Rubber and a fighter.
"Hey, y'all, prepare yourself for the rubber-band man..."
— The Spinners, "Rubberband Man"
As far as superpowers go, this one's a stretch.
A character with a limited Voluntary Shapeshifting power, that results in his or her body acting like it is made of rubber. This can be a very versatile ability as long as the user is creative and not afraid to look silly, although the silliness potential means this tends to be a power given to Fun Personified characters. Although it can be an Antagonist Ability, seeing as how someone with this power doesn't need to fight fair, characters with this ability are fairly likely to be heroic, especially in comic books.
Such characters often have powers that work less like having a body with high elasticity and more like the ability to change shape at will, which makes shaping oneself into rubber balls, balloons and bands, flattening against walls, pretending to be a funny-colored rug, gliding like a parasail or folding oneself into a paper airplane all totally plausible. They can be also resistant to physical attacks since they can stretch to absorb the momentum of a projectile or fist and maybe even snap back as a counterattack. A character with this power can become a superlative Compact Infiltrator — depending on the extent of their powers, they may range from wriggling down pipes and air vents to squeezing themselves through mail slots, under doors and through narrow cracks to reach otherwise inacessible places, and they may very well become a superhero team's go-to scout and infiltrator.
What exactly becomes of one's bodily fluids and organs is, of course, never addressed (unless written by Warren Ellis who explains all for Ultimate Mr. Fantastic). This power often includes a resistance to electricity and a resistance (or vulnerability) to heat on the presumption that gaining rubber-like stretching abilities also conveys other rubber-like characteristics, never mind that most "rubber" is actually plastic these days.
More adult-oriented media will often explore the obvious Power Perversion Potential implicit in these powers assuming they can be applied to body parts ordinary people can't consciously move. A sufficiently bawdy writer might point out that stretching and reshaping other appendages could still be greatly appreciated by one's partner and make Anatomically Impossible Sex a little less implausible. One could just imagine the many possibilities involving new and exciting positions even if most haven't been already imagined for you on various places around the internet. Many involve bondage, a fetish that seems tailor made for rubber man powers, and may include a lot of rubber (or at least PVC) already.
Compare Abnormal Limb Rotation Range. See also Forcibly Formed Physique, which can entail some of the same physical characteristics but is sight gag rather than an acknowledged ability of the character. A character's rubbery superpower would justify instances of Rubber Orifice. Related to but distinct from Extendable Arms; while a rubber man is able to mold and shape their whole body without much care for physics, someone with extendable limbs is limited by the limbs they're able to stretch, and still abide by the physiology of their species. For example, a man made of rubber might flatten and enlarge his hands to flip someone like a pancake, while someone with extending arms can only stretch them to grab at or punch something.
For the performers traditionally known as rubber men, see Contortionist. Not to be confused with Dressed All in Rubber.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Basilisk: Udono Jousuke uses his body fat to turn his body pretty much into a living bouncing ball. Azuki Rousai can also stretch his limbs. The two even clash a bit.
- Cyborg 009: Cyborg 007 (G.B.) was a Master of Disguise who also used his abilities like this.
- Dragon Ball:
- Majin Buu being made of pink bubblegum-like goo, puts most people with this power to shame. As well as stretching his limbs and twisting his body in ways that would make a contortionist blush, he can engulf people with his own body mass (even pieces that have been torn off him!) to absorb them.
- Piccolo has also been seen to be able to extend his arms and turn into a giant.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: Spice Girl's ability lets her turn any object into soft durability like rubber. While it seems useless as Trish initially thought, she quickly discovers that Spice Girl's rubber powers perfectly counter Notorious B.I.G. Notorious B.I.G cannot be killed, and attacks and destroys anything faster than it, but it cannot destroy rubber objects produced by Spice Girl. If it tries to go through a rubber object, it'll just bounce back no matter how hard or vicious its attacks are. Fittingly, Spice Girl ends up defeating Notorious B.I.G by sending its last remaining piece falling into the ocean when Bucciarati tries attempting a Heroic Sacrifice to save Abbacchio.
- Naruto:
- Orochimaru can use Soft Physique Modification in order to stretch and elongate any part of his body, most often his neck but occasionally his arms. His son Mitsuki can also use this technique.
- Although it's more accurate to say Kakuzu's modified body is composed out of threads, in practice it borders on this trope as they seem to have no defined length limit. He frequently uses this property to elongate his limbs to fight oppenents with melee attacks from a range. It's still only a partial example as while the threads can be used to detach and extend his limbs, the segmented limbs themselves remain of standard length.
- One Piece's main protagonist, Monkey D. "Straw Hat" Luffy, thanks to eating the Gomu Gomu no Mi (lit. "Rubber Rubber Fruit", dubbed as the Gum-Gum Fruit). He often shouts "Gomu Gomu no / Gum Gum <something>" when using this power. He's essentially the Trope Codifier for rubber men in the anime/manga world.
