Chester Gould's long-running comic strip Dick Tracy is known for its ultra-grisly villain deaths. Much like the ugly villains created to underscore the unappealing nature of a life of crime, the horrific deaths were meant to underscore the extreme consequences of being a lifelong criminal and racketeer.
Yet, for such an accessible Sunday paper comic strip, Dick Tracy features some unbelievably gruesome and alarming deaths that push the limits of readers' resolve. Whether drowning, burning alive, being impaled, or ingesting shards of glass, there's no shortage of horrific villain deaths in the history of Dick Tracy.
This article discusses violent scenarios and disturbing deaths.
10 Braces Electrocuted Through His Teeth
Chester Gould had a knack for turning the villain's signature feature into their death instrument. A more recent villain added to the all-time great comic strip, Braces was a metal-mouthed knockoff of James Bond's Jaws. The small-time hood sought to obtain sensitive documents regarding the Genesis Corporation. However, his robotic sidekick Magnum Force accidentally electrocuted him to death.
Once Tracy arrived and pit his robotic sidekick Traze-R against Magnum Force, Braces' robot got overpowered and nearly destroyed. Braces tried to rescue the robot from the wreckage, but wires from the machine connected to the villain's corrective oral braces, incinerated his face, and electrocuted him to death. Being electrocuted to death is one thing, having lethal volts of electricity course through one's teeth is quite another.
9 Jonny Scorn Incinerated By Popcorn Cart
Jonny Scorn was a smuggler in concert with Pouch and Molene. Known for his penchant for popcorn, Scorn kept a movie-theater popcorn maker at his home that he would often indulge in. However, after Molene died in a bunker explosion, Pouch blamed Scorn and orchestrated his death.
To do so, Pouch secretly rigged explosive blasting caps onto Scorn's popcorn cart and tampered with the gasoline line. As a result, the popcorn cart erupted in flames when Scorn least expected it, and incinerated the villain to a burnt crisp. Burning to death must be one of the most excruciating ways to die, but dying via the machine that makes one's favorite snack is deliciously ironic.
8 Gargles Dismembered By Broken Glass
While many forgettable villains die in gun battles, Gould often saved the best deaths for the most memorable villains. Gargles was a vicious gangster who lead teamsters delivering glass in the city. Notorious for killing Themesong's mom and gargling mouthwash, Chester Gould made sure Gargles received an extremely violent death across three panels of pure carnage.
Trapped high in a glass store, Tracy approached Gargles and forced him to fall off a platform. In disturbing detail, Gargles was violently impaled and crushed by large glass shards directly piercing his chest, arms, and more. After Gargles was fatally dismembered by the pieces of glass, Chester Gould hilariously eulogizes Gargles in a follow-up Christmas strip that demonstrated the balance between savagery and sentimentalism.
7 Jerome Trohs Scaled By Shower Water
Jerome Trohs, aka The Midget, was a corrupt lawyer and ruthless gang leader known for selling out his girlfriend, Mamma, to the police. In retaliation, Mamma killed Jerome by scalding him with hot water in an outdoor shower.
More specifically, Jerome escaped to a resort after betraying Mamma. After trying the outdoor shower, Mamma suddenly appeared, trapped Jerome inside the stall, and manually stoked the fire in the boiler to increase the water temperature. Yelping in abject pain, Jerome succumbed to his fatal third-degree burns before Tracy and the police arrived. Unthinkably horrific, boiling to death in hot water is extreme even for a Dick Tracy story.
6 Stooge Viller Dies Of Gangrene In Jail
Stooge Viller was a prominent pickpocket and car thief who tormented Tracy in the 1930s. Once Viller was released from prison in 1939, he sought to kill Tracy for incarcerating him. However, while attempting to do so, Viller's 9-year-old daughter Binnie accidentally shot him.
