"The Money Ocean"

 Okay, it is time for something new, and that something new is...well, I guess the title gives it away.  Foiled again!  It would be hard to keep secret, really.  This is one of those famous old-school Rota stories, along with "Night of the Saracen," "From Egg to Duck," and the never-published-in-English "Paperino Pendolare" (notice how I implied that my fan translation of "From Egg to Duck" somehow constitutes a "publication."  You can't stop me!).  But this one is currently Rota's top-rated story on inducks, at fifty-nine, and I'll go along with that.  Why haven't I covered it before?  It is a mystery.

We start with vivid dreams (and weird coloration, but that's neither here nor there).  Here's the question: does Scrooge have nightmares like this regularly?  Because, good lord, if so, I think he <i>really</i> needs to reevaluate his life.  The money can't possibly be worth it if it's causing him this degree of mental anguish.  Then again, I guess you could just make that argument about his cavalcades of adventures itself.  The things we all tune in for!  What a life.

Well-drawn, though.  It's very strange that he declares "I'm just a poor old man."  This could be an intentional remix of the iconic phrase, I suppose, and I guess we can assume as much since it's like this in both US printings, but it's so similar that it just looks like the writer was misremembering it.

So here's how the McDuck Ultra Alarm Clock works: first, a loudspeaker blasts you with siren noises.  Then, a fan shoots wind in your face, a cuckoo come out of the wall and chirps, a claw shoves your pillow from behind, another claw emerges with a glass of water (presumably to hurl in your face), and a final claw wipes your face with a cloth.  A tad overdetermined, I feel, and more likely than your average alarm clock to cause actual physical and/or mental trauma, which may not be what Scrooge needs at this time.  Does Scrooge really need all this help to wake up?  If so, that would seem to be more evidence of a serious underlying problem.

Nice tam o'shanter nightcap.

Simple analysis, but accurate, kind of.  I say "kind of" because actually, the Beagles literally are an astonishingly high percentage of these menaces.  If they went away, you would be sitting pretty.

Seems more than possible.  This is the hollowness of wealth!  If you get rich enough, you become completely alienated from normal human concerns (which is why you shouldn't be elected to public office, but good luck arguing that).  In Scrooge's case, that has manifested itself as fun adventures, but really, the underlying problem hasn't gone anywhere.  You should become a philanthropist, at any rate.  It's how the robber barons tried to assuage their consciences, and it just might let you fool yourself!

Scrooge cadging food from his nephews when he's feeling depressed certainly has Barksian precedent, so I appreciate this.

So on the one hand, I like the kids' toy box there.  But on the other, I must level a criticism here.  This is how Donald gets his inspiration to suggest a solution to Scrooge's problems.  There are two ways this could go: first, he could make his remark about how "we'll have to find a box to put all the pieces in" and go "waaaait a minute...a box?  That gives me an idea!"  Second, he could say something like "boy, I don't know how we're ever going to solve our uncle's problems; he's a mess.  Hey, wait a minute, that toy box gives me an idea!"  But these panels seem to be trying to mash both these ways together, with incoherent results.  Although this could just be a translation issue; I've never seen a printing of this story in any other language.

You were wondering why Scrooge hadn't already thought of this idea.  Well, why did he build the multiple bins in the first place?  That would have also been expensive, so he must've had what he saw as a compelling reason, and that's presumably why.  Is this reason no longer operative, or what?  This is a bit handwavey on the story's part.

Lookit this!  It has transgressed all boundaries of logic and geometry.  I feel like you've sort of broken the world here.  We've often talked about how Scrooge's money isn't money in the normal sense, but this really makes that clear, if it weren't.

And if not, the fact that it's now an "ocean" rams the point home.  It has become a force of nature.  You can't look at that and think "money."  Changed changed utterly: a terrible beauty is born.

...why can't you swim here?  This again might just be a translation issue, but it might be an interesting rabbit hold to go down.

In "Only a Poor Old Man," Scrooge tricks the Beagles into braining themselves by making them assume, falsely, that they can splash around in money in the same way he can.  But this doesn't establish anything except that they can't do it.  It's true that after that incident, Donald asks Scrooge how he was able to do it when the Beagles couldn't, which seems to imply that he's never done it before either.  But we have other Barksian evidence that it's not just Scrooge.  I'm probably missing something, but here are two, from "The Money Well:"

and from "That's No Fable!:"

Of course, in both of these, it's HDL: is there a Barksian example of Donald swimming?  If not, we could posit that it's a genetic ability that skips generations--either that, or it's just an acquired skill that for whatever reason he hasn't acquired.  But either way, there's no reason Huey should be regretting that he can't swim.  He can and has!