- As a note, Luffy is more literally rubber than most examples — it requires energy for him to stretch himself, when released he snaps back into shape (he even uses the associated recoil to enhance his attacks), and he's completely immune to electricity as well as most blunt-force attacks (unless they're coated with Haki). He can also use his rubber properties to make his blood flow at a rate that would normally make one's arteries explode, exponentially increasing his strength and speed for as long as it lasts,note or inflate his bones to be large enough to crush a battleship with one attack.note During the two-year timeskip, he trains to master how to inflate his muscles rather than his bones, and to pump his entire body's matter around rather than just his blood, essentially combining both Gears and taking them even further. This essentially allows him to strike by ejecting his limbs rather than kicking or punching, at such high speeds that he punched someone across an entire island note . In the midst of his final battle with the Emperor Kaidou during the Wano arc, Luffy goes one step further by awakening his Devil Fruit, although he didn't know it right away, nor is he aware that the Gomu Gomu no Mi is alternatively known as a Mythical Zoan called the Hito Hito no Mi/Human-Human Fruit: Model Nika. The resulting transformation vastly increases the potency and accessability of his rubber properties for its duration, to the point of resembling Toon Physics by the freedom and scale with which he can access his existing Gears. He additionally becomes able to apply the rubberizing power of the fruit to external targets, per the stylings of a Paramecia Devil Fruit awakeing. note .
- Sailor Moon: The first youma to appear, Morga, elongated her arm at one point, but it is unknown if she could do this with her other limbs.
- Speed Grapher: Katsuya Shirogane is a murderous version. He originally was an obsessive ballet dancer, but after getting involved with Suitengu's group, he received this power and became this trope.
- Super Crooks (2021): Rubber Ball is a Glory Hound and Destructive Saviour who's able to stretch his body into a large ball for a Rolling Attack but isn't actually rubbery, leaving himself vulnerable to Johnny's electric attacks.
- Tamagotchi!: Kuchipatchi is a non-superhero example who can stretch his body at will.
- YuYu Hakusho: Although not rubbery, Hokushin (who's based off the Rokurokubi from Japanese legends) has an incredibly stretchy body, claiming to be able to extend his parts at least 20 kilometers.
Comic Books
- The DCU:
- Plastic Man, originally of Quality Comics, is the Ur-Example. He has the classic jokester personality. Ironically, he started as a serious guy with somewhat silly powers who evolved into a fairly ridiculous character who came up with progressively more bizarre shapes to assume (although even at the end of his first appearance, he commented, "Fighting crime sure is fun!")
- Offspring, Plastic Man's son in Kingdom Come, is a completely dour and serious individual who is sick of the "silly stretcher" stereotype and can't stand his father.
- Batman has commented that if Plastic Man were to ever go rogue, nothing could stop him. That's how powerful Plastic Man's shape shifting is. His only solution to stop him if he goes rogue is to freeze him, shatter him, and keep him frozen. Plastic Man is canonically invincible.
- Well, Depending on the Writer. In an extreme case of "treating the rubber man like he's actually made of rubber" thing, some writers treat him as if the process that gave him his powers (acid seeping into his bloodstream through an open wound) also (somehow) made him literally made of plastic, with associated abilities (Voluntary Shapeshifting, extreme resilience to blunt force and projectile trauma, easy to clean) and vulnerabilities (treating acetone
like it's Hollywood Acid, vulnerability to being melted or frozen and shattered, inability to reflect rubber bullets).
- The Elongated Man was an Expy created to sub for Plastic Man, because his creator wasn't aware that DC owned the character. Both of these found their way into the Justice League Unlimited cartoon, leading Green Lantern to remark "We don't need two stretchy guys down there". In the comics, on the rare occasions where Elongated Man and Plastic Man meet up, a bit of friction between them becomes apparent; Plastic Man's powers are straight up better, pretty much making him a shape shifter, but Elongated Man can simply... become longer, not change shape. On the other hand, Elongated Man is a brilliant detective said to be Batman's equal.
- Among the various superheroic personas adopted by Jimmy Olsen during The Silver Age of Comic Books is "Elastic Lad". This eventually leads to an issue of DC Comics Presents where the three stretching heroes are teamed up with Superman to fight a one-shot villain who also has stretching powers.
- Elastigirl of the Doom Patrol, pre-dating the first The Incredibles 1 movie by nearly forty years, is a stretcher (who admittedly rarely changes shapes) who can also grow and shrink. Her size-changing powers are the only ones she uses in Teen Titans (2003). Later, this power is "upgraded" to full-blown shapeshifting, though she still rarely uses it to its full extent, partly for her discomfort at being a "freak", and partly because she lacks the Required Secondary Powers needed to maintain a cohesive shape without constant concentration (she literally has to reconstruct her Shapeshifter Default Form every morning from the bucket of slop she degenerates into in her sleep).
- A female stretcher is the villainous Madame Rouge (not Rogue!) of the original Brotherhood of Evil. See also, her "daughter" Gemini.
- Rubberduck of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!, a rich actor and Casanova Wannabe who gained superpowers when a Magic Meteor fell in his hot tub. (His civilian name is "Byrd Rentals"; can you guess who he's a parody of?)
- All of the Metal Men can stretch and change shape, but Gold is particularly stretchy and malleable, much like his namesake.
- A large number of Martians in the DC universe seem to have this power, the Martian Manhunter and Miss Martian being two prime examples.
- The Albino, a villain from the WildStorm imprint's Gen¹³.
- Yo-Yo of Suicide Squad discovers his stretching powers after he survives being eaten by King Shark. Prior to being eaten, he could only yo-yo his size from extremely obese to freakishly thin.
- Malleable Man was an associate of Plastic Man's secret identity who gained his powers and became a criminal.
- Kana is a teen superhero based out of Honolulu with stretching powers who took over as "Hero of Hawaii" in Superboy's absence.
- Primer is a young superheroine with a variety of bodypaints, each one giving her a different superpower; the lime green paint makes her body stretchy.
