The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Chapter Twelve: "The Richest Duck in the World"

Hey everyone, Merry Christmas. Hard for me to believe that this is it, given how submerged in this stuff I've been for the last month or so, but it it is. Last installment of the series. This can't help but come across as a little anti-climactic given the last one, but it's mostly a fitting ending. If inducks is to be believed, an alternate title for this is "The Recluse of McDuck Manor;" per Rosa's expanded commentary, this was Byron Erickson's idea, but Rosa preferred the title that we have before us now. No ambiguity here: sorry, Byron, but Rosa was right and you were wrong. That's a terrible name for the last installment in the series. "The Richest Duck in the World" creates an obvious sense of the series' final culmination, whereas that other title just makes it seem like one more segment like all the rest. And in any case, doesn't it violate the dictum that each title is meant to be a "positive" reference to Scrooge?



We open with this Citizen Kane tribute, which seems appropriate, given the context. A poignant reminder of a lost past--though it would be hard to deny that those glasses look sort of odd perched there like that in the last panel.



There's also some newsreel footage, including this. I'm not totally sure what "foreclosed on the chicken coop" means, but Grandma's gotta be pretty rich, if she sold all that land to him. Sure, he would've tried to pay as little as possible, but why would she have sold at all if she were getting a bad deal? I don't get the impression that she's meant to be any sort of pushover.



The idea is that this takes place after the main action of "Night on Bear Mountain" but before Scrooge meets up with them (there's no indication in that story that they'd never met him before, but nothing that proves they had, either). This is clever; it's a slightly bumpy insertion--the depiction of Scrooge here clashes with how delighted he is to be meeting up with them in the Barks story--but it's certainly less of a contradiction than his Fond Memories of chasing Foola Zoola and company off their land, and I don't have a problem with that, so not with this either.

One thing I really don't like, though, is this running thing where Donald is constantly deprecating Scrooge's awesomeness. I realize that it's there play up the contrast between conception and reality--and because Rosa just likes portraying Donald as a buffoon--but it feels very forced. Why is he so convinced of all this, exactly?



Oh man, there's an obscure reference. Is that the only Barks story that, outside the two CBL's, has never been reprinted in the US?



Anyway, this. An extremely momentous meeting, no doubt. Very well-done.



And some fourth-wall-smashing, 'cause why not? Apparently, the original version of the story was only sixteen pages, but Rosa got the go-ahead to add three pages' worth of additional stuff after the fact, including this. Mmm…a li'l self-aggrandizing maybe, but still cute.



Here, we see Rosa trying to make sense of the idea that Scrooge has "sentimental" money that just sits there. He can't quite do it, of course; no surprise, since it's a nonsensical idea. But he does his best, dammit. Oh, and hey, Beagle Boys in Santa suits. That's how you know it's a Christmas story.



See what I mean about Donald? This is just perverse. This dialogue doesn't feel remotely natural; he's like a guy in an infomercial expressing incredulity that a product this amazing could really be yours for the low, low price of $39.95. I would almost think he was trying to goad Scrooge into challenging him, if not for the fact that he was the same way with the kids before even meeting the guy. And in any case, it makes no sense: Hortense is his mother, as you ought to recall, if only because the story explicitly notes it. And we're really supposed to believe that he would never have learned anything from her about his famous uncle? I suppose if we want to bend over really, really far backwards to try to rationalize this, we could posit that she was so pissed off at him that she instituted a policy of omertà on the subject that she never, ever deviated from and he was somehow never able to find anything out from anyone else. But really, now…



So in any case, he sorts out the Beagle Boys (the cop chasing the drummer in the background is in service to a pretty good "Twelve Days of Christmas" gag), and then it is necessary to convince him to return to his old self. It's not badly done, even if it's suddenness isn't exactly psychologically realistic.



Yay! Now on to the feast!



…and it's actually pretty near impossible to imagine this scene of bonhomie in a Rosa story. To be fair, it's difficult to imagine it in a later Barks story too, but Rosa? Fergeddaboutit (okay, come to think of it, I guess the ending of "The Duck Who Never Was" is pretty close).



…man, do we have to get another dig in at Donald at the very last? Yes, we do. I like this regardless, but it's definitely suffused with melancholy--all these memories, gone gone gone. I think Rosa would probably agree that given this conception, there's a somewhat unhappy subtext underlying Scrooge's later exploits.

And…we're done. I hope you've liked reading it as much as I've liked writing it. While I've leveled plenty of criticisms Rosa's way over the course of this project, I hope my deep affection for his work is also apparent. Let me say this: I like a lot of different duck comics by a lot of different people. However, of Rosa, it must be said: there has never been anyone else whose work in the form has been even remotely similar to his. I don't think you can say that for anyone else. Sure, we can whine complain kvetch bitch about this and that (that's what this blog's more or less for, after all), but a duckiverse that did not include his work would be much, much poorer. Thanks for the memories, Mr. Rosa.

(And hey, if you ever decide that you're sick and tired of not being exploited by publishers and wanna get back in the game, I have some great sequel ideas, yours free of charge. You have only to ask.)

Some final thoughts probably tomorrow, though I can't guarantee it. In the next few days, at any rate.

<-Chapter Eleven Epilogue->