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ellana-ravenwood · 7 years ago

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A belated Halloween - Batsis (reader) x Batfam

Prompt 8 : Came to investigate someone screaming next door.

Well, here it is, 25 days late, a story for Halloween haha. Hum. Yeah. Anyway, some Batsis stuffs because I’ve had requests to have more of her around here :-). So...Yay for some siblings bonding around a horror film and acting like they’re not scared ! Boom, hope you’ll like it :

You can find my masterlist here : @ella-ravenwood-archives

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Your father is the first one that noticed, on the 25th of november, that this year, it didn’t happen...and the fact that none of you realized it broke his heart.

He had to do something about it.

As far as he could remember, it’s the first time, since this little tradition of yours started, that you guys skipped it ! Without even knowing !

Yes, he had to do something about it. Because in a way, it was his fault.

************

It all started when you were six. Dick was about fourteen, Jason eleven, and Tim nine. Damian wasn’t around yet.

It was a complete accident really.

Halloween was always the busiest night for Batman.

It seemed that all the freaks in Gotham came out at that time of the year.

It was so bad, that more often than not, and though it killed him to do so, the great Batman would have to ask Superman or Wonder Woman for help.

Sometimes both.

Halloween was always the busiest night for Batman and...He always forbid any of his children to go out with him on that day.

Dick and Jason were already accomplished Robins by that time, and Tim was almost ready. You were too young for your father to let you out at all, too young to be a vigilante yet (your dad thought he should give you a few more years, your mom, Catwoman, thought so too...at least to fight off crime, because she already took you on a few...hum, “robberies”. Needless to say, your father didn't know. You and your mom were great at keeping secrets).

So each Halloween, you and your brothers would stay at home (no kids could trick or treat in Gotham...) and would just eat tons of candies previously bought by Alfred. Your beloved butler, that you came to see as your grandfather, would hide candies all around the mansion to give you a semblance of actual Halloween, and it would always be so fun !

But this year, fate had decided otherwise.

The year you were six, Halloween was a particularly rough night for Gotham, and Alfred was too busy helping your father by monitoring the Batcomputer to really take care of you guys, to keep an eye on what was going on.

Fortunately, he trusted Dick and Jason, who were rather mature boys, to take care of you and Tim. Besides, he tested both of them before, to make sure they were ready to take care of their younger siblings. They were responsible and mature enough for it. And you and Tim were calm and behaved children anyway.

Alfred trusted Dick especially and, oh it was a mistake...Because contrary to popular belief, contrary to what your father and Al’ thought, the “horror movie night” was your oldest brother’s idea, not Jason’s.

It was around 9pm, you guys had found all the candies already, and it was suppose to be yours and Tim’s bedtime (in the Wayne household, when you reach the age of ten, you can stay up a bit longer).

But Dick, being the best brother in the World, just couldn’t tell you guys to go to bed while there was still so much you could all do !

Well of course right now, you guys were all in the living room, splayed on couches and armchairs, not really knowing what to do with yourselves.

Tim proposed to play video games, but that was ruled out by Jason who pointed out it always ended up in all of you being way too excited, which would lead to you guys misbehaving and such, and Alfred was counting on him and Dick to make sure such things wouldn’t happen. Tim pouted for a few minutes but he got over it pretty fast because...yeah, fair point.

You wanted to play hide and seek but...knowing both your father and Alfred weren’t in the actual house freaked you out too much (what if there were monsters ?! BIG ONES ?!), and you vetoed that out yourself (making your brothers chuckle in the process).

Jason had a lot of ideas of things to do, but all of them involved something that would probably get you in trouble and...Well, that night, Jason discovered something about himself : he kinda liked danger and doing things he wasn’t suppose to do. But with his younger siblings around ? No way Jose.

And that’s when the idea came to Dick’s mind.

He recalled watching TV, the night before, in his room (which was strictly forbidden but hey, who was going to enforce that rule really ?), and seeing an add for a “special Halloween movie night”.

This is when it happened.