- Plastic Man, originally of Quality Comics, is the Ur-Example. He has the classic jokester personality. Ironically, he started as a serious guy with somewhat silly powers who evolved into a fairly ridiculous character who came up with progressively more bizarre shapes to assume (although even at the end of his first appearance, he commented, "Fighting crime sure is fun!")
- Image Comics:
- Twig (2022): Splat is a mollusc-like creature with six very stretchy tentacles. In issue 3, he turns himself into a parachute so Twig can glide to safety away from the poacher.
- Wildguard: Casting Call featured two: Longfellow, whose catchy name and snappy costume couldn't make up for his dreadful personality, and Snapback, a friendly, energetic guy with something to prove and an overbearing girlfriend. Snapback's previous superteam experience gave him the definite edge and eventually drove him to make the team itself.
- The tendency for this powerset to belong to a goofy character is mentioned by Snapback's bitter Tri-County Power Patrol teammate Sandoval, who tries to dissuade him from entering because "stretchy guys are only ever used for comic relief".
- Alan Moore's Top 10 briefly featured "Dr. Incredible", modeled after Mr. Fantastic. Smax calls him a "blob-job", to which he responds, "I don't gotta put up with that shapeist stuff!" Dr. Incredible, however, is an old washed-up hero who smacks his wife; not a fun-loving guy.
- Big Bang Comics' Protoplasman, who, like all Big Bang heroes, is a pastiche of a Silver Age DC character, in this case Plastic Man.
- Lastic, an Ax-Crazy albino from The Tenth.
- Marvel Universe:
- Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards of the Fantastic Four. This one's not a jokester, but a brilliant (if useless) scientist.
- Although he has been known to goof around with his powers, particularly while playing with his children. And Power Perversion Potential has been, if not shown, heavily implied (hey, whatever it takes to stay Happily Married).
- Two What If? comics gave Sue this power instead of her invisibility and force fields, making for a rare aversion of the "always male" aspect. What If #6 gave all the four different power sets; What If volume 2 #11 used four short stories to give them all the same powers. In the second one Sue was annoyed at her "silly-looking" power. She married Ben and supposedly they never used their powers again (Reed threw himself into his research, while Johnny went on to use his powers as an entertainer). In the first story, however, she loved her powers and was a much more proactive superheroine than the main Marvel counterpart at the time. This Sue also married Ben, since Reed had mutated into a giant brain, which obviously couldn't meet her physical needs.
- Warren Ellis, being Warren Ellis, gave him a plausible if slightly Squicky Bizarre Human Biology in Ultimate Fantastic Four; no internal organs save a pliable aerobic bacterial stack that isn't torn by his stretching. That's right, tropers — he's a human stress ball with a sourdough starter for a heart.
- Val Ventura, a.k.a. Flatman, from the Great Lakes Avengers is one of these. Like his teammates, he's often portrayed comically and is typically seen being tied into knots or twisted into various shapes. He's also almost never seen in his normal, un-flattened state.
- One of Spider-Girl's villains is a Cloudcuckoolander named "Mr. Abnormal", whose name describes his personality. Ironically, he seems to be more creative with his powers than Mr. Fantastic, shaping his limbs into such things as nets, tennis rackets, ramming horns, and elephant's feet. Being that he was actually a pastiche of Plastic Man, this makes perfect sense.
- Morph, of the Exiles, is both this and a more straight-up Voluntary Shapeshifter, depending on what the situation calls for.
- The Super-Skrull, possessing All Your Powers Combined of the Fantastic Four, has this power as well. His versions of each of the Fantastic Four's powers are (usually) weaker than those of the real deal, but he can make up for both by using all of their powers in conjunction and by using them in more lethally brutal ways than the heroes would be willing to. Once he used this and the Thing's super-durability to make paper-thin razor wire of himself. Pretty awesomesauce.
- Xavin from Runaways has the same powers as the Super-Skrull, but can only use them one at a time.
- Angelo Espinosa, a.k.a. Skin from Generation X, possesses approximately six feet of extra skin. He is capable of stretching, deforming, wrapping, expanding, and compressing this extra amount of epidermis like all the other examples on this page, but in much more limited ways; where Mr. Fantastic might be able to reach across or even around a city block, Angelo will strain to reach across a street. In addition, he has very little elasticity, and his bones remain solid and can't be reshaped. He could never turn into a bouncing ball; even if he could reshape himself enough for that, he wouldn't bounce.
- Shape from Supreme Power is an interesting version. Like the original Shape from Squadron Supreme, he's actually Dumb Muscle rather than a fun-loving goofball.
- The late mutant Andrea Margulies, a.k.a. Rubbermaid.
- Marvel's golden age predecessor Timely had the Thin Man even before Plastic Man.
- Serpentina of X-Men 2099 had the ability to extend only her arms — though, as her name implies, they're very powerful and can be used to constrict or crush enemies.
- This is the new Ms. Marvel's (Kamala Khan) most useful ability in battle, together with Size Shifting. In powerset she is close to Plastic Man, meaning that she is a quite versatile Voluntary Shapeshifter.
- Morbius was able to do this to a limited extent when he was infected with the blood of a demon. After he managed to remove the foreign blood, he also lost the ability to stretch.
- Early Timely character Flexo, the Rubber Man, could stretch and change his body. He was also a robot. This would later be retconned into revealing that the concept of him being a robot was a lie: He is actually a Symbiote (yes, those symbiotes) infused with rubber and possessing all the horrifying abilities that come with it.
- Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards of the Fantastic Four. This one's not a jokester, but a brilliant (if useless) scientist.
