Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #362 (January 2011, Boom! Kids)... plus BONUS COVERAGE!

*** SPOILERS BELOW: PROCEED WITH CAUTION! ***

It may sound like a backhanded compliment, given my general opinion of some of the previous issues in the "Kung Fu Donald" sequence, but this issue -- the last of the rice wine, as it were -- turns out to be a pretty good conclusion to the short-lived cycle. In "Return of the Titan of Tae-Kwon-Duk," scripter Joe Torcivia picks up where he left off in "Titan of Tae-Kwon-Duk!", the enjoyable backup story in #360, by, strangely enough, going in temporal reverse. Torcivia cabooses the unrelated 1990 Paul Halas-Tom Anderson-Vicar story "Malicious Mallard" onto the backside of the original "Titan," which Egmont actually released over a decade later, and creates a Barks-flavored mini-epic in which Donald's difficulties, rather than those of some "does-he-or-doesn't-he-really-exist?" relative in feudal Japan, drive the plot. Actually, Donald is more of a victim in "Return" than anything else, since Halas and Anderson stick Don with a case of amnesia at just the moment when a lookalike lowlife, the bad-assed, karate-kicking Mangler Mallard, escapes from jail. Torcivia enlivens what could have been (and probably was in the original incarnation) a truly dreary cliche-fest with some inspired name-dropping (e.g., the amnesiac Donald's boss, who thinks the zoned-out mallard is the real Mangler and uses him to commit robberies, is named Handlebars McTwirlsneer) and some snappy repartee between Mangler and the recovered Don as they have a sort-of-set-to in a junkyard. (The use of "Ajax" as the junk company's name is a clever shout-out to the "Acme" simulacrum used in Mickey Mouse Works and Disney's House of Mouse.) Donald earns an unexpected triumph -- though not one without a barb in the very end of its tail -- so we get an ending that can be ranked as satisfying, for all of Don's travails. Torcivia's success in hooking up the two unrelated stories is pleasantly reminiscent of Disney Comics' creation of "The Time Tetrad" from a quartet of Duck tales that ran across four different titles dated October 1991. Disney Comics "imploded" soon after "Tetrad" appeared; let's hope that isn't an omen...

Janet Gilbert, ably assisted by artist Francisco Rodriquez Peinado, gives us an equally amusing back-up, "A Star is Hatched." As those of us who enjoyed her GOOFY stories during the Gemstone era can attest, Janet has come a very long way from the bad old days of having a bored Scrooge join the circus. Here, it is entirely believable that a glory-hungry, martial-arts-obsessed Donald would try to horn in on director Quackie Chan's action film. Don has to settle for the role of a lowly "production assistant" (read: all-purpose goofy "gofer") but winds up filling a hole in the cast after he inadvertently puts one of the stars out of action. The kicker: the star is actually a starlet. The extra kicker: Don's reaction once he learns that he's become a comedy smash is frankly surprising. Very funny and very well-drawn, with a positively grotesque depiction of the starlet's demise thrown in. "Goof-Jitsu," a two-page MICKEY MOUSE strip gag from 1948, is the "cherry blossom" on top of an enjoyable package that finally does a little bit of belated justice to the whole "Kung Fu Donald" concept.

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The trade paperback versions of "DARKWING DUCK: The Duck Knight Returns" and "DUCKTALES: Like a Hurricane" have recently been released, and some oddities -- both minor and major -- are immediately apparent. For starters: Why is the DUCKTALES volume slightly smaller than the "Duck Knight" volume? Not in terms of page count, but in terms of actual, physical size? Is this meant to indicate some sort of "aesthetic difference" between Boom! Studios releases and those carrying the imprimatur of Boom! Kids? If so, then the policy is apparently not being applied uniformly, since the advance notice for the collected "CHIP AND DALE'S RESCUE RANGERS: Worldwide Rescue," slated for release in July, lists dimensions that are slightly different from those of "Duck Knight."

After its early struggles, I had thought that Boom! had weaned itself off of major editorial gaffes, but the "Like a Hurricane" collection is the messiest, least logically constructed thing that I've ever seen the company release. Recall that "Like a Hurricane" was the "umbrella title" used to envelop the DUCKTALES material in UNCLE $CROOGE #392, #393, #394, and #395 in a clumsily awkward embrace. Aside from recognizing the use of the phrase for trade-paper packaging purposes, I gave it no mind, but now it appears that I should have done so -- or, at least, tried to. As bizarre as it seems, "The Curse of Flabberge," "The Everlasting Coal," and "The Pyramid of Prak-ti-Kal Dioker" -- in that order -- are presented without separate story titles here, as if they were some sort of continuous narrative. Unlike Joe Torcivia's efforts with "Tae-Kwon-Duk," however, there isn't even the slightest attempt to believably create linkage. Indeed, on page 2 of "Flabberge," there's a reworked editorial sidebar reference to "Prak-ti-Kal Dioker," which originally was released before "Flabberge" in "real" UNCLE $CROOGE time but appears after it in this volume. I didn't know that sidebar references could be used to predict the future. If this isn't enough to make one's head hurt, consider that "The Littlest Gizmoduck" and "A Switch in Time" are used as "filler" material with their titles still intact. Honestly, did the proverbial "pack of monkeys typing randomly on typewriters" have a hand in putting this together? I suppose that I ought to be pleased that the positioning of "Flabberge" at the front of the book might represent a recognition of sorts that David Gerstein's ambitious use of an existing story to "achieve closure" on the tale of Carl Barks' Brutopia was, in fact, the high point of the DUCKTALES era of UNCLE $CROOGE. From all appearances, however, putting "Flabberge" first might literally have been because someone "rolled a six."

"Duck Knight" is a much more pleasing package, in large part because it has a couple of surprises lurking within. For one, there are no ads for other Disney-related Boom! products. This makes some sense, given that (1) DARKWING is being released under the Boom! Studios banner and (2) Boom! is clearly trying to "hook" mainstream superhero fans here as well as Disney comics fans, but a one-page preview of the "Worldwide Rescue" collection, as well as that of the ongoing "Crisis on Infinite Darkwings," might not have seemed out of place. Following the cover gallery, we find two bonus items that more than make up for the PR omission: two pages of character sketches by DARKWING artist James Silvani and a three-page article on "The Origin(s) of Darkwing Duck" by none other than DW's creator, Tad Stones. For the Stones piece alone, with its priceless bits of "inside infor" on how "Double-O Duck, Starring Launchpad McQuack" mutated into the "terror that flaps" that we know and love, this volume is worth getting, even if you already own DARKWING DUCK #1-#4. Did you know that Gizmoduck was originally going to be paired with "Double-O" Launchpad? I didn't.