Oh, and to throw a wrench in the works, in "So Far and No Safari" we see that gophers can also swim in money:

Make of that what you will.

And really, if you have a boat that can actually sail over money--violating most laws of physics--why can't ducks also swim in it?  Shenanigans, are what I call!

I really like the vague sense of unease that comes with this, even when everything seems fine.  How are these things happening?  Gyro did it.  Yes.  That must be it.  Mustn't it?  It's actually never made clear whether or not this is presaging things to come, which if anything only makes it more effective.

See?  Pretty good.  "Who's to say" anything, I suppose, but this seems ever-so-slightly ominous.  This is probably not an association that anyone else would make, but I keep thinking of that old Fallberg/Strobl story "The Crewless Cruise."

In case you thought that Rota was suggesting that no ducks can swim in money (admittedly, a big thing to forget about)--well, as you can see, this is not the case.

or...or...or...

Dang, man, you're willing to just admit that possibility like it wuz nothing?  I suppose it's probably true, but if not you, then who?  Isn't your money the basis of your entire identity?  Shouldn't this be causing some sort of existential crisis?

Suspense!  I really like the long, spooky corridor that he had installed, for just such an occasion.  Good thinking!

Now that is one cool-ass image.  Yeah!

So this is definitely just the translation, since the original was published in one part, but: in the first US printing, in issues 266 and 267 of Uncle Scrooge, there's a little two-page summary at the beginning of the second part, consisting of panels taken from part one, to get you up to speed if you missed it.  And then, after all that, "Gyro is finally confronted with the problem."  Okay, makes sense.  But the issue is that, when the story was published in one part in Gemstone's seventy-fifth anniversary book, nothing's been changed; the "finally" is still there, which really doesn't make sense.  It suggest that there's something that happened after the previous panel, and only after that, finally, did we check with Gyro.  Anyway.  Whatevz.

And while this is going on...I must say, questionable disguises are one thing, but "Dellespa?"  It could be worse; it could be "Despella."  But are you actually making a serious effort to hide your identity, or not?  

...it was a dime that she dropped originally, as you will see if you glance back.  Okay, you could posit that Scrooge misidentified it, but is that likely?  Do you think his expert ear wouldn't be able to differentiate between a quarter and a dime hitting the ground.  Again, could be a translation.  But whoever is responsible, it seems a bit clumsy.

Magica's plan is very fuzzy here: supposedly, she wants to blackmail Scrooge by making him give her the Number One Dime to make the storm abate, but that very clearly isn't going to happen, so after that she just kind of stands around and cackles maniacally.  When she first appears, she seems to be trying to trick him into letting her into the bin, but she was going to have to reveal her identity soon enough anyway, so what's the point?  I don't know if she really thought this one through.

Sixty cents an hour!  This must be an emergency.  I certainly don't blame him for not going to the police: look at those guys, just standing there smiling like idiots while reminiscing over their latest abuses of power.  ACAB!

It's pretty weird how Scrooge is so confident about this flatly impossible scheme.  You're gonna have to get Gladstone if you want to find one specific coin in this ocean.  Actually, that would be an interesting direction for the story to go in.  But, it doesn't.

"It acts just like water."  Doesn't it already act just like water?  Isn't that how you're able to swim in it?  

Yeah, and to be fair, so did Rota.  You've really just got to sit back and admire some of these images.

THIS IS COOL.  It's just a shame it's not another full-page image.

Well...you're the scientist, but still, I must express my grave doubts about this.  Sure, they may both be "energy" in the broad sense, but surely it's qualitatively different from sciencey energy, such that any science-based tracking wouldn't work.  It's like, electromagnetism is a force, and gravity is a force; therefore, a device to detect the one must detect the other.  That does not follow!  Well, I say that, but then it does, so I must be mistaken.  Carry on.

Scrooge does have a bit more of a jerkish side of him in this story than I'd like--well, really just in this climax.  Not a huge deal.  But still.  It's your money!  You're the one who earlier was having a personal apocalypse!  You go down in there!  

At any rate, good atmosphere, with Donald in the tunnel there.  Harrowing.

Wellanywayproblemsolved.  As it inevitably would be.

"Your overly liquid capital."  Well, as long as there's a reasonably explanation.

See?!?  Donald CAN swim in money!  Presumably this doesn't have anything to do with anything Magica might have done, since her spell is broken.  I doan geddit.  I also think this ending is meaner than it needs to be, but so it goes.  It's not much worse than Barks occasionally did.

But anyway, even if the story occasionally causes me to raise a skeptical eyebrow, I'd still say that it's one of the best things Rota's written.  Well done, sir!