- Others:
- Rubberman, a villain from Air Fighters Comics, could stretch his body and even deflect bullets.
- Astro City has a child example with Karl Furst, son of Nick and Darcy.
- Ping the Elastic Man: A character from the Anthology Comic The Beano, he first appeared in the comic's first issue back in 1938. His Rubber Man abilities are often Played for Laughs with the character ending up being tied in knots at the end of the strip.
- Dabung Girl is a Social Impact Superhero who gains nano elasticity after being kidnapped by aliens years ago.
- The recurring villain Shapeshifter from Elementals could do this, when she wasn't morphed into a real or imaginary creature's form.
- Rubbernecker, from Adam Warren's Empowered has this; despite his name, he can elongate his neck, his limbs, and his torso, and when he swings his mace-encased fists or mace-helmeted head at someone, can do a great deal of damage.
- The Hack/Slash villain Mortimer Strick is an undead Monster Clown who can stretch and detach his neck and limbs; the manual notes that this is because he was killed by being quartered and decapitated by horses.
- Lastikman, a Filipino superhero from Mars Ravelo, the same creator behind Darna.
- MAD #14 (August 1954), in its parody "Plastic Sam!", deconstructs the stretching hero concept by noting some vulnerabilities here.◊
- Monica's Gang: The sixth issue of Monica's standalone comic from the 70's has Jimmy Five and Smudge encounter a moving family that strangely had its moving truck filled entirely with rubber tires. Suspicious, the boys investigate the family's son, who soon reveals that he can stretch his arm. Subverted in that the elastic arm turned out to be fake. Double Subverted when it's revealed that the rest of his family does have elastic powers, and are now forcing the boy to eat the tires so that he can also have said powers.
- Polly Mer from PS238. Yes, that's her real name. It's implied her father has a really bad sense of humor and her mother is none too fond of it.
- Tangle the Lemur from the Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) comics has a super-elastic Prehensile Tail, allowing her to use it as a slingshot or a tripwire, though there is a limit on how far it can extend.
- The Ten-Seconders: The Scientist is able to bend and extend his body as much as he wants. He's an Expy of Reed Richards, after all.
- Tiramolla, an Italian humor comics character created in 1952 by Roberto Renzi, is a filiform guy with white face and hands and a (filiform) black body, similar to a doodle, wearing only top hat and bow-tie. He can stretch indefinitely, shrink and change shape. His stories can be silly or adventurous. Later he acquired a dog and a grandson with the same powers.
Fan Works
- CSI: Death by Chocolate: Mike Teavee, now an adult, still has side effects from being stretched ten years ago. As such, he can do such things as squeeze through a mail slot in a door and stretch the entire length of the precinct room (though hilarity ensues when he loses his grip). Once he is caught, his potential for slipping free of handcuffs is foiled by simply tying his arms in a square knot through the legs of an interrogation table so Brass can question him.
- The Keys Stand Alone: The Hard World: Tayhil Leaders in have Rubber Man abilities, as John and George find out after freeing one from captivity and removing a device from its body that neutralized its powers. George, himself a more traditional shapeshifter, is pretty gobsmacked watching the creature do things and wonders if he should try turning into one, but decides against it because it's both kind of repulsive to him and it seems sort of redundant to become another shapeshifter.
- Coera from the Kingdom Hearts fic "Re:Flection Scenario" can stretch her arms, legs and neck to impossible lengths because she is a humanoid Farrago, a creature born of heart pieces clustering together to form a new one, and her body is synthetic.
- Turning a New Leaf: Apart from the animalistic qualities, the first aspect of Izuku's quirk that he learns of is elongating his limbs.
- What Insertion?: The spell that the Lord of Nightmares uses to transfer Phibrizzo to a more modern-day world has a difficult time translating "mazoku" in a way that the universe's physical laws can understand. The end result is that his body becomes incredibly resilient and malleable to the extent that he can stretch it in a Luffy-esque manner, something that he eventually incorporates into some of his attacks.
Films — Animation
- Despicable Me 4: When five of the Minions are given super powers, Tim becomes one of these, allowing him to greatly stretch his limbs or squeeze through tiny cracks.
- The Incredibles:
- Helen Parr, aka Elastigirl. The director, Brad Bird, has said in the DVD commentary of The Incredibles 1 that the family's powers are tied to their personality. As a busy mom, Helen Parr is pulled in many directions at once. Throughout the films, Helen is used as a life raft, a parachute, a fire blanket, a giant set of cargo tie-downs, a glider, and more.
- As of Incredibles 2, Jack-Jack can shift into a rubbery substance to absorb physical impacts without being hurt.
- Dave and the rest of the Octopi in Penguins of Madagascar, who stretch and contort themselves in a way very appropriate for boneless cephalopods.
- Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken: The Krakens act like rubber hose people and can stretch their bodies to any means necessary.
Films — Live-Action
- In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Violet after her de-juicing is far more flexible and rubbery than she was before. Since she's a professional athlete, this causes her to view her punishment as Cursed with Awesome (she's still blue-skinned, though).
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: Reed Richards is part of the Illuminati, and after Wanda breaks in, he stretches his arms out to fight her... until she uses his powers to rip them apart like ribbons.
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps: The power of Reed Richards, of course (he's another alternate). Something quite dramatic happens to him when Galactus stretches him as much as possible to see when he will break during the Final Battle.
- Master of the Flying Guillotine has the main character fighting a variety of enemy martial artists, including an Indian yoga expert who can stretch his limbs to unnatural lengths. This guy is apparently the inspiration behind Dhalsim from the Street Fighter games.
