Will Elongated Man Live Up To His Name And Be The Big Twist Of 'The Flash' Season 4?

The Arrowverse continues to expand every year as casts for the two flagship shows, Arrow and The Flash, continue to cast new #superheroes and villains every season. Recently, the news dropped that a fan favorite comic book character will be making his way to #tv as Elongated Man will be joining the cast of The Flash Season 4.

Elongated Man a.k.a. Ralph Dibny was a talented contortionist and chemist who sought to be one of the greatest contortionist alive. He experimented with a gingo berry, one of the main ingredients in the enhancement drink called Gingold. Dibny created an even more potent batch of the supplement, unlocking his dormant meta gene that gave him enhanced durability, agility and the ability to to stretch his body to near infinite lengths.

More than likely, The Flash version of Dibny will be experimenting with gingo during the Star Labs explosion, which will bestow his metahuman powers on him, much in the same way Barry got his super speed.

How does Elongated Man fit in the story though? What is his purpose? While introducing him for a solo series is possible, I assume he will be a supporting character through the whole season. I think to figure out his role we need to go back to his first appearance in The Flash Vol. 1 #112 to see what kind of interaction he and #Flash had in the comics.

In his first outing as Elongated Man, Dibny was a criminal suspect being pursued by the Flash until Barry realizes he was framed and the two team up to stop the real criminals.

Every season on #TheFlash we're given a new character alongside our mysterious villain, whose identity remains secret for most the season. Usually, we're led to believe that this new character is the villain until the real evildoer is revealed, much like Eddie Thawne in Season 1, when we expected him to be Reverse Flash, or Julian Albert in Season 3 as Doctor Alchemy. While Albert did end up being Dr. Alchemy last season, we found out it was against his will, and he later became a strong ally much like Thawne in Season 1.

The Flash writers usually don't stray too far away from source material, so we can assume that the show writers will elect to recreate the same situation from the comics and peg Ralph Dibny as an antagonist for a while, only for him to eventually join Team Flash. Perhaps this will be the red herring character that we're to assume is this year's villain, The Thinker, until the true culprit is revealed.

Or, maybe a new character will emerge to frame Ralph Dibny. However, based on the character's back story and his run-ins with Flash in the comics, expect Elongated Man to be a bit of a hassle for either Barry or Wally during his first appearance.