The year you were six. One of the roughest night your father ever had.

This is when the “horror movie night” tradition started.

Of course your father and Alfred weren’t really happy when they realized that you guys watched movies you weren’t suppose to but...They didn’t have the heart to stop you from doing it, because it was just so damn cute how, the morning after Halloween, they often found you all cuddled up in the same bed, because you were too scared to sleep alone (though none of you would admit that you were actually scared).

When Damian arrived, he simply joined in, and oh your father’s bed was so crammed every Halloween night, even now, while Dick was in his early twenties and you all were old enough not to be scared anymore...

Yes. It all started on the year you were six, on Halloween night. On the roughest night your father ever had...and oh, it was a perfect timing.

That night, you got forever traumatized of dolls (your father had to remove any dolls you had in your bedroom the next day...oh he could just recall your tiny body hiding behind him while he was carefully removing all of them, and oh cute you were, clutching his leg and telling him to be careful because they were “vicious creatures”) because of a certain movie called “Child’s Play”, and had a nightmare...which made you run across the corridor directly to your dad’s bedroom, very early in the morning, as he was just crashing down on it.

Bruce Wayne was battered and bruised, and had a terrible night and...comforting his sweet daughter with cuddles and soothing kisses was the perfect way to cheer him up.

That morning, after one of the roughest night of his life (right behind the one when he lost his parents...), Bruce Wayne couldn’t stop smiling, feeling his sons all gathered around him, and you safe and warm, holding him tight in your arms, asleep on his chest.

Maybe “horror movie night” wasn’t such a bad thing...

************

On the contrary. Through the years (almost fifteen now), “horror movie night at the Manor” became a great night of bonding for the Wayne siblings.

Damian arrived in you guys’ life a few months before Halloween, years ago, and it’s only on that “fateful” night, gathered around a horror film, that you all finally managed to crack his shell, and that he truly became a part of the family.

That for the first time, he really did consider you guys his family, and oh he would die for you all !

Yes. That night was important, it was a time where you could all relax and...but that was a lie. Halloween started to become less and less that night of “eating too many candies and scaring your younger sibling”, and more and more...”stress”.

Your father felt guilty that you forgot about this tradition this year...By now, all of you guys would go out to help him on Halloween night, but you’d always come back to watch a film, no matter how tired you all were !

But this year’s Halloween resembled the one that happened when you were six. A particularly rough one.

And your father felt guilty.

Because the reason his children, didn’t even notice that this year, they didn’t watch a horror film all together on Halloween night, was because they helped him more than usually.

Was because you were worried about him.

Truthfully, he wasn’t getting any younger and nowadays, you and your brothers would be out with him every nights, watching his back at all time.

And there was no way that on the worst night in Gotham you’d leave him go out alone...You couldn’t loose your father ! This time however, you all got beaten up pretty badly, and skipped the movie and oh Bruce couldn’t let that pass !

He was going to make things right. He had to.

************

Needless to say that, at first, you were all rather confused.

Off patrol ? All of you at the same time ?

Usually, only one or two (max) of you would stay home (rarely happened anyway). If you guys needed time off or if you were injured and needed to rest, the others would still be up and...why was your father telling all of you to stay home ? This was so weird.

It’s only when he silently entered the living room, where you and your brothers were all sitting on the biggest couch (big enough for the five of you to sit comfortably), that you understood what he was doing.

And oh it was such a relief !

For a few minutes, all of you were trying to remember what you might have done to make him take such a decision. If you did anything wrong and such...But no. No you didn’t. On the contrary, you were all starting to take yourselves too seriously, and the last thing Bruce Wayne wanted for his children, was for them to be too much like him.

But when you all saw that he had in his hands a few horror film he knew you never watched, and you all smiled widely and had trouble hiding your excitement...he knew that he didn’t have to worry about you turning into him (he often worried about that, especially when it concerned you and Damian, as you guys looked like him quite a bit, and unfortunately got some of his personality traits...But you were also both fiercely independents ! Selina never understood why your dad was always so worried about you being like him, because she loved the fact that you were also quite like her, never letting anyone walk on her feet and such ! But...well, Selina was Selina, your mom was a special one).

