Uncle Scrooge #394

August 28, 2010

Title: The Curse of Flabberge Part One

Writer: Regis Maine
Translator: David Gerstein
Art: Jose Cardona Blasi
Colorist: Digikore Studios
Letterer: Jose Macasocol, Jr.
Cover: Giorgio Cavazzano & Cyrille Leriche
Editor: Aaron Sparrow & Christopher Meyer
Publisher: Boom! Kids

After the Beagle Boys foul up Scrooge’s latest treasure hunt, he rounds up Launchpad and his nephews to search for the world-famous Flabberge Egg. As treasure hunt stories go, this one starts out a little generic. It gets more interesting, though, when the introduction of a (literal) cat burglar throws in a new twist.

It’s interesting how something which, logically, shouldn’t be a big leap can really skew with your perception of a story. In the world of Ducktales, we typically see ducks and dogs as our main characters. Even in the “expanded” Disney universe, we add mice and the occasional horse and cow. The anthropomorphic cat that shows up in this issue, is a different sort of character, totally unexpected, and actually throws me a bit for a loop.

The story, overall, is good. It’s not great, though, and when you compare it to the other Disney Afternoon comic Boom! Is putting out, Darkwing Duck, it’s a little weak. The thing is, unlike Darkwing, Ducktales wasn’t exactly a totally new idea. It was basically a translation of the Carl Barks Duck universe to television. It worked, but what we have now is a derivation of a derivation. What I’d really love to see is someone take the TV show’s framework and use it to tell a totally new, totally epic storyline in the vein that Barks and Don Rosa did in the greatest Disney comics of all time.

There’s room for it, and there’s certainly a demand. Come on, Boom! Show us what you’ve got.

Rating: 7/10