Elasti-Girl

Current Events

She and fellow Doom Patrol members make their first full appearance in the New 52 in Justice League #31 along with Negative Man, Robotman, the Chief, and Element Woman.

Origin

Rita Farr was a Hollywood actress, until she was exposed to unusual volcanic gases while shooting a film in Africa. When Farr recovered, she discovered that she could grow or shrink her body at will from microscopic to hundreds of feet tall. She later gained greater control of her powers, enabling her to return to normal size. Considered a freak and a menace, her Hollywood career was over. Rita is then approached by the Chief, who made her a member of Doom Patrol and she was given the code-name Elasti-Girl.

Creation

Elasti-Girl was created by writers Arnold Drake, Bob Haney and artist Bruno Premiani. In John Byrne‘s interpretation of Elasti-Girl, she could also shrink to microscopic proportions and alter the size of other people or objects by a mere touch. However, those abilities have been recently dismissed by later writers.

Elasti-Girl was ranked 88th in Comics Buyer’s Guide Presents: 100 Sexiest Women in Comics.

In the 2004 film the Incredibles, Helen Parr‘s hero name is “Elastigirl” (voiced by Holly Hunter). Pixar received permission from DC Comics to use the name in the film as long as it wasn’t used in the merchandising. In the merchandising (and almost twice in the film), she’s referred to as “Mrs. Incredible”.

Character Evolution

Silver Age/Earth-One

Rita was the founding member of Doom Patrol. Rita was in a love triangle between Negative Man and Mento. But, ultimately, she chose Mento and married him. They both adopted Beast Boy, and made him a member of the team. Rita’s powers allowed her to stretch any part of her body to incredible lengths. She could grow to gigantic size, with an accompanying increase in mass and strength, and could also shrink to tiny size, but not to microscopic proportions. She did not maintain her normal mass and strength when she shrank.

Modern Age/New Earth

Reboot

After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Rita’s history is rebooted. In this new reality, Rita is a former professional actress and a professional swimmer. She has a gold medal for swimming in the Olympics. Her shape-changing allows her to grow to the size of a skyscraper or shrink to microscopic size. Rita can selectively shrink or grow parts of her body while the rest of it remains normal size.

Retroboot

During the Infinite Crisis, Rita met Beast Boy, but she had no memories of him. That is until, Superboy-Prime broke out of the Phantom Zone. Which caused Rita to regain all her old memories of her family and her own death. Sometime later, Rita had changed her codename to “Elasti-Woman”. She is tougher and colder, this was shown when she didn’t care that she lost two of her teammates on her last mission.

The New 52/Prime Earth

Elasti-Girl makes her first appearance in the newly reformed Doom Patrol led by the Chief alongside Robotman, Negative Man, and Element Woman. Her name is revealed to be Rita Starr, and after an exposure to a strange gas, her cellular structure was broken down. She fights alongside her Doom Patrol teammates in an effort to capture the Power Ring held by Jessica Cruz.

Major Story Arcs

Silver Age/Earth-One:

The Death of Elasti-Girl

Tragedy struck when Doom Patrol’s enemies, Madame Rouge and General Zahl, threatened a small New England fishing village. The members of Doom Patrol elected to sacrifice themselves to save innocents and Elasti-Girl dies in the explosion.

Modern Age/New Earth (Retroboot):

Rita’s Past is Revealed

One Year Later after Infinite Crisis, it is then revealed how Rita had been resurrected. The Chief had salvaged the original Elasti-Girl’s skull and used it to clone her a new body from a malleable form. This Rita is quiet and reluctant to question the Chief’s treatment of her. She is very dependent upon the Chief and there are hints that he is controlling her due to her malleable form, which hampers her thinking abilities.

I Married My Stalker

On a mission to a small town Elasti-Woman’s mind is taken over by Mento, in the hopes of saving her team from being possessed by the townspeople. It’s discovered that Mento has being lurking around in Rita’s head like a stalker. Rita already knows about this, as found in her personal journal “…in my head! He’s been in my head all along! Perfect husband, perfect father, perfect pervert! He didn’t even try deny it! Make all of my dreams come true? The way he looked at me. I’ve seen that look before: Gina’s stalker. I married my stalker! The bastard’s been in my head all along!!!” Rita confronts Mento over what he has done to her. He tries to use mind control to make her love him but she realizes this and grabs Mento, almost killing him. Rita lets him go, and their marriage comes to an end.

