No, not the character from that Pixar movie, she’s the original Elasti-Girl from Doom Patrol! I guess I should back up but thought that should get taken care of. She can grow and shrink to incredible sizes and even choose which parts of her do this. How did she get this way? Who is Doom Patrol? Let’s find out!
Rita Farr excelled at everything she did in life. She took to swimming and would become an Olympic gold medalist in swimming. She’d take to acting and become a star, it was while filming in near a live volcano that released strange gasses that transformed her. Rita found herself growing and shrinking in size without much control at first. This chaos would ruin her acting career even when she’d finally learned to control her changes.
Dr. Niles Calder was forming a team of super-powered outcasts, the Doom Patrol, and thought Rita could do much good with them. She agreed and began a life adventuring and performing heroics on strange missions. She’d find love with her fellow teammate, Steve Dayton, and the two would eventually marry.
Finding a new life and love as a hero had Rita making her friends and enemies in the world of super people. One such person was the young boy, Garfield Logan (Beast Boy), a green shapeshifter who had lost his parents, Rita would adopt him. As he grew up, he’d eventually leave the team to join the Teen Titans. The Doom Patrol had given second chances to this family and so when it came time to save a seaside town from their arch rivals, the Brotherhood of Evil, by sacrificing themselves, it seemed only right. Rita and many of her friends met their demise.
This was not the end for Rita, though, as it rarely is for heroes. She’d have a fragment of her skull recovered from where she died. Dr. Calder would use this to help rebuild her but she was mostly a shell of her former self. This was explained to her because of her now being mostly a goop when she wasn’t focusing on her human form. The return of her son, Gar, and his friends in the Teen Titans to help her and the other revived Doom Patrol team members. She’d realized that Calder had brainwashed her, her husband, and the others into being docile and feeling dependent on him. Able to regain her own inner strength, Rita could begin her life as a hero once more.
There you have it! Elasti-Girl and the Doom Patrol are one of the stranger aspects of the DC universe. They came onto the scene at nearly the same time as X-Men, another team of misfits and outcasts lead by a man in a wheelchair. One team became a comic book staple and known the world over but Doom Patrol has been allowed to remain the weirder version of this concept. Will we ever see Rita and her team on the big or small screen in live action? Maybe some day! See you next time!
Suggested Reading
My Greatest Adventure
Doom Patrol
Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net