POST-"DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE" PERSPECTIVES: "DuckTales Remastered" and "Scrooge's Loot"

DuckTales Remastered: The Cutscenes Movie now -- comments later!  (By which I mean, it would be a good idea for you to watch the video game's cutscenes before tackling my observations, since the latter will make more sense then.)

Evidently, some of the gamer magazine reviewers were not too pleased with the inclusion of "so much" interstitial material in this release.  For them, the play's the thing.  Those of us whose loyalty is to the animated series, rather than the mechanical imperatives of joystick manipulation, know better.

The running backstory here lasts 76 minutes, two minutes longer than the running time of DuckTales: The Movie.  It's only natural, therefore, to consider Scrooge and company's search for five long-lost treasures, and their ongoing entanglements with the Beagle Boys, Flintheart Glomgold, Magica de Spell, and several additional (and, in some cases, surprisingly familiar) foes, as being a "second movie" of sorts.  What is more unexpected is that the material hangs together well enough to actually merit a comparison to a theatrical feature.  This is to the game designers' credit.

The sequential nature of the treasure quests makes for a rather rigid narrative structure, at least throughout the majority of the game.  After a thwarted Beagle Boy raid on Scrooge's Money Bin reveals the existence of a map detailing the locations of the treasures, we're locked into a series of individual forays, separated by returns to the Money Bin, consultations with Scrooge's supercomputer (which is located under Scrooge's desk in this version, as opposed to simply "being there," as it was in the original Capcom game), and decisions as to the next treasure to find.  During each individual treasure hunt, Scrooge must literally put together a number of subpieces -- scraps of paper, golden coins, sections of the Gizmosuit, etc. -- before discovering the headlined bauble.  Once all the treasures are in place, the "allied" Flinty and Magica (a first -- and, as one might expect, a "marriage" that will prove to be very short-lived) intervene, and the Ducks' struggles against them constitute the remainder of the gameplay.  In the end, Scrooge winds up empty-mitted, but he doesn't mind, since he and his friends and family have gotten to enjoy "the adventure of a lifetime."

Scrooge's Nephews are captives on no less than three occasions during the game.  No surprise there, given that Scrooge's rescues are part of the gameplay, but I find the scenario somewhat ironic.  After all, many of Carl Barks' earliest DONALD DUCK adventures featured HD&L saving their Uncle Donald from one peril or another.  I could have asked for a bit more variety in the conditions of the boys' incarceration, however.  Each time they're jugged, HD&L are put in cages similar to the one they inhabited in "The Land of Trala La."  The only difference is that, the third time around, the boys are all in the same cage.

While the Beagles are first seen running en Rota-like masse towards the Bin, the only individual Beagles to get any game time are those old standbys: Big Time, Burger, Bouncer, and Baggy.  They're not searching for riches, but rather, an old painting that holds a "secret code" giving directions to the various treasures.  First on the "finding line": the Sceptre of the Incan King, deep in the Amazon jungle.  (Yes, this does make geographical sense... barely.)

While it does include both of the show's major second-season additions, many of the attitudes evinced by the characters are very much in the tradition of the first season.  The string of insults that Scrooge addresses to Launchpad will surprise no one who has seen "Scrooge's Pet," among other episodes.  Unfortunately, LP doesn't get any chances, here or anywhere else, to truly prove his mettle, serving instead as a means of (frequently bumpy) transportation from place to place.  The local natives who cede the Sceptre to Scrooge (and giggle behind Scrooge's back that the "treasure" is actually King Manco Capquack's old back-scratcher) look like miniature versions of the somewhat more, er, "traditionally depicted" locals of "Jungle Duck."  Their chief is extremely well-spoken, which should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone living in 2014.

Duckworth has little to do here other than chauffeur Scrooge to the Money Bin, stand around, and make dryly ironic comments.  Mrs. Beakley's plate is a bit fuller... literally.  At various times during gameplay, Mrs. B. appears OUT OF NOWHERE to provide Scrooge with sustenance (and, I presume, extra game points).  To me, this is additional evidence that the devoted nanny and housekeeper possesses immense innate talents, of which DT fans had the poor fortune to see only a few.