Who is Rita?

Later, the team finds out Rita is a shape-shifting clone. It found that Rita must look at photos of the original Rita so that it can keep the appearance of her. Rita also fought a savage clone version of herself, who ate people. Rita and her team are then kicked off Oolong Island and she met with her son Beast Boy, to see if she and her team could live with the Teen Titans.

Powers & Abilities

Elasticity

Elasti-Girl can stretch any parts of her body to incredible lengths.

Size Manipulation

Rita can grow to gigantic size with an accompanying increase in mass and strength. She could also shrink down to be very tiny. On a couple of occasions, Rita has surpassed 1000 feet in height.

Duplication

Elasti-Woman has powers of shape-shifting and can regrow missing limbs.

Character Profile

Characteristics/Status

• Height: 5’6″
• Weight: 135 lbs.
• Hair: Brown
• Eyes: Brown
• Base of Operations: Midway City; Oolong Island
• Occupation: Adventurer; former Hollywood actress
• Known Relatives: Steve Dayton (Mento, ex-husband); Garfield Logan (Beast Boy, adopted son)

Other Versions

Earth-9602 (Amalgam Comic)

Elastigirl (Janet van Dyne) is an amalgamation of Domino and Wasp from Marvel Comics and Elasti-Girl from the Doom Patrol of DC Comics. She is a member of X-Patrol and possesses the power to shrink or expand into any size she wishes.

Justice

Elasti-Girl makes several cameos in the Justice books.

JLA: The Nail

Elasti-Girl appeared in Justice League of America: The Nail books.

Teen Titans Go!

Elasti-Girl appeared in several issues of Teen Titans Go! as a member of the Doom Patrol.

Batman: The Brave And The Bold

Elasti-Girl and her teammates team-up with Batman.

Other Media

Animation

Teen Titans

Elasti-Girl appeared with her fellow Doom Patrol members Mento, Robotman, and Negative Man on the Teen Titans animated series. On the show she and the rest of the team meet with her adoptive son, Beast Boy, and his friends, the Teen Titans. She and the two teams joined together to battle against the Brotherhood of Evil. She was voiced by Tara Strong.

She appears in the episodes:

• Homecoming Part 1 (September 24, 2005)
• Homecoming Part 2 (October 1, 2005)

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Rita, and the original incarnation of the Doom Patrol, appears on the show. Rita had left the team and lived her life as an overweight actress. Until the Brotherhood of Evil force her to rejoin Doom Patrol for one last fight. She was voiced by Olivia d’Abo.

She appears in the episode:

• The Last Patrol! (October 8, 2010)

Young Justice

A young Rita Farr (presumably years before gaining her powers) appears in the Young Justice episode “Image”. She is one of the stars of “Hello Megan”, a fictional 80’s sitcom.

Doom Patrol

She appears as a member of the Doom Patrol in the DC Nation Shorts voiced by Kari Wahlgren.

Flash

In the episode “Things You Can’t Outrun” there was a reference to a documentary called The Rita Farr Story.

DC Super Hero Girls

Elasti- Girl appears as a background character in the web series.

Live Action

DC Universe: Titans

Rita Farr is one of many Doom Patrol members who made an appearance in the show so far. She appears alongside Negative Man, the chief, Robot Man, and Beastboy. When Beastboy brings Raven home to meet his family and have dinner, he introduces her to his teammate. The Doom is made of people who were injured by accidents but were cured by the Chief. Rita Farr was an actress who almost fell in the river and almost drowned. She was cured, but the procedure left her cells unstable. On the show, she is played by the actress, April Bowlby.

Doom Patrol

The Doom Patrol spun off from their episode of Titans.

Film

Justice League: The New Frontier

Elasti-Girl appeared in Justice League: The New Frontier.

DC Super Hero Girls: Hero of the Year

Elasti- Girl appears as a background character in the film.

DC Super Hero Girls: Super Hero High

Elasti-Girl is a background character in the film. She has no lines in the movie.

DC Super Hero Girls: Intergalactic Games

Once again, Elasti-Girl appears as a background character in the film (as a student of Super Hero School High), making cameos during the movie. She has no speaking lines.