"The Case of the Purloined Pearls"

 I've been reading those Disney Masters books lately.  I have faithfully purchased every one (other than the ones with Paul Murry; we must maintain SOME standards), and they're good fun, mostly.  I think the best is still the first, The Delta Dimension, featuring three smashing Scarpa stories.  In spite of all his preposterous nonsense, when the man was on, he was on.  Somewhat surprisingly, however, I think the second-best may well be the recent Hubbard/Kinney volume.  It is rad as hell to have all these Studio Program Fethry stories printed in the US at long last.  I have definitely warmed to them, even if I'm still a little ambivalent about Hubbard's art.  There's nothing wrong with doing things a little differently, but I dunno: Fethry's stringy hair and the lines under his eyes are...not wholly appealing.  He looks strung-out in an unwholesome way.  Or so I feel.

But that's neither here nor there.  We are not here today to talk about Fethry.  Because this book ALSO features two O.O. Duck stories.  Who what when where why?  These are the questions I asked when first seeing them.  Because it just about blew my mind to see this character I had never ever heard of before--and not just that, but a character I'd never seen before who receives top billing in stories!  Sure, I know I don't know everything about Disney comics; there are definitely entire Brazilian continuities filled with characters I know nothing about.  But somehow, seeing an American character like this--appearing in the US for the first time ever, bar a small cameo here and there--WHOA.  I don't know; it struck me, anyway.

So here he is!  And also, Mata Harrier, his assistant, who doesn't do much, at least in the stories I've seen.  I am always skeptical of characters who seem to exist solely so their names  can be wordplay, be it Moby Duck or Mata Harrier, though granted, Mata's name is cleverer.

But what's the concept for O.O., really?  From his name, you'd think, okay, obvious Bond spoof, and you'd be right, but in that case why is he dressed like Sherlock Holmes (whom the title also suggests)?  Most peculiar.

Though actually, more than James Bond per se, I think the proximate influence here is Get Smart (though obviously, it's all the same sort of thing): this story--O.O.'s first--is from 1966, and that show debuted in '65.  This nonsense with the electric toothbrush is exactly the sort of thing you'd see there, as is the generally goofy plot.

All told, Hubbard and Kinney did eight O.O. stories.  After that, there was a string of Brazilian stories--and two Egmont things, though those clearly aren't a systemic effort to revive the character.  This story is fine, but it's easy to see why Fethry took off whereas O.O. remained an obscure also-ran.  Sure, you could spin off secret agent stories around him 'til the end of time, but he doesn't fill any kind of niche that can't easily be filled elsewise.  Probably part of the problem is that--again, at least in the two stories I've read--he never really gets much of a discernible personality.  The thinking doesn't seem to have gone any further than "spy parody."  Is he even supposed to be good at his job?  Hard to say.  Could go either way.  Hmm.

GREAT SCOTT!

Then too, there's the fact that these stories all feature Donald.  The new characters aren't even doing the heavy lifting.  Here, O.O. does play a role in the, um, mission, but in the other story in the book, he's even less of a presence.  Justify your existence, man!

I'm sort of amused by how nonsensical the phrase "north forty" is in this context.  And yet they keep using it!

This is nice.  Hubbard was a good artist.  I'd like to see what he could've done outside the bounds of Disney comic.

Be honest: is this "medicine" just PCP?  'Cause that's what it seems like.  Sorry for the bottom-feeding drug joke, but it was just sitting there, begging to be used!

Oh yeah, O.O.'s enemies are called "Blonk."  If that's a specific reference to some other pop culture spy thing, I'm afraid I'm not dialed-in sufficiently to know what.  They're very anonymous here, which makes them less memorable.  Are we meant to think that there's some super-secret archvillain mastermind behind the whole thing?  There's no indication of that, though it would be interesting as an ongoing mystery.

This whole "Donald uses gadgets in the opposite of the right way" thing is an ongoing theme.  This is pretty nuttily amusing.

...as I said.  There's a sight you don't see every day.

So there you go.  This is your nefarious scheme.  Such as it is.  It definitely feels appropriate for the milieu.  Is Scrooge suggesting that the elixir was permanent?  Would Donald have been in a perpetual berserker rage if he'd taken it.  We shall never know.

Anyway!  That's O.O. Duck for you.  Expect him to come up again in this blog never, probably.  Still, it's been fun, and I hope there are further Kinney/Hubbard Disney Masters volumes planned.