Phase two finds Scrooge, HD&L, and Webby in Transylvania, at the haunted castle of Count Drake Von Vladstone, aka Count Dracula Duck.  (Cue grumbling from Britishers in the audience.)  The McGuffin in play here is the Coin of the Lost Realm.  Both Scrooge and HD&L are in familiar form during this trek, with hard-headed Scrooge pooh-poohing the existence of "vampires, banshees" and similar ephemera (evidently, he's forgotten all about the events of "Ducky Horror Picture Show") and HD&L dissing Webby as "a big chicken."  Karma comes to call when the boys subsequently fall into a trap, and it's up to Scrooge to save their tail feathers.  The Beagle Boys, disguised as ghosts, wander around the castle and cause mischief for a while, but Magica is the (entirely appropriate) main foe here.

All of the surviving voice actors from the TV series perform more than honorably in their return engagements.  Alan Young sounds a bit subdued, as one would expect of a 94-year-old, but his Scrooge is right on point.  Ditto the HD&L and Webby of the 70-year-old Russi Taylor.  Chuck McCann, Terry McGovern, and Frank Welker are themselves, nuff said.  As for June Foray... well, if her accent for Magica has slipped just a bit, then that is certainly understandable for someone who will turn 97 this fall.  The signature cackle and attitude remain pretty much intact.

Magica's appearance in the mirror is the occasion for what is, remarkably, Webby's first-ever comment about Magica, at least in an animated format:

Well, it IS in character.  Right, Joe?

The next two treasure treks add to our comforting sense of familiarity by directly retracing the steps of DuckTales -- and Barks -- adventures past.  First, Scrooge and HD&L visit Scrooge's African diamond diggings in search of the Giant Diamond of the Inner Earth, only to discover a panicked workers' stampede that seems -- and sounds -- mighty familiar:

Following Scrooge's mine-car descent to the depths, the Terri-Fermians make their reappearance.  They're pretty much identical to the multicolored clone-guys seen in "Earth Quack," though their King (once again, voiced by Welker) is a little more distinctively characterized this time around, and they refer to the diamonds that are interfering with their "Great Games" as "garbage rocks."  After defeating the King in a roll-and-crash-off, Scrooge has little trouble acquiring the Giant Diamond as part of a deal to take out the rest of the "garbage."

There's a bit of a continuity error in the setup to this sequence.  Before departing for Africa, Scrooge instructs the boys to "find Gyro," presumably to take him along for the ride.  The subsequent helicopter ride, however, includes Scrooge, Launchpad, and HD&L, but not Gyro.  Instead, Gyro is already in Africa when the Ducks arrive on the scene. 

The post-Africa Money Bin confab also features my favorite line in the "movie" (starting at time mark 35:05 in the video).  The line itself isn't exceptionally witty, but Russi Taylor's reading of it is.  She lays on the sarcasm with a trowel, as if she were channeling a line from the slightly more cynical Nephews of Barks' later period.  Or, perhaps Russi has spent so much time working on The Simpsons by now that she finds it easier to sound snarky, no matter what character she is voicing.  You be the judge.

Treasure number four turns out to be nothing less than The Lost Crown of Genghis Khan.  And the Ducks need to find it in Shadow Pass, no less.  The setup isn't quite the same as it was in the TV episode.  In a gambit reminiscent of Scrooge's reverse psychology in "The Golden Goose, Part 2," HD&L are left at home this time, while Webby is charged with "looking after them."  But Webby isn't to be put off so easily this time.  Instead, in the time-honored (if not wholly time-justified) tradition, she tags along.

Scrooge finds himself saddled with an additional passenger when he discovers Bubba Duck frozen in a block of ice inside a cave.  How Bubba got there (and why Scrooge was unaware of his disappearance and subsequent location) is more than I can tell, though unpleasant images of "one-way Himalayan rides" come to mind.  After being freed, Bubba subsequently has little more to do than run in cycles in the background, jumping up and down and pounding his club at random moments.  I don't know about you, but I find that to be extremely funny, especially considering Bubba's ultimate fate in the series.

Glomgold also makes his first appearance of the game during the trip to Shadow Pass, hurling insults and bombs at Scrooge and company.  His biggest moments are still to come, though.

In Shadow Pass, Scrooge discovers the (female) Yeti himself, though he needs some assistance from Webby in order to communicate effectively with it.  In a nice callback to the series, Webby claims to have gotten her ability to deal with monster-speak from the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook.  (And she doesn't even need to consult it in order to tell what the monster is growling -- most impressive.)  The "thorn" plaguing the Yeti turns out to be the Lost Crown itself.  A bit simpler than DT's original telling of the tale, but perfectly acceptable.  Launchpad manages to get in a variation of a much-beloved line from the TV episode when he claims, "Usually, it's me the girls go ga-ga for."

