Wednesday, December 18, 2019

The Rocketeer and Dick Tracy



Way before collected editions and trade paperbacks became commonplace, I remember one of my older brothers making a point to cut out the Dick Tracy strips from the newspaper each day and assembling them together in a notebook.  I thought that it was great that I was able to read  a  comic strip like a regular story rather than just a few panels a day.  That and the Super Friends cartoons helped to cement my love for comics and larger than life heroes and villains at a very early age.

Thanks to Brad Brandt for suggesting this pairing - one that I was surprised I hadn't gotten to before!

11 comments:

det_Tobor said...

THAT, Ross, is how the first comic books were formed, by pasting newspaper strips together. History does find ways of repeating itself.

Aside from the movie version, I wonder how many readers have read any of the Dick Tracy strips or have much of an idea of who he is? And has he met Wonder Woman or The Spectre? His lack of belief in them would make it interesting.

Carycomic said...

I remember reading some of the strips back in the mid-1960's. With my favorite character being Junior's wife, Moon Maid. And with my favorite invention being the two-way A/V wristwatches!*



*I think Japan finally invented a real-life version, in the Eighties, called...the Sony Watchman.

emsley wyatt said...

Tracy had a "rogues gallery" that Batman or Flash could envy.

Ken said...

The theme song from "Challenge of the Super Friends" still makes my grin five times wider every time I hear it.

Bob Greenwade said...

Ross, any time you've used either of these two heroes, it's been a treat. Seeing them both together isn't as exciting as I would've expected -- it's hard to get their worlds to mesh quite right -- but it's still pretty dang cool.

Seeing the Rocketeer prompted me to wonder if he'd ever met Doctor Fate in this column, so I checked: he hasn't. They both have that full-face helmet thing going, so it might be fun to capitalize on that. (The Mandalorian, like Boba Fett before him, gets the same effect. Come up with two more and you have another ad-hoc team!)

Another interesting pairing might be The Question set against the Dick Tracy villain known as The Blank. What a pair to have for a face-off! #BadPunNoCookie

@Tobor: Speaking of the movie... I read the strip when I was a kid, right up until the local paper switched it out for something else. During that time there were a couple of appearances by a character known as the Pouch. I determined early on that if there ever was a Dick Tracy movie, I wanted to play the Pouch, even if it was for a brief cameo. I'm still disappointed that that didn't happen (and I could've done that in place of Ratface, the only criminal character invented for the movie).

@Cary: These days, if you want a functioning two-way A/V wristwatch, you can build it yourself for under $100.

@Emsley: Or Spider-Man. I think Tracy's tangled with a few Batman foes on this blog, in fact, most notably in #2497, though there have been a few others. I don't think he's met any of Flash's or Spidey's foes, though...

@Ross: ...and it might be interesting to see Tracy trying to deal with someone like the Lizard or the Chameleon, and using the Spider-Signal to call for help.

Daviticus said...

Not to be confused with the much more badass Tats McRattler! ;)

Bob Greenwade said...

Thoughts this strange don't usually come to me this early in the evening.

Could Wayne & Garth lift Mjolnir?

(Somehow I don't think we'll be finding out on this blog -- but it would be awesome!)

Anonymous said...

@Ross: I have to agree with Bob Greenwade about this one. Maybe if you had teamed up Brian Seacord with Oliver Queen and Matt Murdock (maybe with the three of them after Clayface), you could have entitled it "Revenge of the Rocketeers."

Anonymous said...

I mean, after all, Clayface has only made _one_ appearance in the STF-verse. With no encore even as a member of the Doppel Gang!

Carycomic said...

@Anonymous: you should be fed to McTattler's rats for that one.

filmsandvidgames07@gmail.com said...

jerry seinfeld as rats mctattler

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