************

“The Grudge” won the vote.

The Japanese version, not the american one with Buffy (it always made your brothers laugh, how you could remember incredible details, including almost every line of dialogue in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but could never remember Sarah Michelle Gellar’s name and always called her by the character that made her famous : “Buffy Summers”).

It was an absolutely terrifying movie and not even ten minutes in you were already clutching your closest brother...who just happened to be Damian.

The boy didn’t seem to mind at all though. Because it gave him an excuse to hide his face in your arms whenever he got too scared !

It’s funny, really, how the children of one of the most feared man in the World, how Batman’s kids, were always so scared of horror films.

You blamed your vivid imaginations and the fact that you knew this things in horror films could happen in real life...You all saw so much shit already, that really, nothing surprised you. And yet, you were still terrified.

Maybe it was because, unlike most people who thought monsters and such things didn’t exist, you knew better ? Because for real, what happened in some of those horror films could and did happen in real life ?

Your father taught all of you to use your fear to your advantage, and in a fight, you could all easily do it...But here ? In the comfort of your own home ? Not as alert as you would be ? Oh you could just let go ! No more control over your emotions, and if you let out a scream at a particularly good jump scare ? Then so be it !

There was no competition on those nights. It wasn’t about who would not be scared or whatever. It was about enjoying a moment all together, knowing that if anything was really to happen, you could count on your siblings to be right there with you.

On those night, when it was just you guys, you could let go of that “I’m fearless” persona you put on most of your lives. Because it was just you. You knew each other well enough to know how to read each others. And you wouldn’t judge. Nope. So you could be scared.

************

Half an hour in the movie, and that was it. Your favorite moment of the year.

You always started all sitting on your own little spot on the couch, the middle being empty (that was your dad’s spot)...but as the movies would get scarier and scarier, you’d all instinctly reach for that empty spot, where your father was suppose to be, to just all meet in the middle and start to just...hold each other.

That night, on the 25th of November (but let’s just act as if it was a regular Halloween night), you were all quite tired, and this enhanced the way you would get scared.

All it took was Damian screaming a bit loudly at one small jump scare to make the rest of you squeal and reach for each others.

All it took was a fraction of a second in the movie, and boom, you were all sitting wrapped in a blanket, cuddled against each others.

Jason was in the middle that year, and in a way, it was perfect, as he was the tallest one out of all of you. You were on his right side, with Damian in your arms, while Tim was on his left side, Dick’s head on his shoulder.

A bundle of scaredy bats.

Happy scared ones as well...somehow, you all loved being scared and...

-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH !!!!!!!!

A screeching and piercing screams resonate in the entire Manor and you all jump, startled. Not a sound escape your mouths though, as right now, you feel genuine fear.

This is your home. Your comfort zone. Nothing is actually suppose to happen to you in here and eat...Where the Hell did that screech came from ? Who was it ? Or...Who was it ?

Suddenly, Dick regrets all of the jokes he ever made about ghosts roaming Wayne Manor, trying to scare his younger siblings because...what if ?

You’re the first one to react :

-The Hell was that ?

Your voice startles your brothers a bit more and, instinctively, you all clutch to each other even tighter. But...you know you got to move because...

-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaarghlllh !

A gurgle ! It ended in a weird and terrifying gurgle ! JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIE YOU WERE WATCHING !!

Panic surged by itself in your hearts, even though it was unreasonable and even though it went completely against everything your father ever taught you.

The fact was, that you were all in a state of “on edge”, as you’d call it. You all let your guards down, ready to be scared by a movie, so an actual real life sound ?

It was terrifying. Especially on Halloween night ! (Though it was actually November 25th).

As a whole, not letting go of anyone, you all stood up, and turned toward the sound. The lights were off, and the way the darkness mixed with the faint light from the TV was absolutely nerve wracking.

