"Uncle Scrooge and The Infinity Dime"

Should I say something about this "Infinity Dime" thing?  I probably should, shouldn't I?  I mean, if I'm pretending that this blog still exists to any extent.  My recent silence is only partly my usual flakiness; it's also because I'm dealing with shit.  Not life-threatening shit, but shit shit.  You know.  I think I'm going to be at least a little more active here for a while.  Inshallah. 

This story was met--at least if my facebook feed is anything to go by--with considerable skepticism: Marvel making Disney comics?  How will this not turn into a bad joke?  Certainly, the 703 variant covers they released didn't inspire a great deal of faith in the proceedings.

To start, we get one of these intros like you do from the writer, Jason Aaron, where he's like you guys, I've been a fan FOREVER, Scrooge is THE BEST, and...I really shouldn't mock.  Obviously I get the impulse.  It's fine, and there's no use shaming anyone.  THAT SAID, I just have to point to this:

"I've been a massive Disney fan for about as long as I've been reading comics, which is all my life.  But I didn't read my first Uncle Scrooge story until my son was born."  Hmm...what can one say in response to that?

Phoenix Wright would NEVER let that slide.

(Kidding, Jason; all in good fun.  You seem cool, and what's more, my brother said he'd enjoyed some of your superhero work.)

So, then.  The final result, I have to say, is pretty surprising, because for better or worse, you've got to expect that something like this is going to be, you know, memorable, for better or worse.  The previous effort do something like this was the infamous "Rightful Owners," which you may or may not have blocked from your consciousness.  But no!  The most notable thing about "The Infinity Dime" is how notable it isn't.  I don't mean that as a criticism; it's mostly-well-constructed story that does some fun things, with nice art and competent writing.  But it's also very, very easy to imagine it as an Egmont production, to the extent that you sort of wonder why they bothered.  It doesn't have any connection with superhero comics, apart from, I guess you could argue, the whole "multiverse" concept (I mean, I'm sorry if I'm belittling important superhero concepts, but seriously, it's not that special).  Oh well.  Let's go through it.

It's actually such a good--and, I'd think, fairly obvious--premise that I sort of HAVE to imagine that it's been done before.  People have futzed around so much with Scrooge's origin story, you'd think they'd've had to hit on this.  

The other question is, is the implication that Donald and HDL skidded off the road and died?  'Cause that's what it looks like.

But, I mean, look at this: I'll grant there is one tiny problem, which is that the signs meant to denote that this is Evil Scrooge we're talking about don't look appreciably different than the ones Good (?) Scrooge deploys, but what the hey.  There's just something about that steam shovel.

Does the story have its somewhat didactic parts?  Clearly (I mean, not that it's terrible, but it's a thing that may well appeal more to you than me.  When you're self-conscious about these things, I don't think they work as well).  It's one of those things that make you think, who exactly is the audience here?  Because--as we'll see--the story is absolutely choked with Rosa references bound to go over proles' heads, and yet stuff like this seems to be aimed specifically at them.  I dunno.

Seriously, though, look how cool that looks.  Quite cool, is how.  That's something I can just appreciate on its own merits.

This, too.  Trying to get some of that double-page-spread je ne sais quoi that Carpi had on occasion.

I hope there are no plans to make Evil Scrooge a recurring character, because, as fun as the concept is, he's not a super-interesting character, or least he wouldn't be in the long run.  Such is my belief.

And what the hell is the deal with that expression on Gyro?  Imagine waking up with that expression in your face.  Wak!  Do you think it matches the dialogue?  It just looks really weird to me.

Anyway.  Please enjoy this helpful explication of the Dime.  I guess.  It's not inconceivable that you've seen something like it before.

(And come to think of it--just stirring up a little shit--I sort of regret that Scrooge's character is so set in stone now that you couldn't have his dime be "lucky."  Let's do something weird and interesting and very likely terrible!  YOLO!  What's the worst that can happen?)

