Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 12, 2013

“…Like they just fell off the face of the Earth.” Funny!

Yes, we’re more than ready to hear it!

It better be a good story, Mystas batteries are fully charged.

Tomorrow, clone Brow appears, looking for his “Daddy” Ghote and shoots Diet, before he can tell us… end of arc 9_9

Please, please, PLEASE PLZ don’t cut away tomorrow’s Sunday strip to Abner Kadaver, mmmmm-K? I don’t think I can take the anticipation. Speaking of, they need to re-do that HEINZ catsup/ketchup commercial and use the “ANTICIPATION” song by Carly Simon at the top of this page on constant loop!

I’m beginning to suspect Lizz was taken hostage aboard that Space Coupe for reasons not fit for print in a family newspaper.

Seems Diet really DIDN’T know Ghote and Sail were aboard the Space Coupe when he sent in on an interstellar voyage. Well, if nothing else they get find out things no one else has ever seen.

One thing comes to mind though….you’d think the Space Coupe had SOME kind of a communication system. Did that get locked out with the controls?

The day we’ve been anticipating for more than a year is finally here. Look out Sunday!

“Hmm,” says Diet Smith. “Hmm” indeed!

I don’t know what he’s about to say, but I wanted to share two articles about advances in DNA replacement technology:

From the Daliy MailOverview on Gene Therapy from Wikipedia

If Dr. Ghote did indeed make a breakthrough, he may have been able to take such procedures to their ultimate conclusions. Theoretically, all you would need is a complete map of the desired DNA sequences

Yes, Lizz used to be Chief. Forget why she’s not anymore.

A good weekend to all DT fans, there!Mysta is speaking for ALL of us, I think.Of course Diet doesn’t know there was people on the Coupe. A bit ruthless e may be, but he won’t stoop to murder. He’s one of the good guys!

Moon Maid reminds me of my wife if she was an alien

Please we’re not ready to know yet….first we need a couple new story lines plus it’s been a long time since we knew what Mole has been up to not to mention BJ Plenty. And let’s not forget Stiletta was left in the middle of starting something….

I do hope Diet does actually “tell all” tomorrow, though an interruption again would not be a surprise. We shall see.In regard to what “Moon Maid” could be, given the advanced technological break-throughs of Smith Industries, I would also add to Neil Wick’s links this recent discovery of memory implantation techniques, in an amusing blog-commentary on the original story.

I think Diet’s “Hmm” means he just figured out where they were (are).

Come on now. . . The Space Coupe disappears from the grounds of the Wheaton farm, and so do two guys with shady histories, who have shown an interest in the Space Coupe, that the cops are looking for, and it never occurs to Tracy that maybe there is a connection?

Of course, Tracy may have his suspicions, and he has just not voiced them yet, I guess.

So based on the timing in this story arc so far, we can’t be more than 3 to 4 weeks away from learning the truth about Mysta…

Good morning fellow DT fans…

I really do hope that tomorrow’s strip reveals what we’re waiting to hear regarding MM/Mysta.

Luv It! And while you are at it, Gweedo, someone needs to hide the troll whistle!

Good one! but methinks you may need to open up an industrial sized can.

Ken in Ohio: Truer words were never spoken. But perhaps Jelfring has a point, too; perhaps this is what the narrator was supposed to imply last week..Get rid of the space coupe? When that was your ride to the scene of the crime? What? Were you expecting Tracy to give you a ride back to your office?.And not be suspicious?.You just brought over 50% of the team you were aware of who wanted to steal the space coupe and you expect us to believe you thought it was unoccupied at the precise moment a device known to be stable in a typhoon starts to list a little, so you sent it to oblivion?.Sorry, I’m starting to sound like Raymond Burr (whom I found myself dreaming about last night – scary)!.Back to my thoughts: This is perhaps the weakest link in the story.

Space fever of the sixties was one thing. But this clone-ghola-DNA-RNA-memory implantation stuff is really over-the-top..Maybe that is why, all of a sudden, Mike and Joe decided to scuttle Moon Era version 3.2!

