Review: Number One Dollar, my contender for worst duck comic
Oct 23, 2020 1:44:21 GMT
Matilda and That Duckfan like this
Post by bats on Oct 23, 2020 1:44:21 GMT
I first read this story at age 10 or so, and even then I was completely astounded by just how awful it was. There MAY be worse stories out there, but more than 20 year later I've yet to read any, and I've read my share of comics claimed to be the worst. In my mind, it doesn't get worse than this.
So I figured I should share it with you.
Even the worst comic book writing can be salvaged somewhat by good art, but unfortunately we're stuck with Jack Manning for this one. He was a fairly decent Mickey/Goofy artist, and thankfully most of his Disney work involves those characters rather than the ducks, because man, his duck characters just don't look right. People often bring up Giuseppe Perego as the worst duck artist, but I feel his stuff at least has this odd charm to it. Manning's ducks are just hideous to look at.
But let's take a look at the story itself:
In this story, the role of the Number One Dime is played by a dollar bill. There's no reason for this, it plays the exact same role the dime would play, it's just a dollar bill now because the (unknown) writer says so. It doesn't really fill you with confidence that this is going to be an all-time classic.
Suddenly plot arrives, as this not-exactly-inconspicuous cloud of mist floats in through the window and steals thedime dollar. This is how this scene end, so Scrooge is apparently completely incapable of realizing there might potentially be a connection between the mist and the theft. Not only does nobody gets sent out to look for the mist, Scrooge doesn't even run to the window to look for it even though the mist has apparently just left when he noticed the dime dollar was gone.
And dear God, just LOOK at that awfully drawn dog person. It's amazing this actually got printed.
The thief turned out to be "Cousin Misty", a weird gimmicky Beagle with the power to cover himself in a cloud of mist and "go everywhere", because people apparently treat giant clouds that "float" around close to the ground and make valuables disappear as something that should just be ignored. Now, classic 40s superhero Amazing-man actually had a very similar power, but those comics didn't treat it as this weird "invisibility cloak" the way Cousin Misty's mist is treated, nor was it his sole way of fighting evil.
Props to the writer for actually having Misty mention that he couldn't rob the money bin due to the ventilation there, though.
By the way, if you thought Cousin Misty and his hat were going to play any role in this story beyond being the way the Beagles stole thedime dollar, you have more faith in this story than you should.
If you thought the Beagles were going to do anything more interesting with thedime dollar than send a ransom note for its return, you also had more faith in the story than you should. It's not even that massive an amount. Come on, Beagles, think big:
It's also worth noting that the only reason thedime dollar got stolen in the first place is because it was just hanging there on the wall in a room so close to the street anyone could easily climb in through the window, which Scrooge didn't bother keeping closed. Good for him Magica doesn't seem to exist in this universe.
Scrooge thinks one thousand bucks is too much to pay, so he comes up with an alternate method to get it back, and this is where the story really goes off the rails:
Yes. Scrooge's solution was to have Gyro send him back in time so he could "once again earn his first dollar". I am in general no big fan of these stories that treat time travel as a simple and effective, publicly available, consequence-free way to make a quick buck by going back and changing history (usually in some ridiculously ineffective way that doesn't acknowledge how powerful the ability to travel in time actually is), but they are what they are. The logic on display here is something else, though. If Scrooge wanted to get hisdime dollar back without paying the ransom, you'd think he could just travel a couple days back and take the dollar from himself before it got stolen, or travel back to the exact point it got stolen to see what exactly happened and actually TAIL that cloud of mist that clearly took it... but no. His plan is to travel back to when he originally earned it and earn it in place of his actual past self... thus rewriting history and making this particular dime dollar no longer the first one he actually earned and the specific source of inspiration for him that's the sole reason he holds it in the regard he does and... ugh. Everything about this makes so little sense it hurts.
And the story gets worse.
The Beagles learn of this, and since they know Emil Eagle has a time machine as well, they decide the best possible way to use time travel to make some profit is to follow Scrooge back in time and stop his nonsensical plan to get out of paying their thousand bucks ransom. They're able to do this because they know the exact time and place Scrooge made his firstdime dollar for reasons unexplained. Also, if you thought the Beagles traveling back in time as well was going to have any impact on the story at all, you once again had more faith in this story than you should.
