Black Pearl Erad ("Dare" spelt backwards) was a black market weapons dealer. She was a slender woman with a long face and short dark hair. She had previously worked as a writer for a foreign-language newspaper in Dick Tracy's city.
Pearl and her gang had a criminal enterprise that involved stealing government blueprints for war machines such as tanks. Pearl would then produce and test prototypes and then sell the finished models to the highest bidders, which were usually hostile foreign powers.
When a bomb was found in a post office, it was taken to police headquarters and set off. The shrapnel inside was metal newspaper type lettering, which led Dick Tracy to Pearl Erad, a.k.a. Black Pearl. She had sent the bomb to a former associate who had tried to go into the stolen weapons business himself. Pearl kidnapped Pat Patton and Tracy and forced them to test one of her new war machines at her mountain proving grounds. Tracy and Patton were held hostage until they transmitted a warning in Morse code to a local water plant via a water pipe. It summoned the local police, who were able to subdue Pearl's forces.
Pearl herself was captured by the undercover FBI agent Jim Trailer.
Appearances in Other Media[]
1990 Movie Continuity[]
Black Pearl does not appear in 1990 Dick Tracy feature film. She is a character in the follow-up novel Dick Tracy Goes to Warby Max Allan Collins. Her characterization bore little resemblance to her comic-strip counterpart, more closely resembling Texie Garcia. She was also described as far more attractive than she appears to be in the strip. Like her strip counterpart, she was an enemy agent during a time of war (though during her strip appearance, the U.S. was not yet involved in the war that was occurring in Europe and Asia).
In the novel, Pearl was a sultry singer that was hired to perform in Vitamin Flintheart's Stage Door Canteen. She had a physical relationship with 88 Keyes, but felt no strong affection for the man.
Black Pearl was a member of Mrs. Pruneface's subversive organization (along with B-B Eyes, Shaky, and the Mole), though Pearl was motivated more by self-interest than ideology. When a rift developed between Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart, Black Pearl attempted to seduce the detective in order to increase the separation and gain information about police activities.
Eventually, Keyes kidnapped Tess and Mrs. Pruneface made a mask in Tess' likeness. Black Pearl used this mask to impersonate Tess and plant a bomb at Diet Smith's aircraft factory where Tess was working. The plot was discovered, and the bomb was defused before exploding.
Black Pearl was later killed during Tracy's raid of the Stage Door Canteen, and Tess was rescued.