Uncle Scrooge #348

December 2, 2005

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: The Hunt For White December and other stories

Will the fight for a white Christmas be the end of Scrooge’s fortune?

Writers: Joel Katz & Donne Avenell; Janet Gilbert; Gorm Transgaard; William Van Horn
Art: Daniel Branca; Vicar; Maria Nunez; William Van Horn
Colors: Barry Grossman; Egmont; Scott Rockwell; Michael Kraiger
Letters: Jon Babcock; Susie Lee; Willie Schubert; Marshall Dillon
Editor: Arnold T. Blumberg
Cover Art: William Van Horn
Publisher: Gemstone Comics

Don’t let the cover fool you – this is almost entirely a Christmas issue of Uncle Scrooge, and it would make a dandy stocking stuffer for the little one in your family. Let’s face it, every kid loves the Disney characters, and this would be a perfect issue to leave for them on Christmas morning to get them into the spirit – and into comics.

The issue begins with Katz, Avenell and Branca’s “The Hunt For White December,” a Scrooge adventure in classic form. Scrooge and his old rival make a $10,000,000 bet on whether or not Duckburg will gave a White Christmas, but when it looks like he’ll lose the bet, McSwine summons the nefarious Magica DeSpell to try to keep the snow away. Nobody can trust Magica, though, and a three-way struggle ensues with something much more precious at stake than ten million bucks – a very important dime. This really was a great story with a nice twist on the ending – a story that doesn’t end quite how you expect, but satisfies nonetheless.

Next up is Janet Gilbert and Vicar with Gyro Gearloose in “The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t.” While transporting a Christmas tree to Daisy Duck’s party, Gyro’s assistant and best friend, Helper (the little robot with the light bulb head) is lost on the streets of Duckburg. The inventor quickly rounds up his friends for a city-wide search, but it may be too late. This has to be one of the best Gyro stories I’ve ever read, because it completely does away with the typical formula. When your main character is a loony inventor, the stories always go the same way: he comes up with a crazy invention, he goes haywire, he has to stop it (usually with another crazy invention). And that’s fine, that’s what you do with crazy inventor stories. But this issue does away with that formula entirely, instead playing on the rarely-examined relationship between Gyro and Helper and turning out a story with real heart and impact. Simply put, it’s beautiful.

“The Duckburg Ice Festival,” also by Gilbert and Vicar, is a fun little story that manages to pull together pretty much the whole cast. Scrooge and Gladstone go head-to-head in a contest to find a valuable diamond ring while Donald and Daisy rehearse for an ice skating competition. The nephews, meanwhile, are desperately watching their hot cocoa stand fail as a chain coffee shop steals their customers. This is the sort of deceptively simple story where a lot of unrelated plots collide in a hysterical finale.

“The Christmas Gathering,” by Transgaard and Nunez, is our Beagle Boy story this issue. Duckburg’s notorious criminals call in dozens of cousins from around the country to help them out on a Christmas heist. A cute little tale.

Finally we have this issue’s cover story, “Out of the Blue” by William Van Horn. When a relative of the ducks dies and leaves all of his possessions to Donald, he discovers an IOU from Uncle Scrooge that could net him a tidy sum if he collects. Scrooge, of course, isn’t in the mindset of paying up and the ducks engage each other on a wild chase through the Money Bin. It’s a decent story, but not one of Van Horn’s classics.

And there you have it – a good collection of tales from Duckburg, particularly the first two stories. This will be a collection any kid would be happy to find on Christmas.

Rating: 8/10