This story was written in the 80s, and I'm genuinely unsure how established it was how Scrooge made his first dime back then. I was under the impression the entire shoe shine thing didn't become proper "canon" until Don Rosa's Life and Times came along, but this matches up surprisingly well with that. if it's just a coincidence, it's a pretty neat one.
But yes. Here's time traveling Scrooge, having either displaced his past self in time or got rid of him in some way or other off-panel, planning to give a shine to the same man who gave him his firstdime dollar and assuming the guy is going to be just as generous with this well dressed old shoe shine man as he was with the poor little shoe shine kid in the original time line. That's his entire plan.
Also, just look at that guy. How did this art get approved? LOOK at it.
And here is, apparently, the entire reason the dime had to be played by a dollar bill in this story: The Beagles are so dumb they assume "the first dollar Scrooge earned" was a bill he got from exchanging the first 20 five cent coins he made, so they decide to go elsewhere to kill some time instead of keeping watch.
By the way, this scene in the past takes place in Duckburg, because Scrooge made his firstdime dollar in Duckburg in this universe. I was about to comment on that, but realized I'm not all that sure how well it had been established Scrooge actually grew up in Scotland back when this story was first written, so it gets a pass. It's also fairly crucial to the story that this stuff took place in Duckburg for reasons you'll soon see.
So the Beagles try and fail to rob a bank and get themselves arrested out of the story, making their time travel utterly purposeless.
As for Scrooge, his crazy plan somehow works out perfectly: The man gives him the exact same dollar bill he'd have given the actual young Scrooge, making that bill disappear from the Beagles' possession the instant it's handed to Scrooge. I guess this sort of makes sense in that Scrooge just rewrote history to make it so that he never actually made that particular bill as a kid and thus could've never framed it as a source of inspiration like that, but the story is clearly just presenting it a Scrooge having sneakily got hisdime dollar back and it's still the actual first dollar he made and a source of inspiration and all that. Because this story is insane.
And it gets worse.
Scrooge decides to take a little walk around in the past before time traveling back home, and runs into this guy:
And yes, this is going where you think it's going.
Scrooge invests his Number OneDime Dollar.
The object that meant so much to him he had kept it as a source of inspiration for 50 years. The object even the Beagles knew meant so much to him they thought they could get him to pay a thousand dollars to get back. The object that meant so much to him that its theft made him lose considerable amounts of money because he could no longer concentrate on his business. The object that meant so much to him he embarked on his whole crazy scheme to get it back. It was apparently not worth more than this to him. He had a time machine at his disposal, he knew this guy was selling the property, he could easily have gone back to the present and returned with a different dollar bill to purchase it. Or have the guy trade the property for his hat or something, even in 1930 dollars a used top hat would've presumably been worth more than one dollar. But no, clearly the only solution was to invest his Number One. So I guess the answer to just how much is the Number One Dime worth to Scrooge is "considerably less than a million dollars".
For the most part, this is just your average badly written and hideously drawn story, but even at age 10 I saw that ending as borderline offensive in how much it disrespects the character in regards to traits the story itself brings up multiple times. It's absurd. What IS this story?
So I figured I should share it with you.
Even the worst comic book writing can be salvaged somewhat by good art, but unfortunately we're stuck with Jack Manning for this one. He was a fairly decent Mickey/Goofy artist, and thankfully most of his Disney work involves those characters rather than the ducks, because man, his duck characters just don't look right. People often bring up Giuseppe Perego as the worst duck artist, but I feel his stuff at least has this odd charm to it. Manning's ducks are just hideous to look at.
But let's take a look at the story itself:
In this story, the role of the Number One Dime is played by a dollar bill. There's no reason for this, it plays the exact same role the dime would play, it's just a dollar bill now because the (unknown) writer says so. It doesn't really fill you with confidence that this is going to be an all-time classic.
Suddenly plot arrives, as this not-exactly-inconspicuous cloud of mist floats in through the window and steals the
And dear God, just LOOK at that awfully drawn dog person. It's amazing this actually got printed.
