I found it
. It's in the jubileum edition of June 2014, accompanying no 24, for those looking for it.
Man, the weirdness begins right on the cover. It features Della standing behind Donald and Daisy on the couch, suggesting they're a couple here. Donald is in his old (first, really) getup with the white hat. On the floor are the triplets as babies. And to the left is... a very peculiar version of Scrooge, with a beard and a color variant of his Christmas on Bear Mountain coat. And I do mean a beard: they are clearly more than jsut his whiskers.
Oh, and there is a picture of The Wise Little Hen on the wall. This is the movie jubilee, after all (80 years! Next year it will be 90!)
On the letters pages, there's film shots of various old cartoons with Donald. There's even one shot of Donald with Joe! And that's not nothing, these two never appear together in this particular magazin, except maybe the occasional reprint of the classics. Funnily enough, the text chronicling Donald's film career mentions that Donald, Joe and Panchito are friends for life, which you honestly cannot tell from the Carioca comics we get to read. I wonder how many younger readers even realize the connection. I sure didn't know what to make of those two as a kid. The same goes for Chip and Dale, really.
We start the actual story with a flashback to Donald sailing with a captain who is, apparently, completely bonkers, since he thinks a storm is great sailing weather and a woman calling for help in the water is a mermaid. The girl is Daisy, and it's Donald's story of how he met her. Allegedly.
Ye gods, this artist gives the boys such big, curved bills, it's a miracle they can see over them.
They also ask how Donald met Scrooge... which is odd, because they were there when he did. And yes, it is referring to "Christmas on Bear Mountain".
Then some weirdo shows up at the door, takes Donald's vitals, and leaves again. Okay.
And then Donald recaps "Christmas on Bear Mountain" anyway, with the excuse that the boys have "forgotten because they were so young". Yeah, no, that doesn't really fly. They were basically the same age, and it's hard to imagine anyone forgetting a meeting like that. Bears invading your house is the sort of thing you'd have nightmares about for years.
In any case, it's Donald's version of the tale, in which he is, of course, rather a lot smarter and braver than he actually was. This makes it even sillier that the boys don't remember it, because they could easily have called him out on it.
The weird doctor comes back, and its a little odd that Donald just lets him do his doctor thing once again.
And then the boys ask about their mom, which of course begs the question of why they didn't lead with that question, either before or during this comic.
By the way, I don't know if this is true for the English version, but they keep calling Daisy "aunt Daisy", which is honestly a little weird, since Donald and Daisy aren't even living together, let alone married. And they don't exactly have an aunt and nephewes-relationship either.
Donald is literally floored by the question, which he really should have been expecting some day. Again, this begs the question of why he never brought her up himself.
So we get another flashback to when Donald and Della were kids, and Donald describes her as the bravest and strongest girl around, though apparently not very nice. Donald wants to become sailor, of course, and Della wants to be a pilot, with Donald pointing out that that was unusual at the time... whenever that's supposed to be. She's flying the same sort of general 60's look plane we usually see in Duck comics.
Oh, the story is equating her with Amelia Earhart, the first woman to cross the ocean. That puts this story squarely in the 1930s. I can't tell what plane she's flying in this scene, but it looks somewhat of the time, at least. It's definitely not a Lockheed Model 10 Elektra, though, which would have been a nice touch, if we're going for Della-is-Earhart.
By the way, Della's Dutch name is Dumbella. No idea who came up with that, but it's, well, a dumb name for her. It's lazy, mean-spirited, and it doesn't even sound Dutch anyway. There's really no good reason for this choice of name other than character assassination, if you ask me.
Della does a test flight with a new plane, it catches on fire, and she doesn't use her parachute, instead opting to land it while it is still on fire. She is lauded for this, though it seems rather reckless and foolhardy to me. Pilots, then and now, are more valuable than their planes. But perhaps that is the point.
Then we get the story of how the nephews came to live with Donald, which definitely is a retcon. Donald apparently didn't even know Della had kids, which I guess could be because he was at sea? But that makes it a little weird that Della would just drop them off at his house just when he got home.
