Originally Published on Set The Tape
‘Woo-oo! Two stories of adventure, involving chickens, sheep, and … Vikings?! Oh my! Donald, Scrooge, the Nephews … and a very special NEW character quest for unimaginable riches and treasures untold.’
IDW has always been good at capturing the feel of the licenses that they have, especially those based on children’s television series. Much like these other titles, such as My Little Pony, DuckTales manages to not just look like it’s taken straight from the show, but also feels like an episode, managing to recreate the fun and sense of humour that makes the show so entertaining.
The two stories on offer in this month’s issue sees Donald and Scrooge joined by Della Duck, Donald’s sister, and mother to the triplets Huey, Dewey, and Louie. We know from information in the series that Della used to accompany Donald and Scrooge on their adventures in the past, and to actually get to see some of these adventures means that the comic can tie directly into the new show, without having to worry about the ongoing narrative.
In the first story, the three heroes travel deep into the South American jungle, searching for a lost temple from which the great Monteplumage ruled a mighty kingdom. Entering the temple, the three of them discover a golden chicken, which comes to life and grows to giant size when removed from its cage. Luckily, Scrooge and Della are able to find a way of shrinking it back down, though they do accidentally shrink Donald down in the process.
The second story has the three of them searching for an explenation for the mysterious appearances of sheep all over Duckburg inside fridges and refidgerated trucks. Trecking deep into the desert, they discover a group of Vikings. Descended from a group of Vikings that became lost and ended up in the desert, the group have been surviving thanks to their magic sheep, who can produce ice and cool the air. Unfortunately, the sheep need recharging, and so the Vikings have been shoving them in people’s freezers to try and refill them with their icy magic.
Agreeing to help the group, Scrooge provides the Vikings with large industrial freezers that allow them to fully recharge their sheep. Donald, however, gets caught up in the machinery and frozen into a block of ice. The adventures on offer in the issue are fairly short, each on taking up a dozen or so pages, yet are able to be entertaining enough. Possibly lacking on any real narrative progress or characterisation, the book may have been better served telling only one story and giving it time to breathe.
That being said, each of the characters are well enough written, and act just like they would on the show. With accompanying artwork that captures the style of the series, I even ended up hearing Scrooge’s voice as that of David Tennant, who voices him in the series. Whilst the stories are entertaining enough, having them both told as flashbacks does take away a little of the surprise, as we get to see Donald’s fate before the story even begins in earnest. Whilst this doesn’t take much away from events, it does remove the potential for a comic reveal.
A good book that translates the show well to the comic medium, with great artwork and some genuinely fun moments.
Go to Amy's Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment