If it were told in another medium – a Francis Ford Coppola film, perhaps – the story we read in Uncle Scrooge #7 Legacy #467 might be told in such a way that its protagonist was justly vilified; it might be a story of a grim, early 20th century businessman making morally questionable decisions on his way to the top, bankrolling monopolies and cutting down any competition.
As it is, the story of Scrooge McDuck’s rivalry with early Duckburg tycoon, Soames Rockerduck, leaves any morality by the wayside; Scrooge McDuck comics are never the forum in which to discuss the questionable legality of business practices, let alone the moral fiber of the ultrarich.
Fantagraphics
The bulk of issue #7 continues Scrooge’s early career in “The McDuck Journals”; we’ve progressed through his time in the Klondike to his early years in Duckburg, a boom-town turned metropolis under the guiding fiscal hand of tycoons just like Rockerduck and Scrooge, who have a rivalry that leads to the creation of Duckburg’s tallest skyscrapers.
Originally published in the Finnish magazine Aku Ankka, “The McDuck Journals” are written and illustrated by the cartoonist Kari Korhonen, and the comics make their US debut in this issue. Korhonen’s work is both simplified and rich, at turns packed with pastoral detail and at others reduced to the barest profile of character; the balance energizes the reading, plays with pacing, and slows the reader down as they take in the action.
Fantagraphics
It’s an issue of races: a race to the top as the two richest ducks in town build side-by-side urban towers; a boat race to earn them the rights to Duckburg’s docks; and finally, a race in early airplanes to establish who runs Duckburg’s mail. Scrooge doesn’t always win these races, but his general kindness of heart marks him as the right duck for the job, which is to say nothing of his dispassionate monopolizing as he buys out all the construction distributors, halting Rockerduck’s construction. Sort of the opposite of kindness, but we’re to take it as a smartly shrewd play by our favorite tycoon.
These tales take up a bulk of the book, but Fantagraphics seems set on spoiling the reader each issue with at least one other strip beyond the main attraction. Here, a quick, two-page Heuy, Dewey, and Louie strip, “Three-Scoop Task” by Frank Jonker and Ben Verhagen (also making its US debut here) gives the book a quick peek in on our rascally nephews.
Uncle Scrooge #7 continues the great work of these new Disney books, and it does a great job at establishing our hero’s early career. These stories are great, dynamic, and illustrative of a boundless bounty of tales yet to come.
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