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As we gear up for the official launching of "Boom! Kids 2.0" and the promised "return of the classics," word has come of some unfortunate cancellations elsewhere in the Boom! "universe." Read the entire thread for some interesting observations and revelations. I didn't read the Pixar and Muppet books but heard many good things about them. Could Disney be planning to shift these titles to Marvel?

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #361 (December 2010, Boom! Kids)

If only the sole feature of DD&F #361 were as lively as Sabrina Alberghetti's clever cover! Not even the heroic dialoguing efforts of David Gerstein can mask the undeniable fact that Francois Corteggiani and Comicup Studio's 1994 effort "Donald Duck Tsunami" is one lame excuse for a story. "Retconned" as representing the continuing adventures of the feudal ronin Tekka-Don introduced in DD&F #359-360's "Son of the Rising Sun," "Tsunami" mixes byplay between T-D and (in order) work-wearied villagers, the massive (and terminally stupid) "advance scout" of a horde of ruthless bandits, and the "full complement" of said bandits with the completely gratuitous on-pouring of a pair of tidal waves. I don't know which is harder to believe: the notion that a bandit-band worth its stolen salt would employ a "scout" who is so absurdly easy to recognize and to fool, or the idea that a tsunami happens to arrive just when the bungling T-D needs it to subdue his foes. T-D makes a comment that tries to pass off the improbable inundations as unexpected "high tides," but I think Gerstein may have meant it as a joke, if not a wry comment on how silly the original plot was. (Comicup inadvertently does the same thing when it shows one of the villagers fleeing the first tsunami with an inexplicable grin on his face.) Gerstein tries manfully to make this thing worth reading, and he succeeds to the extent that "Tsunami" actually ends up being fairly readable... but it's little more than that. This whole "Kung Fu Donald" sequence -- the back-up story "The Titan of Tae-Kwon-Duck" in #360 excepted -- is making the DOUBLE DUCK stories look better and better all the time.

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #360 (November 2010, Boom! Kids)

A superb cover by the all-too-infrequently-glimpsed Pat and Shelly Block deserves better than serving as a "front" to the conclusion of the drab, desultory Oriental "dreamscapade" "Son of the Rising Sun." It's pretty much "more of the same" -- more bland art, more "smoochy-smoochy" between Donald's heroic warrior stand-in Tekka-Don and the amorous Dai-Chan (the real Donald should only wish that Daisy were this sexually aggressive!), more "red-hot bo action" (between Tekka-Don and the preternaturally lucky visiting Gander-Bei), more grumbling and grimacing from putative villain Shogun Scrooge-San (who seems to yield to Tekka-Don with embarrassing ease in the end), all culminating, of course, in the inevitable "wake-up call" for the snoozing Donald. No one's heart seems to have been in this exercise, a state of affairs which can best be observed in the clumsy way in which such an apparently simple matter as the nature of Gander-Bei's luck is handled. Tekka-Don's ultimate triumph over Gander-Bei is fueled by the fact that, as T-D gloatingly notes, "[Gander-Bei] used [his good fortune] to help a rat [Scrooge-San]!" and thereby "short-circuited" his luck's effectiveness. There seems to be a connection here to the notion, first seen in the DuckTales episode "Dime Enough for Luck," that Gladstone's luck turns sour when he "uses it for an evil purpose." Indeed, the circumstances in "Rising Sun" jibe more closely with that theory, since Gladstone didn't mean to help Magica De Spell steal the Old #1 Dime in "Dime Enough" (he was instead hypnotized into doing so), whereas Gander-Bei serves Scrooge-San as a willing hireling. But to make the theory work, shouldn't Gander-Bei's luck have turned bad during the first of his two fights with Tekka-Don? G-B wins Encounter #1 when Donald is foiled by a collapsing bridge, a natural thing to happen when a foe is "within the penumbra" of the gander's good fortune. Bout #2, however, finds Gander-Bei less willing to fight Tekka-Don, which, if anything, should have strengthened his protection against luck-leakage. Instead, everything goes wrong for G-B and T-D wins in a rout. The logic involved here is as tough to follow as the steps needed to solve one of those Chinese puzzles. Slack editing is also present in a visual sense; the editors forgot to remove the wooden "FINE" from the Italian original's final panel, perhaps because they didn't recognize what it was. The "Double Duck" stories had their share of soft spots, but "Rising Sun" under-performs even the least of them.

Happily, the ish's back-up story, "The Titan of Tae-Kwon-Duk", is much more like it. After the first page of the new story provides a clever segue from the events (such as they were) of "Rising Sun," we go off in a decidedly Barksian direction, with Donald, determined to show the scoffing HD&L that he can, too, be a martial-arts maven, bungling his way into unmerited status as a Tae-Kwon-Duck expert... and into a match with Goosetown's black-bearded black belt, Blutosaki. After benefiting from another slice of ludicrous luck that even Gladstone wouldn't sign for, Don finds that his dream of impressing the boys remains tantalizingly unfulfilled. With Donald having acquitted himself with honor in the role of Double Duck, it ought to be at least a bit dispiriting to see Donald cast back into the familiar role of a buffoonish blowhard, but, hey, it's certainly canonical -- and funny. Joe Torcivia festoons Gorm Transgaard's plot with references to Lost in Space, Star Trek, POPEYE (the aforementioned Blutosaki), and Osamu Tezuka, among many others, and Jose Maria Manrique's straightforward art is enlivened by the numerous background gags at Duckburg's "Tae-Kwon-Duk Dojo and Take-Out" studio. "Titan" is the best evidence yet that Boom! made the right decision when it chose to restore back-up stories to many of its titles. Before, if the main story happened to be a dog, then there was no escape from it until the next issue (if then, given Boom!'s early fetish for continuity). Thanks to "Titan," however, this issue manages to "socky-choppy" its way to a draw... or the Tae-Kwon-Duk equivalent of same.

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #359 (October 2010, Boom! Kids)

What's that strange feeling washing over me like soy sauce being drizzled slowly over steak teriyaki? Can it really be nostalgia for the not-so-long-ago days of Double Duck?! You'd have had a hard time convincing me that I'd be experiencing such emotions back when I first learned about the Donald super-spy arc, but the pallid first chapter of "Son of the Rising Sun" -- aka "Donald Duck, Master of Kung Fu" -- has dredged them up. Even scripter David Gerstein seems unable to inject any legitimate life into writer Ennio Missaglia and artist Valerio Held's wan saga.

