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 "The quality of your lives depends on what you make of them! The only limits to adventure are the limits of your imagination!" Keno Don Rosa's Magnum Opus, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck was the ultimate Arc Welding project by the Carl Barks Promoted Fanboy already famous for his Continuity Porn. Defying Comic Book Time, Rosa's 12-part epic takes every (reasonably possible) Noodle Incident, adventure, and reference from Scrooge McDuck's life in Barks' comics and organizes them into a coherent, plausible timeline.The saga begins when Scrooge is ten years old in 1877 and ends with meeting his nephew Donald Duck at the time of his premiere story in Christmas 1947. In-between, the series tells the story of how a poor lad from Scotland traveled the globe building up a fortune and financial empire by being smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies to become the richest man in the world, having every possible adventure a Bad Ass Self-Made Man could find. The series gives us our best look at Scrooge's family — his parents, uncles, and sisters — and shows how he met enemies like Flintheart Glomgold and the Beagle Boys, friends like Theodore Roosevelt, and Mentors like Howard Rockerduck that helped mold him into the Anti-Hero Jerk with a Heart of Gold we've known him as. The epic is packed with Character Development, adventure, Continuity Nods, Leaning on the Fourth Wall, a miraculous amount of violence and innuendo that got past the radar, and of course Rosa's trademark Scenery Porn and insane amount of historical, geographical, and cultural research.The 12 original chapters were released in issues of Uncle Scrooge from April 1994 through February 1996. They were published together in an anthology in June 2005. In the spirit of Disney's love of midquels, in September 2006, Gemstone released The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion, which turned 7 of Don Rosa's previously published Uncle Scrooge stories (and 1 brand new story) into Midquels since they were Flashbacks about more adventures from Scrooge's glory days... essentially Arc Welding within Arc Welding. Most of the midquels use a Framing Device of Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie unearthing Scrooge's trunk of memorabilia in his money bin and asking questions about the stories behind its contents, prompting said flashbacks.Most of the stories (including the midquels) were released in Europe before appearing in the American Uncle Scrooge series; for example, the original twelve chapters appeared in countries including Denmark, Germany, and Norway in 1992. The release dates given below give the first publication and then its American equivalent.This work earned Don Rosa the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award in 1995 for "Best Serialized Story".A concept album— Scrooge McDuck, The Richest Duck in the World  based on the book by Tuomas Holopainen is currently in the worksAll together, in chronological order in-universe (including Midquels and Prequels), the series consists of: Chapters
This comicbook series in general provides examples of:
Individual Chapters: open/close all folders Chapter 0: Of Ducks, Dimes, and Destinies Released: Denmark -June 1995, United States - April 1996 Dates: 1877The last story Rosa completed before the 12-part series proper, later included as a sort of Time Travel prequel. Inspired by hearing Scrooge relate the story of earning his Number One Dime to his grand-nephews while she's spying on him, Magica de Spell uses a Time Travel candle to go back in time to the day Scrooge earned the dime so she can get it before he ever owns it. After some hijinks with Scrooge's father and Howard Rockerduck, she succeeds, and it's while waiting for the return trip to start that she realizes the implications — by preventing Scrooge from ever owning the dime, it's no longer the first coin owned by the richest duck in the world, therefore it's worthless to her, and she's forced to give it back to him and return to the future empty-handed, causing a net difference of zero. Tough luck, but You Can't Fight Fate.This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 1: The Last of the Clan McDuck  Dates: 1877-1880Chapter One, of course, tells how a 10-year-old Scrooge first went into business with a shoeshining kit his father made him for his birthday and earned his Number One Dime — an American dime that was worthless to him in Scotland and made him vow to be "sharper than the sharpies and tougher than the toughies" so that he would never be cheated again. After three years of shining shoes, selling firewood and peat, and protecting the McDuck ancestral castle from the McDucks' rival clan the Whiskervilles, 13-year-old Scrooge leaves home to seek his fortune in America.This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 2: The Master of the Mississippi  Dates: 1880-1882Scrooge's first American venture is with his Uncle Angus "Pothole" McDuck on his riverboat in New Orleans. The two of them go on Scrooge's first treasure hunt for a sunken ship in the Mississippi, the Drennan Whyte, with some help from Gyro Gearloose's grandfather, Ratchet Gearloose. In the process, Scrooge meets (and names) his first generation of Beagle Boys. Their next meeting two years later ends with the destruction of the riverboat Scrooge bought from his uncle. Out of options in the riverboat business