If being shot by one's own underage child wasn't traumatic enough, Viller was subsequently sent to prison where his gunshot wound become so badly infected that he died of gangrene while in jail. Most villain deaths in Dick Tracy are unsentimental. However, unlike many dumb DC villain deaths that feel unrelated, Viller forgave Tracy. He even asked Tracy to look after Binnie and keep his death concealed from her, making the villain's demise even more shocking.
5 T.V. Wiggles Crushed By 5 Tons Of Steel
T.V. Wiggles was a pro-wrestler turned petty criminal who operated a barroom racket involving televisions. After attempting to shoot Sparkle Plenty in a TV station, Wiggles was pursued by Tracy and B.O. Plenty into a repair garage. A scuffle ensued and suddenly, "Five tons of sheet steel is spilled out on the villainous Wiggles. Dead."
It's worth noting that newer villain Anja Nu was also crushed by a falling airplane in a museum. However, there's something even more unsettling than having sheets of metal crush Wiggle's body and slice his skin, leaving him surrounded in a sarcophagus of rubble and metal shards. Moreover, Wiggles' death came 60 years before Anja Nu's, making the 1950 death even more stunning.
4 Tonsils Eaten Alive By Barracuda
Tonsils was a wannabe singer turned racketeer in lockstep with Dude and Mr. Crime. His biggest claim to fame was shooting Tracy in 1952. While villains getting the best of Tracy is shocking in its own right, nothing could prepare readers for Tonsils' incredibly gruesome demise.
After refusing to sing for Mr. Crime, the gang leader ordered Panda to toss Tonsils into a pool of Barracuda. Unable to swim, Tonsils was left to be viciously ravaged by the school of flesh-eating fish. Later, Tracy found Tonsils' eviscerated remains in the pool and identified his remains via his dental bridgework. If that wasn't upsetting enough, Newsuit Nan killed the Barracuda for simply acting out their nature.
3 Tommy McConny Strangled With Vines
Tommy McConny was a fugitive who killed Police Chief Moyson in 1920. After escaping prison and evading the law for 40 years, McConny assumed a new identity and continued his crime spree. Upon killing Mary Steele, Tommy tried to escape from the police by racing to the top floor of a house and jumping out the window.
In his attempt to flee, McConny got caught in a thicket of ivy vines and was brutally strangled to death as he hung from a tree. Chester Gould's illustrations in the long-running comic strip were particularly horrific, underscoring the lonely, claustrophobic nature of McConny's death. Moreover, McConny was loosely based on the infamous Chicago criminal Thomas O'Connor, hence killing him with ivy vines associated with Chicago's Wriggly Field.
2 Flattop Jones Impaled By Spike & Drowns
Flattop Jones is one of Tracy's most formidable rivals. As such, the devious villain was given a double dose of death in 1944. Flattop escaped with Vitamin Flintheart and hid in a replica of the Santa Maria ship. Flattop suddenly fell onto a lattice of sharp spikes and was impaled and crushed between them like a vise.
If that wasn't morbid enough, Chester Gould also portrayed Flattop helplessly drowning in the ocean and futilely calling out for help. Illustrated in gruesome detail on par with DC's goriest villain deaths, the dual-death sequence was so graphic and prolonged it almost makes readers feel sympathy for Flattop. Later, Flattop Jr. would pick up the mantle and narrowly escape his own brutal demise in a burning theater.
1 The Brow Impaled On A Flagpole
Without question, the grisliest death of a major villain in Dick Tracy comics was The Brow's unsettling impalement on a flagpole. In 1944, the shocking death came after The Brow rushed to the top of a burning building, and tried to shoot Tracy. In response, Tracy launched an inkwell at The Brow's head, causing him to crash through a window and fall from the building.
In grisly graphic detail, The Brow was seen impaled on a flagpole. Chester Gould expressed poetic justice through the blurb "the espionage leader lies impaled by a pole bearing the flag of the country he tried to harm." Despite ending the iconic villain's reign of terror, the gut-churning death remained etched in the minds of Dick Tracy fans.