By the way, for all Donald's saying she wasn't exactly nice, she's been nothing but chipper and nice through the entire flashback, so I'm not sure where that comment came from.
Della also announces she'll be doing a test flight in the very first rocket. Not the first manned rocket, the first rocket. Weird, but comics, I guess. No unmanned test flights or flights with animals, just send a human with the first rocket ever built!
Della calls the first rocket a new invention, but Donald immediately knows what it's for and where it's going. That seems like a stretch for someone who didn't even know his sister got kids.
The kids seem like perfectly normal babies in this flashback, certainly not the little terrors from their first appearance. This is most definitely retconning their characters. I mean, they do break things and make a mess, but since they are pretty much babies complete with pacifiers, it doesn't read quite the same here.
So Della takes off into space (apparently at near light speed) and is never heard from again. It's basically Earhart with a rocket. Doesn't really make sense to me why an aviator would fly a rocket anyway, but oh well.
And yeah, they mention how the rocket was dangerous, with new untested fuel, but that's why they test these things unmanned. It doesn't really make sense when you know about rockets. It's not exactly like she snuck on board of one, either, there's newspaper articles and everything, so clearly her superiors were fine with this idea.
Of course the boys are heartbroken over being orphans (and being very pitiful, yes, that is a line they say about themselves), but it seems odd that they didn't already know that. I mean, when you're being raised by your uncle, that leaves very little doubt on that front, right? And they're definitely smart enough to figure that one out by themselves.
Donald tells the boys off for crying and says it's so long ago and they should look to the future, and the boys retort that he's old and forgetful, so that's easy enough for him. This reads as rather too mean on both ends, and rather too heartless for Donald. Donald really seems way too blase about the whole thing overall. The mood is all over the place with how he tells this story, and it just doesn't stick the landing either. What was this writer thinking? It's one thing that you don't want to make the tone too dark for this, but this was not exactly a good solution.
The kids doubt whether the stories are true anyway, so Donald takes them to Scrooge to set things straight.
I think they dropped a line for Donald in one panel, because he looks like he's talking to Scrooge, but he doesn't have a text balloon. He also goes from an angry, standoffish expression right to a happy, excited one in the next panel. Again, the mood is all over the place.
Donald is going to look up the real story in the comics archive, which is the running fourth wall breaking gag the magazine often uses for special edition stories like this (basically, the fiction that the Ducks make and print the magazine with their own adventures).
Donald and the boys start searching the comics archives back at home, and the crazy doctor guy shows up just as they find the right story, and oh boy, things get really meta here. The guy confronts Donald about his upcoming birthday, with Donald mentioning that he has been having adventures for 80 years (that is, since Donald's debut in 1934). The doctor turns out to be a scientist who has written a book about how time stands still in Duckburg. Donald calls this claptrap, though logically he should be well aware of it, considering what he just admitted.
It doesn't quite fit, either: Duckburg is stuck in the 60s, not the 30s, after all. It would have made more sense to go with his comics debut with Barks, since Barks invented Duckburg to begin with.
Apparently, time is standing still in Duckburg because of Duck comics being printed, which doesn't really make sense, but I guess we're firmly in "just so" territory now.
The boys mention how that would explain a lot. I'm curious what they think it's supposed to explain. Would have been more fun if they had set this up a bit more. It also doesn't really go into how time doesn't quite stand still for them (they often do have more modern technology, though rarely cutting edge, for instance).
The professor wants to be in Donald Duck Magazine too, so he can be forever young, and the boys think this is a great money making idea, and we're totally off the rails now, folks.
Scrooge agrees to help Donald and the kids fund the guy's book, but with the threat that he will evict them and make them homeless if they fail (this is typical Scrooge humour in the comics, mind you).
So the scheme is for real life people to live with a cartoon character for a week and become young again (note how that isn't quite what the book says, which is that they will stop ageing).