Incidentally, you know that Launchpad is having a rough day (or, a rough series of treasure hunts) when even Webby feels free to make with a wisecrack after Scrooge temporarily leaves her in Launchpad's care.

The fifth and final treasure takes us the farthest afield: the Green Cheese of Longevity (is that referring to Duck longevity, or to the age of the cheese?) is located on the Moon.  This time, Scrooge's traveling companions are Gyro and Fenton (with Gizmosuit in tow, in a natty new briefcase this time).  The new voice actor for Fenton makes the character sound a little "goonier" than seems proper to me.  Hamilton Camp's Fenton was enthusiastic and somewhat naive, but he wasn't "goony."  Scrooge's insults to Fenton seem a bit more justified here than they did in the series, which I don't think was the idea.   

At least this Fenton seems a bit more on the ball when it comes to protecting his secret identity.  He is well aware that Gyro might get suspicious when he disappears and Gizmoduck reappears.  Scrooge blows it off by making a derogatory reference to Gyro's deductive reasoning skills, but the fact remains that Fenton was aware of the issue.  (Of course, there is always the distinct possibility that Gyro learned the truth about Fenton when he rebuilt the Gizmosuit after the original suit was destroyed in "Attack of the Metal Mites."  Given how thoroughly the series had mucked up the issue of Fenton's secret ID by the end, perhaps we should simply pretend that this whole sequence doesn't exist.)

Scrooge bests Glomgold, the Beagle Boys, and a giant rat (yes, really) for the Green Cheese and returns to Earth... only to find that Flinty and the Beagles have HD&L and the other treasures in their possession.  Flinty has barely finished chortling over securing the treasures and thereby becoming the richest Duck in the world (exactly how he would do that is never made clear; perhaps he was planning on auctioning them off, or something?) when Magica blows in and assumes ownership.  Intending to use the treasures to revive Count Dracula Duck and "rule the world" (a parlay of similar opacity to Glomgold's), Magica takes HD&L as hostages, demanding the Old Number #1 Dime in exchange.  (It's always good to have a backup plan, especially when it should be the main plan.)  Flinty and Scrooge decide on a "Robot Robbers" redo and agree to cooperate in order to get HD&L and the treasures back.  If this isn't confusing enough already, just wait.

Scrooge and Flinty brave a couple of snares inside Mount Vesuvius -- with Scrooge doing all of the heavy lifting, big surprise -- before the showdown in Magica's lair.  (Sorry, Greg, but there's no pentagram in evidence this time.)  There, Glomgold proves that he's been playing a double game all along by swiping Old #1.  Magica uses the treasures to summon Dracula Duck, whom Scrooge must then dispatch.  Dracula's demise turns out to be surprisingly creepy, with the undead monster writhing in apparent agony before drying up to ashes and blowing away.

Magica's lair subsequently begins to fall apart (huh??), and HD&L's cage breaks, freeing the lads (ditto??).  To finish the job, Scrooge must recover Old #1 from Flinty and Magica, who are tussling over it.  Glomgold won't give the dime up until Magica hands over the treasures... and, here, I really must object.  Magica used the treasures to summon Dracula, so, presumably, they don't exist any more, just as Old #1 would no longer exist if Magica were to melt it down to become part of a magical amulet.  Glomgold must therefore be either exceptionally naive or exceptionally stupid, neither of which I can truly buy.  To me, this is the most questionable moment of the entire narrative.  The fact that it comes at the climax is most unfortunate.

Scrooge short-circuits the villains' somewhat contrived quarrel by barging in and recovering the dime.  Following a 'copter rescue from a fiery fate, we get a flyoff scene suspiciously reminiscent of the ending of "Send in the Clones."  Given that "Clones" was Magica's first major starring role *annoyed side glance at "Magica's Magic Mirror"*, there's a pleasing symmetry in this.

