Uncle Scrooge #31 Review
Decided to get back into doing comic book reviews after a series of mis-fortunes in my personal life throughout the summer including the death of my grandmother. It really drove my motivation to do these down but now I am ready to return to doing reviews. I will be skipping the books I haven’t reviewed yet to focus on newer releases and review any book I missed as special reviews whenever I have the time.
Glad to be back and now let’s get on with the review
-Mat
SINS OF THE SORCERY SUMMIT ( FROM DONALD DUCK #24, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN DUTCH , 2014)
Magica DeSpell is tired of all her plans failing, wondering how she could steal the Number One Dime without it failing as her beloved raven Ratface gives her the idea to form an alliance to guarantee success. Rather than partner with another sorceress, she decides to summon three bonafide witches instead. Ratface sends the letters to Madam Mim ( From 1963’s Sword in the Stone) and Witch Hazel ( from 1952’s Trick or Treat) but on his way to deliver the third letter, he stops at Scrooge’s office to spy on the time. Scrooge’s secretary spots the raven making him drop the third letter as Scrooge reads it to find out about Magica’s latest plan.
Meanwhile in Duckburg, Donald Duck observes the long abandoned Fort Lockman and places a bet with his cousin Gladstone Gander over who could stay the longest inside without chickening. Now that the stones are set in place, who will emerge victorious on Fort Lockman ? Donald ? Gladstone ? The witches ?
Find out by picking up the issue.
FINAL REVIEW:
The opening story from this issue was quite a sight for me. I am a big fan of Madam Mim from the Sword in the Stone film. I always hated that she was only in the last 30 minutes of the film but comics over the years have always used her including partnering with Peter Pan’s Captain Hook a few times in some Gold Key Disney comics. This one is no different on top of the Witch Hazel character from the 1952 Trick or Treat short and subsequent Carl Barks comic book adaptation.
The art by Sander Gulien is superb capturing the charm of all the characters featured in the story along with detailed backgrounds within Fort Lockman. The translation by Jonathan H Gray once again features his signature puns and it really fits within the Disney universe.
HALLOWEEN SHIVERS (FROM TOPOLINO #2183, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ITALY, 1997)
This simple one page story mainly involves Donald narrating the movie annoyingly to a disgruntled Daisy. The art by Alessandro Barbucci is fantastic and expressive for this story. Shame it wasn’t a long story.
BELLE,BOOK AND BUNGLE (FROM ANDERS AND CO #9, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN DENMARK,2014)
It’s not a normal day for Scrooge unless he is attacked in his Money Bin by some Beagle Boys or a supernatural force. In this case, its the latter as a dragon shows up in the Money Bin and snatches Scrooge’s Number One Dime trying to make a hasty getaway. Thankfully, Belle walks in the office slamming the door on the dragon, who is revealed to be Magica DeSpell as she gets thrown out. Belle seeks financial compensation for having saved the dime as Scrooge ends up giving her a penny and shows her the way out.
Belle soon finds the injured Magica in a restaurant in town as the witch overhears how Belle just walked into Scrooge’s office as she soon finds a way to use it to her advantage as she decides to take on Belle as her apprentice in return for some money to help fix Belle’s boat. Magica hopes to use black magic to corrupt Belle to steal from Scrooge directly. Magica might be biting more than she can handle with this latest scheme, want to know how it works out ? You know what to do
FINAL REVIEW:
As many of you know, Belle is one of my favourite favourite Duck Universe characters but I do admit she makes a good foil for Magica DeSpell. Another thing I like with this story is a team-up of two characters who normally wouldn’t interact with each other. The art is well done and the writing is top notch for an overseas Scrooge comic.
CELEBRITY CRUSHED ( FROM TOPOLINO #3045, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ITALY,2014)
For the final story of the issue, Daisy invites Dicky Duck over to cheer up her nieces April,May and June over their latest heartthrob break-up involving fictional band Quacker Boyz who have hooked up with the members of another band in holy matrimony. Dickie decides to cheer them up taking them out for some ice cream until Dickie sees something unusual. What did she see ? Read the story to find out.
FINAL REVIEW :
Its a nice simple story but would have been worked better if it was originally released in the late 90s instead of 2014 since that was when they boy band boom happened. There are rarely any boy bands these days so this story feels very dated by default.
CONCLUSION :
Uncle Scrooge #31 , while full of witches and sorcery, really dosen’t fill up the October feels too much. Aside from the two longer stories, I feel the short stories have nothing to do with October or spookiness at all. Celebrity Crushed could easily have been removed and it would have been a more positive experience as an October release. I would still recommend a purchase for the witches’ story alone.
FINAL RATING 7 out of 10
You can purchase your own copy of Uncle Scrooge #31 at your local comic book shop or on the Comixology app