Elongated Man #1

Copperhead races down the Rue De Rivoli, with the Elongated Man in close pursuit. Unable to elude the Elongated Man’s long reach, Copperhead suddenly turns and lunges at his pursuer. The two men struggle against one another for several moments. Copperhead manages to get his tail around the Elongated Man’s neck, and begins constricting it. Only the timely intervention of the Elongated Man’s wife, Sue Dibny, allows the Stretchable Sleuth to escape a violent choking death and regain the advantage. The Parisian police surround the downed Copperhead, but the French villain Warp appears, and teleports Copperhead away. Warp’s unexpected association with Copperhead gets the Elongated Man’s mystery smelling nose to twitching. Back in their hotel room, the Elongated Man goes over the details of Copperhead’s attack on the French Minister of Economics, while Sue dresses for a diplomatic banquet. En route to the banquet hall, Sue pleads with her husband to try, for once, to keep a low profile. Unfortunately, the bombastic American ambassador, Bradford Smolz, loudly draws attention to the Elongated Man, and a crowd of admiring Parisians quickly mob the Ductile Detective. While the Elongated Man answers questions, essentially holding court with the press, Sue enters the banquet hall, running headlong into Bito Wladon, the Archduke of Modora. At first, Sue is quite taken with the Archduke’s charm, but her infatuation soon turns to contempt when he begins to question her marriage and devotion to the Elongated Man

The celebratory air of the banquet hall is shattered by the arrival of L’Escargot, who literally crashes the banquet hall in a giant snail-shaped vehicle. L’Escargot immediately attacks the Belgian ambassador, coating the man in slime. The Elongated Man leaps into the fray, surprisingly alongside the Archduke of Modora. The Elongated Man grabs L”Escargot, but cannot keep ahold of the villain, due to his costume’s coating of ooze. L’Escargot slimes the banquet hall’s security forces, before the Archduke can disable L’Escargot’s slime projectors. The Elongated Man finds it difficult to land a solid punch on the slippery snail-themed villain, leaving it to the Archduke’s sonic based weaponry to subdue L’Escargot. The damage, though, has been done. Belgian ambassador Choux lies dead. Backed by the French ambassador, Merlot Bourdeaux, the German ambassador, Einfahrt Freihalten, calls for calm. As a way of apology for his early affront, the Archduke invites Sue Dibny, and her husband, to come to Modora, as his guests. The Elongated Man declines, however, preferring to remain in Paris, the better to continue his investigation. Late that night, in their hotel room, Sue awakens her husband. The Archduke’s words are gnawing at her, and Sue finds she has doubts about her marriage to the Elongated Man afterall. The couple are on the verge of a major argument. To defuse it, the Elongated Man asks his wife what she wants him… them.. to do. Sue requests that they accept the Archduke’s invitation. She wants to go to Modora.