Sue Dibny

Sue Dibny
Sue Dibny. Art by Carmine Infantino.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	The Flash #119 (March 1961)
Created by	John Broome (writer) Carmine Infantino (artist)
In-story information
Alter ego	Susan Dearbon
Team affiliations	Justice League Super Buddies Black Lantern Corps Justice League Europe
Partnerships	Elongated Man
Supporting character of	The Flash Starman

Susan Dibny (née Dearbon) is a fictional character from DC Comics associated with the Elongated Man. Created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, the character first appeared in Flash vol. 1 #119 (March 1961). In 2004, she became a flashpoint for discussions of women in comics when a highly controversial storyline was published (set in the post-Zero Hour continuity) in which she is murdered and revealed to have been raped by Doctor Light in the past.^[1][2]

Sue Dearbon appears in live action by Natalie Dreyfuss starting in the sixth season of the Arrowverse television series The Flash.

Fictional character biography[]

Sue is the wife of hero Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man.^[3] She is a brunette socialite from Westchester County, New York, United States. She has at times worked for the Justice League as an administrator. Ralph and Sue share a very loving relationship. They met when Ralph crashed her debutante ball, using the pretense of jewel thieves to catch a glimpse of the lovely Sue. What followed was a whirlwind romance. Sue and Ralph married a short time later with Barry Allen serving as the best man. What followed was a life of adventures and super-heroics, as Sue stuck by Ralph's side as he traveled around the globe as part of the Justice League. This led to the various dangers associated with the lifestyle, including her near-death at the tentacles of an alien parasite and being kidnapped by a supervillain, Sonar I, to become his consort. Through it all, Sue and Ralph stuck together, even when the going got tough, eventually settling in Opal City.

Super Buddies[]

Sue is a member of the Super Buddies team made up of former members of the Justice League. As she has no superpowers herself, she spends most of the time at the Super Buddies headquarters, arguing with team founder Maxwell Lord.

Death[]

The 2004 DC murder mystery Identity Crisis begins with Sue's death at the hands of Jean Loring while she was expecting a child.^[4] Attempting to reunite with her husband Ray Palmer, Loring had used his equipment to try to create a threat to the families of other superheroes in an attempt to prompt Ray to come back to her. Although Loring hadn't intended for Sue to be seriously hurt, by traveling down the phone line to 'jump' into Sue's brain, she unintentionally caused an aneurysm that killed Sue. Loring then panicked and severely burned Sue's body to mask the true cause of her death. Over the course of the series, it is revealed that in the past Sue was raped by Doctor Light. In an attempt to prevent him from harming members of other superheroes' families, Justice League member Zatanna attempted to magically rehabilitate Doctor Light, which accidentally resulted in the villain becoming less intelligent and very incompetent. Batman, in fact, wanted another punishment for Dr. Light but his mind was also mindwiped by Zatanna, erasing his memory of his involvement in events. Light is the prime suspect until Doctor Mid-Nite and Mr. Terrific carried out an autopsy and confirmed that Sue had not been killed by anything that would constitute Light's standard M.O., with a casual comment Jean made to Ray prompting him to realize the truth, resulting in him sending Jean to Arkham and disappearing from the JLA. During a Sinestro Corps War one-shot, Superboy-Prime mentioned that his anger over what happened to Sue Dibny as one of his reasons for his actions during Infinite Crisis, seeing it as further 'proof' of the failures of the new universe.

52[]

During the 52 series, a Kryptonian cult attempts to revive Sue from the dead. They attract the attention of a now depowered Ralph Dibny by spray-painting the Kryptonian word for resurrection (the Superman symbol, inverted) on her tombstone. Ralph and a team of heroes infiltrate the resurrection ceremony. Convinced that the ceremony is a hoax, Ralph and the others attack the temple, which subsequently catches on fire. However, Ralph is convinced that the resurrection is not a hoax when a seemingly animated straw representation of Sue crawls towards Ralph uttering his name. Although this straw version of Sue Dibny is destroyed in the fire, Ralph survives and vows to complete Sue's resurrection. However, a later issue revealed that it was Felix Faust who animated the dummy with his powers, and Ralph was aware of Faust's deception but pretends to believe that it was really his wife in order to get close to the villain and his master, Neron.