- Lash, one of the bullies from Sky High (2005), has this for his power. It comes in handy for tripping people from across the cafeteria or grappling opponents in "Save The Citizen" competitions, but also backfires when Ethan ambushes him in the restroom and literally flushes Lash's head down the toilet.
- Played for Horror in Society with the Shunt, an absolutely Body Horror-filled party where the upper echelons of society twist themselves into Lovecraftian masses of flesh in order to spike the gene pool by consuming the working class.
- In The Specials, rubber superheroes are very common in the Pacific northwest, apparently due to the fluoridation of the water there. Unfortunately, said water is also carcinogenic, meaning rubber-men don't tend to live very long.
- Superhero Movie: Played for Laughs during the scene at the Xavier Institute when a male student stretches his arm to get an upskirt photo of a girl, only her to respond with a stretched-out Groin Attack.
- In X-Men 1, Senator Kelly is given this power when Magneto induces artificial mutation in him. Unfortunately, the side effects cause him to rapidly die by a (literal) Super-Power Meltdown.
Folklore
- Rokurokubi, a yokai from Japanese folklore, humanlike women that can stretch their necks.
- One of the eponymous servants in the fairy tale The Six Servants is a very tall man who can stretch his body out to even greater lengths.
- One traditional Hawaiian tale features a giant (though lazy) hero with the power to stretch his already-giant frame as thin as a palm tree, as bamboo, as a vine, or as a spider's thread. He could stand on Molokai while simultaneously visiting his grandmother on the Big Island.
Literature
- One of the primary abilities of the empowered characters in The Accidental Superheroine is the ability to control their body on a molecular level, allowing them to stretch and shape their flesh as long as they conserve their mass.
- The first League Of Secret Heroes book, Cape, has Stretcher. He's only seen for a short time before he touches a villain and vanishes from doing so.
- Devil's Cape has Kraken, former contortionist, who gains his stretching abilities in the same event that gives most of his carnival troupe their superpowers.
- Gabby Gomez in The Gumazing Gum Girl! becomes this when a power line electrocutes her through a giant gum bubble, letting her stretch, morph, and stick to surfaces. Different flavors of gum add variety to her powers.
- Hero Worship has Kent, who's a lesser version of this. He's pretty liquid by default, only stiffening up overnight and softening throughout the day. He wears different faces by sleeping in a mold. At the end of the book, he gains some additional powers, being able to intentionally turn liquid and then reform at the other side of a door, and to make his finger fit a keyhole to unlock the door.
- Rubber Girl has Katie Elaz getting melted and mixed with a fabric called Elaztixium at her parents' clothing factory to become the titular hero.
- In The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School and The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School, Devlin can elongate her neck and limbs and twist them as if they lack bones.
- Superfolks has a Plastic Man expy called Elastic Man who can change colour as well as shape. He worked as a successful gigolo due to being able to change the size and shape of his penis.
- Toon-Up: Ajay Kumar/Cartoon Boy gains this as one of his superpowers. While being mugged, he accidentally elongates his arm when he punches the mugger.
- Wild Cards :
- Paul "Pretty Paulie" O'Leary has hyperelasticity as his virus-given superpower. The fact that he cannot turn it off and thus needs to use polio crutches to walk causes Paul to be seen as a Joker rather than an Ace. Paul is prone to flirting with women by leaning into the Power Perversion Potential.
- Robin "Rubberband" Ruttiger has described himself as a thin membrane wrapped over hydraulic fluid, which allows him to stretch and morph his shape.
Live-Action TV
- Charmed (1998): Paige attempts to cast a spell on her friend Glen to "stretch his mind" and help him accept that she's a witch. Instead it turns him into this trope.
- The Flash (2014):
- Season 4 introduces Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man. Incidentally, this incarnation is a Composite Character with Plastic Man (see both above in the Comic Books folder) having a personality and powerset more akin to the latter.
- Rag Doll also has this power, but in a very different way to Ralph. While Ralph is stretchy like silly-putty, Rag Doll cracks and twists his limbs as he contorts or squishes parts of himself manually.
- Kamen Rider
- Kamen Rider Double: The title protagonist can stretch his right-side limbs when equipped with the Luna Memory as LunaJoker. The Luna Dopant from The Movie has the same abilities.
- Kamen Rider Wizard can use the Extend spell to achieve this.
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid has various power-up medallions scattered around the show's battlefields. Anyone who picks up the Rubberize powerup gets this ability for a limited time. Ex-Aid's Maximum Mighty X Mini-Mecha can stretch its limbs without needing the powerup.
- Kamen Rider Build eventually gains the ability to supercharge one of his two basic powers at the expense of the other. Doubling up on Rabbit expands its Spring Coil-based jumping abilities into turning all of his limbs into springs.
- Kamen Rider ZEZTZ has this as the ability of his Physicam Transform form, making him able to stretch his limbs down to the individual digits, and reshape them into various weapons and implements.
- Parodied/deconstructed in this MADtv (1995) sketch. The military has indeed created a "super soldier" with "rubberized muscles". The end result is that he lacks rigidity and muscle strength to do much of anything, including standing up.
- Power Rangers Beast Morphers: Betty gains an elastic body from standing too close to the Cybergate, However, this may only be temporary, since Nate says they'll have to find a way to fix it. By the time of the Season 2 premiere, her body is apparently back to normal. Further proof of this is when she's stuck on a pole, and needs to be rescued by firefighters, instead of stretching down to the ground.