What is most disappointing about this effort is that the main adventure is not about Donald at all. I was expecting to see another example of Donald having to respond to the challenge of mastering another skill set normally considered above his "pay grade," as he did under the aegis of The Agency. The prospect of Donald learning martial arts actually held even more promise for real character development. After all, Double Duck had already been a successful agent prior to his memory being erased, whereas Don is simply his usual fumbling, boastful self at the start of "Rising Sun," mocking HD&L's karate training and claiming that he could do just as well. Taking this familiar, hapless version of Don and turning him into a confident martial-arts master could lead to some good gaggery and a bit of legitimate character growth. Instead of this potentially spicy scenario, however, we get a mouthful of plain tofu. After wrecking his leg with an ill-advised karate kick, Donald simply dreams of becoming "Master Karateka," a lowly tax collector-slash-"warrior" in feudal Japan who becomes a "lone wolf" in order to help lovely Dai-chan's village resist the depredations of greedy Shogun Scrooge-San. (He's also after Dai-chan herself, as the multiple panels featuring puckered beaks and goo-goo eyes rather heavy-handedly attest.) Marco Rota's tales of Donald's ancestor Andold Wild Duck come quickly to mind, especially since Scrooge-San makes reference to a fortune-teller telling him that Scrooge McDuck would be one of his lineal descendants. (I didn't know that Don Rosa's Duck Family Tree had roots that grew all the way through the center of the Earth, clear to the Orient.) "Rising Sun," however, doesn't measure up to Rota's cycle of tales. Andold and his supporting cast were strong enough to carry stories all by themselves, whereas Missaglia's unimaginative approach is simply to plug contemporary Duck characters into the Japanese setting and hope for the best. Also, needless to say, Rota's artwork is vastly superior to Held's.

There is still a possibility that the remaining 14 pages of the 36-page "Rising Sun" will yank us back to the present day and give the real Donald a chance to shine. Given Missaglia's predictability in this first installment, however, I somehow doubt that the samurai will come riding in to rescue us in the nick of time.

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #358 (September 2010, Boom! Kids)

"The exciting conclusion to the fan-favorite [DOUBLE DUCK] saga," my pinfeathered white... Seriously, Boom!istas, do you really believe that you're going to fool anyone into thinking that "Total Reset Button" is "the final DOUBLE DUCK arc"?!? Yes, the story (or, rather, the nine-page fag-end of same -- see my review of #357) "ends" with Donald zapping ex-Agency head Felino Felinys back into happy obliviousness and using some trickery to keep Jana Smirnov and her goons from spiriting Felinys' repressed memories away in the "TRB" device. It's a nice reminder that Double Duck Donald has, more often than not, displayed a refreshing competence in the pursuit of his duties. But in the last several panels, we learn that the assassins who are after Double D (remember them?) are still very much at large AND are in a position to track Donald with relative ease. You can't simply slap a "THE END" logo on that "stinger" and walk away with a smug smile. I'd even have settled for a "Stay Tuned for Future Adventures" announcement. It would have been frustratingly vague, but at least it would have admitted that, no, the DOUBLE DUCK saga really isn't over, we're just putting it on hold for a while. The way that the sidelining of DOUBLE DUCK was handled is, quite frankly, an insult to the reader's intelligence. A real shame, too, for these stories weren't half bad.

"Bugged Duck" took away at least a portion of my pain with a funny, rousing climax that wouldn't have been out of place in an (unaccountably decent) Quack Pack episode. The tale of double- and triple-dealing skulduggery is rather more cynical that you'd even expect a Donald-vs.-Nephews free-for-all to be, with its two "Men in Black" on the make and a surprise ending that's meant to be -- and is -- more than a bit unsettling. Writers Laura and Mark Shaw even throw in an obscure DuckTales reference for good measure. The real star of the show, however, is artist Flemming Andersen, who does wonders with panel design (check out the "flow-of-action" special on the next-to-last page!) and facial expressions. I stand by my previous contention that DD&F should have wrapped up the DOUBLE DUCK material in #357 (without trying to pull a fast one, of course) and run this story complete in #358 as a "transition tale." The page counts might not have complied with Boom!'s S.O.P., but I would have preferred paying a little extra for a few more pages to the highly unsatisfactory solution that we got here.

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #357 (August 2010, Boom! Kids)

Remarkably enough, "Total Reset Button," the last DOUBLE DUCK story in this title for the foreseeable future, is slated for the slightly undignified role of second fiddle to its backup feature in both this issue and the upcoming #358. After only nine pages' worth of the supposed "lead story" -- providing barely enough time for me to "reset" my VCR, let alone neutralize a former Agency head's reviving memories -- we get 15 pages of "Bugged Duck," a 2005 Egmont pocket-book pseudo-spy story drawn by Flemming "TNT" Andersen and written by Mark and Laura Shaw. This is peculiar enough -- but what's really strange is that "Bugged Duck" is 30 pages total, meaning that the caboose will outweigh the train next time, as well. Why couldn't "Reset Button" simply have been finished in this issue, with a brief gag story thrown in to make weight? Even a couple of oversize reprinted covers from TOPOLINO's DOUBLE DUCK issues would have been acceptable -- not to mention more respectful to a concept that has, by and large, provided reasonable entertainment value, which is far more than I would have expected when the Boom! DD&F began.

There's relatively little to say about the tiny smidgen of "Reset Button" we get here, except that my assumption that Kay K was "turning coat" once again appears to have been incorrect -- I think. (It's always good when reading these stories to hedge one's bets.) The lady who targeted Donald last time turned out to be an embittered ex-agent with a score to settle with ex-Agency honcho Felino Felinys. OK, so what about that whole business of assassins gunning for Double Duck? The goons helping Jana Smirnov here treat Donald as an annoyance, rather than a mortal threat, so the killers must be elsewhere. Is Kay lurking in a dark alley somewhere, wearing a slinky outfit and carrying a lethal weapon?

"Bugged Duck" is a blast from the thematic past, a "beaks-to-the-wall" rivalry story between Donald and the boys. Here, HD&L "cast the first zone" by eavesdropping on Daisy's house and embarrassing their uncle, who then tries to teach them a lesson by bugging them, subsequently letting them bug his person, and then scaring them silly by pretending that he's a spy on a deadly mission. (Andersen really excels in depicting Don's grimacing and bad acting when he's playing the spy con game.) The boys get wise and plan some revenge of their own, but two real agents have overheard the whole deal in the meantime and plan to bust up the "spy ring" (once they finish bickering over who's going to get the credit). Funny stuff, but, in order to make it work, you have to flush any memories of Donald being Double Duck that may have lingered beyond the opening nine pages. Schizophrenic issue...