Back in Duckburg, the proverbial "whole gang" grins with glee as Glomgold and the Beagle Boys are carted off in the paddy wagon.  (Seeing as how Flinty was last seen hanging onto Vulture Magica's tail feathers, while Magica had transformed the Beagles into pigs before taking her leave of Scrooge's office, there are some obvious continuity issues here.)  We iris out on a reprise of a familiar gag from "Scroogerello."  Scrooge's short-bordered generosity is even narrower than it appears to be; he takes HD&L to the ice-cream shop while ignoring everyone else, including Webby.  Somehow, I don't think that the "wee lassie" would take that dissement lying down.  Perhaps she will defy Scrooge and tag along again?  (Let's not even talk about Bubba's reaction.)

The creators of DuckTales Remastered have a lot to be proud of.  With the perspective of a quarter-century and the help of advanced technology, they were able to revamp a much-loved video classic while using the cutscenes to pay a more elaborate, and highly knowledgeable, tribute to the series that inspired it.  That mythical 101st episode of DuckTales?  Close enough, I deem.

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Oh, there's another DuckTales-related video game out there, you say?

Actually, this one is of comparatively little interest to DT fans.  Alan Young and Terry McGovern do appear as the voices of Scrooge and Launchpad, and Flintheart Glomgold, Magica de Spell, and Ma Beagle are the villains who have absconded with Scrooge's (ugh) loot, but the gameplay features a generic Duck-boy character.  (HD&L are off visiting Uncle Donald, in case you're wondering.)  It appears to be a pleasant diversion for gaming enthusiasts, nothing more, nothing less.

Some DUCKTALES comics reviews should be coming your way next.

Comics Review: MY LITTLE PONY MICRO-SERIES #9: SPIKE (IDW Publishing, November 2013)

We're going to get only one more of these -- one featuring Princess Luna -- before the Micro-Series ends and the new team-up title MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDS FOREVER begins.  With Rob Anderson and Agnes Garbowska's SPIKE offering, we step back just a bit from the highs of the previous two issues featuring the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Princess Celestia.  There are some admittedly funny moments here, but Garbowska's art harkens back to the "Colorforms approaches" of some of the earlier Micro issues, and the story isn't SO strong that it can overcome the weaknesses of the presentation.

** SPOILERS **

I must admit, I was surprised that an issue focusing on Spike did NOT have anything to do with his crush on Rarity.  That would seem to be a logical hook for further development.  Instead, Anderson takes a cue from the episodes "Dragon Quest" and "Just for Sidekicks."  Having returned the baby Phoenix Peewee to its parents, Spike wants to burnish his parenting/pet-care-taking skills and buys some "Sea Beasts" (read: "Sea Monkeys") that were advertised in his DARING DO comic.  (I thought that Daring Do was a character who appeared in novels, but whatever.)  After absorbing the inevitable disappointment experienced by all those of us who actually invested in those "magical critters," Spike tries various means to make his pets grow, gliding over "small details" at every turn.  The Beasts not only grow, they actually evolve, and Spike finds himself having a hard time keeping up with their evolution.  After overhearing a conversation between a mother pony and her impatient foal, Spike decides to help his charges along in a more organized fashion, and the Beasts, with his assistance, ultimately mutate into a weird combination of sentient frogs, Hare Krishnas, and the Little Green Men from the Toy Story movies.  Alas, Spike must let them go into the world to seek further "enlightenment."  But he HAS earned his pet-care-taking spurs.

I'm told that The Simpsons and Futurama did plots similar to this, which wouldn't surprise me at all.  The MLP version is OK, though the Beasts' growing legs immediately after leaving Spike's aquarium was a bit much (and that certainly wasn't the only suspiciously convenient moment in the story).  Spike's lack of patience and carelessness are a major focus here, but, just as the Beasts grow and evolve during the story, so too does the baby dragon "evolve" in the sense that he learns something about accepting responsibility above and beyond taking care of Twilight Sparkle's bibliographical needs and keeping the library clean.  The slightly clunky art, unfortunately, undercuts the impact of the Beasts' growth.

Comics Reviews: MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #1-#4 (IDW, November 2012-February 2013)

It took a while, but I've finally managed to read the first four-issue story arc of IDW's MLP:FIM comic. Long story short: while the animated series (or, should I say, the ten or so episodes that I've watched thus far) is very good, the comic is very, VERY good.  The hardcore MLP:FIM fans have a good three years' head start on me, so there's no way that I'm ever going to be anything more than a "fellow galloper" in their bubbly little world.  But concentrating on the comic series appears to be a reasonable option, primarily because the creative team is wisely targeting the book to as wide an audience as it can manage.  If the IDW title stays on its present course, then I don't think that I'll need to master X-MEN-style deluges of detail in order to get the gist of what is going on.