The thief turned out to be "Cousin Misty", a weird gimmicky Beagle with the power to cover himself in a cloud of mist and "go everywhere", because people apparently treat giant clouds that "float" around close to the ground and make valuables disappear as something that should just be ignored. Now, classic 40s superhero Amazing-man actually had a very similar power, but those comics didn't treat it as this weird "invisibility cloak" the way Cousin Misty's mist is treated, nor was it his sole way of fighting evil.
Props to the writer for actually having Misty mention that he couldn't rob the money bin due to the ventilation there, though.
By the way, if you thought Cousin Misty and his hat were going to play any role in this story beyond being the way the Beagles stole the
If you thought the Beagles were going to do anything more interesting with the
It's also worth noting that the only reason the
Scrooge thinks one thousand bucks is too much to pay, so he comes up with an alternate method to get it back, and this is where the story really goes off the rails:
Yes. Scrooge's solution was to have Gyro send him back in time so he could "once again earn his first dollar". I am in general no big fan of these stories that treat time travel as a simple and effective, publicly available, consequence-free way to make a quick buck by going back and changing history (usually in some ridiculously ineffective way that doesn't acknowledge how powerful the ability to travel in time actually is), but they are what they are. The logic on display here is something else, though. If Scrooge wanted to get his
And the story gets worse.
The Beagles learn of this, and since they know Emil Eagle has a time machine as well, they decide the best possible way to use time travel to make some profit is to follow Scrooge back in time and stop his nonsensical plan to get out of paying their thousand bucks ransom. They're able to do this because they know the exact time and place Scrooge made his first
This story was written in the 80s, and I'm genuinely unsure how established it was how Scrooge made his first dime back then. I was under the impression the entire shoe shine thing didn't become proper "canon" until Don Rosa's Life and Times came along, but this matches up surprisingly well with that. if it's just a coincidence, it's a pretty neat one.
But yes. Here's time traveling Scrooge, having either displaced his past self in time or got rid of him in some way or other off-panel, planning to give a shine to the same man who gave him his first
Also, just look at that guy. How did this art get approved? LOOK at it.
And here is, apparently, the entire reason the dime had to be played by a dollar bill in this story: The Beagles are so dumb they assume "the first dollar Scrooge earned" was a bill he got from exchanging the first 20 five cent coins he made, so they decide to go elsewhere to kill some time instead of keeping watch.
By the way, this scene in the past takes place in Duckburg, because Scrooge made his first
So the Beagles try and fail to rob a bank and get themselves arrested out of the story, making their time travel utterly purposeless.
As for Scrooge, his crazy plan somehow works out perfectly: The man gives him the exact same dollar bill he'd have given the actual young Scrooge, making that bill disappear from the Beagles' possession the instant it's handed to Scrooge. I guess this sort of makes sense in that Scrooge just rewrote history to make it so that he never actually made that particular bill as a kid and thus could've never framed it as a source of inspiration like that, but the story is clearly just presenting it a Scrooge having sneakily got his
And it gets worse.
Scrooge decides to take a little walk around in the past before time traveling back home, and runs into this guy:
And yes, this is going where you think it's going.
Scrooge invests his Number One
The object that meant so much to him he had kept it as a source of inspiration for 50 years. The object even the Beagles knew meant so much to him they thought they could get him to pay a thousand dollars to get back. The object that meant so much to him that its theft made him lose considerable amounts of money because he could no longer concentrate on his business. The object that meant so much to him he embarked on his whole crazy scheme to get it back. It was apparently not worth more than this to him. He had a time machine at his disposal, he knew this guy was selling the property, he could easily have gone back to the present and returned with a different dollar bill to purchase it. Or have the guy trade the property for his hat or something, even in 1930 dollars a used top hat would've presumably been worth more than one dollar. But no, clearly the only solution was to invest his Number One. So I guess the answer to just how much is the Number One Dime worth to Scrooge is "considerably less than a million dollars".
For the most part, this is just your average badly written and hideously drawn story, but even at age 10 I saw that ending as borderline offensive in how much it disrespects the character in regards to traits the story itself brings up multiple times. It's absurd. What IS this story?