The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Six B: "The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff"

An' now, a brief jaunt back to America for more cowboy hijinx. You just can't have enough of 'em, right? Well, maybe. You'll recall "Pizen Bluff" as a place that appeared in several Barks stories.


We open, somewhat confusingly, with Scrooge meeting this guy and getting this map. It's an effort to drag in more Barks stuff, but, in spite of being recalled at the very end, it has nothing to do with the rest of the narrative, and it feels distinctly odd. Of course, Rosa would later expand on this in "The Dutchman's Secret" (published in Gemstone's very first issue of Uncle Scrooge--boy, those were the days).



No, the main narrative involves Scrooge getting mixed up with these wild-west-show people. It's no lie: I love the shit out of this image. It's so crazy and simulacra-y, what with the guys dressed as Beagle Boys, the guy dressed as Scrooge as he appeared in "Master of the Mississippi," and Pothole on a mobile steamship-cart.



In fact, the whole idea of things being all surface comes through strongly in this story. It's hard to say to what extent we're supposed to buy this justification, but of course, the white people in question are only going to get a very empty idea of only the most basic signifiers of Apache culture from this here show.



Note that this whole "coconuts in the south seas" thing appears to refer to a chapter that never ended up getting written. What might have been.



One thing that I have to say I find a bit insufferable is when Rosa has Scrooge do absurdly superhuman feats like the above and then act all ostentatiously jaded about it afterwards. I suppose it's pointless to complain about the feats themselves at this point--not after the way he dealt with those animals in the last chapter--but this in particular does feel a bit much. He learned to shoot like that…how?

On another note, there's this running thing--I hesitate to call it a "joke"--where Geronimo there mistakes Pothole's profanity for various Native American languages. This strikes me as tasteless to say the least.



Okay, the idea is that the Dalton Gang has stolen some money, and everyone has to go and get it back. "Everyone" including, in addition to Scrooge and Pothole, Geronimo, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and PT Barnum. Yup…Rosa, for reasons best known to him, at some point developed this mania for cramming as many historical figures as possible into these stories. The "based on actual history!" stuff comes from Barks himself, kind of, but stocking the stories with real people appears to be his own innovation. Why does he do this? Well, there's an extent to which the question answers it self: because just he likes the idea of it. And he can. But I think there's also some of this: sometimes, stories need auxiliary characters. And Rosa, you may have noticed, is generally quite averse to creating his own, except as mandated by actual Barks things (ie, creating relatives to make the genealogy work). That's maybe too bad, given that his most notable original character, Arpin Lusene, turned out so well. But there you have it.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of this tendency of his. A few historical personages here and there, okay, but when he gets carried away, it can become very distracting. Sure, you think, I suppose they could have all been there. But…why? It starts to feel like some sorta hallucinatory educational pamphlet. It also starts to feel decidedly overstuffed. Too many people here for the story to support, dangit. Oakley in particular is completely superfluous. She barely says or does anything of any note. I suppose the idea was to make the whole posse a bit less of a sausage fest, but it doesn't really work.



I like this a helluva lot. It's such a specific Barks reference--and yet, one that isn't going to be distracting or confusing to people who aren't up on the Barksian oeuvre.



I also like--nay, love--this part. The first time I read it, I truly thought: what the…? Hey, Rosa is not above depicting Scrooge--in reality--in terms very much like this, so it's not quite as implausible as it might seem. But here, it's just plain funny.



And...yes, as I believe I may have noted somewhere, Rosa can be a bit didactic when the spirit moves him. But hey, don't worry, guys--it's not like you were really anything other than flimsy cardboard representations of "wild west" archetypes anyway.



I was glad to see Pothole back in this story, but he really doesn't do much of note. He was a lot cooler and more capable in "Master of the Mississippi." However, this is clever and funny, in particular Scrooge and company's bafflement at the concept. In his commentary, Rosa claims that he was planning to do a sequel that would elaborate on this idea; I'm not entirely certain whether or not this is a joke, since it seems like it would necessitate a very odd focus for a Disney comic, but hell's bells, man, I would love to have been able to read such a thing--sounds like a hoot.

Certainly not an all-time classic story, and it does demonstrate some of Rosa's tendencies towards excess (and not in a good way), but it's still an amusing li'l lagniappe. Next up, Foster's: Australian for "Dreamtime Duck of the Never-Never."

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