"Armed with Canon" trope in the Duck universe

[juicymcduck]

"Armed with Canon" is a trope that "refers to infighting within the official ranks of a shared-universe franchise, where creative teams will take potshots at each other, using their own stories to undercut, contradict, Retcon, or just plain insult the work of their rivals."

Have you ever noticed anything like that going on in the Duckverse comics? Given the amount of people working on them, surely it must have happened from time to time, espcially since the Duckverse dosn't really have a canon, but only a few "hard facts" and "broad strokes."

One example I can think of is how contemporary authors treat the Scrooge/Goldie/Brigitta triangle. In Romano Scarpa's The Miner's Granddaughter, Goldie is so old and frail that she has to live in retirement home. She meets Brigitta and basically tells her: "I'm too old to date anyway. Go get him girl, he's yours!"

But in Don Rosa's world, Brigitta simply doesn't exist, since only Barks counts for him. Therefore, Scrooge still secretly pines for Goldie decades after leaving her behind (The Coin, The Dream Of A Lifetime, The Prisoner Of White Agony Creek et al.)

Giorgio Fontana's A Tale of Two Biddies tries to have it both ways. Goldie seems to have changed her mind an starts fighting Brigitta for Scrooge affection's once again. Both Bark's Back to the Klondike and The Miner's Granddaughter are referenced.

Can you think of other examples of creators (seemingly?) purposedly retconning each other?

[Baar Baar Jinx]

There's something inherently misogynistic about Goldie telling Brigitta that she's too old and frail for Scrooge, who's the same age that she is, but (presumably much younger) Brigitta would suit him just fine.

Anyway, as far as one set of Duck writers undercutting "canon" established by others, the best example in my mind is DuckTales '17, that takes the most basic ideas of Duckdom in the most skeletal fashion and goes about violating long-held character traits, histories and concepts to become its own subuniverse, unmoored from anything else that has gone before. Okay, you said Duckverse *comics*, and DuckTales '17 is primarily an animated show, but there are comics based on it, so *technically* it's still meets the criterion.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Feb 16, 2020 22:50:35 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

There's something inherently misogynistic about Goldie telling Brigitta that she's too old and frail for Scrooge, who's the same age that she is, but (presumably much younger) Brigitta would suit him just fine.

Scarpa himself does seem to have forgotten it in that scene, but Brigitta as originally introduced in The Last Balaboo is not actually much younger than Scrooge (though she presumably is a little younger than him), as that story referred to Scrooge having originally promised the darn balaboo-fur hat to Goldie in the Klondike in 1898.

Feb 16, 2020 22:50:35 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Anyway, as far as one set of Duck writers undercutting "canon" established by others, the best example in my mind is DuckTales '17, that takes the most basic ideas of Duckdom in the most skeletal fashion and goes about violating long-held character traits, histories and concepts to become its own subuniverse, unmoored from anything else that has gone before. 

Although there is certainly a similar mindset at play in places, that's not really an example of "Armed With Canon" as it is usually defined: the point of the trope is precisely when different writers working in the same continuity keep trying to undercut each other's work by abusing their own rights to add more canonical information to the common toybox. By setting itself up as a parallel universe, DT17 is unable to do that as such. (It can seek to replace the Prime Universe in the public consciousness with elements of the 2017 Continuum, of course, and in places it does. But that's not the same thing.)

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Ah, got it. Then how about the two competing series: Life of Scrooge vs Scrooge's Millions?

Also, in the original Italian script for "The Miner's Granddaughter", does Goldie actually suggest she's too old for Scrooge now? IIRC, the English translation softened it by having her suggest she's Scrooge's past, whereas Brigitta is his future, or something to that effect.

[juicymcduck]

Feb 17, 2020 0:52:47 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Ah, got it. Then how about the two competing series: Life of Scrooge vs Scrooge's Millions?