and still no profit to show for it, 15-year-old Scrooge moves West. (Meanwhile, his Uncle Pothole goes into the dime store novel business.)This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 3: The Buckaroo of the Badlands  Dates: 1882After a short encounter with Jesse James, Scrooge finds himself a cowboy in Montana protecting a prize steer from cattle rustlers, the McVipers. He hopes to gain his fortune as the manager of a ranch in the future, but for now, he gains the nickname Buck McDuck, a friend whom he recommends go back into politics, and a tough but ornery horse he names after his similar-tempered sister, Hortense, who will be around for a few chapters.This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 3 B: The Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark Released: Sweden - December 1998, United States - February 1999 Dates: 1883During his stint as a Montana cowboy, Scrooge takes a trip on the famous Cutty Sark clipper to deliver two longhorn bulls to the sultan of Djokja in Java for an annual bullteam race. When Scrooge's bulls are stolen, his efforts to get them back results in "a Scottish cowboy steam[ing] into port on a run-aground ship"... and subsequently losing all the money from his sale in paying fees, fines, and bills for the damages caused on this adventure. (Apparently, this was in the days before Hero Insurance.)This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 4: The Raider of the Copper Hill  Dates: 1884-1885The end of the cattle boom in The Wild West means yet another career change for Scrooge: prospecting. He likes his chances with copper mining since he strikes his claim just when some new-fangled invention called electricity causes a demand for copper. While working his homestead near the Anaconda Hill Copper Works ("the richest hill on Earth"), he meets millionaire Self-Made Man Howard Rockerduck, who, to the disdain of his wife and Spoiled Brat son (one John D. Rockerduck) who have forgotten his humble beginnings, teaches him the art of prospecting. But Wait, There's More! Rockerduck: This man has a homestead on land where the Anaconda copper vein is only five feet deep! The Law of Apex of 1849 says that whoever owns the land where an ore vein is closest to the surface owns the entire vein! Scrooge McDuck owns the Anaconda Copper Mine! After a wild fight with claim jumpers (the first of many in his life), Scrooge believes he's finally found the key to his fortune, until he gets a telegram from home urgently asking him to bring money to help with a crisis. Unable to wait to turn a limitless profit from the copper mine, he sells it back to the original owners and returns to his family with the money, taking away one important lesson from his experience:"Get lost, Mr. Big-Shot-Copper-King!" This chapter provides examples of:Scrooge: They were my friends! What did I do? Rockerduck: You got rich, son. Best get used to it like -sigh I did. You'll have their respect, but no longer their love.
Chapter 5: The New Laird of Castle McDuck  Dates: 1885Scrooge arrives back in Dismal Downs just as his family is about to lose their land and castle if they don't pay the back taxes from falling behind in the payments (the clan has struggled to maintain ownership of the castle even if the demon hound has made it too dangerous to live there). Scrooge's bank draft from the sale of his copper mine saves the castle, his destiny to become "the cheapest, stingiest, most miserly, turnip-squeezingest, penny-pinching tightwad on Earth" saves his life (the dead should not interfere in the land of the living), and the ghosts of Scrooge's ancestors save him when he's nearly killed in a duel with the Whiskervilles. No Big Deal. Now the McDucks can move back into the castle, and Scrooge can move on with making his fortune... this time, in gold.This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 6: The Terror of the Transvaal  Dates: 1887-1889Scrooge's first attempt at gold prospecting takes him to South Africa, where he meets a Boer also on his way to the Johannesburg goldfields who offers to be his guide. Scrooge awakens the next morning to find his new "friend" has vanished, stolen his supplies, and left him to perish out on the rand. Furious at being double-crossed, he makes his way to civilization in his typical Bad Ass fashion, finds the scoundrel, vents his anger in a Humiliation Conga, and throws him in jail. He doesn't strike it rich in the low-grade Transvaal soil and eventually packs up and leaves with the vow never to trust anybody again, thanks to a lesson from his least noble enemy yet, whatever-his-name-was *.This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 6 B: The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff Released: Sweden- December 1996, United States- October 1997 Dates: 1890A prequel to the Carl Barks comic Return to Pizen Bluff. Scrooge reunites with his Uncle Pothole, who has become famous thanks to his novels about his adventures saving his nephew Scrooge... but anyway, the two McDucks join forces with P.T. Barnum, Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and Geronimo to track down the Dalton Gang when they rob Barnum's wild west show. Before the posse bids good-bye, lamenting the impending death of The Wild West, Scrooge has them all autograph one of the show's handbills, which Matilda McDuck later pasted into her scrapbook... and which the triplets determine contains a map to the Lost Dutchman's Mine