Disney LongBox Reviews Mickey Mouse #13

Writer’s Note: This will be the last issue of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse until November 2016 due to its slot being taken over by a mini series based on the 2013 Mickey Mouse animated shorts featured on Disney Channel and YouTube. I will still be reviewing the mini series even though my expectations are not that high.

THE TWELVE BUTTONS OF NAPOLEON

First Published In : Topolino #1073 (1976)

Country of Origin: Italy

First Time Published in North America

Mickey is on babysitting duty once again,watching Elsworth’s nephew as well as Morty ( really odd to see him without Ferdie). The two decide to open a trading post to exchange items for other items on Mickey’s front yard.

They propose doing it for kids as Mickey helps them gather some items such as a tennis ball and an old coffee grinder. It soon becomes popular with the neighbourhood kids,but soon enough the police come-a knocking.

Mickey believes it has to do with the boys not having a permit for the booth but in actuality Chief O’Hara  is here to inform Mickey that a set of old coins belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte have been stolen before a buyer called Louis La Mer could receive them. He also informs Mickey that they might be sold off in a villains auction later that night.

After some shenanigans with some officers trading items with Ellroy, they soon leave as Trudy (Pete’s girlfriend previously introduced in Issues 8 and 9) soon arrives on her pedal propelled vehicle. She trips over a bump on the road as one of the buttons soon falls into a vase in the trading booth. The boys soon help her up as she resumes her route to the auction.

Mickey soon dons a disguise and heads to the villains auction ,his cover was almost blown but a fellow criminal decides to let him in on account of his big hair and thick glasses.

The auction isn’t doing so well however on account of the items being rusty watches and knick knacks. Pete attempts to control the situation as he brings in the buttons as Mickey and a suspicious sailor watches.

Pete starts the auction at 500$ as the sailor raises his bid to 1000$ as Mickey wondered why he was so keen on collecting the buttons. He soon wins the item at 1200$ but realizes one of the buttons was missing as he yells at Pete about selling him an incomplete room as the room soon goes out of control as they leave in a fit of rage.

Mickey decides to stick around and listens in on Pete and Trudy talking about how the button could have vanished. Trudy mentions that she crashed at Mickey’s house as an infuriated Pete yells at her. The sailor hears the address being mentioned as he soon was on his way to reclaim the fourth button in the set.

Mickey decides to call Ellroy and Morty to warn them of the impending danger. Morty goes in to answer the phone as the sailor soon kidnaps Ellroy after he attached the button onto his pants.

Pete, Trudy and Mickey arrive at the same time as they soon come up with a plan to rescue Ellroy from the lunatic sailor. Pete and Mickey reluctantly team up as they come up with a plan to sneak in the floating house that the sailor is hiding out at.

Turns out our sailor friend is an avid collector of Napoleon Bonaparte memorabilia since his ancestor worked under the French dictator as the sailor had searched for his legendary treasure all of these years.

Pete and Mickey soon arrive as Pete pulls a double-cross and attempts to run off with the button as the two fight each other using various pieces of the Napoleon collection. Ellroy, meanwhile begins searching for the missing button, which had rolled off during the fight.

Ellroy soon finds it but Pete flings it into the sea by accident with his finger to keep it away from Ellroy. The gang looked in horror as the button plunges into the deep sea. Pete,frustrated that this scheme was all for nothing soon storms off with the boats leaving them stranded.

Turns out our sailor was none other Louie La Mer who had gone undercover to buy back the buttons that were stolen from him. Louie soon tells the boys why he was obsessed with them ,turns out he had found a scroll that said to inspect button number four for a secret message. Ellroy soon finds it while he was fishing.

The boys opens the button finding a small scroll which says that Napoleon had left his ancestor all the buttons. The sailor soon thrashes his collection thinking he would have gotten a vast treasure as Mickey soon informs him to inspect the other buttons in case there was other clues.

What will the boys find after opening the various bottles ? Read the story to find out

Super Goofy in Dogs of War

First Published in TOPOLINO #2822 (2009)

Country of Origin : Italy

First Time Published in North America

This one page story features Super Goof fighting a nameless fire robot monster as they soon take a break to eat some hot dogs.

The Same Old Story

From the Sunday Mickey Mouse Comic Strip (1939)

Country of Origin: USA

Originally Published in Newspapers

Mickey overhears his nephews Morty and Ferdie planning to go on a treasure hunt after moonlight. Mickey soon returns home with a pirate novel he bought from a store,hoping to use it to scare the nephews out of their scheme. It however doesn’t work as the boys decide to read the rest of the novel instead.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

The Twelve Buttons of Napoleon:

We have quite the beefy tale today from Romano Scarpa. I liked the plot to this story a lot since it features Pete and Trudy, one of my favourite aspects of Scarpa’s Mickey stories.A lot of the old Mickey newspaper comic tropes are used in this story : Disguises, Undercover Espionage, Misunderstandings with the Police and a big old fight at the end.

No negatives with this story, its a good read if you want action and humour.

Dogs of War

Not really sure what to say about this story since its only one page long. The art is well done but I wished this story was a bit longer.

The Same Old Story 

This story is very basic but the art is pretty good. You can tell early on that Gonzales copied the familiar  Floyd style perfectly to match with the daily strips as later on, he would form his own style.

CREDITS:

STORY: ROMANO SCARPA (STORY 1) MARCO PALAZZI ( STORY 2) MERILL DE MARIS ( STORY 3) 

ARTISTS: ROMANO SCARPA ( STORY 1) MARCO PALAZZI ( STORY 2) MANUEL GONZALES ( STORY 3)

EDITOR: SARAH GAYDOS

ARCHIVES EDITOR: DAVID GERSTEIN

PUBLISHER: IDW AND DISNEY COMICS