- Power Rangers: Dino Thunder: A U.S. exclusive, the Triassic Battlizer grants Conner the ability to stretch his limbs for attacking.
- Smallville: In Season 7, a returning Pete Ross gains temporary stretching powers from Kryptonite-laced chewing gum.
- One of the earliest and most-memorable villains on The X-Files is the liver-hungry mutant (?) Eugene Victor Tooms, from "Squeeze". He uses his unnatural stretching ability to invade victims' homes and escape through tiny openings and is a rare example of this trope played absolutely seriously and for horror.
- Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger: The Beyonsmo Zyudenchi grants its users the ability to stretch.
Music
- Aphex Twin: Rubber Johnny.
Sports
- The Rio 2016 Olympic Mascot Vinicius is able to stretch his limbs to an unlimited amount and has been shown to also twist his body into different shapes in the animated series; Birdo, the company behind the mascot's creation, said that this was representative of "Fortius" or the athletes' ability to climb higher in competition.
Tabletop Games
- Atlas Games' third-party Dungeons & Dragons setting, Planegea, introduces a "half-ooze" PC ancestry. Having survived an all-too-close encounter with a juvenile ooze, such characters have highly-pliable flesh and can stretch their limbs to unnatural lengths.
- Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game: The Plasticity power set contains all manner of metamorphic and stretching abilities, allowing a character to contort their body into the shape of a protective sphere around their allies, a flattened sheet to bounce back attacks, or a coiling spiral to entangle enemies.
Toys
- Stretchable super-hero Stretch Armstrong was a large, gel-filled action figure first introduced by Kenner in 1976 and produced until 1980. New versions have been periodically introduced since the '90s, including one which ties in with the 2017-'18 Netflix-exclusive cartoon Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters.
- Mixels has the Flexers, sea creature-looking Mixels with elasticity powers. They are as smart as they are strong, and love to stretch their intellect as much as their bodies. Some of their abilities include stretching tentacles with whip-like powers, the ability to curl into a ricocheting rubber ball, and heads like rubber mallets.
Video Games
- ARMS is an unconventional fighting game for the Nintendo Switch where many of the characters box by launching oversized, spring-mounted fists at their opponent.
- Helix takes this even further than the other fighters, being a vaguely-humanoid Blob Monster who can contort his body in all sorts of strange ways.
- Billie Bust Up: Barnaby can stretch his body to incredible lengths (though he usually does this with his neck) as well as shapeshift due to his Reality Warper powers.
- Body Blows: Puppet, an extraterrestrial fighter from the planet Miasma, has the longest reach of the fighters in his game series. Though in his case, his ability to stretch his limbs is due to being an Energy Being who inhabits a suit and can temporarily deconstruct it in order to extend his reach.
- Lanky Kong from Donkey Kong 64 is able to stretch his arms out as his basic attack. They stretch out to extreme lengths in the final boss fight against King Krusha K. Rool in order for him to push the buttons from afar.
- The King of Fighters: Vice and Mature both have the Deicide special in the older games, stretching their arms to grab and throw their opponents behind them. As of XIV, this move has become exclusive to Vice.
- The Legend of Spyro: As their limbs are mostly made up of flexible vines, the Stone Sentinel and Arborick can overextend their legs and arms to attack Spyro.
- Mega Man 11 has Bounce Man, who's even called Rubber Man in Japanese. One of his attacks involves punching Mega Man with a stretchy extendable arm, although the rest involve him being a deadly bouncing ball. His weapon, the Bounce Ball, is also the weakness of the electric Robot Master of this batch, Fuse Man, keeping with the whole "rubber cannot conduct electricity" trope.
- Ristar: Ristar can stretch his arms out to great lengths to make up for his lack of a jump not twice his height (as is typical for most platformers). He also uses it to headbutt enemies.
- Sonic Unleashed: Sonic the Werehog is able to stretch his arms out and attack enemies from a distance or grabbing onto poles to swing around. He first finds this out when saving an ice cream cone from spilling onto the floor in Apotos, where he's too far away to do more than a Futile Hand Reach, only for his arm to stretch out the whole way and snag it. He then uses it again to put the cone back in its display holster again without moving from his initial spot.
Web Animation
- DSBT InsaniT: The Rubber Hand Boss can squash and stretch like jelly.
- Lexie The Superfox features the title character, an anthropomorphic fox super heroine with the ability to stretch her body at will.
- RWBY: One of Salem's Grimm-like abilities gives her the power to stretch her arms to grab distant targets. In Volume 8, she stretches her arms from her shoulders to grab a fleeing Emerald and drag her body close to her.
- Zany To The Max: Takko Zarner can stretch his legs to any length necessary.
Webcomics
- In Bob and George, the Yellow Demon can even turn into the floor you're walking on.
- In Captus Cinematic Universe, Super Bloop, the lovable cape-wearing green square, can expand his body at will to gigantic proportions in order to knock villains back.
- The two versions of Majin Buu seen in Dragon Ball Multiverse keep this ability from their appearances in the source material. "Zen Buu" at one point, stretches enough to cover the entire stadium.
- Matt O'Morph from Everyday Heroes. On the one hand, his flexibility makes it hard to hurt him; on the other, it's hard for him to inflict damage on his opponent. Still, he's effective as team leader (because it's important for leaders to be flexible).
- Elastic Man from Evil, Inc. is a fairly straightforward Plastic Man ripoff down to him being the designated comic relief. He seems to be made entirely out of a green gel and cannot change colors.