Maybe it’s not headed to deep space. He is just giving them a good scare. Tracy was already suspicious and said he thought Diet was hiding something. Look at Diet’s expression when he says “Good thing no one was in it.”

Jelfring: Yes, and combined with Ray Toler’s observation that Mike and Joe seem to like extra shading on the face when a character is doing something nefarious – this is when I started believing that Diet was lying!.So, maybe Dietrich didn’t intend to kill them. But I remain convinced, narrator or no narrator, he knew the pair of docs was on the ship!.Which is why, right now, I’m not sure I trust what Smith is going to say!

“You’ve always been able to go home, Mysta! Just click your heels together three times, and say…”

way too cool! Now that’s funny and cute at the same time! lol

While it seems likely that Diet Smith will tell Mysta what Ghote told him, Smith is wise to frame the tale as Ghote’s version of the story. We don’t know how honest Ghote was with Smith. We do know that he wanted to sell his “breakthrough” to Smith. We also don’t know how accurate Ghote’s understanding of “the truth” may be. Does Sail know things that Ghote does not? How extensive is the doctors’ knowledge of Lunarian physiology?Mysta is looking good. Nice to see her with friends and family. While I’m sorry that Honeymoon’s work as a junior detective searching for the truth about her mother faded from this story, I suspect we will see her do some sleuthing in a future story. This visit to Smith Industries won’t be the last time we see Mysta and Honeymoon together.

Pleeease, some new villains!!!

What’s a necktie party?

The fact that Diet Smith is addressing Moon Maid as “Mysta” tells me that she’s the real deal. Diet knows what’s going on and if Moon Maid were an imposter I seriously doubt he would address her by her personal name of Mysta.

No I’m not ready yet….

I’m wondering if, instead of a cloning machine, a “resurrecting” machine was built, like the Amazon’s Purple Healing Ray – if there was even a SPARK of life in you, it would jump start it and you would heal back to normal. It would explain all the old villains coming back, too, and why Mysta kept partially covered – those parts just weren’t healed yet.

Neil Wick: And a well-stated opinion, at that! You do make reference to an answer that will be verifiable by other characters in the strip, but there has been at least one spoiler to suggest that Diet is the only one who knows what’s going on. It’s the same spoiler that Ghote was telling the truth when he was talking to Smith (perhaps the only time he ever told the truth)..Nothing against spoilers today, of all days! A simple explanation from DS is probably not going to answer all our questions, anyway!.But I like your theory that perhaps Ghote didn’t understand his part in this story. And I’d like to add that perhaps Smith might not understand everything Ghote told him..Therefore, after tomorrow (and next weeks’?) cutaway for the Abner Halloween story, I’m still not sure we will have the answer!

Jonathon K.: I like your synopsis..Once upon a time, Mysta was a spin-off strip inside Dick Tracy: The spin off was called Sawdust and was allegedly written by Mysta!.Don’t know about anyone else, but I have been dying to see a new installment of Sawdust, if perhaps for no other reason than to prove Mysta’s identity!.Hey, Tarry Plaguer! Your partners in crime reading this?.But seriously, for a moment: Is there a weakness in Dick Tracy being a “strictly crime” series? Isn’t that what Dick Locher was serving us – right up to the bitter – and rat-infested – end?.Now, I came in on the middle of a conversation that I haven’t been able to track down all the pieces of, but I think it was Gweedo Murray and morrow who were talking about how even Dick Locher had lost interest in the strip toward the end..I mean, cops and robbers, day in and day out. Kind of like whack-a-mole. Whack one robber and a new one pops up to take his place. Gotta make the new robber somehow different than the robber you just whacked – different than at least the last dozen robbers you just whacked..All at the same time you have the same cop..I kind of agree with 9ChickLuannbean above, that perhaps Mike and Joe bit off a little more than they could chew with this story and, perhaps, even painted themselves into the corner. (The biggest evidences have to be the last two weeks’ Sunday panels which were clearly not in sync with the dailies!).But I still think we’re better off with Mike and Joe’s reboot of the franchise than what we had before.

