The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Eight: "King of the Klondike"

Well, here we are--money is about to be made. Some of the previous entries, entertaining though they are, could really be said to be basically just making time--but this one, obviously, is pivotal.



...though for such an important story, it starts off somewhat wobblily, with this bit where Scrooge meets Wyatt Earp ('cause why not?) who gets offended when some other dude wants to pick a fight with Scrooge instead of him. Yeah, there needs to be a way for Scrooge to be broke so he's forced to borrow money from Soapy Slick (from Barks' "North of the Yukon," o'course), but this feels needlessly baroque.



Of course, Rosa makes sure to stick Goldie in here somewhere. It's interesting to see her dressed casually and not elaborately coifed (she gets somewhat disheveled in the next installment, but she never quite looks like this again). Obviously, she can't play much of a role here, inasmuch as the story, naturally, climaxes (spoiler alert!) with Scrooge finding the goose-egg nugget, and the stuff in "Back to the Klondike" takes place after that. Nonetheless, it feels like a real lacuna in the text (that was later filled, obviously, and then some) to not have her more involved. I guess the assumption would be that what Barks depicts is what happens and that's about that, but if this is supposed to be in any sense a stand-alone text, that's an important part of the story to be missing--"what's the POINT of this important-looking character who shows up and serves no meaningful purpose?" the initiate might wonder. The other bonus installments of the story may be just that, but VIIIb and VIIIc really do feel essential.



This here's Casey Coot, Grandma Duck's brother and Scrooge's sister's future uncle-in-law. Apparently, there was a previous version of the story in which his family appeared and played an important role. I suppose it's probably true that this would've taken away from the main action, but I still sure woulda loved to see it.



So here's my problem with the story: the idea is that Scrooge has to get down and dirty and work himself half to death to make his fortune. But...the story doesn't really do much to depict this. Instead, we get a lot of him casually and seemingly effortlessly engaging in superheroics like the above. The effort isn't as apparent as, I feel, it should be. If he's some invincible demigod, it's not that impressive when he does larger-than-life things.



I'm impressed, however, by the extent to which Rosa is willing to depict him quashing his nobler instincts like this. It really lends credence to the idea that his path is far from unambiguously a positive one.



At any rate, he eventually gets captured by Soapy and these other thugs, and I am just endlessly taken aback by the sheer emotional brutality on display here. If there's anything else remotely comparable to this in Disney comics, I'd sure like you to tell me what it is. I suppose you could argue about whether this is tonally appropriate, but it works for me--you wouldn't want to see something like it every day, but at this point in the story, it feels earned.

Now, as for the next part, Rosa spends a lot of time in his commentary laboriously explaining the whole riverboat-destruction sequence, trying to make it clear that Scrooge isn't meant to be turning into some sorta Rob-Liefield-esque freak. I do think he muddied the waters a little bit by including this image,


which, there's no getting around it, is pretty damned ridiculous-looking.

However, as far as the actual action here,



I think it's quite clear what's going on: that it's an effort to add some mythology to the story; it's not one hundred percent clear what's happening because the line between reality and legend is blurred by time and retelling. Still, I can understand the confusion, and here's why: we've talked in comments about one objection to this whole series--possibly the objection that we all sort of vaguely remember Barks himself maybe having--being that it attempts to nail down the character of Scrooge; make his story "realistic" in a way that was never intended. We can argue all night about whether this is a wrongheaded move or not, but it's certainly what the story's doing. And now, to suddenly decide, after all this time, oh no, we're going to have some mythologizing after all...well, it's a little bit jarring, is all. A perhaps overly abrupt paradigm shift.

Still, I personally have no problem with this sequence. I do think it works in spite of everything. I've complained in the past about Scrooge being too over-the-top awesome in these stories, but jeez, people, his nemesis just chained him up, stole his claim, and mockingly broke the news of his mother's death--if that's not grounds for some truly epic breakage, I don't know what is.

I do, however, think that this would have somewhat greater impact if we'd seen a little more of Downy--obviously, Scrooge's family members are peripheral characters, but even given that limitation, Fergus gets way more page-time/personality than she does. Also, the fact that Scrooge apparently instantly gets over this to the extent that he doesn't even consider the possibility of packing up and going home is a little odd. You'd think there'd at least be a panel or two of him agonizing over what to do.



…and here we go. This is more or less where the Scrooge that we know and love/hate is born. A suitably dramatic conclusion. And…a pretty good installment, in spite of my complaining.

But we ain't done with the Yukon yet, not by a long shot. Tomorrow, the series gets a li'l bit racy in "Prisoner of White Agony Creek." Won't somebody think of the children?!? God, I hope not.

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