- Mr. Amorphous from Grrl Power, who once got the back of his head punched out through his mouth, an experience he described as "like when your eyelid gets flipped over" on a larger scale.
- Heroes Unite has two. The Impractical Mr. Imp plays the trope fairly straight as your wisecracking 'fun' stretchy guy, while Azumorph is a more serious quiet achiever.
- Heroine Chic has bit-characters Scot, Alex, and Gabe Flexstein — a trio of superpowered brothers who can all stretch like rubber. They fight crime as "The Flexmen".
- At current count there are at least three individuals in Magellan with this ability — a teacher, a guard and a villain — the latter also demonstrating Power Perversion Potential.
- In addition to being able to shapeshift, Pebble from Pebble and Wren can stretch out his body and limbs.
- Something*Positive has an animal example: the protagonist's cat, Choo-Choo Bear, was born without bones, and thus manipulates its body like a sort of adorable Blob Monster. More than one Crossover storyline has simply involved Choo-Choo Bear slithering down the drain and coming out in another webcomic.
- Subverted in Trixie Slaughteraxe for President with one of Lyndon Painatorium's spells that turns him (and his clothes) elastic: he can't actually stretch himself, he has to be pulled by an outside force. However, the spell also makes him invulnerable to any blunt impact. It also comes in handy when he and his friends escape from the Hopeless Asylum by rappeling down from the window.
- Kaz the Jester in Work Sucks is an anthropomorphic rubber lion. So far he has been shown to squeak when slapped or slapping others.
Web Original
- A small group of people on DeviantArt produce some pictures and stories regarding female stretchers; a group photo can be seen here. Very little of it has material that is NSFW though.
- And here's the sequel to the above group photo.
- The most prolific on DeviantArt are:
- Captain-Paulo (Formerly Kidd-P), Brazilian creator of the elastic Melodia; he draws the pics, and his fans have filled in the blanks.
- TourqeGlare An aspiring writer who is more of a lurker than a contributor. Elastically noted for Pink Lemon, an Emma Daniels fic, and rendering elastic people in Daz Studio.
- Stretch-Ink is possibly the most professional story teller regarding elastic heroes, with two major stories, he has captivated the fandom far better than anyone else has.
- Wunder Chivo is seemingly the main artist of the fandom, and can draw like Stretch-Ink can write. Now has a comic out on Indy Planet.
- KecoMaster is very well known throughout the deviantArt fandom (not to the extent of the 4 above, but enough that he can technically put himself in the Top 5 with them) for his more cartoony focus on the elastic power potential, and has (since 2018) completed a year-long project to draw at least one elastic character from every person he could find who made one on dA! The first two pages are right here.
- Other artists also draw inspiration from them and there are two groups dedicated to these girls and other originals like them.
- Captain-Paulo (Formerly Kidd-P)
- And here's the sequel
- Helen in Twig can disconnect her bones pretty much at will in addition to her Abnormal Limb Rotation Range, allowing her a limited version of this.
- Several characters in the Whateley Universe, including Jody Cooms (Plastic Girl) who has the 'Reed Richards' power set. She's more the friendly, helpful type rather than the fun-loving type. She's cute but not gorgeous and a little overweight, while she lives on a floor with a number of girls who would make Hollywood starlets binge in envy. Jody is Whateley's postergirl for the Mundane Utility of stretching powers, best demonstrated when Ayla Goodkind pays her to repaint his room.
- Harlan "Reach" Sawyer is an especially interesting example: he has the Rubber Man power set, but doesn't have some of the Required Secondary Powers that would let him make really effective use of it; namely, while he can make his arm fifteen feet long, doing so stretches his muscles out so much that he can't do anything with his extra-long arm. Near the beginning of the story, however, a lab accident grants Reach the "exemplar" power set, which, among other things, includes Super-Strength, so she (oh, yeah, that lab accident also turned him into a girl, though not permanently) is now much more effective. Harley is Whateley's poster girl for the Power Perversion Potential of this powerset as it it is explicitly mentioned that he/she can alter the size and shape of any body part for this purpose, something her girlfriend, who has a complimentary mutation involving nanomachines, greatly appreciates.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time:
- Jake the Dog can stretch and shape himself as well as grow or shrink. Notably, he's also displayed the ability to enlarge and reshape his internal organs at will, such as growing his liver to process a deadly poison.
- Princess Bubblegum has a more limited version of this. Because she is made of bubblegum, she can stretch and mold her body to suit her needs, like a change of hairstyle, or replacing a severed arm.
- In the latter year Popeye cinematic cartoons Olive Oyl was occasionally seen stretching her arms, legs and neck to inhuman lengths; in one such instance, while driving a car she was distracted by a storefront's display of hats...where her head remained looking at the window and her body was driving the car, stretching her neck for at least the length of a city block!
- The main character of The Amazing World of Gumball sometimes displays this ability, mostly due to Rule of Funny.
- Three of the villains on Atomic Betty were clones of Betty that were also deliberately similar to three of the Fantastic Four. One of them was a Mr. Fantastic analog and had this ability.
- The 2-D Man of the Terrific Trio in the Batman Beyond episode "Heroes". His powers are nearly identical to that of Fantastic Four's Mr. Fantastic. Unfortunately, the entire Trio is Blessed with Suck, as their powers came at the cost of their decaying genetic structure. Eventually, they go psycho and do a Face–Heel Turn, forcing Batman to kill them. The 2-D Man is sucked into a high-powered fan and chopped into pieces.