Geez, how was I trolling? I was simply saying that we shouldn’t be TOO sure that they will finally give us the answers tomorrow; that they just might throw us another twist, or possibly, Diet might not live to tell us the truth… ps. Gweedo, we’re pals so far as I knew, so, that really hurt my feelings :(

Diet might borrow a page from Agatha Christy and like the inspector, call everyone into the club car and go through the clues one by one, and finger the unsuspecting culprit! And, I personally don’t have a problem with Diet knowing who was on the Coupe; that’s $150,000 a year saved for the state not having to house them and then turn them back out.

Another theory on why the Mike & Joe decided to show Moon Valley in ruins: I actually suspect they plan on keeping Mysta around after the big reveal. The easiest thing to do IF they wanted to ditch Mysta would either her be an impostor (which I don’t believe because Diet Smith knows the truth and calls her Mysta AND jumped into the Space Coupe and went to get her ASAP and wanted to “…set things right”) OR to simply bring Mysta back to Moon Valley to be with her people.

Because Moon Valley was somehow destroyed creates a motivation for Diet Smith to keep Mysta around and to look after her. I suspect Retik & S-Luna are going to be kept on as her caretakers.

What I don’t understand is the rash decision by Diet Smith to destroy the moon tech and the space coupe. Is it REALLY that he fears that getting in the hands of bad guys’gals?

If Mysta is real, wouldn’t Diet Smith feel responsible to keep things functional in the hopes of one day reuniting Mysta with her peeps?

That last theory may very well contradict my first.

Hurry up Sunday! I suspect I’ll be awake til 1AM E.S.T. to read tomorrow’s installment.

This has been a really fun year of Dick Tracy. Many, many, many thanks to Mike & Joe and TO YOU ALL: I have REALLY enjoyed this comments section!!!

Because whenever you post here, it is inevitably to trash the story and the creative team. You’re batting a thousand on that score, ______________________

What you say may be true but 9ChickLuannbean is entitled to his opinion even if you don’t agree. I don’t find his posts overbearing nor do I find him trying to over post his opinion or attack other posters.

I do not agree with ChickLuannbean that the story was a hack job but depending upon what’s to come, I could see why some people believe it to be a bit anticlimactic if all you consider is the Wheaton farm story.

However, if you consider the Melies/Venus angle, the story is not yet concluded.

I think many posters would like nice neat stories that wrap up all loose ends but Mike Curtis does not write that way. He tends to leave loose ends that he ties up in later stories—kind of like real police work where some clues do not come into play until further investigation.

Even so, I don’t believe 9ChickLuannbean was intentionally trolling because he made a comment others do not agree with.

I should clarify that I don’t think MikeyJ is a troll, either. Not at all. Gweedo was being lighthearted when he posted that can of troll spray, I was laughing along with him. My comment wasn’t aimed at MikeyJ, just a general comment that it would nice if all we had to do was post a pic to quiet the trolls. But I apologize to MikeyJ if he thought it was directed at him. It wasn’t.

If you don’t mind a newcomer’s two cents’ worth, I’ve been enjoying the “return” of Moon Maid; the whole lunar thing got me hooked on reading Dick Tracy when I was a kid.

…wasn’t that “an-ti-ci…PAtion”?

Rain and wind. Shots fired, coupe takes off, etc. Wind and rain suddenly gone and we are going to find out about Moon Maid. These last couple of weeks have been complete confused crud. The writers painted themselves into a corner, and this is a lame way out.

They didn’t paint themselves into a corner. It was planned in advance and they knew where they were going. I’m very happy with it. As for the storm ending suddenly, thunderstorms always do that in my experience. They start suddenly and they end suddenly. I think some time passed between the SC becoming unstable and the rounding up of the farm animals. By then the storm was long past.

9Chick is repeatedly referred to as a “he”. Is that true? Not that you have to be a certain gender to be a troll here. And I wouldn’t categorize Mikey or Tim a troll, anyway. Rightwingmoron pretty well summed up the requirements.