From the time Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man (Hartley Sawyer) debuted on The Flash in Season 4, fans have wondered when an important character connected to Ralph from the comics would also be making her appearance. That character? Sue Dearbon, the woman who in comics becomes Ralph’s wife. After the Season 5 finale saw Ralph investigating the disappearance of Sue, fans had hope that we’d be seeing the future Sue Dibny on The Flash soon. Now, that time has arrived with Natalie Dreyfuss appearing as Sue in Tuesday night’s aptly-named “A Girl Named Sue”. But who is Sue Dearbon? Here’s everything you need to know.
In comics Sue Dibny (née Dearbon) was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino and first appeared in Flash #119 from March 1961. Sue was a socialite from New York who met Ralph when he crashed her debutante ball with Ralph doing something that is quintessentially Ralph Dibny: using the ruse of dealing with jewel thieves as a means to see Sue. The pair ended up having a whirlwind romance and married quickly with the Dibny’s becoming one of the most loving (and beloved) couples in comics with Sue staying right by her husband’s side as he served with the Justice League.
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In comics, Sue is also the center of one of the most controversial storylines in all of DC history — 2004’s Identity Crisis, an event that began the death of Sue at the hands of longtime friend Jean Loring. The event eventually reveals that Sue had been raped in the past by Doctor Light, leading to a botched attempt at magical rehabilitation of the villain by Zatanna that itself has some terrible consequences and fallout. Sue’s death has since been removed from canon, making it unlikely that the show will send Sue down such a dark path.
On The Flash, Sue’s story is set to take a slightly different course. While The CW series has maintained the socialite aspect of Sue’s story, as we’ve already seen Ralph is in pursuit of Sue having been hired to find her. However, the adventure aspect of Sue’s comic history with Ralph may very well be intact. The episode synopsis for “A Girl Named Sue” teases that when Sue refuses to go home, she’ll take Ralph on a daring adventure, something that sounds like may be a fun development for Ralph.
“Well, I think what I really like about the ‘romance’ thing is that the idea of relationships can be a mirror held up to anybody and what does that bring up for him and what does that bring out in him,” Sawyer explained in an interview last year. “There’s some stuff in the comics with Sue and Ralph where they go really, really deep into that and I don’t know when exactly we’re going to see and if we’re going to see Sue, but in terms of him getting out there and dating and falling for somebody, I would love to see how he takes that on. Maybe he gets his heart broken. Maybe he gets disappointed. How would he deal with that is something that’s really exciting and interesting to me. Now that he has more confidence because the family support of Team Flash has given him this confidence to kind of mature and grow into who he was always going to be.”
The Flash airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
