made aware of surface life they’d created toxins to destroy humanity. Cliff knew they were vulnerable to environmental changes, so he released the waste toxins from his brain into the water, exterminating ever last creature.
(Doom Patrol IV #5, 6) - Nudge found a broadcast of an underground fight club using robots with human brains, and Chief sent her, Rita and Cliff undercover to infiltrate it. At the fight club Nudge used her telepathy to convince the operators that they were legit, and entered Cliff into battle Cliff into battled a number of champions, including Slice and Dice. Dr. Verdalian, who ran the club, recognized Cliff as the Chief’s handiwork and tried to kill him and Rita. The battle went against him, so he detonated explosives through the club and fled, seemingly dying himself in an explosion. After Negative Man encountered a dinosaur and Chief heard of worldwide dinosaur attacks, the DP had their next mission.
(Doom Patrol IV #7, 8) - Rita and the DP celebrated Christmas together, but the party was cut short when the Chief located Harbor City, Oregon as the center of the dinosaur attack. The DP went to Oregon and fought prehistoric creatures that had been devolved from a dog and pigeons. The Devolutionists devolved Rita and Cliff into mindless apes, and they turned against their teammates. Nudge used her telepathy to call the JLA for help, and Martian Manhunter responded, but was also devolved, but soon shook it off. Vortex captured two Devolutionists, and Manhunter pried the location of their master from their minds. While mot of the DP confronted an army of dinosaurs, Vortex and Nudge confronted the Devolutionists mater. Nudge was taken out of the battle, and Vortex killed the master, afterwards claiming he’d escaped. Negative Man spent too much time separated from Larry, and when the DP tried to send Negative Man back to Larry he found he couldn't rejoin his human form because Larry was seemingly dead.
(Doom Patrol IV #9-12) - Chief preserved Larry Trainor’s body, and put the Negative Man inside Rita until he could find a way to reconnect it with Larry’ body. As a favor to his old friend Simon Stagg the Chief sent the DP to West Texas, where Metamorpho was going on a rampage. Stag tried to increase Metamorpho’s power, but caused a runaway chemical reaction inside him that made him grow to gigantic portions and lose his senses. The DP battled Metamorpho, but had no luck halting him. Chief realized they needed to speed up his chemical reaction, so he exposed him to a number of chemicals until Metamorpho returned to normal. Rita’s body started to react negatively to having Negative Man inside her, so Chief relocated Negative Man to a containment pod until he could figure out how to reunite him with Larry. Nudge sent a red alert to the DP after locating Grunt, and they went to find her. The DP rescued Grunt and Nudge, who were being pursued by the police, and Nudge revealed her history to her teammate. Chief was attacked by his nemesis T’Oombala, who’d freed the DP villains Snake, Barrage, Megalith and Morass to do his bidding. The DP and Metamorpho defeated the villains, and Nudge’s ghostly friend Elihu stabbed T’Oombala.
(Doom Patrol IV #13, 14) - Chief’s robotic drones repaired his body, and he showed the DP an experiment that let a mouse’s mind travel back in time to inhabit its’ past body and apply its’ future learning. Cliff used this process to prevent his accident that made him Robotman. In the present day the Chief realized the damage Cliff had done and sent Rita back in time, but tethered her to the present so he could retrieve Cliff. Rita professed her love for Cliff, but she was still in her thirteen-year-old body, and the police became suspicious of Cliff’s relation to her and put him in jail, making him miss the race that made him Robotman and inadvertently creating a series of new timelines. The Justice League of an alternate timeline helped Cliff and Rita return to their rightful timeline, and Cliff made sure he was in the accident that made him Robotman. This eliminated the new timelines, and Chief decided to destroy his time machine. Rita reminded Cliff she’d been in love with him forever, and they spent the night together.
(Doom Patrol IV #15-18) - Cliff and Rita enjoyed a date in Sun City and they were mobbed by fans. Rita eluded the crowd by hrinking herself and Cliff down to miniature size. He was proud of her new use of her power, and told Cliff he’d been practicing. When they returned to normal size the S.C.U. alerted them to the appearance of Gregory Donovan, a newborn mutant whose energy sapping powers killed an entire maternity ward and prematurely aged him. Despite the DP’ best efforts to track him down, Donovan left a body count in his wake, and when they found him he’d exhausted his powers and was dead. Vortex took Nudge to Chief after she saw Vortex’ true face, and she seemed brain-dead, but soon revived with the five separate minds he’d absorbed when he amplified her powers with Boost possessing her body. She made short work of the DP, but Vortex’ people, who’d been looking for him, arrived and took her out of action. They determined that Larry’s Negative Man was one of their own. They accidentally merged with Negative Man, causing him to grow to gigantic proportion and burst from DP hq, before going to Florida’s mainland an sapping the lifeforce of its citizens. The DP rallied, and Rita grew to her maximum size to fight Negative Man, but was exposed to enough radiation to severely injure her. Cliff shared the life energy that powered his body to save her. Chief stopped the Negative Man’s rampage using a device that sapped chronomorphic energy, once again separating Vortex’ people, who returned to their own time with Vortex and Negative Man.