All Tripped Out

Now that my trip to Vancouver for the Joint Statistical Meetings is over, I'm willing -- nay, eager -- to play homebody for the foreseeable future. Three sizable Summer journeys will do that to a fellow. Not that I didn't enjoy my stay in Vancouver, of course. The weather was pleasant, and I took advantage by concluding my stay with a trolley tour of different parts of the city, including beautiful Stanley Park. My talk went well (I've already gotten a request for my Power Point slides from an attendee) and maybe, just maybe, it can be turned into a paper.

The dinner visit to William Van Horn and his wife Elaine in "North Van" on the 3rd was great, apart from the $65 I had to shell out for cab fare. (The guy taking me there could at least have known where he was going. As it was, he had to drive with a city map on his lap.) Bill and I talked about everything from Duck comics (bien sur) to roofing during the 4 1/2 hours I was there. In Bill's studio, a partially finished Duck story lay on the drawing board (yes, he's still producing them, though at a much slower pace and with absolutely no idea as to whether they will ever be printed in the U.S.) and the walls were adorned with comic-art originals by George Herriman, Walt Kelly, and Chester Gould, among others. (I was unaware that Bill is a big DICK TRACY fan.) Bill's son Noel is prospering and has now turned his hand to Duck stories. Wouldn't I love to see both VH's represented in a reformatted DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS?

Comics Reviews: DISNEY'S HERO SQUAD #7 and WIZARDS OF MICKEY #7 (July 2010, Boom! Kids)

My first joint review of these titles in a while -- and, depending on shipping skeds, it may well be the last, as each is scheduled to "go on hiatus" following installment #8. I can now honestly say that I won't be at all sorry to see HERO SQUAD depart... and, while I have enjoyed WIZARDS OF MICKEY for the most part, seeing it go won't exactly crush my spirits. I think it is far more likely that we'll see WIZARDS again, seeing as how there's so much unpublished material available. Perhaps WIZARDS can be turned into a recurring subfeature in the newly revived MICKEY MOUSE AND FRIENDS? Hey, if Donald can enjoy stints as a superspy and (so I hear) as a kung fu expert in DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS, why can't Mickey don different creative chapeaux in "his" title? (Of course, the way that Boom! has been burning up the Casty material, WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES can almost be counted as a MICKEY book now.)

The end of "The Battle for the Ultramachine" SHOULD, by all rights, have appeared in HERO SQUAD #8, but it looks as if we're going to get a trivial follow-up story, "Fight Before the Exams," to fill in the gap. (Whatever happened to the plan to reprint more hero origin stories?) It's finally occurred to me that the Ultramachine epic turned out to be very much like a classic JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA story penned by Gardner Fox, with discrete individual battles seguing into a grand free-for-all finale. The main difference here is that the actual en masse combat between the Ultraheroes and the Sinister 7 didn't last that long. More attention was paid to the two groups' combining of forces to stop the giant, out-of-control, Ultramachine-powered Eega Beeva. And therein lies the problem -- we didn't really know ANY of these characters well enough for the alliance to have any impact at all. A number of artist Stefan Turconi's panels featured squiggly little characters buzzing around Big Eega like hornets around a hornets' nest, doing... stuff. That pretty much summed up the impersonal, uninvolving nature of this battle. Mickey, after being subjected to menial duties and minor humiliations throughout most of the story, actually makes the most meaningful contribution to Eega's neutralization... which is promptly undercut when Eega crushes a loose Ultrapod (thereby making it impossible to reconstruct the Ultramachine) and blandly admits that he really should have thought of that beforehand! Pno kidding, Psherlock. This struck me as supremely cynical storytelling. At least the final few pages tried to tidy up some loose ends: the "civilian" Donald and Daisy making up (with a direct, beak-on-beak kiss? How often have we seen that in a Duck story?), Fethry getting a new igloo-selling idea, Cloverleaf (who's called "Clover" several times here for some unknown reason) finally getting someone to join his online fan club. The identity of Cloverleaf's cyber-buddy is probably the best gag in the entire story. Scrooge had better make darn sure that his Money Bin defenses (a giant mechanical hand and foot? Gizmoduck should feel insulted) are extra-secure in the near future, or "Old #1" will be tested to the utmost as a "lucky" charm.

The heroes and villains meander away from the Money Bin at the end of "Ultraheroes" exchanging reluctant compliments and vague threats of future battles (because, well, that's what is expected of them). So it's not all that surprising to see Pete immediately return in "Fight Before the Exams" as what would appear to be a "final exam" challenge for the still-training Ultraheroes. The promised "fight" looks to be between Duck Avenger and Cloverleaf, who close the issue with a bout of fairly irritating bickering. Whatever happens in HS #8, it will be a decided anticlimax... but then, the climax of the "Ultramachine Saga" already was.

The big question I have regarding WIZARDS OF MICKEY #7 actually relates to WIZARDS OF MICKEY #8. With the final part of "The Sorcerer of Donnybrook Castle" taking up space at the back of the issue, how will the first great battle between WOM and The Phantom Blot be brought to a really satisfying conclusion in such a small amount of space? Will continuity issues -- Donald's delayed-reaction magic, WOM's painfully-forged alliances with the Dragons and Team Diamond Moon, Goofy's endless search for a profession (it's photography, this time -- well, he did build the team's "Iron Dragon" flying machine in what seemed like a split second, so I suppose he could whip up a camera "in a jiff", a la Gadget) -- be wrapped up at the same time as The Blot, Pete, and The Beagle Brothers are dealt with? If they can pull this off, it'll be quite a feat. I suspect that the long-absent Nereus may wind up lending a hand somehow, since Mickey got a warning through his techno-charm to be wary of the bad guys' "rage spell" trap at Fang Castle. I did notice one continuity error when Donald mentioned that inviting "all the wizards" in the tournament to meet in the same location was not S.O.P. for this competition. What about The Blot's plan to steal "all" the staffs and Diamagics at Arborea in WOM #3, or even the party at 1000 Rooms Castle in #5? I may be searching for nits here, though. Assuming that you can accept the premise, the world of WIZARDS OF MICKEY has featured a decent amount of consistency (Team Yum-Yum Cook and Team Jinx are still around!) and, by and large, the stories have been enjoyable, if a little disjointed. Squeezing the rest of the package into 12 pages seems like a tall order, however. Let's see whether the magic holds to the end.