Artistically speaking, the MLP:FIM title works because the artists (Andy Price, in this first story arc) have found a successful "middle ground" between the flat, stylized, two-dimensional look of the TV show and the solider, more three-dimensional look that is required in order to make the characters seem more "real" on paper.  Now, admittedly, the Colorforms aesthetic has some distinct advantages, especially when the characters are as well designed as these.  If you're clever enough and your animators and designers are skilled enough, then the stylized approach can make for some arresting visuals.  For example, which of the following images is more effective at getting across the onset of an outburst of insanity?

Sorry, Scrooge, but Twilight Sparkle has you beaten here.  However, as funny as the poses in the animated MLP:FIM can be, I don't think that they would transfer all that well to a comic-book story, in which (and note that this is a personal preference -- YMMV) I have to be given some sort of aesthetic reason to believe in the reality of the characters.  The creators at Bongo Comics managed to turn the difficult trick of rendering Matt Groening's semi-abstract characters into acceptable comic-book form, but the MLP:FIM characters and settings are far more elaborate; simply replicating the look of the series would give the comic book the appearance of fancy wallpaper.  Price and the other artists working on the title solved the dilemma by altering the templates of the characters just enough to allow for more flexibility of expression (in terms of the eyes and mouth, mostly) and to make three-dimensional renditions of the characters possible without lunging way off model.  For all the attractiveness of the series, I actually prefer the comic-book appearances of the characters; I only wish that the kaboom! versions of the Disney TV characters had been this consistently good.

Katie Cook's script for the first story arc mirrors the artwork; in terms of wit and cleverness, it's a step up from the already-impressive writing for the TV series.  The ongoing byplay among the "mane 6" pony heroines is the highlight, of course, but Cook adds significantly to the fun by giving the villainess of the piece, the evil Changeling Queen Chrysalis, a bit more of a humorous edge.  There is a certain danger in this, of course, in that a wisecracking villain can quickly lose credibility if there is insufficient menace to balance the equation, and I think that Cook gets close to crossing the line on a couple of occasions here.  The comic script also resembles a number of the animated stories I've viewed in that, for all the bells and whistles, the underlying plot is really rather elementary.  But, on balance, these first four issues were truly a pleasure to read.

On to the individual issues...

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Did you realize that MLP:FIM #1 was published under NINETEEN (!!) different covers?  Yes, I still have issues with the whole multiple-cover scheme, and I would have even if the six "pony solo" covers had been the only ones issued.  The book is already selling incredibly well, and artificially goosing the sales with gimmicks like this seems like opportunism of the highest order.

Anyway... Queen Chrysalis' Changelings are back after their defeat in the TV two-parter "A Canterlot Wedding," once again seeking to suck souls and leech off of others' happiness.  But wait, there's more... Chrysalis has an even more devious plan in mind and intends to use the three "Cutie Mark Crusaders" as bait to lure the six major heroines to her lair.  For the uninitiated, the "Crusaders" are three little ponies who have yet to determine their passions in life and thereby earn their "Cutie Marks."  You can imagine how such youthful sincerity might turn an evil queen's stomach... and, in fact, Chrysalis' increasing impatience with the girls is one of the arc's comedic highlights.

In #2, the "mane 6" go all "There and Back Again" on us as they embark on a quest to Queen Chrysalis' realm.  We even get some possible shoutouts to Gummi Bears in the form of a cave troll with a fetish for ponies and some decidedly goofy-looking arachnids.  Changelings try to sow confusion by disguising themselves as members of the "mane 6" and trying to turn our heroines against one another... and, completely forgetting that the Changelings had done just that in their first encounter, the "mane 6" fall for it hook, line, and sinker.  Given the series' constant harping on the importance of sticking together in friendship, you'll forgive me if I didn't find this contrived conflict to be all that convincing.  Surely one of our heroines should have tumbled to the possibility that such out-of-character behavior was a hoax?