Suddenly, you all became very paranoid about what was behind you and you instictivly formed a circle so you could see everywhere...Without uttering a word, you all moved to the light to turn it on and held your breaths...

The room was empty. Reluctantly, you guys let go of each others...Dick starts :

-So, you guys heard it too then ?

-No Dick, we didn’t, that’s why we’re all totally freaked out right now !

Tim rolls his eyes at his brother, and this earns him a small tap behind his head by Jason. The Red Hood says :

-Yeah, like smart ass over there pointed out, we definitely heard. Should we...

-If you say “investigate”, I swear I’m going to punch you in the face Jason !

-Come on (Y/N) ! We got to ! Someone might need our help !

-Or it could be a ghost or a serial killer waiting for us to...Oh don’t make that face at me.

If Jason was in a horror film, he would be the one that almost survives at the end. The one that is the most helpful since the beginning and that takes the least terrible decision. But also the one that would die because he wanted to save someone, and in the process, get everyone else killed because he was just too damn good at convincing them to go !

-Hey, guys, it’s us ! We once fought against armies of monsters on Apokolips ! What could be worst than that ?

-...Fighting an army of monsters in our own house ?

-You’re not being very helpful (Y/N).

-Sorry, I’m just a little freaked out like, what was that ?!

-We’ll know only if we go investigate.

-Ooooor, we take one of dad’s car and leave the Manor for the night...

-And leave him and Alfred alone to face whatever made that sound ?

In retrospect, you’d all think about this episode and wonder : “...Why were we all so damn dumb ? Why were we acting like horror film characters ?”.

Your father would tell you that you needed to cut yourselves some slack, to take it easy. It was alright, sometimes, some situations just...felt different.

Like tonight. After a terrifying horror film, you guys letting your guards down and letting your “weakness” surface to enjoy the moment, a screeching sound was enough to freak you all out and to make you act a bit stupid.

In retrospect, you’d all think about this moment and wonder : “...Why did I actually think there was a damn ghost in my house ?”

In retrospect only. When you guys would all be calmed down and not “on edge” mode. When you guys would be chiller.

When the situation would be over, and you could actually review it...Force was to admit that, when you were living something, it was different later on, when your mind was calmer.

************

Another screech sounded all around the Manor and that was it. You knew you guys had to go check it out...

You took hold of a lamp, Damian of a very heavy book, Tim of his laptop, Jason raised his own fist and Dick grabbed a broom left in the corner.

Again, it was quite idiotic really. You guys were all highly trained warriors, and had tons of weapons hidden around the house. Actual weapons. Like Tim’s baton, or Dick’s sticks...But in the moment, right now, with your minds clouded by fatigue and fear, a lamp, a heavy book, a laptop, fists and a broom seemed like the perfect weapons against whatever entity was haunting your house.

-Ok, let’s stick together then.

Tim and Damian were walking backward to make sure nothing would creep on you, while you and your eldest brothers were looking straight ahead, walking in a line.

As you were walking through your dark house (seriously, why none of you pushed any button to turn the lights on !?), you all grew more scared each seconds, starting to imagine what was there.

Maybe very much like in the movie, it was a ghost jealous that you were living, that was after your soul ? But you all liked your souls very much ! You wanted to keep it !

************

Here. It came from here.

You went through the entire mansion before being able to properly localize the source of the screech. And you had time to hear it about four more times.

It definitely came from behind that door.

The attic door. But of course.

It was quite crazy, really, how all of you guys managed to completely forget about any training you received in your life. About how suddenly, you weren’t the kids of the mighty Batman, but some random horror movie teens being terrified by a random entity !

But you were all humans. Sometimes, you did things you couldn’t quite explain yourselves. Later on, with your brain calm and your body well rested...Later on you wouldn’t even be able to understand what when through all of you guys’ mind ! But it was a common thing, and your father would reassure you.

Yes. You were only humans.

And boom here goes yet another freaky shriek from behind THAT door.