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #356 (Boom! Kids, July 2010)

Scratch one reformation -- maybe. The fag-end of "Souvenir de Paris", and especially the first page of DD&F's final (for now, anyway) DOUBLE DUCK story, "Total Reset Button", throw us yet another curve ball regarding Kay K's true loyalties. Was she simply "using" Donald, and the cover of the fake kidnapping of Daisy in #355, to rifle The Organization's coffers? Is she, in fact, the mysterious individual who's targeted Don based on the results of his "first mission" for The Agency -- the one the details of which he so conveniently can't remember? Is ANY person or event in these DOUBLE DUCK stories what he/she/it appears to be at first glance? I'm going to wind up hoping that the emergency "TRB" that Don has been instructed to apply to the backsliding ex-Agency director Felino Felinys can be applied to this entire collection of story arcs. It's all getting so difficult to keep straight. Even if you can, there's Giorgio Cavazzano's bizarre cover to this issue to consider. What symbolism could be inherent in agent Don's brandishing of a banana, I don't like to think... and who is the "Double-O-Duck" extra pushing a button in the corner, there? Is he auditioning for Minion status?

A good portion of the opening action of "Total Reset Button" is simply a rehash of the beginning of "Before the Premiere", with the opera changed to Aida, the setting switched to Cairo, and Gladstone Gander serving as the cocklebur in Don's cummerbund. (For some reason, I think even Gladstone will be less irritating than Daisy has generally been during these stories -- though the preoccupied Donald's blowoff of his bragging cousin at the start of "TRB" suggests that he might be able to handle the situation.) While trying to keep Felinys in "ignorance-is-bliss" mode, Donald is evincing a growing interest in exactly what happened during that nebulous "first mission," the one that's got that supposed assassin in such a snit. Don even goes so far as to attempt to do some espionage work at The Agency itself. If the "first mission" subplot is wrapped up at the end of "TRB," as I suspect it probably will, then that will indeed be an ideal time for the DOUBLE DUCK tales to go bye-bye for a spell.

An Update on Boom! Sales

Here's an updated graph detailing Boom! sales to comic-book and specialty shops as of May 2010. (Thanks to Kneon for the updated information.)
Sales for MICKEY MOUSE AND FRIENDS/WIZARDS OF MICKEY aren't included because there was only one additional data point available. WOM #2 sold 3704 copies -- a 27% decline from the first issue -- and the remaining issues covered during this period, WOM #3 and WOM #4, didn't make Diamond's list of the Top 300 sellers. At least WOM fared better than HERO SQUAD, which fell out of the Top 300 after issue #1. The DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS graph is missing a data point for month 6 (issue #352) for the same reason. What would worry me if I were Boom! is that DD&F #352 was the final issue of the first Double Duck story arc, the one which Red Primerose's identity was revealed. By contrast, the final chapter of Casty's "Mickey Mouse and the World to Come" (WDC&S #706) produced a modest, but welcome, uptick in sales. With the declines of UNCLE $CROOGE and DD&F having flattened out at the same time, perhaps we have reached the proverbial "bottom of the ski slope."

The most recent PREVIEWS solicited orders for books slated to be released in September... and HERO SQUAD and WIZARDS OF MICKEY are conspicuous by their absence. Instead, MICKEY MOUSE AND FRIENDS will return for a gala issue #300. There's lots of WIZARDS OF MICKEY material still out there; ULTRAHEROES, not so much. What will Boom! do when/if it decides to revisit these concepts? I wouldn't mind HERO SQUAD being a "filler" in some other book at some point, but there doesn't appear to be enough remaining material to justify restarting the title. Also, wouldn't a return to "classic" practice in MM&F be stepping on the over-sized Mouse shoes of the Casty material currently running in WDC&S?

With the apparent shelving of the "New Direction" titles for the nonce and the concurrent commitment to DuckTales material in UNCLE $CROOGE and an ongoing DARKWING DUCK title, Boom! might be said to have redefined its target audience. With HERO SQUAD and WIZARDS OF MICKEY, Boom! aimed for the "kid" audience brought up on a diet of superhero movies and HARRY POTTER novels. The current Disney Afternoon gambit seems to be attempting to reach those young adults (and, of course, a couple of us young-at-heart older ones) whose first sustained, consistent exposure to "Disney product" came through watching the "Golden Age" TV series. Judging by the early reports on the brisk sales of DARKWING DUCK #1, this may not have been a bad strategy. Aside from the "goosing effect" that nostalgia has had on sales, the older readers of the TV-based comics might encourage their own children to become interested in the old series. Were the various divisions of Disney not so rigidly segregated, I might even dare to hope that this might lead Disney DVD to rethink its decision to abort its releases of the "Golden Age" DVD collections.

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #355 (Boom! Kids, June 2010)

Part two (actually, given the length of the first installment in DD&F #354, it'd be more appropriate to call it part "one-plus-some-fraction") of "Souvenir de Paris" hits readers upside the beak with the revelation that good-girl-turned-bad-babe Kay K, who was last seen robbing a high-tech outfit, may have been fooling us all along as to her true affiliation and intentions. The beauteous Kay turns up in Paris to help Double Duck Donald recover the very computer-hacking key that Kay supposedly stole under orders from the evil Organization. Well might Don say "Eeeeh?!", as he does in response to this U-turn of events. The key CD is too reminiscent for my liking of the computerized missing list of agents that served as the "McGuffin" for the first DOUBLE DUCK story arc, but that's only a small quibble, given that a different writer scripted this story. I'm much more concerned with where Kay K's character is headed at this point. Sure, there's been enough intrigue and double-crossing in the DOUBLE DUCK "universe" that it's possible to imagine that Kay was playing a double game all along, but I find her claim that "only The Big Boss [of The Agency]" knows about her current mission to be rather suspicious. How convenient that Jay J can't corroborate her story. Then, after the key has been secured, Kay disappears, only to reappear later at Don's hotel with news that assassins have targeted him. Better get those deflector shields up, Don, and join me in "once bitten, twice shy" mode.

After making Don's life miserable during previous DOUBLE DUCK installments, Daisy actually gets to go with Donald to Paris this time, and Don is forced to choose between his loyalty to The Agency and his often mystifying love for his mercurial girlfriend when it appears that Daisy has been kidnapped by Organization thugs. The alarm turns out to be a false one, which seems par for the course with this title. I will say that Daisy, who jumps with alarming speed from threatening Don with a rolling pin (when was the last time you saw that cliche in a comic-book setting?) to covering him with kisses after learning that he's taking her to Paree, has rarely looked so good in a physical sense. Artist Vitale Mangiatordi does a fine job with Kay K, too.

Comics Reviews: DISNEY'S HERO SQUAD #5 and WIZARDS OF MICKEY #5 (Boom! Kids, May 2010)

There's no longer any serious doubt in my mind that HERO SQUAD has fallen WELL behind fellow "Disney departure" titles WIZARDS OF MICKEY and DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS on the old "like-o-meter." This week's issue of HS falls dangerously close to "worthy-of-MSTing" territory, while WIZARDS, despite serious inconsistencies in artistic quality and the creakiness inherent in its "from-one-venue-to-another" structure, has stabilized into a reliably satisfactory reading experience.