#3 starts with some jet-black humor as we learn in flashback what happened to Chrysalis and her Changelings after they were literally blown out of Equestria: they landed in "Wuvy-Duvy Smoochy Land," inhabited by mindlessly loving little cats.  The place, of course, became the Changeling Kingdom in short order.  Chrysalis later ups the ante by smooshing one of the poor kitties right in front of the horrified "Cutie Mark Crusaders."  And Darkwing Duck fans thought that the "Cute Little Lost Bunnies" were a harsh dig at the Care Bears.  The "mane 6" spend most of the issue making up with one another, that is, when they're not fighting carnivorous jackalopes and petunias.  It reads better than it sounds.  An amusing framing sequence features Spike, the ponies' baby dragon friend and helper, hyping the action in the manner of a carnival barker.

The "Power of Friendship" conquers all!  Queen Chrysalis plans to drain Twilight Sparkle of her magic with the help of a celestial conjunction caused by the "Secretariat Comet."  (Insert "it's not Saturday, it's Friday") joke here.  Better yet, she'll drain Twilight of her love for her friends and then have her destroy them.  Twilight fights back and batters Chrysalis into submission, monologuing all the while about how the selfish Chrysalis can't possibly understand the power of friendship and love, etc.  Yes, we're quite familiar with such an approach from the toy-commercials-with-morals-tacked-on era of TV animation, but very rarely has the sentiment been ladled on with such slick efficiency.  The defeated Chrysalis gets the ultimate punishment: having the irritating Pinkie Pie serve as her jailer.

I think that this one's a keeper.  Who knows, I might even be able to attend the upcoming BronyCon in Baltimore and not embarrass myself.

Ponying Up! (at last!)

It's been a while since I expressed my intention to "take the plunge into the trough" and try the popular IDW comic-book adaptation of MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC.  Before doing so, however, I felt it necessary to view some of the key episodes of the TV series.  Thanks to the magic of YouTube and the helpful suggestions of my friend Mark Lungo, I've now seen enough to essay some comments on... um, the TV series.  (Don't worry, the comics reviews will be on their way soon.)

MLP: FIM turned out to be a pleasant surprise, emphasis on "pleasant."  Essentially, it's a very slicked-up, somewhat more culturally aware reboot of a 1980s toy-based cartoon series (surprise, huh?), bearing approximately the same relationship to its Reagan-era namesake that the Ziegfeld Follies did to run-of-the-mill vaudeville.  That may sound like damning with faint praise, but it really isn't.  The trouble with many of those old chatchka-centered productions was that they did so surprisingly little to make their animated versions appealing in and of themselves.  The original MLP certainly fell into that category: it's tough to imagine doing anything really splashy or innovative with characters with such unimaginative basic designs.  Say what you will about the literary quality of 1980s Transformers episodes, but at least those machine-robot-things looked cool, and it's possible to imagine a talented writer taking those visual stimuli and turning them loose in a really first-rate action-adventure.  (Not that one has appeared yet... sorry, Michael Bay.)

The televised MLP: FIM stories that I've seen thus far -- the two-part pilot story "Friendship is Magic," the two-parter "A Canterlot Wedding," and "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" -- have all been similar in terms of strengths and weaknesses.  Taking several hints (OK, more than a few) from the increased popularity of anime, MLP:FIM quickly accomplishes the first goal of an animated series: it's lots of fun to look at.  The characters are well-designed, the facial expressions are amusing, and the visual effects are often quite remarkable.  With that in mind, I must admit that I actually prefer the comic-book versions of the characters.  The comic-book artists seem to be doing an excellent job of adapting the characters to the demands of telling a story without being locked into the TV show's somewhat more stiff and stylized visual template.

The characterizations of the six "mane" ponies (you knew that I had to go there...) will be tolerably familiar to any fan of Adventures of the Gummi Bears.  That series took the basic Smurfs idea of characters based on single personality traits and added some additional complexity to each character without really straying too far from the basic template.  Thus, we have Twilight Sparkle = brainy, Applejack = tomboy, Pinkie Pie = nutty, Rainbow Dash = brash Peppermint Patty type (at least, I think so), Fluttershy = shy nature girl, Rarity = beautiful egotist. This, I must admit, represents a somewhat wider cross-section of humanity (or should I say, "equine-inity") than do the Glen Gummis.  Wisely, MLP:FIM avoids the trap of relying TOO heavily on six character types by introducing several corralsful of additional ponies, many of whom have their own individual followings among the series' maniacal fan base.  In a more Smurfs-like twist, each pony has a "specialty" indicated by a "cutie mark" on his or her flank.  This apparently is a continuation of a tradition dating back to the original MLP series ("Generation One" or "G1" to the cognoscenti).  I can see this notion possibly becoming a problem as the TV writers run short of ideas and start creating "one-trick ponies" left and right with the insouciant carelessness of a Vic Lockman creating "specialist" Beagle Boys.  At least the writers seem to be aware of the potential for trouble; three young ponies calling themselves "The Cutie Mark Crusaders" furnish one of the show's running gags by engaging in a perpetual hunt for the "specialty" that will lift them out of the ranks of the "blank-flanked."  I am sure that there is a lively debate going as to when (if?) the Crusaders will finally get their marks.  (Probably at or around the same time that Springfield is blown up, a la Little House on the Prairie's Walnut Grove, in what I have predicted for years will be the final act of The Simpsons.)