Jason and Dick approach it. They’re the oldest, if something is to grab them and steal their souls, they’d rather be the first one to go. They couldn’t bear the thought of loosing any of you, they couldn’t live with the thought of them being surviving all this and you...oh but what the hell were they even thinking ?

They went to open the door, ready to sacrifice themselves for you and...before they could reach the doorknob, the door opened by itself, and...It was just dark and scary in there.

-Turn on the goddamn light for Heaven’s sake !

Damian’s voice makes all of you jump and automatically, you reach for the nearest light and...it doesn’t turn on. It doesn’t !

Your brothers realize that after you frantically click the button.

You squeezed together a bit more and Jason and Dick almost ran back to you guys, wrapping themselves around you, and looking at the darkness from the attic door...the screech sounded again, but this time low and..Menacing ?

You took your phone and turned on the flashlight, your brothers imitated you, and you all turned your lights toward the attic.

This was the moment, in horror films, where the heroes would fight back and...most likely die. So it’s with not-so-sure footstep that, once again, you all walk forward toward the dark, pointing your lights in every direction.

Going through the door is harder than it should be, as you guys all tried to go through at the same time...but you still manage to go in, almost falling on the floor, but catching each others up, as you always do.

The room seems empty and you...All Hell suddenly breaks loose.

Your phones turn off and you’re in the dark again, instinctively forming a circle, backs against backs, so you can “see” all around.

Lightning illuminate the room and...lightning ? But it’s snowing outside, not raining and there’s definitely no thunderstorm around !

The screech surrounds you. It’s everywhere. And it’s definitely not natural and...Tim. Tim screams and you all turn as one as you grab him before he gets grab.

It was so close...But the thing comes back and you all jump out of its way, scared to death. You whip your weapons around but don’t seem to touch the thing...it’s definitely something supernatural !

The lightning lights the room once more and you can almost see it. It’s like something out of one of your nightmare...dark, tall, the face of something that would be Dracula’s and Big Foot’s kid, and it goes around so fast !

It comes back, and you and your brothers take a few steps back instinctively, to save your damn life, making sure all of you are out of reach.

Damian trips and falls on his ass, and the little sounds he makes, as he doesn’t quite hurt himself but still, makes you see red. No one, NO ONE hurts your brother ! You turn around and when you “feel” the thing coming back, you hit it with all your might with the lamp and...

-Outch !

...Outch ? And, wait...that was an “ouch” you could recognize easily...

-...Dad ?

Suddenly, the lights turn on and blind you and your brothers.

And surely enough, your father is there, on the floor, holding his...oh, let’s just say you aimed perfectly with the lamps. Right between the thighs.

Alfred is in the corner of the room, with a remote in his hands and...You’re all so confused.

You blink like idiots for a while, and it’s only your beloved butler’s laugh that brings you back to reality. It’s only when Alfred full on burst out laughing that you finally realize what’s going on.

A prank.

A stupid prank.

-Oh my children you should see your faces ! Iconic ! You all look so dumbfounded and hahahahahaha.

It’s probably the first time you hear Alfred let go that much, that you hear him laugh so loudly...Come to think of it, it was probably one of the few times you heard your father say “ouch” as well.

************

And here you all are once again, in the living room, with your father at his rightful place, in the middle of the couch.

He has a bag of ice resting on in between his thighs, but he can’t help but smile. Because oh you guys are still a bit out of it, and it’s so good to see his kids, that are usually such damn “smart asses”, being just...not really understanding what’s going on.

And so he starts to tell the story.

-It’s something I always kinda wanted to do really. But I...Well, I never got to, because you all know how Halloween nights are. But I’ve had that in my mind for years. It was to teach you a lesson, because needless to say, I wasn’t very happy about you guys watching horror films. However if I’m being honest...I always kinda wanted to do it because I thought it would be hilarious. And oh I was right !

Your father, just like Alfred, goes again in a fit of laughter (last time, when you all were still in the attic, he couldn’t quite laugh...your aim was really good).

Tim scoffs and says :

-So...All of this was just a...Very elaborate joke to scare us ?

-Yes ! Hahahahahaha.

