Duck Avenger Strikes Again! (Commentary)

I don't know if this will be the last time Donald Duck's superhero disguise gets the opportunity to front a hardcover collection of Disney comics, but it's a very attractive cover - I had to take a picture of my own copy of the book; the only stock image I could find is an early mock-up that's probably more true to the content inside the book, whereas the cover we got is more akin to the modern take on the character:

  That image is somewhat iconic

What this book really does is collect 3 stories - 1 Donald Duck, 1 Mickey Mouse, 1 Scrooge McDuck. The Donald story is the 3rd appearance of himself in a superhero costume..more of a concept than a complete idea at this early stage - he's still a light parody of Italian pulp comic character Diabolik, hence the name Paperinik, which changes depending on which country reprints the comics; in some places, he's "Super Donald", "Super Duck", "FantoDonald", "Phantom Duck" and, in the United States, Duck Avenger. Only a scarce handful of stories have been reprinted in the United States with this particular spin on Donald's usual comic book antics; gradually, over the decades, his adventures resemble a precursor/forerunner to Darkwing Duck, only ironically enough, Darkwing's creator Tad Stones has admitted to not knowing this character existed, but becoming a fan of the short-lived Duck Avenger comic books published by IDW pretty quickly, even taking a crack at drawing the character a few times in his own art:

   He flies like Captain Caveman!

It's an intriguing concept - Donald's greatest triumph is one that he has to keep totally secret - but...maybe it's premature and I haven't read enough of the material to be fair, but I found the stories that have been reprinted to just be okay...the plots don't seem to realize the potential of what it means that Carl Barks' Donald Duck has spent over 50 years in comics living a double-life as a superhero - not even in the late-90s when the Italian publishers gave him a fancy-shmancy revamp in the form of PK: The New Adventures, which became a huge smash hit and resulted in a spinoff videogame in 2002 for Playstation 2/XBox/GameCube. That was my introduction to the character, though I have memories of thumbing through imported editions of Piscou/SuperPiscou Giant at magazine shops like Hudson News in the early-90s and wondering "What is this? Why isn't Gladstone Comics or Disney Adventures Magazine reprinting this? This looks cool!"

It turns out that over the years, we were probably protected with efforts at quality control - if it looks like a Carl Barks comic, it would pass muster at being reprinted faster than something outside that frame of reference, but it was still cool when odd images would pop up online - like those sketches of Duck Avenger drawn by Don Rosa upon request by the fan he was houseguest to while in Italy for a convention:

And the door to eventually getting reprints in the U.S. opened in 2000, when Disney introduced the PK version of Duck Avenger in a 3-part tale for Disney Adventures Magazine:

Honestly, the greatest contribution to Duck comics made by giving Donald a superhero costume is not just making Donald a superhero. My argument for the best thing about Paperinik is the introduction of this guy:

The Italian comics call him "Uno", so the American/English translations call him "One", but I prefer the name "Globus", which I think is the Germans name for him, but American comics went with One, so that's that. Now, observe this page:

And this page:

 Can you see the breakthrough that I'm seeing? In the comic books, One is Donald's best friend! He's also Donald's only friend! It's not weird, it's not stupid; One is a sentient artificial intelligence hologram computer program, created by Everett Ducklair to monitor all the gadgets, vehicles and secret rooms contained in the Ducklair Tower skyscraper, which Donald became building superintendent of in the premiere PKNA adventure, which established that Scrooge McDuck was the new owner of the building. So, naturally, One became the Alfred/Jarvis/Aunt May confidant to Donald's superhero disguise, but it also gave him a friend who wasn't a relative that he could talk to and confide in. It was actually Don Rosa who observed that, aside from cartoons where Donald hangs out with Mickey Mouse & Goofy, or dates with Daisy Duck or teaming with Jose Carioca & Panchito Pistoles in Three Caballeros adventures, Donald spends most of his time in the company of his relatives, particularly his nephews - Huey, Dewey and Louie - and his Uncle Scrooge. One is different. One is a true companion. I don't know if there are stories in which One appears in stories outside of Paperinik adventures, but his interactions with Donald open that character's world more than Donald fighting alien ducks in purple jumpsuits that act like outer space Beagle Boys.

I figured I'll get around to reading the Mickey Mouse story someday; it's really more about Ellsworth the crow in the Foreign Legion than about Mickey, anyway. What links the stories in this volume beyond having the same artist is that they feature characters created for Italian Disney comics: Duck Avenger, Ellsworth and Brigitta MacBridge.  Each new character offered a new element to increase story potential: Donald gets to indulge in parodies of pulp superhero genre cliches; Mickey has a new supporting character to play off; and Scrooge gets to be in a relationship with a female duck character that's not a witch after his dime or a retired showgirl.

Carl Barks' interest in crafting story ideas for Brigitta MacBridge might be more interesting than any stories featuring her, though I remember enjoying Secret of The Incas and The Funny Carrots. When Gladstone reprinted her 1st appearance in The Last Balaboo around 1988 or 1989, they included an editorial column that spotlighted her popularity and offered intriguing hints of a story, suggesting from a sketch Carl Barks offered Romano Scarpa, of Brigitta using a "Money Perfume" to attract Scrooge. Scrapa did a drawing that recreated what that sketch looked like, for what was then alluded to as a story called "The Golden Bunch"; I kept a clipping of that and added colors to it:

Over the years, Barks' sketch turned-up online and was alluded  to as "Uncle Scrooge and The Golden Helmet". It was reprinted and included in this volume:

And now, 30 years later, we get to see this collaboration reprinted in the United States for the first time:

I really miss my old smartphone; it had a better camera and could take sharper pictures and the colors would pop better..

Well, one thing for sure, neither  of the 3 titles attributed to this tale give proper indication of where the story goes, though the "Bunch" alludes to bananas; the "Helmet" alludes to the crown resembling a golden bundle of bananas that was destined to be worn by Brigitta's doppelganger; and "Bananaland" is where all the threads lead to in this tale, a lost land that's a far cry from Plain Awful or Tralla La, but not far from the Island of Golden Geese. I'll hazard a guess that Barks suggested Gyro Gearloose concocted the money perfume for Brigitta, along with the Beagle Boys in bird costumes and Brigitta having a doppelganger in some far away world-within-a-world is combining a lot of Barks' bag of tricks, whereas the visuals and pacing of the story are clearly left up to Scarpa - which is not bad, because Scarpa can do a good pastiche of Barks' story style. It's been a long wait for this, but it exists and it's available. 

That was always the best thing about the Disney comics; they were constantly being reprinted because it wasn't a hard sell; the older comics by Barks are well-crafted - it's not like reading The Spirit or New Gods and realizing that Kirby and Eisner are great artists and storytellers, but they can't write dialogue/narration well at all; Carl Barks can write, and anyone who imitated/pastiche his work was cribbing from a source that can be trusted to be of good quality. When left to his own devices, Scarpa's ideas veer more toward the farcical, but it's interesting how close his work is faithful to the master when working off his suggestions.