"The Swamp of No Return"

Dun dun duh!


This 1964 story was one of the first duck stories I ever read; it's pretty effective at creating a sort of murky, disorienting mood, as the opening splash panel above indicates.

So scientist-dude has invented a magic machine to teach people stuff quickly, the problem being that it also causes them to forget who they are. Scrooge is called in as an investor.



I like the expression on the dog's face. Maybe Chris Barat can enlighten us as to whether the dialogue and equations in the second panel actually mean anything, or whether it's just math-sounding gibberish. I'm guessing the latter; that top equation in particular looks kinda dubious--why would all that equal zero?--but one never knows when Carl's at the controls.

It seems surprising that this isn't just plain ol' Gyro, but as I think about it, I'm not sure whether Gyro appears in any headliners of the Uncle Scrooge comic book. This may have something to do with those weird postal regulations you hear about so often which necessitated having two separate characters per book with their own stories.



But alas, this Brutopian agent learns about it. One thing that really makes this story stand out is that a lot more attention is lavished on this villain than usual. One can but assume that Cold-War concerns were on Barks' mind. It's really effective, actually, and creates a sort of parallel, running commentary throughout the story on the nature of totalitarian states.



This is where the story sort of runs into a bit of confusion. Okay, so the box makes you lose your identity even as it teaches you new stuff (an implicit comment on the onrush of postmodernity?). Makes sense. I can dig it. But this? It could also be dangerous because scientist-dude (his name is actually "Brainerd Brainmore")…invented a program that forces people to do things? The way he talks, it sounds like he somehow had no choice but to do this, but it really seems to be a case of making unnecessary problems for yourself. Maybe it wouldn't be "very dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands" if you'd just friggin' destroy all these "command cores!" D'ja ever thing of that? Sheesh.



Anyway, naturally, falling into The Wrong Hands is just what inventions like this do. Just look at the guy. Really a vicious thug. Definitely one of Barks' more effective villains.



Yeah, so he's zapped Scrooge, which makes him lose his memory and think he has to go to the swamp of the title. As we all know from comics--duck comics included--you can fool people with pretty flimsy disguises, but it's a bit much to imagine that Donald would be so easily convinced that who is obviously Scrooge is actually an unknown furriner.



DRAMATIC MUSIC. Again--a very well-drawn baddie.



And there's this sort of nightmare quality to the swamp which is portrayed quite well; this quality of not knowing who you are and stumbling around blindly in this confusing, surreal daze--I'm sorry; I always say I won't say "hey! Look how goshdarn emblematic of postmodernity it all is!" and then I go ahead and do it anyway. I'm so untrustworthy. But srsly, it is.

(Oh, I should clarify that the ray's effects wear off after twenty-four hours. This would seem to somewhat limit its use as a weapon.)



Our agent ("Bruto Castrova" is his name) realizes an essential flaw in his initial plan. When you have a régime that's predicated on unchecked power and nothing else, you may create conflicting loyalties in your subjects. Also can't help noting that for a putative agent of a presumably communist country, our villain is behaving like quite the capitalist. Communism--or any ideology--becomes incoherent when it's wielded in the service of totalitarianism.



He sends the army to the swamp also; I note this mainly to point to yet another indication that Duckburg has its own military.



...and a navy in addition to an army. There are times when it seems as though it's some sorta autonomous sovereign state--otherwise, it's hard to see how zapping a friggin' town council is gonna help you become ruler of the world! Seems about as effective a plan as the one where Tor Johnson and Vampira walk very slowly towards a few dudes.



Scrooge is trying to shoot out the lens, but it's hard not to note that he's actually firing a gun indiscriminately at the guy. There's at least the implication that this is a matter of life-or-death, even if that's technically not really allowed in Disney comics (with a few exceptions that you may be able to think of, of course).



Anyway, conveniently enough, the program that ol' Bruto zaps Scrooge with makes him into an expert marksman, and there we go. Cool as ice. Actually, it's pretty hard to see how the world was in jeopardy here. Making a buncha dudes forget who they are for one day just doesn't seem like it has world-taking-over potential. You would assume that if he had brought it back to Brutopia, that country's scientists would have studied it and developed a larger-scale version, and that would be bad, but as it stands--eh. Still, well done, guys! And well done, Carl!