I'm not sure what's going on with Tracy in the first panel. It kind of looks like he grew a mustache and donned a lab coat between appearances in the comic, which can only mean that it isn't the Dick Tracy we all know and love, but is in fact, a Tracy from another Universe, but not the same Rick Tracy Universe that briefly appeared in a previous storyline. Therefore, I shall call him Ricardo Tracy, distant relative of Trowa Bartone, Master of the Latin Dance. (Go, Ricardo, go!) But, for continuity's sake, let's assume that the man in panel one is Dick Tracy and that he's still fighting Jack (or trying to pick his nose with the rake, or whatever is happening in panel two) because the important thing is not who he might or might not be, but the fact that Jack may be about to tell him his brilliant plan (or Ace's plan, or whoever is really in charge. I think it might actually be a goldfish. An evil goldfish, but a goldfish nonetheless.). Now, we could hope that Jack is about the divulge every little detail of his brilliant plan, and you can feel free to go on believing that, but me, I'm not going to go expecting to hear anything. After all, Jack played this, "I'll tell you what our plan is," game before, so I'm not going to believe that he'll say anything until he actually starts talking. Turning to panel three, it would appear that my doubts were well founded because with the uttering of "YI!", the battle cry of the defeated (I mean really, how many have uttered this same word only moments before they found themselves engulfed in flames, mauled by demon dogs, or hauled away to the loony bin?), Jack abandons any and all plans to tell Tracy the details of his brilliant, brilliant plan and leaps into action.
Unfortunately, he's not a very good leaper, while Tracy happens to be a very good catcher. Lacking the tumbling abilities of a Romanian gymnast, Jack is unable to stick the landing (or enter that wormhole that would have taken him to the safety of the Ricardo Tracy Universe) and lands with a FLOP on what is probably the remains of the roulette table he fell on at the beginning of this fight. (Quick! Grab the chips while he's unconscious and run to the exchange window before they start closing everything down!) While his ungraceful landing surely hints that the end of this fight is at hand, it also highlights the fact that the condition of the control room window was merely a symptom of a larger problem, and sheds light on why there's hardly anyone in the casino. Obviously, everyone in this organization is so caught up in the money making and cheating that they forgot to hire a cleaning staff and no one wants to break out the Swiffer and do the real dirty work, otherwise, that table wouldn't have been covered in dust (unless Jack has broken into the drug trade and what we're seeing is a lot of potential money about to be sucked up into the ventilation ducts, and if it is, it can't be healthy inhaling all of that. It could also be that Jack is stuffed with sawdust, but between the two, the drug thing seems more likely.). All of this leaves me wondering just how long this storyline is going to last, but I suppose the only way to know for certain is to wait and see. (It shouldn't be too long. Usually Dick Tracy and Mark Trail end their stories at around the same time, so I'm thinking that we've got one more check in with Gertie and B.O. before this case is officially marked as closed and there's another villain in the morgue.)
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