For a "significant" issue that finally allows us to see the effects of the assembled Ultramachine and reveals the identity of the "genius" responsible for inventing such a dangerous device in the first place, HERO SQUAD #5 is distressingly poor, especially in the realm of simple logic. Exactly HOW, may I ask, did Mickey, who was very clearly left behind when the Ultraheroes returned to Duckburg from The Sinister 7's island, manage to join them by the time they arrived to face off against The 7 at Villa Rose? (At least Scrooge, The Money Bin, and The Beagle Boys get a proper "blastoff notice" from the isle as a sidebar to the main action.) Gladstone/Cloverleaf's traitorous actions in HS #4 still haven't been explained, but neither has his apparent decision to break off from BOTH groups and "wait for the right moment to show everybody I'm the best of them all!". Given that Iron Gus accidentally captures all of The 7 save the renegade Emil Eagle by sheer, dumb good fortune (and isn't good luck Cloverleaf's shtick, anyway?), Clove is already halfway there without even trying. The powers of Eega Beeva's "Green Ultra-Suit" consist of the rapid quasi-magical deployment of... prehistoric animals, including a "Pleistocene flea" (sic) that can "disable all technological devices" (not even sic-worthy). Of course Eega is capable of time travel, so one can see him dipping liberally into the distant past, but why use only beasts from that period, rather than mixing in some uber-tech so as to keep foes (especially futuristic ones) honest? Eega's approach might be dismissed as an odd quirk of a character liberally festooned with same, but then we learn that Eega himself was responsible for building the Ultramachine... and that, when activated (by a desperate Emil, in this case), the device zaps Eega into "giant zombie" mode. That's the kind of super-weapon I want to create -- a machine the activation of which renders me completely incapable of controlling myself. No other issue of this title has pointed up so clearly the disadvantages of the "forced-serial" format. No doubt future chapters will provide us with some sort of explanation for Cloverleaf's behavior and Eega's frankly senseless tech, but cutting the story off before we get there leaves the reader completely baffled. The novelty of seeing Disney characters as superheroes has worn off; now it's time to get semi-serious and start putting the pieces of this increasingly schizophrenic narrative together.

In contrast to HS #5, WIZARDS OF MICKEY #5 features a refreshing number of "shout-outs" to earlier stages of the ongoing episodic continuity. Pluto, unseen since MICKEY MOUSE AND FRIENDS #296, finally joins (or, in the case of master Mickey, rejoins) "Our Gandalfian Gang," newly "pawed" with the power of lycanthropy. I'm not entirely comfortable with the explanation as to how Pluto gained this "talent" (nor was I aware that werewolves magically grew spiked helmets upon transformation), but at least Mickey appears to have the ability to control it (even during a full moon!), so it will probably come in handy as we proceed. Pluto helps Wizards of Mickey uncover the "monster scam" being run by Pete and The Beagle Brothers before we head off to a nice breather -- a party amongst the contestants in the sorcery tournament. We see some familiar folks here, including "Team Diamond Moon," "Team Jinx", and even the trio of soup-brewing sorcerers who originally told Mickey about the tournament back in #296. Though the ever-changing artwork makes it harder than it should to recognize some of these old faces, it's nice to see writer Stefano Ambrosio maintaining a throughline of characters, as well as theme. Sadly for WOM, Pete and The Beagles, newly sprung from gaol, also return, under the direct orders of this issue's most noteworthy returnee: The Phantom Blot. I'd still like to know how The Blot avoided Nereus' fate, but at least he's back, above-board, and undisguised, so another showdown with WOM will no doubt soon be upon us. Add the priceless revelation that Goofy -- after having previously considered a number of different occupations in lieu of sorcerer-dom -- now thinks that his true calling may be as a statistician, and how could I not enjoy this issue? (Technically, Goofy's actually a probabilist, since he talks about the chances of Pete and The Beagles escaping from prison. Let him perform a few hypothesis tests and/or sample surveys, and then I'll be completely convinced.)

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #354 (May 2010, Boom! Kids)

Attention, all Agency staffers and hangers-on: we are now in full Mobius-strip mode! After wrapping "Before the Premiere" in this issue, we glide straight into the next Double Duck story without even finding out how Donald solved the dilemma of fulfilling his "birthday mission" for Daisy. What there is of "Souvenir de Paris," however, amounts to little more than a canape; we barely stick around long enough to find out that our old friend Kay K/Red Primerose (1) has escaped from prison, (2) has joined the evil "Organization," and (3) is now skulking about top-secret think tanks in a form-fitting black body suit. What few Double Duck "filler stories" exist would not have made up the difference between the issue's full length and the length of "Before the Premiere Part 2," so I suppose that I understand the editorial decision, but ouch! talk about awkward...

My earlier speculations about "Premiere" resulted in some hits and some misses. The "Org" was interested in influencing the Clippedonian election results and did intend to exploit the crushing climactic crescendo of the opera to power the scheme. Conductor Felino Felinys' ultimate role, however, wasn't what I had expected. Nor did I expect that Donald would foil the plot in such elementary, yet entirely logical, fashion. Once Don realized that his triangle note was the "cherry on top" of the gargantuan musical sundae, phase one of his plan was easy to carry out. The second will be familiar to anyone who's ever seen a cartoon in which the climactic sequence takes place in a hall with a giant chandelier. Nice job, Donald; you're actually showing more competence in this spy gig than in just about any other position you've ever held (though the owners of the Daisy Dairy Company might debate the point -- especially since you actually earned an executive position with that firm). I expect, however, that a revenge-motivated Kay/Red will provide you with by far your toughest challenge yet.

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #353 (Boom! Kids, April 2010)

Evidently, the identity of The Agency's "Big Boss" is, like the Sherlock Holmes story of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, "a tale for which the world is not yet prepared." "Before the Premiere," the new "Double Duck" story arc, instead throws us straight into a new adventure introducing The Organization, which apparently will serve as FOWL to The Agency's SHUSH. Here, Donald is being asked to keep tabs on a former Agency bigwig, orchestra conductor Felino Felinys (who is, against all probability, a bird rather than a cat), whom The Org is apparently interested in nabbing and "reactivating" from his mind-zapped forgetitude. The song-slinging ex-"spook" is presently engaged in preparing the premiere of a forbidding new opera at Milan's La Scala Opera House. Strange doings are afoot, however: there's Bondian tech aplenty in the basement of the grand structure, while Felinys seems oddly insistent (even for a conductor) that "triangle-player" Donald not be "one nanosecond late" to play his one note of the piece, which occurs at the climax of the concluding crescendo. This, combined with occasional slips of the tongue, suggests strongly to me that Felinys has already been "turned" to the side of bad and that we're in for a "sound assault" on someone or something. Could it have something to do with the seemingly irrelevant "Clippedonia election results" reported in the newscast on page one? Perhaps The Org plans to monkey with the results by means of musical malfeasance? It won't take us long to find out, as this story is much shorter than the recently-concluded origin epic. The tale won't be short enough, though, to dispense with the "mundane irritant" subplot. Taking the place of the unpaid parking ticket this time around is Donald's rash promise to give the ever-demanding Daisy a surprise birthday party. Oddly, Donald's frequent lies here trigger mishaps for others, a tic that didn't turn up in the origin story.

