Crossover of the Week

2012

THE RESURRECTION OF ABNER KADAVER

A woman claiming to work for the Emilio Lizardo Crematorium appears at the State Prison to collect Abner Kadaver’s body. Dick Tracy and his wife Tess take some time off to go fishing. A boat with the name “Swee’pea” on it is seen. Tess is offered a cup of coffee by a woman named Olive, who says Dick is out fishing with Olive’s own husband at the dock. We see Dick with a man with a large forearm that has a tattoo of an anchor on it, who is holding a can of spinach. Olive and Tess discuss what first attracted them to their respective husbands, namely their chins. As they return home, the Tracys’ son Joe refers to both Olive’s husband and Dick being ex-Navy. Dick smokes a corn cob pipe and says, “I yam what I yam!” Dick’s granddaughter Honeymoon tells him she is going to a Hong Kong Cavaliers concert on Sunday night, and she hopes to get an autograph from Perfect Tommy.

Dick Tracy strip by Mike Curtis and Joe Staton, October 22, 2013–January 4, 2014. The crematorium, mentioned in the October 22 strip, is named after Dr. Emilio Lizardo from the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. The couple who are also vacationing is Popeye and Oliver Oyl from E. C. Segar’s classic comic strip Thimble Theatre. Swee’pea is the name of Popeye’s adopted son. The boat appears in the October 27, 2013 strip, and Popeye and Olive first show up on October 28. The leader of the Hong Kong Cavaliers, who were mentioned in the strip on November 7, 2013, is Buckaroo Banzai himself. Perfect Tommy is the Cavaliers’ rhythm guitarist, and also designed the suspension system on Buckaroo’s Jet Car.