(Teen Titans III #32) - Elasti-Girl and the DP aided the Teen Titans and JSA in a fight against Superboy Prime, who was trying to kill Superboy and take his place. The rupture in spacetime that made the world forget about the DP closed, and the DP experienced a rush of memories as they too remembered their own past.
(52 / WWIII Part One: A Call to Arms #1) - <Week 50, Day 1> Black Adam declared war on humanity after the death of his family, starting WWIII. Elasti-Girl and the Doom Patrol were in Italy preparing for his imminent attack.
(52 / WWIII Part Two: The Valiant #1) - <Week 50, Day 4> The Doom Patrol confronted Black Adam in Pisa, but were unable to stop his rampage and thoroughly defeated.
(Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime #1) - An army of Earth’s heroes, including Elasti-Girl and the Doom Patrol, appeared to take Superboy-Prime down during the Sinestro Corps invasion of Earth. The heroes focused on wrecking his armor, because after a year on Oa, and away from a yellow sun his Kryptonian body still wasn’t at full strength, and his armor collected sunlight. Superboy bragged that once the sun rose on Earth he’d be at full power. Superboy was battered by Wonder Girl and Wonder Woman, who blamed him for Superboy’s death, as well as Supergirl and Power Girl, who blamed him for the death of the Superman of Earth-2. As the fight went against him, Superboy broke down in tears. He tried to wipe them away, saying that it was impossible for boys to cry, and then whining that no one ever thanked him for sacrificing his Earth to save the multiverse. The battle lasted until dawn, and he flew into the sunrise. As he achieved full power he declared himself the one, true Superman. The Guardians arrived with Sodam Yat, the new Ion, and pitted him against Superboy-Prime.
(Doom Patrol V #1) - Chief reformed the Doom Patrol, operating out of, and working for the newly sovereign nation of Oolong Island. The DP were becoming emotionally unstable, and Chief made plans to mold them into what he wanted. Elasti-Girl was becoming both more vain, and more insecure. He hired Father Leslie Davis to be their chaplain, and to give him information on what was going on in his team's minds. Chief's first mission for the DP was to have them fly to Buena Suerte and destroy the lab of mad scientist Botfly, who was bioengineering a monstrous army. The team succeeded, but Nudge died during the mission, and Grunt was left behind in Suerte. Chief had Davis talk to them, but no one seems overly bothered by her death. Elasti-Girl told Davis she was jealous of all the attention her dead teammate was getting. Davis told Chief he was worried that his team had a death wish, and Chief responded that it was for the best if they didn't overly value their health if they were to be effective pawns for him. Chief was contacted by Dr. Ackerman, the mind behind the VULCAN collider. He told Chief the collider had created a miniature black hole, and it wanted to negotiate Earth's survival.
(Doom Patrol V #2, 3) - Chief told the Doom patrol he was sending them to the VULCAN Supercollider in Brandenburg to talk to the black hole. Cliff balked at the team going on another mission hours after their last debacle, but Chief made it clear it was their job, and they had no choice. The black hole had bonded to the supercollider workers, and attacked the Doom Patrol to gauge their abilities. After it called off hostilities it brought them to the supercollider and explained that once it achieved sentience it had become curious. It bonded ith people to learn about the human race, but the process ended up killing anyone it had tried it on. The Doom patrol were horrified to hear it say it needed to bond with millions of humans to completely understand the species. The black hole considered the Doom Patrol no threat, so it released them, and abandoned Brandenburg to continue its investigations. The DP followed him to the German village Cottbus. The black hole was annoyed that they were still trying to interfere with its plans, but the odds were stacked against the heroes, as it had possessed over 1000,000 people in the village. Chief was planning a way to neutralize the lack hole, and summoned Mento, demanding he possess Elasti-Girl and use his mental powers to disable the possessed humans. Mento lamely tried to deny his ability to perform such a feat, but Chief surprised him by letting him know he was fully aware that he possessed Rita in her sleep to satisfy himself. He was terrified because Rita would know he was manipulating her if she was conscious, but Chief bullied him until he complied. Mento, inside Rita's mind, sent out a psionic blast that rendered all but one of the black hole's host unconscious. The black hole agreed to return with the DP to Oolong Island to talk to the Chief, as their conflict was now a stalemate. Rita seethed over how she'd just been used.