Giorgio Cavazzano, the prime influence on modern Italian Duck artists, draws this first segment of the story (and, if Inducks is right, will at least pencil the rest). His loose artwork is an acquired taste for us Statesiders, though WORLD OF THE DRAGONLORDS softened me up to a considerable extent. However, the cohort of Cavazzano-wannabes who drew the earlier chapters of "Double Duck," as well as WIZARDS OF MICKEY, would probably have been hard-pressed to pen the striking reproduction of La Scala seen here (as well as on the cover of TOPOLINO #2767 (December 9, 2008), which I've reproduced above).

As someone who's long had to hear from others about mathematics' inherent power to bore, I couldn't help but chuckle at the implication in the first few pages of this story that classical music bores ALL "normal" males (the poor schlub sitting behind Don and Daisy at the Canasta Club concert is just as anxious to get away as Don is). Part of the chuckle was due to the fact that the opening newscast presents the Milan opera premiere as a news story. If classical music is so irrelevant, then why is such attention being paid to it? Is that news network run exclusively by females?

Boom! Sales: The First Six Months (more or less)

Since a statistical graph is always worth three thousand words... plus or minus a margin of error of 500 or so... I've created a line graph to illustrate Kneon Transitt's data log on the number of Boom! "Duck and Mouse" titles that Diamond has sold to comic-book shops. Here, "Boom! Issue Number" refers to the first, second, etc. issues of each title released under Boom!'s auspices. The abbreviations in the legend should be obvious. (Sorry I didn't include HERO SQUAD, but Kneon had only one data point for that title. For the record, HERO SQUAD #1 sold 4557 copies.)

The one spike in the MICKEY MOUSE AND FRIENDS graph indicates the switchover from MM&F to WIZARDS OF MICKEY. WOM #2 sold about 1300 copies less than WOM #1, which might be due to the "collector's item" reflex but is still bothersome, given that MM&F and WOM have been telling a continuing story.

Kneon includes links to some information on Gemstone sales as well. Boom! appears to be holding its own reasonably well relative to Gemstone's later sales figures, but the downward trend is nonetheless worrisome. I'm especially disappointed in the figures that Kneon reported for the hardback and softcover collections. The first volume of LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE McDUCK barely cleared the 1000-copy mark, and it's the only collection to have done so to date. WALT DISNEY'S VALENTINE'S CLASSICS scored a paltry 383 copies, a real shame given the high quality of that collection. MICKEY MOUSE CLASSICS did better (785), but only slightly better than CHRISTMAS CLASSICS. Hopefully, bookstore sales will help pump up these figures a bit, especially on the collections that merely reprint material that has already appeared in the monthly titles.

An extra "Kay" Chromosome?

According to this week's issue of PREVIEWS, Kay K/Red Primerose is returning to the Double Duck saga in DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS commencing with issue #355. This is not strange. What is peculiar is that she's apparently planning to outdo her "mechanical Jay J suit" and don the "ultimate disguise" -- she's changing her gender. No, really, Boom! says so:

When the notorious criminal, Red Primerose, escapes from his [sic] prison, it's only a matter of time before she plots her revenge on The Agency, starting with a high-risk heist in the City of Lights.

Oh, what misplaced pronouns can do.

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #352 (Boom! Kids, March 2010)

(I'm playing it safe and inserting some up-front...

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... for those who haven't yet read the conclusion of the first "Double Duck" story arc and don't want to be unpleasantly surprised by my comments.)

Ah, me... I was always just a little afraid that the mysterious "Red Primerose" would turn out to be our charming Kay K. But I wanted so much to believe that Kay was nothing more than (1) Donald's Agency partner and (2) a potential rival for Daisy that I shoved the notion to the back of my mind until I had incontrovertible proof of her guilt. Said proof was not long in coming in this issue (and, IMHO, I think that Donald was deserving of a much more shocked reaction than merely sticking out his tongue in a pathetic manner akin to Wile E. Coyote just before the falling boulder strikes him). I am, however, legitimately disappointed that all Kay was after was The Agency's money and that the list-of-agents "McGuffin" was merely a ruse. If this "master spy" was willing to go to the trouble of pitting Agency agents and Marlo Burke against one another and impersonating the imprisoned Jay J with the aid of a mechanical robo-suit (does The Brain know about this egregious copyright infringement?), surely she could have had a slightly more sinister plan in mind than simply filching funds? ("Ah, but it's all part of her MASTER plan," replied David Xanatos, with a knowing chuckle.) There does appear to be one ray of hope for poor Kay K. Judging from the full list of existing Double Duck stories and the appearance of the December '09 TOPOLINO cover shown below, we can probably expect to see Kay (1) do battle with Donald and The Agency in future stories and (2) return to the side of the angels, up to and including teaming up with Double Duck once again. I hope this comes to pass; she's a good character and gave Daisy a serious romantic challenge that Donald's frequently exasperating inamorata desperately needs, to keep her humble if nothing else.


While the revelation that Kay was standing in for Jay J was not contradicted by any earlier gaffes of the "fourth Nephew Phooey" variety -- and yes, I did go back and check -- we did get a "left hand unaware of right hand" moment of sorts in that the opening scene of the arc, in issue #347, did not quite match up with what Kay revealed in this final chapter. If B-Berry had learned of Kay's treachery early on, then why, after stealing the laptop, did he warn Jay J that "lots of people are going to get hurt... starting with you!" and that he intended to "bring down the entire Agency!"? The story began and ended with different translators, and I suspect that wires got crossed somewhere during the transition. A pity; this was a surprisingly good read, given my low expectations at the outset.

The arc ends with The Agency's "Big Boss" being revealed to a stunned Donald. Place your bets, folks... mine's on Scrooge. Hey, the precedent was set (in Italy, at least) a number of years ago... and I just read the story in which the idea originated, no less. Watch this space for my review when I tackle the recently released DONALD DUCK CLASSICS: QUACK UP.

