"What if...? Donald Duck Became the Mighty Thor"

 Gotta be honest: I'm not a big fan of that punctuation system where the question mark isn't at the end.  But it's what we've been given.

Well, I guess we're doing this.  Must we?  Yes, we must.  But fair warning: if this is bad, I'm not going to be as circumspect in my criticisms as I was with that Wolverine story.  This is Marvel, fercryinoutloud, and they shouldn't be able to keep getting away with nonsense.  So, let's have a look, with an open mind to the best of our ability, and see.

In media res.  Hey, Barks did that sometimes!  Maybe this'll be as good as his work!  Sure, let's start with that assumption.

The other thing I should note before we get going is that yes, I'm aware that this is a very close rewrite of the first Mighty Thor story, from 1962.  Not that I'd read it before, but in preparation for this issue, I went back and did.  The things I do for you!  Actually, though, it was no chore; it's cheesy and overwrought in ways you'd expect, but it looks pleasant and it definitely has A Certain Charm to it.  And yes, the Donald version does seem kind of lazy when you know it's just remaking a preexisting story (I suppose the Wolverine one could've been doing that too, but if so, I don't know what, and no one mentioned it in comments, so I'll assume not).  

This naming convention is inconsistent, though.  In spite of the name, Donald didn't "become" Wolverine as part of the story; he just was Wolverine.  Whereas here, Donald does in fact become Thor.  But the answer to the what if? question is, "exactly the same stuff that happened in the original story would happen," which does seem less than thrilling.  Sure, there are some differences in the details, but nothing major.  So oh for crying out loud, let's just get to it. 

Okay, so here's a theoretically normal Disney-comic thing done up in an incomprehensible way.  Sure, we can easily believe that there would be a Junior Woodchucks merit badge for finding Viking relics (though it would probably use the word "Norse").  But what the heck is this?  The first panel seems to be suggesting that there's just some nebulous "medal" that's not specifically Woodchuck-related.  Offered by whom?  UNESCO?  I have to imagine that this was butchered in translation by someone who had very little sense of how these things are meant to work.

Hmm.  Yeah.  "Uncle."  Myth confirmed, I'd say.  That's one of the more maddening things: shit like this makes it very clear that, regardless of the quality of the actual story, the publishers simply do not care even a tiny bit about Disney fans.  They cannot be arsed to get even the most basic details right.  Presumably they don't even know they're doing anything wrong, because they hubristically assumed they could create a Disney story with no input from anyone who knew anything about the form.  This story hasn't been published overseas yet, but it's (fairly obviously) another Italian creation, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and assume that the original-language script was better, but fuck this shit.  I just can't imagine who it's supposed to be for--or rather, I can, but I don't see how it actually works in practice.  It's hard to imagine anyone, superhero or duck fans, seeing it as anything more than--AT BEST--a fleeting, mildly amusing diversion.  It's not a timeless classic, that's for sure.

Anyway, no call for any more detail than necessary; these are the villains.  Duck versions of the ones in the original, of course.  Are we having fun yet?

And this somewhat goofy stuff where they show how unstoppable they are in Earth is all in the original, and somewhat goofy there too.

I guess that "Galactic Encyclopedia" thing is meant to be a joke, but it's really just an irksome little distraction (and you might want to establish how <i>normal</i> ducks can sweat before you get to stone ones, though that's probably nitpicking).

What's not in the original are these badly-translated gags where the one stone duck wants to open various unfunny shops.  That is this story's contribution to the discourse.

So to cut to the chase, Donald gets seen by them, chased into a cave, and finds a magic stick that turns him into Thor and itself into Mjolnir.

Sigh, okay.  I guess I just saved this image because I thought it looked at least sort of okay.  I mean, not that cool, but it could be worse!  Probably!  That's me, all positivity!

Then there's this.  It seems totally pointless, as this limitation has no relevance in the rest of the story, but in fairness, it also appears in the original, where it also has no other relevance.  I assume in that one, though, it was meant to set up possibilities for future stories.  Here, it's just nonsense, and I don't think familiarity with another story should be mandatory to understand why it's happening, even if that IS true for a lot of superhero stuff.

And it really is sort of rubbing our noses in it when--ON THE SAME PAGE--he then lets go of it again and doesn't revert to regular Donald.  It's specified in the original that there's a sixty-second gap before he turns back, but no such thing is specified here.

In the original...man, I really hate saying that.  But there, it's at least shown that these aliens have been detected, and fighter jets are sent after then.  Here, we have no idea why these jets are these, since there's no indication that anyone else is aware of them.  If you're going to remake a story, you have to include all the parts that make it cohere.  You can't just leave them out like this.  It is lazy and half-assed.

And then: a giant robot.  I will credit the story with one thing: this fight isn't very long or climactic, but it's actually more so than the original, in which Thor just wallops it one time with the hammer and reduces it to rubble.  It does look more menacing here.

And hell, I'll even admit that that's an okay gag.  Ish.

Still, I can't say it ends particularly satisfyingly.  If only they'd given it the proper treatment, this could have been avoided.  Donald remaining alive, that is.

Anyway, that's all.  In the original (argh!), the guy who turns into Thor uses a walking cane, so it makes sense for Mjolnir to turn back to he can take it with him.  But here, it is completely unclear what happens to it.  You wouldn't think Donald would just toss it, but it sure isn't included in these final images, which would have been the easiest thing in the world.  Though if anyone who touches it really turns into Thor, wouldn't that be an issue?  Well, the original didn't address that either, so whatevz.

Please do not wink at me like that.  I do not care to be implicated in your lame story.  I suppose if I'm going to be maximally generous, I could say that there's nothing particularly awful about the premise.  It's just that almost everything decent about the premise comes from elsewhere, and the execution is not terrific.  There's just no reason for it to exist.  Sorry not sorry.

Well, at any rate, now Marvel is probably done; I can't imagine that they would try to expand this not-particularly-fruitful concept into even more--

...goddammit.  Well, look forward to that one, I guess.  Or else fling yourself off a steep embankment.  The choice is yours.

(Also, I feel like I shouldn't end this without noting that Thor already canonically exists in the Disneyverse, and that "Mythtic Mystery" came out over a year before the Marvel job.  It's one of my least favorite Barks stories, but I'll take it over this.  I'm not sure what point I'm making, but a better script than the one we get here might've lampshaded that in some way.)