(Doom Patrol V #4, 5) - Elasti-Girl knew Chief had directed Mento, and was ready to tear him apart. The Black lantern Corps resurrected Celsius' Doom patrol, charging them with ripping out the hearts of those emotionally affected by their resurrection, gathering their emotions and using them to help Nekron return and end life in the universe. Black Lantern Celsius attacked Chief, and told him he no longer got to manipulate her emotionally. Black Lantern Tempest took out Elasti-Girl, and Lanterns Negative-Woman and Cliff Steele attacked Negative Man and Robotman. Robotman was disconcerted by fighting with his human body. Negative Man combined his negative being with Negative Woman’s, forming a new version of Rebis, and it destroyed her. The black hole rescued Chief, and Chief and the Oolong Island Science Squad were in agreement that they needed to get the Lanterns off the island. Chief commanded the DP to lure the Lanterns to I.Q.’s Boom Tube based gateway, and he teleported them away. I.Q. told Chief he was cold-blooded for sacrificing his team to save Oolong.
(Doom Patrol V #7, 8 (fb)) - The makeshift Boom Tube put the DP in the thick of the Black Lantern war, and they participated in the final battle of Earth’s heroes against the Lanterns. The DP ended up in Coast City in the wreckage of the Black Lantern’s war, and asked for transportation back to Oolong.
(Doom Patrol V #8, 9) - Elasti-Girl prepared to confront Mento, knowing that if she didn’t stand up for herself he’d keep mentally manipulating her, but she couldn’t bring herself to knock on his door. The Doom Patrol got a delivery from Oberon’s moving company, their mementos from Dayton Manor, including a portal to Danny the Street. The MSE, pan-galactic construction workers, had destroyed Danny, but Danny gave a brick to Crazy Jane to deliver to the DP so they could rebuild him. The MSE came through the Danny portal to Earth, and claimed eminent domain on the dimension, so the DP were forced to battle them. The amount of resistance forced the MSE to do a cost analysis scenario. They determined that Earth and its multiverse had been made structurally unstable by numerous crises that weakened the integrity of the multiverse by repeated rebooting. They abandoned Earth, but left up a MSE sign designating it a waste plane that could be used as a dumping ground for other dimensions. Crazy Jane used Danny the Brick to construct Danny the Bungalow.
(Doom Patrol V #10-12) - The villain Porcelain Doll arrived on Oolong, gunning for Chief under the orders of Mr. Somebody. The DP stopped her, but wondered about her motivations. She tried to teleport away to Jost Enterprises, but Elasti-Girl took her teleportation device and confronted Somebody’s henchmen. She was taken captive, and Mr. Somebody, in control of billionaire philanthropist Thayer Jost, used the opportunity to call a press conference. He debuted his superteam the Front Men, and demanded the Doom Patrol release Porcelain Doll from Oolong. He painted the DP as villains, showing edited footage of Elasti-Girl’s attack on Jost Enterprises. The DP wanted Rita back immediately, so they visited Danny The Bungalow’s new resident Ambush Bug, and had him teleport them to Jost Enterprises. The remaining Front Men quickly fought them to a standstill, and Botfly threatened to kill Rita if they didn’t surrender. They teleported Porcelain Doll to Jost Enterprises and traded their captives. Jost revealed himself as Mr. Somebody and explained that he’d be building his Front Men’s reputation on the DP’s backs, and had them attack the DP. Their fight spread all over Sacramento, resulting in collateral damage, and lots of negative press for the DP, especially when Somebody called the media to claim the DP attacked them unprovoked. Animal Mineral Vegetable Man slashed Rita apart in raptor form, but she discovered a new ability of her new body and patched herself back together. She renewed her attack with fury, and started calling AVM Dayton. Somebody called up Chief on Oolong, and let him know he’d purposefully paired each of his team members against each DP member. Their Front Men suits were keyed to deliver a lethal blow to the wearer when each DP member used a certain ability. He was prepared to sacrifice his team for his own ends, but knew Chief didn’t want the DP to appear to be murderers. Chief demanded that the DP retreat, and the Front Men were victorious. The DP had a sour taste in their mouths over the whole affair, but agreed to talk to each other instead of slinking off to be alone as they had been recently.
