When I last brought you up to speed on Dick Tracy, the Nitrates were leading the police on a high-speed chase, and since then things have progressed more-or-less predictably. The disastrous end was assured, but one small twist was that Sprocket actually drove into a lake on purpose as a form of self-destructive revenge against Silver, who apparently had been hitting her off-screen. Tracy and Sam were right behind and witnessed the car going into the lake.
"Tracy?" asks chief Patton over the wrist wizard. "What's happened to the Nitrates?"
"The drove into the lake, chief." replies Tracy. "The Flattop car broke through the ice and sank like a stone!"
"Is there a chance they survived?"
"We'll need divers and a recovery rig to reach them, chief, but I'd say no. No chance at all."
That said, we'd just seen the Nitrates still alive and talking in the car, so I won't believe it unless I see a body. If they do reappear though it probably won't be soon since the next we see Dick he's heading back to police headquarters to read some comics, specifically a satirical comic clearly based on him called J Straightedge Trustworthy. What is it with comic strip characters reading comics lately?
An interesting thing about this is that J Straightedge Trustworthy is clearly an homage to Fearless Fosdick, which Dick Tracy said was his favourite comic, which means that within the world of Dick Tracy there are actually now two separate comic strips making fun of him. He likes one, but we don't know how he feels about the other yet. Well, I think it's interesting.
Mark Trail, meanwhile, has discovered that Marlin is a poacher and has gone to look for some evidence, but while snooping around Marlin's workshop he was caught by Jessica.
"Jessica, I need to ask Marlin some questions about his business!" saus Mark, utterly failing to explain why he broke into the workshop.
"Maybe I can help you!" says Jessica, suspiciously.
"Jessica, did you knwo that Marlin is involved in poaching?" asks Mark. It's well-known that a criminal can't lie if you just ask them a straight question like that.
"What!?" demands Jessica indignantly. "That's ridiculous ... why would you say something like that?!"
And Peter Parker's vow to hang up the Spider-Man costume for a while lasted about as long as one might expect. He turned on the TV and saw some people in trouble. It's one of my favourite things about Spider-Man that he so often finds out about people in trouble only because of how much television he watches.
In this case he saw some construction workers hanging dangerously from a girder and felt that he couldn't rely on Iron Jonah (or any of the numerous other super heroes in New York) to save them so he had to get out there. Having managed to get both men to safety he was faced with the further problem of keeping the girder from crushing a bus that just drove under it for some reason.
"Spider-Man's swinging into that girder's path!" narrates an onlooker.
"What's he gonna do — try an' catch it?" asks a passing Canadian.
"No!" calls someone else. "He swung right under it — and now he's stuck his webbing to that sculpture!"
"What good'll that do??" asks a fourth bystander.
It's good to see the utter lack of faith the people of New York have in him.
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