Comics Review: DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #351 (Boom! Kids, February 2010)

The conclusion of the first "Double Duck" arc is nearly upon us, but the excitement level isn't quite what I had hoped for, given the generally enjoyable nature of this inaugural enterprise. The plot has gotten way too gnarled, a legitimately good cliffhanger (Donald getting knocked out by a mysterious assailant) was wasted in the familiar, awkward "cut-off point" in the middle of the issue, and, worst of all, Don seems fully prepared to grovel his way back to the kvetching Daisy when all is said and done, even after he's had another promising moment or two of bonding with Kay K. Perhaps Donald should have taken a hint from Mickey's scheme in "Love Trouble" and put some real fear into his unpleasantly jealous, eternally demanding girlfriend.

I frankly have no inkling what the upcoming denouement will hold. Marlo Burke appears to have been neutralized (though I'm a little suspicious of the way he "just gave up" following his kidnapping of Kay and Donald), but B-Black and B-Berry are still at large with the "McGuffin" computer/CD/whatever, and the i.d. of Red Primerose (who was barely mentioned in this chapter) still needs to be cleared up. Just to remind us what "universe" we're really in, Don makes a couple of references to "poof bombs" that sail right over Kay K and Jay J's heads. It's a funny bit, even if Boom! did get the real name of Magica's "foof bombs" wrong from the start in UNCLE $CROOGE.

Comics Reviews: DISNEY'S HERO SQUAD #1 and WIZARDS OF MICKEY #1 (Boom! Kids, January 2010)

Last week's Boom! releases marked a watershed in American Disney comics history. The company's decision to shift the ongoing Ultraheroes and Wizards of Mickey story lines into their own eponymous titles may not appear to dramatically tempt fate, but it definitely represents a gamble. "Themed" books with familiar Disney characters assuming unusual roles have long done well in Europe, but never have they replaced traditional titles in the manner that WIZARDS OF MICKEY has now supplanted MICKEY MOUSE AND FRIENDS in America. Should these new books outsell MM&F and WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES, will Boom! shift en masse to a "themed" approach, revamping even the "classic" titles and limiting "classic" material to its pricey hardback collections? That would be a "sea change" surging beyond even Disney Comics' introduction of TV-based titles and ROGER RABBIT releases in the early 90s.

In its opening 14 pages, HERO SQUAD #1 bravely faces the "New World" -- and quails ever so slightly. Though described as a "super-slugfest," the latest chapter in the "Ultramachine" saga features hardly any violence at all, super or otherwise. Indeed, "Iron" Gus Goose foils the attempt of John D. Rockerduck (aka "Roller Dollar") to locate Ultrapod-6 by doing nothing more than falling asleep and discombobulating Rockerduck's "cyborg-miners" with his snoring! Fethry "The Red Bat" shows a little more initiative, scandalizing the Pod-5-seeking Phantom Blot by tromping on The Blot's obsidian instep after all manner of "Bat-repellers" have failed to foil the villain. (I thought The Blot's most recent appearance had established that his body is liquid in nature? Fethry's folly is nicely reminiscent of a Warner Bros. or Darkwing Duck gag, regardless.) Elsewhere, The Beagle Boys again screw up Scrooge's attempt to escape The Sinister 7's clutches, while Donald and Daisy, still clueless to one another's crushingly obvious secret identities, meet in Duckburg and bicker in approved Duck Avenger/Super Daisy style. Really, that's all there is to this "collector's issue" insofar as Ultraheroes material goes. Even the artwork, by Roberta Migheli, falls well below the series' genially disheveled, eminently surmountable standard. Boom! probably could have picked a better moment at which to launch HERO SQUAD than this.

The ish's big surprise comes after the Ultraheroes segment, when the "powers-that-edit" abruptly decide to provide some much-needed historical perspective and announce a new subfeature detailing "the secret beginnings of your favorite Ultraheroes!". Better late than never! Taking the first bow is Super Goof in Bob Ogle and Paul Murry's "The Thief of Zanzipar", from SUPER GOOF #1 (1965). Actually, SG had made a couple of appearances before this "origin tale," but this story firmly establishes the Super Goobers as the one true source of Goofy's powers and gives SG his first "official" adventure. The amusing script and first-class Murry artwork are pleasant reminders of Gold Key's golden years. Two problems "grody" up the Goobers, however. First, we only get the first nine of the story's 16 pages, meaning that we'll have to wait an extra issue before another Ultrahero gets his or her chance to shine. Second, Goofy's face is, I kid you not, a light purple in color!  I suppose that's better than Goofy the Genie's entire body being colored blue for the WDC&S #584 reprint of the 1960s story "A Lad 'n His Lamp," but it still looks really, really peculiar, especially since no other character in the story gets a mauve makeover. Colorist Eric Cobain needs to look into this before worried fans begin to write in offering to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on Goofy.


If HERO SQUAD stumbles a bit out of the gate, then WIZARDS OF MICKEY -- once you get past the well-designed logo -- tromps on the reader's face and laughs in the process. Well, at least for a brief moment. The narrative quickly wraps up the "Team Diamond Moon" subplot in fairly slick fashion, giving "Princess Minnie" a back story and permitting Mickey a moment of true nobility to boot, but then hoots with derision in the faces of those who've complained of Boom!'s awkward handling of splits in its chapter arcs: "Stay tuned for the next episode... See you here soon! Like now! No, seriously, turn the page!" Then follows the title page of the next chapter, "The Dragon's Nest." The only good thing about this remarkably inartful editorial decision is that it doesn't involve any misspellings. "The Dragon's Nest" itself is fine, with "Wizards of Mickey" outpointing a team of... erm, they kinda look like Muppets, I guess... for a "light diamagic" and forging ahead to isolated Crow Fortress to fight for the "sleep diamagic" (though Goofy's lullabies may work just as effectively, at least on animals). The "Lord of Deception," meanwhile, thinks that he may finally have a lead on the location of the Dragons' Kingdom, thanks to the imprisoned Nereus' unwitting assistance. I must admit to being surprised by the speed with which "Team Diamond Moon" was discarded -- I had expected them to become steady allies of "WOM," at the very least -- but perhaps Minnie, Daisy, and Clarabelle will reappear in later chapters. Frustratingly, the inside front cover of the book boasts what appears to be a map of the setting for these sorcery stories, but it's too small and faint to read. Why not create a fold-out version as a keepsake of this first issue? That would have been a great way to attract attention from the casual rack-browser. Leaving aside the painful editorial leg-pulling, WIZARDS OF MICKEY continues to rival the "Double Duck" arc in DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS as the best of Boom!'s "New Direction" material.