(Doom Patrol V #13) - Elasti-Girl remembered that she was the one original DP member who actually died, and Chief grew an organic protoplasm version of her from a skull fragment left in Codsville. She shared her disassociation with R
obotman and Negative Man, not wanting to keep anything from them. They sympathized, because neither of them was in their original body or their original selves anymore. None of them were happy with Chief, but when Robotman confronted him, he said with confidence that he’d acted with the DP in mind in recreating Rita, and in letting her figure it out for herself that she was a recreation of the original. Robotman told Elasti-Girl that she was still Rita as far as he was concerned. Elasti-Girl bared her soul to Bumblebee, and realized how grateful she was to have another woman who accepted her and understood her plight. She admitted to hanging on to all her old movie photos and news clippings because her protoplasm body often lost its shape, and she had a hard time remembering the woman she used to be. Elasti-Girl finally confronted Mento, and told him that although she’d wanted to kill him, she’d cooled down and now just wanted him to promise never to mentally control her again. He apologized, but she just wanted his word. He subtly tried to mentally influence her, and she freaked out, growing to giant size and threatening to crush him.(Doom Patrol V #14, 15) - Elasti-Girl flung Mento into the sea, and Robotman broke his fall so he wouldn’t die. He made it clear he wanted him dead as bad as Rita did for what he did to her, but he knew Rita would be guilt-stricken if she became a murderer. The DP convened to talk some more, and realized that even though they had some hard knocks, they had each other, and that was enough to keep them going. Chief was monitoring them, and worried they’d slip from his control. He conducted an experiment to give himself Kryptonian powers and attacked his team. He ripped off Robotman’s head, cut Elasti-Woman in half, and killed Negative Man, sending the negative energy to the last of the reserve bodies Chief had prepared for him. Chief let them know he could have killed them, but chose not to. They were obsolete to him now that he possessed Kryptonian power, and he flew off, warning them not to interfere in his goal of saving the world from itself. Chief disarmed all the nations of the world, and stockpiled the artillery in Antarctica. He met with the U.N. and said he was the father of the world now. Over the DP’s objections Veronica Cale nationalized them and set out after Chief, using contingency plans for dealing with Superman. The DP were taken apart until Millicent, Chief’s computer on Oolong, took control of Robotman and had him goad Chief, mocking his notion that he was the DP’s father when he was abusive and manipulative. She sent out rapid light pulse subliminals from Cliff’s eyes, shutting down Chief’s brain. Millicent said Chief had given her failsafes, and when he gave himself Kryptonian powers his mind had been altered by the Kryptonian template he used, driving him mad. Chief was locked away on Oolong by the Science Squad, and Robotman was glad the DP would no longer be under Chief’s thumb, but Rita wasn’t so sure.
(Doom Patrol V #16) - The Doom Patrol responded when alternate timeline versions of themselves attacked the city. A cannibal tribeswoman Elasti-Woman was running amok, being aided by a Fifth Reich Negative Man. The Dp were unsure of themselves without Chief’s guidance, and Robotman tried to assume leadership, but they realized how little they trusted each other, and Rita was badly hurt fighting her duplicate. They uncovered Flash Forward, a former DP member, as the culprit. His ability to see into the future malfunctioned, and he was seeing all sorts of alternate futures and pasts, and inadvertently dragging denizens from those timelines to the present. He begged for help before running away, and Robotman took him by force. They brought him to Oolong, where the Science Squad induced a coma, and while he was unconscious the flotsam and jetsam he’d dragged into the present disappeared. Veronica Cale told Robotman the Doom patrol did an awful job on their own, and talked about the collateral damage, as many had died in Delta City. Robotman said he did everything he needed to do, and Cale told him he sounded like the Chief. Robotman started worrying that his many years under the Chief’s influence had made him a worse person, and negative Man and Rita started questioning him as well.
(Doom Patrol V #17, 18) - President Cale reminded the Doom Patrol that they were nationalized, and that they’d act in the best interest of Oolong or be deported. Cliff bristled at their situation, but Rita was feeling too self-conscious to care, and Larry was too spaced out to understand. They accompanied Cale on a diplomatic meeting to North Korea, whose interests were important in keeping Oolong sovereign. The DP were greeted at the party by General Immortus, who warned them that Cale was targeted for death. He still wanted the DP and all their allies to die at his hands. Cale was kidnapped by a family of sociopath immortals named the Aristocrats. Duke Byron Boswick explained that the leader of North Korea was his client, and he saw Oolong as a threat to him. The Doom Patrol managed to free Cale, and were forced to flee Korea in a helicopter.
