Disney Afternoon Giant #1 Review
It seems that the Disney Afternoon characters have found a new home at IDW after a year of in-activity at Joe Books. But rather than new adventures, Disney Afternoon Giant will mainly be a new way to re-print the Boom Studios Disney Afternoon titles from a few years ago. Unfortunately, these were made at a time where Boom really began cheapening their Disney efforts, rushing them out with pretty bad art or editing. DuckTales had a really short lifespan due to this, I will not go into details but I really hope that IDW can fix some of its problems with this re-print.
Disney Afternoon Giant starts off with re-prints of the 4 issue DuckTales comic Rightful Owners ( I really doubt Disney is willing to reprint Dangerous Currency at this point in time) and the Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers comic. The purple mallard Darkwing Duck is also slated to appear in Disney Afternoon Giant at a later point. Let’s dive into Disney Afternoon Giant and see what fate awaits us.
DUCKTALES – RIGHTFUL OWNERS : PART 1 of 4
W: WARREN SPECTOR
A: LEONEL CASTELLIANI, JOSE MASSAROLI AND MAGIC EYE STUDIOS
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2011 as DISNEY’S DUCKTALES #1
Our story begins with Scrooge sky-diving from Launchpad’s bi-plane directly above Duckburg Museum where a exhibit featuring various artifacts from various past adventures ( Mainly from Carl Barks stories) will be on display for the public to see much to the chargin of a jealous John D. Rockerduck.
Scrooge begins to salivate over all the money he will make from this exhibit until his nephews warns them that it is not all about money much to the frustration of their great uncle. John intervenes saying that this is meant to enlighten others and not for greed. Scrooge takes them inside for a tour since Webby had never been on most of these adventures herself and wanted to see most of the strange artifacts that Scrooge found.
Some of the objects that Scrooge shows even include some from adventures Scrooge was not a part of such as the Golden Helmet Donald Duck found in Canada that was lost to the seas. Some other items include the Golden Coat that Scrooge made out of the fleece he grabbed from some harpies and the peppermint ruby he obtained from the Rippan Taro island. They soon go outside to see more objects including living dinosaurs.
( Hate to break the fourth wall but really ,Webby, you were THERE and made friends with a Stegosaurus, this detail has bothered me for years)
The tour comes to a halt when Launchpad’s plane comes a-crashing spooking out the dinosaurs and unicorns of the exhibit going after Scrooge and the gang. Thanks to Webby’s quick thinking, Launchpad makes a quick landing saving most of the exhibit. Later on that day at McDuck Manor, the kids and Launchpad are doing a take on Dungeons and Dragons as she forces them to return the items they took in the game as she gets the idea to ask Scrooge to return all the items he took back to their original owners.
Scrooge is of course outraged by this and explains how each of the treasures were given up by their owners through fair trades, self discovery and exploring. The nephews tell him to think of it through their eyes and how the deals were truly bad. The TVs suddenly interrupt their conversation as Rockerduck announces his intention of returning his items to their owners as he overheard the children’s game. Scrooge calls him wondering what the Dickens is going on ?
The two decide to make a competition out of it, for each item Rockerduck returns, Scrooge will return two, how will this end ? Find out by reading the full story
RESCUE RANGERS- WORLDWIDE RESCUE: PART 1 of 4
W: IAN BRILL
A : LEONEL CASTELLIANI
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2010 as DISNEY’S CHIP AND DALE RESCUE RANGERS #1
Our second story begins with Gadget remembering her biking lessons with her late father and how despite failing, she uses her wits and mechanical know-how to save her father from a speeding ravine. Her father tells her that her genius will take her to amazing places and adventures.
We cut to modern times where the Rescue Rangers are down in the sewers investigating some strange activities involving some animals as the group runs into rampaging gators. Zipper goes to attack them directly to try and distract them away from the Rescue Rangers. The group remembers how Zipper encountered this problem before where a huge group of spiders attacked Zipper’s family reunion.
The group gets lost as Monterey Jack, infuriated that Gadget wants to use a map to get around, tosses it overboard. The group suddenly runs into a waterfall as they reminisce about how they got into this situation in the first place. ( I know, the pacing in this story is very weird)
This flashback starts after Zipper’s little spider attack as the news begins covering strange animal attacks all around the world where the critters glowing in red have become much more agitated and angry towards humans as some like polar bears even begin attacking or locking up humans in coordinated attacks. Monterey Jack gets spooked seeing this and runs away to a nearby cheese shop to eat his stress away leaving the gang behind.
What secret does Monterey Jack know ? Does he know what is causing all these animal attacks ? Read the full story to find out
FINAL THOUGHTS
My feelings on this release are honestly pretty mixed. On one hand, for those who did not own the original Boom releases, this is a good deal to get two quality titles in one issue. But on the other hand, only one is worth it, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers. Rescue Rangers boasts gorgeous and colourful art that matches the tone of its source material. It is nice to see the continuing adventures of the Disney Afternoon characters in a new format.
But the one downside is the DuckTales comic chosen for the title, Rightful Owners is honestly one of the few disappointing recent Disney comics due to its lacklustre writing full of continuity problems both in its story and in the source material that it references. Some of the characters are oddly out of character. Most of the art is beautiful but you can really tell that three different artists were used and all of them give out different levels of quality.
Magic Eye Studios’ work for example is rather poor compared to Leonel’s pages. At times the characters looks to be drawn in the DuckTales style and in some pages, the artists refers to the Disney Italia designs leaving for some odd artistic errors like Webby having black pupils in some panels and bright blue in others.
I would have liked for them to use some of the European DuckTales comics or stories from Disney Comics and Disney Adventures which have been out of print for years. Hopefully in future issues, we get more variety in the different eras of Disney Afternoon comics. For now, Disney Afternoon Giant is worth the purchase if you grew up with these shows or if you wish to introduce great material for the Disney fans in your families.
RATING: 6 out of 10