- In the [adult swim] pilot Captain Sturdy: The Originals, one of Captain Sturdy's old teammates was a hero with stretching powers named Elastic Man.
- In the Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers episode "It's a Bird, It's Insane, It's Dale!", Dale and a human villain both get temporary stretching powers from an alien meteor.
- The Chocolix: In "A Magical Party", the Chocolix' party has a magician who brings a bunny named Flex with the ability to stretch his body in any way he wants.
- The Darkwing Duck episode "Mutantcy on the Bouncy" featured a rooster with stretching powers known as the Rubber Chicken.
- Drawn Together had Captain Hero's old college friend-with-benefits "Unusually Flexible Girl", who he liked for the obvious reasons. The main plot of the episode revolved around her trying to invoke their Fallback Marriage Pact, however, and his attempt to get out of it.
- Kif of Futurama has a mild form of this. Being an amphibian-like alien with no bones, he can stretch himself to a considerable degree, though this causes apparent discomfort and isn't really treated as a superpower.
- The Garbage Pail Kids (Cartoon) depicts Patty Putty as a young girl with stretching powers.
- Gloop and Gleep from The Herculoids.
- In Jamie's Got Tentacles!, Jamie can stretch out his tentacles, even when he's still in disguise, to make it seem like he is simply stretching his limbs.
- During the Zombie Apocalypse episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes, Jimmy calls out for a hero. A rubber man answers the call... and is defeated in seconds.
- The Johnny Bravo episode "Bootman" has a superhero with stretchy powers named Mr. Elastic appear as the leader of the superhero team the Astounding League of Super-People.
- Kid Cosmic: Fry receives the power to stretch from the pink cosmic stone.
- Buddy a.k.a Stretch-O-Mutt from Krypto the Superdog became this after accidentally falling into a vat of experimental rubber chemicals.
- Rope Man from The Mighty Heroes.
- Mona the Vampire: "Terror in Toon Town" involves a pair of in-universe cartoon characters named Super Stretch and Stretch, Jr, who, as indicated by their names, have stretching powers.
- Mr. Tickle in The Mr. Men Show can stretch his arms to any length in order to tickle someone.
- The Bortronians from Ready Jet Go! can all stretch their bodies. This is one of the things that make them stand out from humans since they are Human Aliens.
- Rolling with the Ronks!: The alien Flash is able to stretch his body, which frequently comes in handy during life-threatening situations.
- Craig, the title snake in Sanjay and Craig.
- In The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror X" Bart gets stretching powers in the segment "Desperately Xeeking Xena" and becomes a superhero called "Stretch Dude".
- The premise of the children show Slim Pig, sort of: the eponymous character is bi-dimensional, like a piece of paper, and can fold himself into any tool necessary.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V", every character receives superpowers and become superheroes, and Patrick became the "Elastic Waistband" and gained the ability to stretch. SpongeBob, on the other hand, has this power throughout the series.
- Stan Lee's Superhero Kindergarten has Patty Putty, whose power is based around silly putty, allowing her to stretch herself and turn into a ball.
- Static Shock has Adam Evans, The Rubberband Man. He's a little too serious and dour for his powers, but he makes good use of them fighting Static himself. Rubber doesn't conduct electricity, you know?
- Spinel from Steven Universe can stretch constantly (contrast with normal gem shapeshifting that has discreet transformations), mainly because she takes most of her inspiration from rubberhose animation.
- Super Duper Bunny League: As revealed later in the first episode, Stumpy can stretch his arms at whatever length he can get. This is what helps him save the other bunnies when they're being held captive by Fuzzleglove's monster.
- SuperThings: Rivals of Kaboom - Kazoom Power:
- One of Multy's abilties, due to having a multitool as her object representation, lets her expand the tools on her head with cables to great lengths. Overexerting these powers to attempt to save her friends is what unlocks her Kazoom Evolution form, which doubles her tools to the same effect.
- One of Trasher's powers, due to having slime as part of his trash can theming abilities, lets him extend his arms to long lengths, enough to turn himself into a slingshot.
- Madam Rouge from Teen Titans (2003) is known to be one of the most dangerous criminals in the Teen Titans world, and can stretch her limbs for entire city blocks, and is resistant to physical harm. She also has Voluntary Shapeshifting powers more generally, to the point of being able to accurately impersonate characters who look and sound nothing like her, but the "Rubber Man" trick is by far the most used in her arsenal.
- The Venture Bros. spoofs Mr. Fantastic with Professor Impossible, the only one of the four Impossibles to have a useful power.
Real Life
- Ehlers–Danlos syndrome is a kind of connective tissue disorder caused in most cases by a genetic defect in the formation of collagen, which leads to increased elasticity in the skin, joints, muscles and whatnot. Whilst that may sound cool, it goes straight into Blessed with Suck territory. Why? Skin and muscles can become more vulnerable and prone to tearing, joints can be very unstable and dislocate easily and, in the worst-case scenario, the arteries and heart valve can also be affected.
- Before birth and the subsequent hardening of the skeleton, a fetus's limbs can bend like rubber to fit into the available space within the uterus.
- Boneless invertebrates like octopodes, earthworms and slugs can stretch, flatten, and contort their entire bodies in the manner of this trope. Octopuses are particularly prominent examples, as the only hard part of their body is their beak; if they can fit that through a gap, the rest of their body can squeeze through. To demonstrate, here's a Giant Pacific octopus - one of the largest octopus species in the world - effortlessly escaping a fishing boat by fitting through a hole used to lower ropes.