Also, in the original Italian script for "The Miner's Granddaughter", does Goldie actually suggest she's too old for Scrooge now? IIRC, the English translation softened it by having her suggest she's Scrooge's past, whereas Brigitta is his future, or something to that effect.

I can at least tell you is that in the French version, Goldie says "All I can do is go back to the retirement house." To be honest, I frankly dislike "The Miner's Granddaughter" as a whole. And that's not just because of the treatment of Goldie's character, but also because, like every story that tries to be as "hip" or fashionable as possible, it has aged very badly. Also, it's not particularly subtle in the way the entire world seems to be incredibly excited about Chris's arrival. Of course, Scarpa wants the reader to be excited about it, understandably, but why would the whole of Duckburg react like that?

Re: Scrooge's Millions, I have yet to read it, but it's not likely to happen anytime soon. I guess I just don't feel... drawn to it.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

I agree with you re: "The Miner's Granddaughter". I've only read the English version, but it looks like Scarpa was confusingly portraying the Ducks as celebrities/actors or fictional characters within their own universe (Dickie displays a comic book with Donald's face on it), which explains why she was able to do impressions of Donald and Brigitta without ever having met them, and why everyone was so excited to welcome her to the "extended Duck family" (she was joining a pre-existing cast of well-known stars). It isn't even fourth-wall breaking, it's something else entirely. Scarpa appears to have done the same thing in "Treasure of Marco Topo". I don't like this approach one bit.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Feb 17, 2020 17:25:12 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

I agree with you re: "The Miner's Granddaughter". I've only read the English version, but it looks like Scarpa was confusingly portraying the Ducks as celebrities/actors or fictional characters within their own universe (Dickie displays a comic book with Donald's face on it), which explains why she was able to do impressions of Donald and Brigitta without ever having met them, and why everyone was so excited to welcome her to the "extended Duck family" (she was joining a pre-existing cast of well-known stars). It isn't even fourth-wall breaking, it's something else entirely. Scarpa appears to have done the same thing in "Treasure of Marco Topo". I don't like this approach one bit.

You're overthinking it, to be honest. It's a loosey-goosey metafictional thing where the Disney comics exist in-universe, like in The Man Who Drew Ducks; but clearly as accounts of real events. They're not actors, and Dickie isn't "joining the cast". 

At any rate, I totally agree with juicymcduck's criticisms of The Miner's Granddaughter, they just make me love the story instead of dislike it. Yes, it is the most instantly-dated 1960's thing ever and it doesn't have a plot to speak of and it is the most shameless introduction of a Mary Sue of a new character you have ever seen… but that's why it's a hilarious read, if you put yourself in the right mindset. Or at least that's how it is for me.

[Spectrus]

Feb 16, 2020 22:50:35 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

There's something inherently misogynistic about Goldie telling Brigitta that she's too old and frail for Scrooge, who's the same age that she is, but (presumably much younger) Brigitta would suit him just fine. 

I've heard that said by GeoX, or maybe it was a commenter under GeoX' blog entry, but think about it... Scrooge still has a lot of testosterone! He's still very active. Goldie, in this story at least, definitely seems to be over it all...

[juicymcduck]

Mar 4, 2020 16:01:36 GMT Spectrus said:

Feb 16, 2020 22:50:35 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

There's something inherently misogynistic about Goldie telling Brigitta that she's too old and frail for Scrooge, who's the same age that she is, but (presumably much younger) Brigitta would suit him just fine. 

I've heard that said by GeoX, or maybe it was a commenter under GeoX' blog entry, but think about it... Scrooge still has a lot of testosterone! He's still very active. Goldie, in this story at least, definitely seems to be over it all...

True, but that was Scarpa who decided to portray her like that in the first place. Granted, she did look physically diminished in Barks' Back to the Klondike
, but I think it's only logical that she would manage to nurse herself back to health after she won that gold in the very same story -- eventually becoming the rejuvenated Goldie we see in Don Rosa's Last Sled for Dawson
. I can't imagine Goldie being the kind of person who'd just give up trying.