| Owen | | | | Tuesday, Jan 23, 2024, 07:20:29 PM | I like this chapter a lot more than the previous one. If I look at it from a purely Barksian perspective, not taking any other stories into account, I can see something like this working. It's a pretty fun setting to tell some wholesome stories in a different style.
My primary reason for taking more of a liking to this one, is that Goldie does things, compared to the previous story where she just was kind of Scrooge's girlfriend and a simp. She's still definitely a simp here, and I wouldn't call it good characterization, but it's at least characterization, which is a lot better than last time.
The entire story is very childish. Like it's good versus bad thing, the dog sidekick and the random challenges. But also making the black jack saloon this kind of nice cozy place where Scrooge can just go like it's the Mickey Mouse clubhouse and have it be this main area where plot relevant characters just happen to walk in, makes it feel like some run of the mill Saturday morning kids cartoon(nothing against those btw). Scrooge and Goldie being besties completely ruins the point of their relationship, but I think it's fun to see for once. Glomgold was foreshadowed nicely in the last story and I find that (against all odds and the fact he shouldn't even be here) he works. It's silly kiddy fun, it reminds me a little of Ultraheroes. Childish, but who cares. Then we get to part 2.
And first it continues the first challenge which is all fine and dandy. It's what we, the reader, expect. The journey to cold Amsterdam plus the kidnapping halfway through isn't too bad and has a bit of excitement and tension. Then the stupid Fox aka the mounted deus ex machina comes in and ruins all the tension and excitement. Oh well.
The further journey to cold Amsterdam is completely robbed of all feelings and you read through it like it barely happened. Then the Sinterklaas reference, which is the greatest thing this series has given yet. Scrooge has been hulpsinterklaas, it's canon. Thanks Barbieri, probably the first non Dutch person to not talk about Sinterklaas as if it's weird Christmas.
You would think the story would round up after that, but no! We need another challenge! So we get this really boring gold prospecting part. There are some nice things, like Scrooge having another trick to increase the weight of his gold, kind of like how he had (or would have) a trick to increase the length of the string in the Barks story. Aside from that, it's a very empty nothing part. It feels like halfway through writing the first challenge, Barbieri just got another idea that he liked, so the first challenge got cut short so he could cram in this other one before reaching his page limit. So we end up with two barely developed stories.
It started off a lot better than last time, but it can't keep that quality for too long. Good introduction, and almost a nice story as well, but the writer sabotaged himself.
And I somehow managed to go through all of this without talking too much about how stupid it is to have Glomgold here. You're literally going against Barks. You don't do that, not in these continuity strict times. And it makes very little sense with Rosa of course. Barbieri says that this should be in continuity with Rosa... Soapy Slick and Flintheart mentioning they've been in jail isn't enough. The story has to actually make sense as well.
Francesco D'Ippolito, the same as last time. Not his greatest, still very good.
Everything put together, the total score is just barely better than last time, purely thanks to Goldie being less obnoxious. 5/10 |
