What is there to say about Rightful Owners that hasn't been said? It was a good idea, to look at the old treasure hunt stories through a modern lens that Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart would likely have approved of. The actual story itself is a mess. Rockerduck has no identity in DuckTales, so having him as the main villain is puzzling. Warren Spector similarly mixes Barks, Rosa, DuckTales and Darkwing Duck continuity throughout the story, making it harder to follow. The first few issues spend far too much time on the island of Rippan Taro, and the last two issues try to jam way too many ideas into too few pages. The artwork....let's not say too much about it, other than you can notice times where artwork from previous panels is pasted up into "new" panels, and we all know about the infamous issue #3:http://newsandviewsbychrisbarat.blogspot.com/2011/08/comics-review-ducktales-3-july-2011.html?m=1 Rightful Owners is an interesting souvenir for DuckTales fans...the decaying ruin of an idea that could have been so much better. On the positive side, the cover gallery section is really nice. There were some really nice covers drawn for this mini-series.
I have kept only the fourth issue, and that one I kept because I was so happy to see the Larkies/Harpies in a new comic book story, since I had fond memories of them from reading The Golden Fleecing in childhood. But I clearly wasn't in the target demographic for this story, since I hadn't watched DuckTales or Darkwing before I read it. (Since then I have watched perhaps 2/3 of DuckTales eps, including The Golden Fleecing, and 1/3 of Darkwing.)
The fact that you can't and/or shouldn't just walk off with pieces of other peoples' cultural heritage--that's been addressed in Scrooge comics at least since 1976, when Carl Fallberg wrote "Treasure above the Clouds." Perhaps people thought it was a new idea because they were so used to reading Barks reprints--gave them the sense that writers continued to think this sort of treasure-hunting was unproblematic. Rosa had an old-fashioned treasure-appropriation in "Crocodile Collector," but in later stories he certainly acknowledged the legal/moral issues.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Apr 25, 2016 19:48:43 GMT
My opinions:
On the theoretical side, I think the idea was pretty flawless. Giving back the treasures ? Yeah, matilda's right, it wasn't truly the first time, but it was the first time it was done with previously-established treasures instead of the story encompassing both the finding and the giving up of a new artifact. Well, you could make a case for Don Rosa's Return to Xanadu, , but the Aesop is more that Scrooge shouldn't have disturbed the statu quo and tried to get even more than the crown, rather than the idea that he shouldn't have taken the crown in the first place. As I said elsewhere, I was totally with Spector in the "universe-mixing" part. It's actually what keeps dragging me back to the story from time to time. Introducing Rockerduck to DuckTales was awesome. The Fethry and Daisy cameo were awesome. The Darkwing Duck allusions were awesome. The Barks/Don Rosa allusions to boot were awesome (though they did mess up with Webby having forgotten DuckTales's Lost World episode for some reason, but that falls more on the execution side. I love how you see Donald returning at the end, which means that this is actually the DuckTales finale we never got, with Donald returning from the navvy and everything.
However, the execution is wildly inconsistent and sloppy. The art can be good sometimes (like on the Harpies/Larkies part for instance), but sometimes, it's lazy, uninspired, or downright insufficient like on the infamous Worst Disney Comic Page Ever. And the plot is badly equilibrated as you said, as we spend too much time on Rippan Taro… without mentioning the unexplainable "villains meeting" with villains who actually don't appear in the plot.
On the whole, it was still an enjoyable read the first time, but it was in the end kinda disappointing.
I have two thoughts about the way this story was written out.
1. Warren Spector seems to be better at writing storylines for video games than he does for comics. He was brought into this comic because of his huge success on Epic Mickey and to me, the whole idea of having Scrooge returning to a bunch of past locations seems better suited to a video game than a comic.
2. This story was clearly intended to be longer than four issues when it was first conceived. Seeing as how the first three issues were spent on only one location and the fourth issue wrapped things up as quickly as it could. I'm certain that when the DuckTales comic was first being started, they didn't know that it was going to end up being cancelled after six issues or that the last two issues would be part of a Darkwing crossover. My guess is that the original plan for Rightful Owners was that it was going to be a series of four issue arcs each taking place in a different past location. I honestly think that would've been worse than what we got as that would just get really old really fast.
I have no idea what happened with the artwork. At the least the third issue was able to raise enough voices to get Boom's attention about it and get whatever the problem was straightened out for the fourth issue and crossover. And they apparently redrew some pages from the first three issues for the trade release but good luck finding a copy of that since it was only in print for like a week.
Oh, I have the trade. Found it at Barnes and Noble when it first came out. Like I said already, the cover gallery alone is worth keeping this book around.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Apr 26, 2016 17:11:55 GMT
About Spector, judging from interviews, he was willing to do a Scrooge thing from the beginning, he was not asked to do so. In an interview about Epic Mickey, he was asked if he was going to bring forgotten Barks characters in the game, and he said that, no, he admires Barks too much to waste it on background characters of a game with a different focus, and he wanted to do a big, Barks-centric project (although he gave no more details). As I said elsewhere, I have the clear feeling that Spector was trying to be a new Don Rosa (with the opening museum scene being a clear homage to Rosa's own museum opening in Son of the Sun), and that what he wanted to do was a "regular" Scrooge story arc, not a DuckTales one.
As for the theory that it was intended to be longer… wow, I totally missed that, but it makes so much sense indeed ! And I think it might have been good, too, if not for the weird art. (the reason I had missed it is that in France, all four episodes were printed in the same book and presented as a single, long story, not as a series).
And they apparently redrew some pages from the first three issues for the trade release
Did they redraw/change anything from the first two parts too? (what and where?)
From the 3rd part one entire page is new in the trade paperback, and they also properly colored a page from the same part, that just had different shades of purple in the first printing. But that’s the only differences I could spot when comparing the two prints.
but good luck finding a copy of that since it was only in print for like a week.
You mean it was only in sale for a week? Did they withdraw it from sale? I haven’t heard anything about this – and had no problem getting the TPB at the time.
Another thing: In a blog comment somewhere, someone claimed that their copy of the TPB didn’t have the redrawn page. Does anyone know if two different versions of the TPB actually exist? (I have my doubts)
Another thing: In a blog comment somewhere, someone claimed that their copy of the TPB didn’t have the redrawn page. Does anyone know if two different versions of the TPB actually exist? (I have my doubts)
Found the comment. There's also a pic of the page in question on that blog.
You mean it was only in sale for a week? Did they withdraw it from sale? I haven’t heard anything about this – and had no problem getting the TPB at the time.
It was released at the very tail end of Boom's run with the Disney license and got pulled shortly after. A week is an exaggeration but it may as well only been that long. It certainly wasn't more than a couple months. And that's only how long Boom distributes it for. In an actual store, it will just stay on the shelf until someone buys it. Not many stores near me actually ordered any of the Boom Disney trades aside from Darkwing Duck and the ones reprinting classic material, probably from lack of interest in them at the time, so I never saw a copy of that DuckTales book in person.
Double checking it just now, you can get a used copy of the book on Amazon for about $12 which isn't that bad of a deal I guess. I could've sworn it costed more than that a few months ago. (Or maybe I'm just getting it mixed up with the trade release of the Darkwing crossover. That one for sure is hard to come by.) Disregard my earlier comment about it then.