on the back. Oh Crap!This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 7: The Dreamtime Duck of the Never-Never  Dates: 1893-1896From Darkest Africa to Pizen Bluff to Kalgoorlie, Australia, Scrooge continues his quest for gold. But first, he saves an Aborigine wiseman from a bandit, and hears the legend of the Dreamtime . The wiseman also shows him the cave with the Dreamtime story painted and carved into its walls, along with a sacred opal the size of a melon. Scrooge then has to stop the bandit from stealing the relic, losing his Number One Dime in the process, and eventually gets a chance to steal the opal himself as the cave collapses so that no one would even discover the theft for a hundred years. After making his choice, he's rewarded by the miraculous return of his dime and inspiration from the last segment of the legend with pictures that look like the aurora borealis in the Yukon...This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 8: The King of the Klondike  Dates: 1896-1897The beginning of Scrooge's glory days as a sourdough in the Klondike Gold Rush. "His exploits before this time were the dues he paid to make it this far," as Rosa puts it . "His past adventures each taught him lessons about work and endurance (and people) and were all preparations for this moment, when he would finally get rich from nothing but his own hard work, perseverance and know-how." But before Scrooge strikes it rich with his unearthing of the Goose Egg Nugget (another monetary memento he'll never spend) on his claim at White Agony Creek, he faces a minor setback when he's kidnapped by Soapy Slick and a bunch of thugs who push him towards his scariest Crowning Moment of Awesome faster than you can say "What a bunch of idiots!" One destroyed river barge and one thrown grand piano later, Scrooge is a legend in the Yukon...... and this is only "The Beginning".This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 8 B: The Prisoner of White Agony Creek Released: Finland- May 2006, United States- September 2006 Dates: 1897In his last comic ever, only found (in English) in the Companion anthology, Don Rosa answers the question Carl Barks didn't even want to ask: What exactly happened between Scrooge McDuck and Glittering Goldie during the month they lived together on White Agony Creek? Oh, just some innuendo, constant fighting and insults, UST, denial, a visit from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, an incident with an Inevitable Waterfall, and getting rid of an Unwanted Rescue attempt, culminating in a night of wild, violent, destructive hatesex that makes Scrooge fearfully realize how vulnerable he is to his feelings for Goldie. The next morning, he sends her back to Dawson, sure that the woman with the coldest heart in the Yukon could never care about him anyway, both of them too proud to admit the truth.This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 8 C: Hearts of the Yukon Released: United States- September 1995. No previous publication. Dates: 1898Desperately wanting to see Scrooge again but not wanting to admit she cares about him, Goldie decides there's only one logical thing to do: take advantage of the town's hatred for Scrooge and press charges against him for kidnapping her with the newly arrived Royal Canadian Mounted Police. (Anyone could press charges against him but she was the only one who wasn't afraid of hitting Scrooge's Berserk Button) Scrooge makes the dangerous journey back to town in a storm as a wildfire burns out of control and almost meets up with Goldie in the burning Blackjack Saloon before a fire hose knocks him unconscious. Thanks to some help from his friend Casey Coot, and Goldie tricking the RCMP into thinking he saved her from the fire instead of the other way around, Scrooge clears his name, gets his gold claim reinstated, and heads back to White Agony Creek. On the way, a mountie delivers a letter to him from Goldie... which he refuses to open, preferring "to pretend that there's one person in this sorry world that I might... that I can..." Love Hurts, and pride conquers all.This chapter provides examples of:
Last Sled to Dawson Released: United States-June 1988. No previous publication. Dates: 1898An excerpt from Rosa's first story to feature Glittering Goldie. After depositing one million dollars from his gold claim into the bank in Whitehorse, Alaska, Scrooge buys some land from Casey Coot, packs up a sled of supplies, and bids good-bye to White Agony Creek forever, planning to... do something (or meet someone) in Dawson and then settle down for good. Losing his sled and supplies (and almost his life) in a blizzard on Mooseneck Glacier, however, convinces him he's on the wrong track. Giving up his plan to settle down, Scrooge buys the Whitehorse Bank and begins his life as a businessman, from now on giving his heart to nothing except money. Chapter 9: The Billionaire of Dismal Downs  Dates: 1898-1902After his various businesses in Whitehorse turn him from a millionaire into a billionaire, Scrooge finally returns home to his father and sisters (now living in Castle McDuck) to make his ancestral Scotland the home base for his planned worldwide financial empire. Two days among the locals, their customs, and their games, however, make Scrooge feel so out of place that he doesn't think he could ever prosper here. He tells his family about the land he bought in some settlement called Duckburg and asks them to move with him to