Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks is a wealthy industrialist and adventurer. Warbucks is bald, and typically wears a large jewel set into his shirtfront.
Warbucks is the adoptive father of the girl Annie, and he is also acquainted with Dick Tracy and Diet Smith.
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Man of Means[]
As a wealthy capitalist, Warbucks is a highly-recognizable public figure. He is often aided by his servants Punjab and The Asp, who address him as "Master".
When Diet Smith was approached by the scientist Dr. S. Tim Sail regarding Sail's apparently successful attempt to clone Moon Maid, Sail gave Warbucks' name as a reference. Sail claimed that he had worked with Warbucks on the mysterious Lazarus Project.
Later, in the company of Dick Tracy, Smith contacted Warbucks to confirm Sail's claim. Warbucks denied having worked with Sail, explaining that the Lazarus Project had nothing to do with cloning or re-animating the dead.
At the end of their conversation, Warbucks suggested that he may need to enlist Tracy's aid in rescuing Annie, who was missing and presumed to have been abducted by criminals.
Finding Annie[]
Warbucks arrived in Dick Tracy's city and made an appeal to Mayor Armstrong in order to get Tracy and the rest of the Major Crimes Unit assigned to the search for Annie. Warbucks had received information that led him to believe that Annie was being held in the city.
The MCU was put at Warbucks temporary disposal, and he and Tracy went to visit the mysterious man known as The Great Am. Am provided the men with some new information about Annie's whereabouts. After leaving Am, Tracy mentioned that he needed to visit Diet Smith. Warbucks agreed, saying that he had never met Diet Smith (presumably this referred to an in-person meeting, as the men had previously been established as familiar with each other).
Warbucks and his associates subsequently worked closely with the MCU to recover Tracy and Annie from the "time-lost" island of Simmons Corners. This included Warbucks using his personal fortune to have the reformed criminal Influence flown to the City to help with the questioning of an informant.
With the aid of the MCU, Warbucks was eventually able to track Annie to a mysterious island where the criminal Mr. Axel had brainwashed the residents (including Annie) into believing that it was 1944. Warbucks parachuted onto the island and rescued Annie as well as Dick Tracy (who had become stranded there as well).
Warbucks was not present when Annie became endangered at the headquarters of the Black Hearts.
Helping Tracy[]
When Dick Tracy was suspended from the police department (due to a scandal arranged by Notta Fallar), Warbucks gave him a temporary job with a generous salary. He also made the Asp available to aid Tracy. He later made his private airplane available to Tracy to use for a personal vacation to Iceland and Europe. Warbucks was one of the bidders on Perenelle Flammel's "immortality formula".
Warbucks' Missing Wife[]
Some time later, Dick Tracy approached Warbucks to question him about the disappearance of Warbucks' second wife - a woman named Trixie Tinkle who was an important witness in a case involving B-B Eyes. Warbucks was not forthcoming with information about Tinkle's disappearance, but Tracy had no evidence of foul play.
Friend of Diet Smith[]
After Diet Smith was injured in the explosion at his facility that supposedly destroyed the Time Drone, Warbucks visited Diet as he recuperated. Warbucks provided his associates Punjab and the Asp to supplement Diet Smith's personal security.
Notes[]
- Oliver Warbucks is character from the long-running comic strip Little Orphan Annie (aka Annie), created by Harold Gray. He first appeared on September 27th, 1924.
- When Annie ceased production in 2010, the currently-running storyline did not end conclusively, with Annie separated from Warbucks and being held in South America. The situation was not resolved until 2014, when the Dick Tracy creative team produced a storyline about Warbucks attempting to rescue Annie with Tracy's help. Like Dick Tracy, Annie was also the intellectual property of Tribune Media Services, which is why the characters were able to appear in the crossover.
- In the Annie comic strip, Oliver Warbucks had been married twice. The first Mrs. Warbucks (full name unrevealed) was the person who had decided to adopt Annie, and she was killed in a shipwreck. Warbucks' second wife Trixie Tinkle disappeared under unknown circumstances while on a boat trip with Oliver. These marriages are part of the character's back-story in Dick Tracy as well.