The plotting in the episodes I've watched has been... well, not that bad, but certainly nothing to write home about.  The villains, or, as the MLP:FIM wiki has it, "antagonists" -- since when did the term "villain" become un-PC?! -- tend to kick into "rant-about-my-plan" mode with disquieting suddenness, and the attraction of the stories is created far more by of the flashy, candy-colored visuals than by any particularly imaginative scripting.  Queen Chrysalis, a changeling who is the vil... er, antipony of "A Canterlot Wedding," is featured in the comic-book series' first four-issue story arc, so I'll soon have a bit more of a handle on her. 

Perhaps the most remarkable (and startling) thing about MLP:FIM is its cheerfully pagan worldview!  The natives of Equestria have a literal "ruler-God" in the noble person of Princess Celestia, who is literally responsible for raising the sun each morning.  "Friendship is Harmony" resolves Celestia's millennium-old conflict with her renegade younger sister Princess Luna, a conflict that has the marks of Manicheanism stamped all over it.  The ponies celebrate such holidays as the Summer Sun Festival, Hearth-Warming Eve, and Nightmare Night.  Are you getting the picture?  And I haven't even mentioned Twilight Sparkle and Celestia's use of magic.  To be fair, Twilight can't tap her full magical potential until she performs the decidedly non-ethereal task of making friends with the other "Elements of Harmony."  Still, I can't believe that the show hasn't been more vigorously protested by folks who frown upon things like this.

On balance, MLP:FIM is a very attractive show; I'd even go so far as to say that it's the best animated series I've personally sampled since Kim Possible.  But it will have to go some to rank with the best WDTVA series of the late 80s and early 90s.  Try as the creators might to add complexity and depth to the basic scenario, the world of MLP:FIM is necessarily constricted by the fact that it's a world of, well, little ponies.  Equestria doesn't yet seem to me like a "real place" in the ways that Duckburg, Cape Suzette, or even St. Canard and Dunwyn do.  Hopefully, the comic book will address this issue and give the ponies a chance to strut their stuff on a somewhat broader stage.

Book Review: LIBRARY OF AMERICAN COMICS ESSENTIALS, VOLUME 2: THE GUMPS "THE SAGA OF MARY GOLD" by Sidney Smith (IDW/Library of American Comics, 2013)

The newest addition to the LIBRARY OF AMERICAN COMICS line-up is going to provide quite a challenge for comics collectors -- but not an intellectual or aesthetic one so much as a physical one.  These long, slender ESSENTIALS volumes, each of which will collect meaningful material from a classic bygone comic strip, are meant to give readers a feel for what it was like to follow strips during the days when the art form was given the newspaper page space it truly deserved.  Each page reproduces a strip at full original size.  Unfortunately, there are so many pages in the volume -- well over 300, in this case -- that as one moves towards the back of the book, the turned leaves that have "come before" display an increasing tendency to "flop over."  Over time, this will no doubt play havoc with the binding.  If only spiral binding were an option here.

I passed on the first ESSENTIALS collection but wasn't going to miss this opportunity to peruse a healthy chunk of THE GUMPS.  Sidney Smith's peculiar mixture of domestic slapstick, adventure, melodrama, and subpar artwork held a remarkable fascination for millions of Americans during the 1920's and 1930's.  One could seriously argue that, in this one strip, Smith anticipated the popularity of soap operas (crafting narratives that strung the reader along for months at a time, an inch or two at a time), the development of radio and TV situation comedies and such modern-day satirical "family" cartoons as The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and Family Guy, and the whole notion of the "mysterious rich uncle" (Andy Gump's billionaire Uncle Bim) that would culminate in Carl Barks' creation of Scrooge McDuck.  As is the case with most pioneers, what Smith actually did with this bubbling thematic stewpot was frequently crude and amateurish, but one must give him full credit for "getting there first."  He was also ahead of his time insofar as marketing his characters, ginning up publicity, and living the "cartoonist's high life" were concerned.

