Who's This? A big movie star.
The facts: As with the rest of the Doom Patrol, Rita Farr AKA Elasti-Girl was created by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani for My Greatest Adventure #80 (June 1963) and would continue to star in that series until its end, as Doom Patrol #121 in 1968. The actress-become-superero was the longest dead as by the 80s, every other member had turned up alive but her. When John Byrne revived the Doom Patrol in 2004, he ignored DP continuity and included her in his classic line-up, but this was undone by Infinite Crisis. But Elasti-Girl is nonetheless back even with continuity restored thanks to the Chief regrowing her body from a piece of her skull. In the 2009 series, she changes her code-name to Elasti-Woman and it's revealed her regrown body is made of protoplasmic goo (see the example story below for more on this). This has allowed her to stick around in further volumes of Doom Patrol (although she was seldom used in the Young Animal series).
How you could have heard of her: Rita is currently appearing in Unbeatable Doom Patrol and made key appearances in Mark Waid's recent World's Finest comic. She is of course also a cast member on the Doom Patrol TV show, played by April Bowlby.
Example story: Doom Patrol #13 (October 2010) "I'm Still Rita" by Keith Giffen, Matthew Clark, Ron Randall and John Livesay
We pick things up just after Rita learns she's actually protoplasm - if she's not human, is she still herself? A copy of the original? What? Well, she's in good company:
Losing your original body is what being in the Doom Patrol is all about. Heck, even the Chief spent years as, simply, the Head. Had the original DP been created today, Rita's powers would have pointedly been about body dysmorphia, so we're not far off. Rita has been putting up pictures of herself all over her room, but it's not for vanity's sake. It's so she can remember what she's meant to look like. Cuz when she wakes up every morning
She's Gumby, dammit (her words). And now she has to go tell her estranged husband, Steve Dayton AKA Mento. But he knows because telepathy, and also, he's a bit of a creep who sidles into her head at night. The conversation... doesn't go well.
If you're looking for an issue of Doom Patrol that gets at the heart of Elasti-Woman as she is today, this is it. It's full of old journal entries that examine her relationships with the team, with Steve, with Gar Logan (who they had adopted). It has her friends give their impressions of her. It tracks back to her origin story, and looks forward to the future in the same way Swamp Thing's "Anatomy Lesson" did for Alec Holland. You'll scarcely believe the team could function without her for so long; it's just that her resurrection was a little harder to come by.
Who's Next? A western devil.
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