Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 19, 2017

Deadly trouble dealt by a double. Strong hands closed tight her throat

Perenelle did gasp. It was her last. Life force beyond remote.

Am doth travel far and wide. Doppelgangers he deploys

Likes to roam just where he will. Such freedom he enjoys.

Seems a double did cause trouble. Committed a murder most cruel

Tracy works the case his way. Few play him for a fool.

Questions suspects one and all. Rises to floor thirty

Am says he has just arrived, so whose hands are so dirty?

Who did strangle the ancient one? Her life light shone so bright

Thou shall not kill for gain or thrill. To murder just not right.

Imposter Am had better scram. From justice he’d take flight

Into the arms of darkness, embraced by a rain swept night.

“Alley Oop” reference.

So…why did the double say that he had met Perenelle about 5 times, the first being in 1397?

So, Am knows Alley Oop. I think he might have mentioned that before.

Also, he apparently not only has a double. He has more than one double! The search for Double Am is on!

Good morning guys!

✍ Double, double toil and trouble ✍

Such a waste of a way to go for officer Linen !

If Am is immortal, he is going to cut short his immortality with all that smoking. He should have had spent some time with Perenelle to get a private lecture on the good things smoking brings you.

Could Double Am be the person behind Brush that Tracy was so interested to know. I think the answer to that is yes. Double Am knows that there would be that big amount and the schedule of transfer. If that is so, I do not know why Kitchen-Brush still needs the layout/plan from Pouch.

The plot sickens!

So, Am does indeed employ doubles, and Tracy, but not the Spirit, had reasoned to this. Maybe Am needs to vet his doubles more thoroughly, although presumably he should have known that this one was a bad apple.

The Big Bad “Am” may have been desperate to get his meaty hands on the Elixir of Life so that he could live on like the real Am, and when Perenelle refused it him, choked the Unending Life out of her.

The game’s afoot, Spirit!

Uh… The 8 foot giant… has doubles?

Look, I’m good with Mr. Am as a giant God-like being. And Perenelle being immortal, and having a secret serum similar to one Doc Savage had in the 30’s. I’m delighted with the Dragon Lady, the Spirit and Daddy Warbucks all as guest stars.

I’ve really been enjoying this story, and all it’s characters.

Until now.

It’s like a magic act: drumroll, and Tracy reaches into his fedora and pulls out a murderous giant duplicate! Ta daa! Applause, applause.

(Forget Chekov’s gun, this is Zatanna’s rabbit!)

I’m sorry, but Tracy’s deductive leap left me as confused as the Spirit, and what he’s come up with is just too much.

“Why yes,” said Am. “I did just leap over a shark. However did you guess?”

Wow…..The Great Am has DOUBLES standing in for him at times? That’s one from deep left field…..

Since it was Double Am who vouched for Perenelle to begin with (“Yes I know her, and I can assure you, she is immortal”, or words to that effect) maybe this Perenelle was a fake. maybe the whole thing with the so-called immortality serum is one big scam.

The plot thickens… almost as much as the Great Am…

While I never doubted that Spirit was the 5th bidder, I Am willing to admit never suspecting Am has doubles. Process of elimination. Tracy knew the real Am had neither motive nor inclination. Elementary, wounded Spirit. Does the double want what Am has? An imitation coveting what the original possesses? Has he already imbibed the elixir?

Thanks to Neil Wick, Gweedo (nice!), Vista Bill, 22ph, Night-Gaunt49, Sdm, Chris Sherlock, Morrow and JPuzzleWhiz for the kind words. Very much appreciated.

The question is, which Am is the double, the one Tracy and Spirit talked to at the beginning or the one they’re talking to now?

If it’s the former, it suggest Perenelle was a fraud and this whole auction was a scam. But what if it’s the latter?

The thing is, Am is always heavily implied to be none other than God. That implication was brought up just a couple of days ago when Tracy noted that Am “works in mysterious ways”. So even if you’d never read Annie (like I haven’t) or haven’t read Curtis’ Tracy till recently, we’ve still been very recently been reminded of it…and the Am we see here is not behaving in a very “Godlike” manner. In the first place, he’s smoking, which is an awfully Earthly vice for “God” to have (and yes, smoking was regarded as a bit of a vice even during Annie’s heyday of the 1920s-40s when they didn’t know how carcinogenic it was). And he talks here of making “my life safer” which wouldn’t be something “God” would need to do. I’ve only seen Am in Tracy, but I’m pretty sure I’d remember him smoking or talking about his personal safety since that’s so OOC for “God” to say and do. And we only have this Am’s word for it that Am hires doubles of himself.

Perhaps Annie fans could answer this. Has Am ever been seen smoking prior to this or talked of his personal safety, or been known to hire body doubles?

Was this an inside joke on Mike’s part? In the January 1 strip where Tracy and Spirit meet with “Am” (now known to be his double), Spirit thinks “Who is this guy?” Well, now exactly 11 weeks later, we find out the answer: he’s not who the reader thought he was! (Also, someone noted at the time that the through the years, the Spirit has rarely been shown with thought balloons.)

I went over to the “Mr. Was” time-travel storyline in Annie to see if that’s where I heard the reference to “Alley”; it wasn’t, but since his Mr. Was identity has been mentioned here, some people might be interested: go to Annie on 12/16/2006 – it runs about a month. (Also, right after that, Annie ends up in the Depression era, meeting her original “iteration” – drawn in Harold Gray style!)

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one confused by this. I’d have bought the idea of any other character being a double (even Tracy himself) before I can believe Am could scare up anybody as large as he is to serve as a double, much less that he’d need or want one.

I used to read Annie, and I don’t recall anything about a double. Am was a one-of-a-kind of cosmic level abilities who just came and went whenever he wanted, and didn’t feel threatened.

Am’s hands are so big that the marks they’d have left would have been unmistakable. Heck, her neck wasn’t big enough for both his hands.

Maybe Mike should have said it was Am’s evil twin, Am Not!

Sorry, all the talk about the Am Double is cool, but what’s the deal with the big “30” logo in the Roll of Honor? Journalist ending a story? Pretty heavy handed there, IMO.

Jimmy Durante used to say…“Every body wants to get into the act” and in Dick Tracy just about everyone has. What have we got, The Spirit, Annie, and who else? Dick Tracy has stopped being Dick Tracy long ago and is now a mish mash of other strips and long dead characters brought back to life.

I also suspect “The Great Am” was one more white male authority figure who was a complete phone baloney.

That’s “phoney”

If the Ampersonator isn’t an entirely new character (which would be a great departure), then the most plausible suspects in terms of stature, drawing on all the strips involved, would be Acres O’Reilly and Big Stoop, and they pose obvious problems. Perhaps Nah Tay’s unseen brother could be large enough, and trying to steal the formula for Bribery, but that cuts against the formula being a phony.Other loose ends – if the formula is phony. what’s Ramon’s real role? And why didn’t Tracy bother to unmask the Brush?