THE GUMPS, for all its popularity back in the day, has not been well served when it comes to reprints, even those of an historical nature.  One fairly sizable reprint volume was released in the mid- 1970s, but all reports are that it was pretty casually thrown together, basically just an effort to cash in on the then-fashionable Jazz Age nostalgia craze.  Smith's most famous GUMPS continuity, the story of the greedy Widow Zander's attempt to entrap the credulous Uncle Bim in an unwanted marriage, has been reprinted in dribs and drabs in various places.  Now comes IDW with a high-quality (though, as noted previously, physically awkward) presentation of Smith's second best-known continuity, the one in which he literally shocked the country by letting a much-loved character die.  "The Saga of Mary Gold" is so fiendishly well orchestrated that even a modern reader who occasionally shakes his or her head over Smith's shameless use of melodramatic tropes will come to understand why a press report labeled Smith "The Most Unpopular Human in the World" for actually daring to do the deed.  (Of course, this "unpopular" creator saw the popularity of his strip skyrocket during this period, so he was laughing all the way to the bank, no doubt driving there in one of the fast cars that he liked to buy.)

"Mary Gold" plays out over a period of one year (April 1928-May 1929) and takes its sweet time getting up to speed, as Andy Gump and his wife Min meet and get to know the Golds, their new next-door neighbors, and their charming and lovely daughter Mary.  In the interim, chinless Andy gets plenty of time to opinionate about anything and everything, and, in this extremely wordy strip, that's like giving Homer Simpson the keys to the doughnut shop.  In a sense, it's rather unfair to compare Andy to characters like Homer and Peter Griffin; next to them, he's practically a MENSA member.  A better analogy might be a long-winded Hank Hill who doesn't just tell you "That ain't right!" but goes into excruciating detail as to exactly why it "ain't right" and/or how it can be put right.  In between well-packed word balloons, a plot finally begins to coalesce, as poor-but-honest inventor Tom Carr and rich-but-venal banker Henry Ausstinn compete for Mary Gold's hand.  When some money that Andy had intended to invest in one of Carr's creations goes missing, suspicion falls on Tom, and he becomes a wanted fugitive, while Ausstinn moves in to take advantage of the situation.  The balance of the tale is vintage soap-opera material, complete with a dramatic court trial and an equally dramatic revelation at the moment when wedding vows are to be exchanged.  But then comes the kicker... which, as Jared Gardner notes in his Introduction, opened up entirely new vistas for the comic strip as a whole.  Just one year after the end of "Mary Gold," for example, Chester Gould would launch DICK TRACY and kill off a character within the first week of the strip's existence. 

While Smith's storytelling style is familiar to those who are well-versed in pop culture, I must admit that he occasionally does things that leave me baffled.  Take the curious case of "The Eagle," for instance.  This mysterious figure is introduced during Tom Carr's exile and makes sidebar appearances in literally every strip for a full month, with Smith breathlessly telling us where he is, where he's going, etc.  It soon becomes clear that "The Eagle" is some sort of bounty hunter looking for Carr, which would suggest that he's going to play a role in Carr's ultimate capture and return for trial, right?  Er... not so much.  The way in which Smith writes "The Eagle" out of the story (assuming that you can say that this perpetually tangential figure was "in" the story in the first place!) quite literally made me sit up and say, "What the f---?!"  Then, too, Andy and Min's son Chester abruptly appears in the story about midway through (around Christmastime), hangs around for a while, and then just as suddenly vanishes.  Was he away at boarding school, or something?  Or did Smith suddenly remember that he was part of the Gump family too, and then just as suddenly forget?  I get the distinct impression that Smith's creative approach was rather... casual.  Either that, or he simply liked pulling his audience's chain.  In any event, the formula worked, at least up until Smith's death in a car crash in 1935.  I'm glad that I finally got a chance to see it in action... and I certainly wouldn't mind other GUMPS continuities showing up in future ESSENTIALS volumes.