Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 01, 2021

“Exploitable.” ✨

Good morning™, everybody!

Whoever the Ace is, he seems to have an inside scoop on the Time Drone and he intends to use it.

I’m still pretty sure that the guy who says, “Time travel? Ridiculous!” is not the guy we saw wearing the goggles in Smith’s lab.

And Diet Smith Industries’ security being the way it is, lousy as always, the time drone will be stolen or cloned in this week!

What did I say earlier about criminals getting Smith’s inventions for evil uses…..?

Ace was unmasked yesterday. Is he too shy to show his face?

Go find the old SF story “E is for Effort”

“Think of all the treasures to be found, fortunes to be made and leaders you could control! Even nations”! Seriously? There are some chests filled with treasures buried somewhere? The Time Drone is going to show the moment they were buried along with the location.

Fortunes to made alright…they are going to have spend a fortune just to hire hunters to dig up the treasures. Leaders, they can “control” by bribes or “financial incentives”. Every nation these people think of doing business will hand their hands out. All those palms to grease.

Don’t tell me, Ace of Spades and members of the Apparatus are going up to Nova Scotia to get the drone. Diet Smith Industries got some leaks to plug up. Inside Source must be underpaid and under appreciated.

Story is just getting under way and already I see a moral coming on. The moral is do better background checks on those who work for companies like Diet Smith Industries.

Good morning™, Dark time lords !

Might “goggles guy” be our inside man ?

Let the plundering begin.

Already so many holes in this story and “We’ve only just begun!”

Somebody at Diet Smith Industries leaked the info about the drone, inside job?

Zzz.

I was going to ask “Why is the mask back on when it was off yesterday?” but 22ph beat me to it. So I’ll supply the answer: So the readers won’t recognize him as either a character we’ve already seen or one who will shortly be appearing in the strip as we ponder the identity of the villain.

Heck, just get it in position to read people’s computer passwords!

yup, he’s got evil purposes planned for the time drone.

“What do you got?”

The big guy is a Bon Jovi fan!

Why, people will pay big bucks to know they actually finish that road at Sioux City

1-DENTHEAD: I checked the annals. You’ll be our first RATFACE, Ratface.

DEFINITELY NOT LAB ASSISTANT GUY SMOKING A CALMGAR (patent pending): Awh! Whatta we need Ratface for, Denthead?

2-RATFACE ACE: I’ll tell ya why. I can distract everyone in whatever joint you’re robbing. I guarantee all eyes will be on me!

DENTHEAD: BAAA-LONE-EEE! Nobody in Tracytown pays attention to a guy in a weird costume anymore. Hell, have you not seen what Tracy goes around dressed in?

3-RATFACE ACE: But how often have they seen one thiiiiis long whipped out in public?

BRAINS OF THE OUTFIT: WELCOME ABOARD, RATFACE!

“Time travel, that’s ridiculous.” “But it’s called a TIME DRONE.” “Ok, I’m sold, let’s do it.” Lol

Yesterday Panels #2 and 3 show ace being unhooded , yet today in Panel #2 he is wearing the hood again

Ace of spades?

mAybe they’ll meet Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell along the way

Perhaps, just blue-skying, Wild Ace is Abner and Rikki’s child from the future, who went back and swiped Notting’s card during the smoke and confusion at the theater.

While all Notting did was pistol-whip Rikki, he still inflicted bodily and emotional trauma upon her at a delicate stage.

Of course this means that some character who’s shown up enough in the strip to be known and not immediately mistrusted by The Apparatus has been a time-traveler all along.

Complete, random, just-woke-up guess, but Johnny Adonis has a pretty strong jawline and a past we know little about. Plus, given Kadaver’s face, it’s ironic.

How long will t he identity of our “Mystery Guest” be concealed?Is it Bill Cullen?Allen Ludden?Dorothy Kilgallen?

Seriously,this fellow just walks in past security and announces he’s killed Little Notting,their leader.The normal Organized Crime penalty for that would be immediate execution.

So this must be a REALLY respected old-timer we’ve seen before.

And are there any scientists in the group who actually know how to operate the drone if theyever manage to get hold of it?

Oh-ohh this may be the blast-our for this adventure!!

Why’d they let him put his mask back on?

(Yeah, I know they don’t want to reveal him ahead of time, but they could’ve put him in deep shadow — got lotsa those…)

“Lucrative applications”… ? We all know what that means.

“It’s easy to use, too! You just go to the thing with the date of today’s strip on it, and a calendar pulls down!”

Top Secret? Diet Smith Industries must use “Password” as the password.

IT’S the guy who just got fired from “JEOPARDY”.

He’s got credit card debt and he just has to be boss of SOMETHING.

If you were after buried treasure, wouldn’t you have to know when it was buried, not just where, so you’d know what date to send the time drone back to? & if you already know that information, you already know where the treasure is & don’t need a time drone in the first place. Just saying.

New Ace of Spades has insider info about Smith Industries (is/was he himself an insider?) and is quick to realize how the Time Drone could be exploited for greedy and possibly illegal purposes.

Villainy ensues.