Damian narrows his eyes at his father and takes the lamp that you still held in your hands and...Your dad stops laughing instantly and puts his hands protectively on his crotch, while Dick and Jason are snickering and you...you have the brightest smile ever.

Your dad looks at you, and tries to ignore his heart melting at seeing you smile in such a way...It has been so long, since he saw you like that. You all were so damn stressed and serious nowadays...he missed his little munchkins who were just smiling and laughing all the time.

He missed seeing your smile, the one that always soothed him, the one that has been around ever since you were a baby...He gives you a questioning look and you say :

-Since how long have you been planning this ?

Your dad gives that trademark half-smile of his and answers :

-More years than I dare to admit...

-So all those years, you’ve been wanting to scare us on Halloween night but you couldn’t because you were too busy right ?

-Yes.

You smile even more, and goes to sit next to your dad, hugging him tightly.

-This is definitely the best Halloween I’ve ever had.

It takes a few minutes for all your dumb family to catch your drift. But eventually, they understand...

You got to spend quality times with your brothers, talking, laughing, and cuddling with them. You got confirmation that any of them would die for you, and you would do the same. That you all got each others’ back at all time. You ate too much candies, drunk too much tea (but was there ever too much ?). You made the usually so calm and collected Alfred laugh his ass off.

And above all, above all...Your father took a night off just to plan a somewhat elaborate jokes to scare his adult children. He created a machine to that would turn your phones off so you’d end up in the dark, connected said machine to the house lights so the dark thing would be sure, he put on a ridiculous costumes (which, by the way, in the light, didn’t look scary at all anymore), he made stupid screaming sounds, he put lights outside the house to act as lightnings...

Your father, your stoic and “I have a duty always all nights” father, took a night off just for that and...really, it meant everything in the World.

You and your brothers were more important than anything else for him. Sometimes, you’d doubt that, because of course he loves you but he would always be so busy and focus ! But no.

You were more important.

The great Batman took an entire night off of his night duties just to scare his children (who weren’t even children anymore, except for Damian, who just turned fourteen).

The great Batman...Who was now suffocating under his sons jumping on him (they were never too old to cuddle right ?) and trying to annoy him.

Alfred looked at the scene fondly, and as your eyes met his, you thought you saw a tear run down his face.

Yes. This was definitely the best Halloween ever. Even though it was technically November 25th...

________________________________

Definitely feel very insecure about this one. Cause like, I made you guys wait and...uh. Meh. I wrote it while very VERY tired and a bit drunk (after coming home from a Halloween party) and had to change parts cause obviously I wrote this on October 31st while we’re not almost at the end of November, and yeah ok it’s shit.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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What Dick Tracy 2 Would Have Been

https://ift.tt/3f87Djm

The character of Dick Tracy has been around since 1931, appearing daily in newspaper comic strips almost continuously since his debut, and achieving a level of popularity during his heyday that few other characters could aspire to. In just his first 20 years of existence, there were four Dick Tracy movie serials, four feature films, a TV series, and countless items of merchandise.

But many modern fans know the character best thanks to his portrayal by Warren Beatty in 1990’s big budget summer blockbuster movie. That film attempted to kick off a wave of Tracymania unseen since the 1940s. It never quite took hold.

Despite being one of the highest grossing movies of 1990, and garnering a slew of Oscar nominations, Dick Tracy was a victim of expectations. The film that had once been envisioned as a gritty ode to 1930s gangster movies became a giant blockbuster with a merchandising bonanza meant to rival the previous summer’s Batman. Despite that onslaught of publicity, the movie didn’t instill enough faith in Disney executives to move forward with a franchise.

But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t plans for a sequel at one point. Dick Tracy screenwriters Jack Epps, Jr. and Jim Cash did have ideas for what Dick Tracy 2 could have been. While no script was written, Epps had some ideas, and he recently told us all about them.

