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Dick Tracy (the comic strip)

  • Formerly a comic relief bungler, Pat Patton proves himself when he infiltrates the plane carrying noted terrorist Boris Arson and holds Arson and his gang at gun point to force them to land in Chicago where the cops are waiting.
  • Pat Patton's moment was during the Blank story when he managed to capture the Blank, the strip's first really great grotesque villain, and then rescue Tracy from a decompression chamber the right way by depressurizing it slowly before opening the door.
  • At the climax of the story of Dick Tracy facing his greatest enemy, Flattop Jones. Dick is surrounded by the hitman and his goons, about to be murdered. At a count of Flattop's three, Tracy makes an all or nothing lunge at the killer's pistol and begins a blazing fight scene that takes all of that week of comic strips where he outfights the goons, including grabbing their Tommy Gun and mowing them down even while his partner, Pat Patton, leads a police storming of the hideout. Surely, the supreme moment of the strip's history.
  • One of the most badass lines ever, in response to Itchy claiming he has to scratch (using it as an excuse to reach for his concealed gun): "You scratch again and you'll get your finger caught in a .38 hole." Itchy tests Tracy on this. Adios, Itchy.
  • The Summers sisters spend several strips being held prisoner by the Brow, who keeps one sister in a torture device while the other is running errands for him to motivate efficiency. They get an epic The Dog Bites Back moment when they smuggle in a gun, shoot the Brow's accomplices and then put The Brow into his own torture device, head first, before they race to alert the authorities. The Brow does manage to escape and seek revenge, but it's still pretty cool.
  • Tracy defeating the murderous Nazi spy The Brow with his bare hands, and ends up sending him plummeting to his death out a window and impaled on a flagpole flying the American flag.
  • Tracy confronting Big Boy, his first real villain and the man who had Tess's father killed. Big Boy quickly turns out to be a Dirty Coward with no henchmen or guns to back him up, and Tracy beats the holy hell out of him.
  • Then there was the time the murderous Wormy, hiding out as a radio show host, is tricked into admitting to the (accidental) killing of his own wife on the air. Seeing him totally lose his self control was amazing.
  • Policewoman Lizz Marrlin really steals the spotlight in the Rhodent storyline. She volunteers to take the junior McDonald's place at a farm when the kid witnesses a murderer. She proves to be an extraordinarily effective farmhand, receiving praise from her farmer 'boss'. Then a hitman is hired to kill the person she's impersonating, upon which she seizes an opportunity to disarm him when he gestures with a gun, eventually throwing him out a window.
    • She's later interviewed about it by an aggressive talk show host who claims she had help and made up the incident for glory. She proves him wrong by repeating the same move on him when he forces her to take action by grabbing her.
  • In 2014, Dick Tracy solved the cliffhanger of the disappearance of Little Orphan Annie

Dick Tracy (the movie)

  • Tracy, after spying on Big Boy (who has just had rival gangsters who rejected his plan killed in a car bomb), jumps off the roof of the building, slides down a street light and then leaps onto the car driven by the other cops for a clean getaway.
  • The Kid warns Tracy in time of the drive-by shooting and in turn, saves Tracy and Tess' lives.
  • When Tracy is abducted by Flattop and Itchy, the Kid jumps on the back of their car to follow them.
  • Tracy rejects Big Boy's attempted bribe, hurling the bills back into the gangster's face.
    Dick Tracy: And that you are guilty of attempting to bribe an officer of the law!
    [Tracy throws the bills back in Big Boy's face; The Kid, watching from the window, makes a "yes!" motion with his hand.]
  • Tracy selflessly protests that the Kid get away and leave him to die when Tracy has been tied up in the basement of Tess' apartment and the heater is rigged as a time bomb of sorts.
    • The Kid get an even bigger one in that scene when he stays long enough to cut the ropes and free Tracy so they can both get out in time before the explosion.
  • Tracy faking a raid on the Club Ritz to plant a surveillance technician and some bugs in the attic works like a charm and lets him bring down countless mob operations in the following days.
  • Tracy knocks down a dozen men with a single punch.
  • Tracy distracting Pruneface and Influence by hanging his yellow suit for them to see so he can rescue Bug Bailey from the same gruesome fate suffered by Lips Manlis.
    • Capped off by The Blank executing Pruneface from the shadows when the latter attempts to murder Tracy.
  • Tracy coolly guns down Flattop as a massive explosion erupts behind him.
    • Even cooler, the explosion is real; the noise of the tommy gun completely masked the noise of the explosion, allowing Warren Beatty to pull the scene off without flinching.
  • Tracy up and owning Steve the Tramp, the hobo that The Kid was living with, for abusing him, all the way sporting great one-liners.

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