America. His sisters are only too eager to go, but his father claims he's too old to move again. He agrees Scrooge has outgrown the life they knew in Dismal Downs but tells his children to go start a new life in America without him. The next morning, the McDuck siblings unknowingly wave good-bye to the spirits of their parents before they go to eternal rest in an ending Rosa was surprised got past the radar.This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 10: The Invader of Fort Duckburg  Dates: 1902Waiting for Scrooge in Duckburg, Calisota is an unwelcome reunion with the Beagle Boys and a little scuffle with Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders before convincing them he's not a foreign invader. Eventually, he secures his land on Killmotor Hill (formerly Killmule Hill) and begins construction of his money bin. Meanwhile, Hortense hits it off with the only person in the world who can match her temper, Quackmore Duck.Rosa thought this chapter turned out the best because it only had to cover a timespan of a few days and thus had the best pacing in the series.This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 10 B: The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut Released: France- February 2001, United States- August 2004 Dates: 1906Scrooge tells Donald and the triplets about the "worst bargain I ever made!" He happens to try excavating for gold in Panama at the same time the Panama Canal is under construction. Unfortunately for world progress, Scrooge owns the mountain right in the Canal's path and refuses to sell, even to his old friend President Roosevelt, for anything short of the U.S. Treasury. One avoided international incident and several series of steam-shoveling hijinks later, Scrooge ends up unconscious while he and Teddy are supposed to be making the deal for his mountain, so his sisters make it for him: they trade Scrooge's gold claim for a teddy bear.Donald is thrilled to hear how his mother got the best of Scrooge. His ecstasy quickly ends when the boys realize Scrooge doesn't own just any old teddy bear but the first teddy bear ever made... the "world's most valuable toy." Even when Scrooge McDuck loses, he wins.This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 11: The Empire Builder From Calisota  Dates: 1909-1930This is the chapter where Rosa had to address a Noodle Incident most Scrooge fans try to ignore: the story from Voodoo Hoodoo about how Scrooge hired a band of thugs to chase an African tribe off their land so he could use it for a rubber plantation — a blatantly criminal, despicable, completely unjustifiable act not at all in sync with making money "square." Rosa considered ignoring this story altogether, dismissing it on the grounds of Characterization Marches On. Instead, he decided to make it the turning point in Scrooge's life — the trigger that set him down the road of greed and cynicism toward becoming the hardened, villainous character he was when Barks first introduced him to the world. After crossing the line he swore never to cross since he earned his Number One Dime, Scrooge avoids Duckburg and his sisters for 23 years. When he returns, he has achieved his dream of becoming the richest man in the world, but loses his family in the process, after meeting his nephew for the first and last time for 17 years.Rosa was double burdened by having to cover the longest timespan of any chapter along with portraying his hero as an unscrupulous robber baron. You can read what the experience was like for him here .This chapter provides examples of:
Chapter 12: The Richest Duck in the World  Dates: Christmas 1947The conclusion of TLaToSM picks up right before the end of Barks' Christmas on Bear Mountain, when Donald Duck and his nephews meet their Uncle Scrooge for the first time. At first, they don't believe the legends about his worldwide adventures or a bin full of three cubic acres of money, so Scrooge opens the bin up for the first time in five years and shows them his fortune, along with his famous Lucky—er, Number One Dime. ("'Lucky dime!' How @#*% insulting!") The tour is interrupted by a new generation of Beagle Boys, giving Scrooge the perfect chance to show Donald and the boys what he's really made of.Even after the Beagle Boys are caught and arrested, Scrooge (very rightly) doesn't believe for a minute that he's seen the last of them this time. He looks forward to many future adventures with his new family. Huey, Dewey, and Louie are as excited at the thought as Scrooge, but Donald doesn't see anything interesting about going "on a trek to some dusty warehouse to look for a long-lost ledger." Good thing you won't be doing any of that, then...This chapter provides examples of:
The Dream of a Lifetime Released: Norway- December 2002, United States- May 2004 Dates: PresentA Mental Time Travel epilogue. The Beagle Boys use an invention of Gyro's to infiltrate Scrooge's mind while he's dreaming to find the combination to his money bin. Donald has to go into Scrooge's dreams to try to stop them and ends up on a fast-paced ride through Scrooge's favorite memories of his life. To the Beagles' frustration, there's no money in them! Even in his sleep, Scrooge McDuck is an unquenchable adrenaline junkie.This chapter provides examples of:
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alternative title(s): Uncle Scrooge; The Life And Times Of Scrooge Mc Duck
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