“I met with Warren,” Epps says. “I had an idea of of how to do Dick Tracy 2, which was a big jump in time like the strip. What [Dick Tracy creator] Chester Gould did as you read through it, he has big jumps in time and he mirrors the culture, he deals with the war, he deals with the ‘50s, he deals with the ‘60s.”

The sequel would have seen a roughly ten year jump in time, featured an older Junior, and put Tracy in the midst of World War II.

“The sequel [would have been] something around munitions and war secrets,” Epps says “I probably would have gone to factories, because I was always amazed at how America turned into this armament industry. We had no weapons manufacturers before the war began, and by the end, we were a juggernaut, turning out planes in two, three days and things like that.”

To be clear, there were no plans to put Warren Beatty in uniform and send Tracy overseas to join the war effort on the frontlines. Dick Tracy 2 would have been strictly a domestic wartime affair.

“We probably would have dealt with some of that imagery of [manufacturing] plants, the size of [the war effort], and airplanes,” he says. “Not going over to Europe or anything like that, but trying to do it at home, more spy and espionage.”

Unfortunately, the villain who would have best fit the bill for Dick Tracy 2 was killed in the first few moments of the original movie.

“We blew a lot of the villains in the opening scene of Dick Tracy,” Epps acknowledges. “I know the Brow was in there, otherwise, it would have been the Brow. We just would’ve gone to Gould, because his work was so good.”

Movies

Dick Tracy: The Long Journey of the 1990 Blockbuster

By Mike Cecchini

In the original Dick Tracy comic strip, the Brow was a Nazi spy operating in the United States by the name of Alfred Brau. The Brow first appeared in the June 13, 1944 strip, at the height of the US involvement in World War II. He aided and abetted the enemy via spying and sabotage for the next three months of the series before meeting his end on Sept. 24, 1944…by being impaled on an American flagpole.

Putting Tracy in a wartime setting and defending the homefront was exactly what Max Allan Collins did when he wrote one of two sequel novels to the film: Dick Tracy Goes to War, in 1991. But that was merely a coincidence.

“We’d never had any conversations with [Collins],” Epps says. “I did have a conversation with Chester Gould at one time, but no. When you’re doing a project, we’re hired to do it, so we’re not going to reach out to other people…you get all sorts of issues with ideas and rights and all that sort of stuff, so you’ve got to be very careful about that. But Chester Gould wrote Dick Tracy as dealing with spies, and the Brow was the big spy guy in the series. So my interest in that as a potential sequel was based on the series, which I had read.”

Not only was there no sequel, but Tracy has since been strangely absent from screen adaptations of any kind. Among other things, a live action TV series with none other than Bruce Campbell in the title role was vetoed as rights issues to the character between Warren Beatty and Tribune remain murky.

But inevitably, the most famous cop in all of fiction will find his way to the screen again. The question is how would he be received in our current moment as American society reevaluates communities’ relationship with policing. It’s a challenge that anyone hoping to revive Tracy for a modern audience will have to face.

Movies

Why Dick Tracy 2 Never Happened

By Mike Cecchini

“There’s a lot of issues raised about how police are being depicted and not looking at a nuanced picture of them. Police in the movies are always right and never wrong.” Epps says. “So I think an evolution of the character that reflects the times we’re in, the times that we’re hopefully moving forward to. It’s just a matter of how is Tracy part of our world today? We have to take a new view of him in terms of culturally how we’re going to deal with him. That becomes a problem maybe in terms of doing a detective story from the past right now, unless you’re going to actually put it in historical context.”

Epps does offer this advice to anyone trying to tell new stories with the character.

“I think the biggest question is who is he now? What does he do? And what does he represent in this day and age? Who is Dick Tracy of these times right now? And what does that mean? So much of Tracy was just his relationships and also it was cutting edge, because that was part of what Chester Gould was dealing with. So is that still part of Dick Tracy today? It asks a lot of questions that have to be answered.”

As far as we know, there are no live action Dick Tracy projects in development, but hopefully the next time the detective hits the screen, some of these questions will be addressed.

The post What Dick Tracy 2 Would Have Been appeared first on Den of Geek.

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