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Description
After the big guns of superheroes (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man) the other comic characters I was familiar with growing up were the ones from comic strips. Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang, Heathcliff, Garfield...but the one I knew about when I was younger that I didn't get to read much of til I was closer to adulthood were the adventures of Dick Tracy.

I was about 3 soon to be 4 when the 1990 movie starring Warren Beatty as Tracy came out. When they say "looking back with rose-colored lenses" on things, this is one of them, as I remember genuinely loving the film with his bright colors and comic book style trappings. Especially the famous "Sooner or Later" montage where Tracy breaks up most of Big Boy Caprice's criminal empire while Madonna (as femme fatale Breathless Mahoney) sings one of the more underrated songs in the film. Maybe because it came out just a year after Tim Burton's first Batman film that I loved it (the film has some similarities in both plot and tone to Batman) but I never noticed a lot of the shortcomings that were only obvious in later years with later viewings (massive plot holes fixed by gorgeous gun battles; the static camera that is seemingly a Beatty trademark whenever he's directing). The toyline "Dick Tracy: Coppers and Gangsters" that Playmates (they of TMNT fame) produced helped keep a lot of interest for me growing up with the property but because the strip was never added to my neck of the woods I was never quite involved in Tracy's on-going adventures as much as I'd have liked.

Perhaps because the character's heyday was largely from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s, Dick Tracy's profile has slid in more recent years. The average box office pull of the 1990 movie (and a lack of a sequel in the quarter century since) has probably cooled much of the interest in trumpeting out merchandise for the character, but Shocker Toys did produce two black and white Dick Tracy figures as exclusives for the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con. One in his regular black suit with a hat, and the other in his classic trenchcoat look presented here. Part of their Indie Spotlight line of Comic Book Heroes (designed, as the name says, to spotlight characters outside of DC and Marvel's sphere of influence) both are excellent well put together figures that stack up with most of the super-articulated designs from Mattel and Hasbro, holders of the DC and Marvel master licenses. Both evoke a look straight out of the 1940s film noir, when the women were just as dangerous as the men, violence lurked around every corner, and there be a lone hero in a fedora hat trying to protect the innocent.

Description
After the big guns of superheroes (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man) the other comic characters I was familiar with growing up were the ones from comic strips. Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang, Heathcliff, Garfield...but the one I knew about when I was younger that I didn't get to read much of til I was closer to adulthood were the adventures of Dick Tracy.

I was about 3 soon to be 4 when the 1990 movie starring Warren Beatty as Tracy came out. When they say "looking back with rose-colored lenses" on things, this is one of them, as I remember genuinely loving the film with his bright colors and comic book style trappings. Especially the famous "Sooner or Later" montage where Tracy breaks up most of Big Boy Caprice's criminal empire while Madonna (as femme fatale Breathless Mahoney) sings one of the more underrated songs in the film. Maybe because it came out just a year after Tim Burton's first Batman film that I loved it (the film has some similarities in both plot and tone to Batman) but I never noticed a lot of the shortcomings that were only obvious in later years with later viewings (massive plot holes fixed by gorgeous gun battles; the static camera that is seemingly a Beatty trademark whenever he's directing). The toyline "Dick Tracy: Coppers and Gangsters" that Playmates (they of TMNT fame) produced helped keep a lot of interest for me growing up with the property but because the strip was never added to my neck of the woods I was never quite involved in Tracy's on-going adventures as much as I'd have liked.

Perhaps because the character's heyday was largely from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s, Dick Tracy's profile has slid in more recent years. The average box office pull of the 1990 movie (and a lack of a sequel in the quarter century since) has probably cooled much of the interest in trumpeting out merchandise for the character, but Shocker Toys did produce two black and white Dick Tracy figures as exclusives for the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con. One in his regular black suit with a hat, and the other in his classic trenchcoat look presented here. Part of their Indie Spotlight line of Comic Book Heroes (designed, as the name says, to spotlight characters outside of DC and Marvel's sphere of influence) both are excellent well put together figures that stack up with most of the super-articulated designs from Mattel and Hasbro, holders of the DC and Marvel master licenses. Both evoke a look straight out of the 1940s film noir, when the women were just as dangerous as the men, violence lurked around every corner, and there be a lone hero in a fedora hat trying to protect the innocent.