Elongated Man Is Stretching His Way to 'The Flash' Season 4 

The Flash may be the fastest man alive, but is he also the most limber? That question will be answered when the Elongated Man makes his Arrowverse debut next season on The Flash. Played by Hartley Sawyer (Saving the Human Race), the Elongmated Man will play a flexible, recurring role in the show’s upcoming fourth season premiering this October.

Not to be confused with Plastic Man, Elongated Man is a regular ally of the Flash who made his debut way back in The Flash #112 in May 1960. Created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, Elongated Man is Ralph Dibny, an expert detective whose skills rival Batman’s. He traveled across the U.S. in a sweet convertible car with his wife, Sue, and was generally a fun, feel-good character until an infamous comic series killed her off, but hopefully we won’t be getting any of that on the CW. Much like Plastic Man and Marvel’s Mister Fantastic, Elongated Man is able to bend and stretch his whole body, although unlike his more recognized shape-shifters, there are limits to how far Elongated Man can expand.

While The Flash may have Ralph get his powers from the particle accelerator explosion going way back to Season 1, in the comics, Ralph gained his powers from drinking Gingold, a soda that uses a rare tropical fruit called gingo that awakened Ralph’s metahuman gene.

While Sawyer will be the first actor to play Elongated Man in live-action, the character has appeared in TV before. Jeremy Piven of Entourage voiced Elongated Man in the animated Justice League Unlimited.

The Flash will return to the CW on October 10 at 8 p.m. Eastern.