In the final issue of 52, Sue reappeared alongside Ralph, both as ghosts (he had used a magic artifact to ensure that they would be together in the afterlife), inside of a school where a paranormal event has occurred. Her final line is "Honey, your nose is twitching".

One Year Later[]

In Batman and the Outsiders #5, it is revealed (after appearing unknown in the previous two issues) that Ralph and Sue have gained or discovered the ability to possess human bodies, like the ability of Boston Brand, AKA Deadman.

Reign in Hell[]

Sue and Ralph, in their ghostly forms, appear before Doctor Occult with news of the war brewing in Hell. Sent by Giovanni Zatara, who as a member of the Hell Resistance Movement hopes to take advantage of the war, they ask Doctor Occult to aid him in his plan. They then dissipate and leave him to make his decision.^[5]

Blackest Night[]

In Blackest Night #0, Black Hand is seen in a graveyard approaching the graves of Sue Dibny and her husband Ralph.^[6] They are revealed as members of the Black Lantern Corps when they attack Hawkgirl and Hawkman; killing the two heroes by ripping their hearts out.^[7] Sue, Ralph and the Hawks later join Firestorm and Martian Manhunter in attacking the Flash and Green Lantern.^[8] The fight is interrupted by the arrival of the Indigo Tribe, who use their powers to remove Sue and Ralph's rings and blast them to dust.^[9] After the "Blackest Night" crisis, the Flash looks around to see if Ralph and Sue were among those resurrected by the White Entity only to be told by Green Lantern they were not coming back.^[10]

New 52/Rebirth[]

Ralph and Sue are eventually revealed to be alive in the New 52 Secret Six series. As a major subplot of the first year, Ralph is in disguise as a member of the team at the behest of the Riddler, who has Sue Dibny in his possession.

The New 52 versions of the characters are only different in appearance; Ralph has a costume with an orange color scheme instead of purple, and Sue has brown hair instead of black and no longer resembles the young Shirley Maclaine who was the model for the character.

Powers and abilities[]

While alive, Sue Dibny possessed no superhuman abilities. However, she showed herself to be a quick thinker, a decent detective (though not on her husband's level), and multi-lingual (native English, as well as French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese). Her appearances as a ghost have shown her with paranormal abilities.

Other versions[]

• In the 1997 Tangent Comics one-shot The Flash, Sue Dearborn appeared as a minor character working as a reporter for All Access interviewing Lia Nelson on her arrival at her film premiere.
• In Superman: American Alien, Sue Dearborn encounters a nineteen-year-old Clark Kent while with Oliver Queen, mistakenly believing that he is Bruce Wayne. She introduces him to Vic Zsasz and his unnamed wife.

In other media[]

Sue Dearbon appears in The CW television series The Flash, portrayed by Natalie Dreyfuss.^[11] She is first mentioned in the closing moments of season five's finale, when private investigator Ralph Dibny picks up a case file labeled "Dearbon".^[12] During season six, Dibny works to find Sue across multiple cities. Sue herself debuts in the episode "A Girl Named Sue" after Dibny tracks her down to a seedy Central City apartment. However, she claims she is unable to go home due to her gangster ex-boyfriend John Loring, so Ralph agrees to help her take him down, revealing his secret identity to her in the process. Along the way, she double-crosses him to steal a diamond in the criminal's possession. Even in spite of Loring catching her red-handed and metahuman assassin Ultraviolet arriving to kill her, Ralph saves her from the former while she tricks the latter into focusing on Ralph so she can escape. While investigating the diamond, Sue uncovers information on the crime syndicate Black Hole. In the episode "So Long and Goodnight," Ralph and his ally Cisco Ramon discover Sue has been robbing banks used by Black Hole as they were extorting her parents before returning the diamond to Ralph and escaping once more. Sue returns in the season finale as a member of Black Hole, having joined them to clear her parents' debt by killing their leader, Joseph Carver. While Ralph talks her out of it, they later learn that Eva McCulloch killed Carver and framed Sue for the crime. This forces them to go on the run as Ralph tries to figure out a way to clear Sue's name. Sue later returns to Central City in disguise (with Ralph in tow) to help the Flash before going back on the lam once again. She makes another return in the seventh season- this time alone with no specific details on what happened to Ralph- to assist them in stealing the Psycho-Pirate's mask after the essence in the mask manipulates Cecile Horton into acting as its host to gain more power.

References[]