You do have to admit that a Money Bin of stolen Money Bins is pretty epic, and it continues to be amazing that no one did earlier, if they didn't.  Gotta give credit.

Okay now look.  I'm not married to nerdy criticism necessarily, but I do think there's one fairly gaping hole here which needs to be addressed, which is: these are not alternate-universe Scrooges.  Most of them are Normal Scrooge from the past, and a few might be Scrooge Ancestors; it's a little hard for me to tell.  If we want to be sticklers, none of this makes any sense.  "We found our missing bins?"  What the hell are you on about?  They were so desperate to shove all this Rosa stuff in there that they lost track of things.  Too much focus on Rosa is the story's undoing!  To be honest, I'm not all that het up about canon these days, but still, it's a pretty big fuck-up.

And here's what else I have to say, regarding these bits of explaining Scroogian philosophy and stuff: I get, I guess, that you want to get people up to date, but man, we'd been analyzing this shit as subtext for years, and to have you just regurgitate it back to us is a bit...irksome.

Colorful!  I'm not sure who Space Scrooge is; maybe that's a legit alternate-universe version.  The others are not (also, the story seems weirdly fixated on the idea of Africa Scrooge riding a lion).  Are we suppose to think that Shoe Shine Scrooge has...what, a mini-money-bin?  Dangit, I said I liked this story, and I did, and now I'm getting all het up about it.  Bah!

Anyway, it is what it is.  The question--a question--is, where do they go from here?  What exactly are they trying to accomplish in the long term?  There are these Donald-as-Wolverine and Donald-as-Thor things coming, and I'm sure they've got a few other gimmicky things planned, but you cannot live on novelty alone.  If the idea is to create a sustainable line, they're really gonna have to think less about Big Events and more about normal ol' Disney stories.  Do you think they would be able to just do a straight-forward Barksian Scrooge treasure hunt?  Not "could they do it well?" but "could they do it, period?"  I think the jury's kind of out on that at present.

I don't think they've disgraced the name of Disney comics with this first effort, but I dunno.  Those Disney by Glenat books feel kind of seismic.  This does not.

And now, since that was a relatively short entry, let's kill time looking at the covers for the book.  I know a lot of these are by big-name artists, but this book isn't indexed on inducks yet, and I'm having trouble finding clear information.  It's also why I haven't mentioned any of the several story artists.  Sorry!  Get to work, inducks peons!

A bit ugly--like a CGI recreation of a classic Barks pose.

Why is his neck so elongated?  I can think of nothing else when I see this.

Yeah, I guess it's okay.

This is the Frank Miller one, isn't it?  It's...huh.  Um.  I actually read the first volume of Sin City back in the day.  Found it kind of psychopathic, but the art was a lot...better than this.  Also, as I oft like to point out, he did the cover for a Penguin edition of Gravity's Rainbow that I liked.  In any event.

He's a little dopey-looking, isn't he?  And why a cover that seems to be illustrating a story that isn't in the book?  Gag covers are normal, but instances like this are pretty weird.

Not technically terrible, I suppose, but not something I really like looking at either.

I cannot even.

Bugly as heck.

Why is his beak so huge?  And is this meant to be a Darkwing Duck pose?

Extremely inoffensive, and for that reason probably my favorite of these.  Nice lighting.

Evil or not, that is one bugly-ass Scrooge.  Am I overusing the word "bugly?"

WHY DO YOU TORMENT ME LIKE THIS?  TAKE IT AWAY!

(The analytical part of my brain wants to concede that this at least tries to do something interesting, but 

my conscious sentiment runs entirely to DO NOT WANT.)

Nope.

Okay if you like that sort of thing, I guess.

I have to wonder: can doing all these variant covers possibly be profitable?  Are there truly maniacs eager to acquire them all?  I mean, okay, sure, no doubt there are a few, but enough to justify all this?  I dunno.  Iffy.