(Secret Six III #30, Doom Patrol V #19) - The Doom Patrol got concerned when Cliff Steele went away by himself to go fishing, so they followed him. He explained that he was actually trying to catch one of Chief’s bio-experiments, a man made into a carnivorous fish that’d eaten a tourist. The fish surfaced and swallowed Bumblebee, but the Doom Patrol saved her. They were beset by the Secret Six, who’d been hired by the newly formed criminal organization C.R.U.S.H. to seize Oolong so they could have a secret hq. Robotman looked forward to tangling with the Six again, and they fought, but C.R.U.S.H. decided to double-cross the Six, and sent suicide bombers to ignite Oolong’s dormant volcano, and sent suicide bombers to ignite Oolong’s dormant volcano. The DP wanted to call off the fight, but Six member Bane insisted that the disaster meant nothing. Elasti-Woman diverted the lava, and President Cale uncloaked C.R.U.S.H.’s helicopter, which was observing the proceedings. C.R.U.S.H. fled, and the Six realized they wouldn’t be paid for the job, so the conflict ended, and the Six peacefully left Oolong, but Catman admitted he was itching to tussle with the DP again. Cale was sick of the property damage the DP was racking up, so she made a deal with Mr. Somebody to make the Front Men Oolong’s new protectors. The Front men arrived on Oolong to tell the DP they were being deported, and begged for them to resist.
(Doom Patrol V #20-22) - The DP were kicked out of Oolong, and with no one willing to harbor them they crashed with Robotman’s old friend Super-Hip in Las Vegas while looking for more permanent accommodations. The individual members were turned down by everyone they asked for safe haven. Elasti-Woman reached out to her son Beast Boy, and he told her she was welcome to stay at Titans Tower, but not her teammates. The U.N. listed them as probable terrorists for their association with Oolong, invading a sovereign nation, and sheltering a mass murderer. Elasti-Woman realized she couldn’t stay with Beast Boy because she’d be putting him at risk just by associating with her. General Immortus approached the DP, promising that he’d long ago given up his ambitions of world domination, and he’d recently decided to stop tyring to kill them. The DP were reluctant to listen, but he convinced them that M.S.E. in charge of Oolong was a horrible thing for the world, and they knew he must be desperate if he was coming to them. He advised them to invade Oolong and take it for themselves. After some soul-searching Robotman made the decicion to go along with Immortus. The DP stormed Ooolong, destroyed the M.S.E.’s security devices, and defeated the Front Men. Mr. Somebody, now in the body of Veronica Cale, and the M.S.E. confronted the Doom Patrol, but Ambush Bug let Somebody know, using his cosmic awareness, that DC was canceling the Doom Patrol comic, and the DC Universe was being remade after the company wide crossover Flashpoint. Somebody accepted that there was no point in fighting, and abandoned Cale’s body, and left the dimensional plane with the M.S.E. President Cale repatriated the DP, but confided in Robotman that Somebody took the Chief from Oolong before he left.
Comments: Created by Arnold Drake, Bob Haney & Bruno Premani
Elasti-Girl received profiles in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #7 and Who's Who in the DC Universe #12.
Elasti-Girl had cameos in Beast Boy #1, 3, Titans II #17.
JLA #94 initially rebooted Elasti-Girl and the Doom Patrol, removing their previous appearances from continuity, but Teen Titans later retconned this reboot explaining that everyone in the world, including the DP, forgot about the DP's history when Superboy Prime unleashed a continuity wave. This probably removed the flashback sequences (which gave a new origin for the Doom Patrol member) from Doom Patrol IV from continuity, unless they were false memories generated by the continuity wave. For the sake of completeness, here were Rita's flashback appearances in DP IV.
(Doom Patrol IV #12 (fb) <13 years ago> Rita witnessed her racecar idol Cliff Steele crash during a race, and although his body was destroyed, the Chief saved his brain. Seven year later Rita graduated cum laude from Harvard and Chief hired Rita Farr as an assistant, and he fell in love with Cliff for his mind.
(Doom Patrol IV #6 (fb)) - <nine years ago> Rita served as Chief’s lab assistant, and sided with Chief in an argument with his assistant Dr. Verdalian. Verdalian performed unsanctioned experiments, turning animals into cyborg, and wanted Chief to pursue his project with Cliff Steele’s brain further. The argument ended in Chief and Verdalian parting ways.
(Doom Patrol IV #5 (fb)) - <five years ago> Chief woke up Cliff Steele’s brain, and connected it to a voicebox. Rita knew Cliff fealt utterly disconnected, and taid to talk with him.
(Doom Patrol IV #2 (fb)) - <three years ago> Chief and Rita sent Larry Trainor into space in the Sunrunner, and Larry fell into hyperspace and returned to Earth with the Negative Man inside his body.
All characters mentioned or pictured are ™ and © DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Please visit The Official DC Comics Site at: http://www.batman.com