Of course people flock to Duckburg's cartoon characters (only the ones with actual names and characters we know, obviously... the nameless background citizens of Duckburg clearly don't count!). Wait... they're paying the other characters to stay for a week? So how would this make Donald money, exactly?
We get some pastiches of the magazine's regulars having cooky visitors. Horace Horsecollar (who is a car mechanic here) gets a guy who plays the sax. His... girlfriend? Wife? I'm not sure, actually, what Clarabelle is supposed to be here, but she decides to join in with the impromptu band, and uses a client's car for drums (clearly she left her brain in the kitchen... and yes, she is basically depicted as a brainless housewife, why do you ask?).
Next, a guy shows up in Gepetto's village, and I'm calling shenanigans, because this isn't even in Duckburg, which the story very specifically called for. Pinocchio has never been a Duckburg resident, so this makes zero sense.
Also, eugh, Pinocchio... This is definitely filler territory in the magazine.
"I read it in a book, so it's true!" Shush, comic. Don't give kids the wrong idea.
In any case, this lady comes to live with Gepetto and Pinocchio, and of course Honest John and Gideon will try and steal the 200 bucks off of them.
And the lady actually is considerate enough to go with Pinocchio when he offers to go and buy some coffee! Wow! She's sure showing Gepetto here how to be a responsible parent, what with this terrible town and Pinocchio's rather naive and defenseless nature.
She of course immediately trusts the villains offering her help, though. Clearly none of these people have so much as read a comic or watched a Disney movie in their lives... Rather ironic, considering how meta this story is being.
Of course they rob her blind, despite Pinocchio's warnings (who at least knows that these two guys are crooks here). The woman (notice how these characters don't even get names, by the way, showing that they're just the same sort of disposable background characters that normally populate Duckburg, ironically) asks for an ATM, which of course doesn't exist for this setting (though it would doubtless exist in Duckburg, another anachronism in more than one way).
Pinocchio mentions that if they had an ATM, he'd get money from it every day, which is a very confused joke, since he says they don't exist, yet seems to immediately know what they are for, and yet gets it wrong anyway.
Next up is Gyro, who is getting irritated at his belligerent house guest not liking that he and Helper don't talk much to him (notice how none of these newbies seem to know who these comic characters are).
Gyro invents VR glasses for the guy so he won't bother him, and the guy goes to play off-brand Dungeons and Dragons (another example of how time in Duckburg isn't quite standing still). The VR set is just a pair of dark sunglasses, by the way, which seems less funny than giving him a bulky headset, but oh well. VR-related shenanigans ensue, so Gyro invents (or "invents") him a harness that keeps him still. The guy says he can no longer move and asks Gyro if he is some sort of wizard, which apparently passes for a punchline to this vignette (why would the guy suddenly talk like a medieval person who doesn't understand technology... or wearing a harness too heavy to move in, for that matter?).
Yet another guy shows up at the money bin, asking Scrooge to stay for a week. This guy actually seems to know who he's dealing with, offering Scrooge to clean coins, like Donald always does. Scrooge hires him to collect rent, which ends pretty much like you'd imagine: tough guys refusing to pay and kicking him on his ass.
These things are getting very short now. A guy goes to live with the Beagle Boys, who promptly recruit him and let him do all the dangerous stuff for them, including setting his own hair on fire with a blowtorch and standing too close (as in, right next to) an explosion (which doesn't hurt him whatsoever... sure).
Next is a guy who wants to live with the Big Bad Wolf and take a selfie with him, but the forest doesn't have any internet. Midas is remarkably nice about all this, and offers the guy to go catch the three little pigs (yes, those ones) with him, which sure sounds like a more interesting idea than this lukewarm no-internet gag.
Well, we're past the filler (and you can tell it's filler because all the vignettes line out perfectly to one or more pages, making it very easy to slot one in or remove one). It ranged from okay to bland, but hey, let's be grateful they didn't slot in Hiawatha or something.
It's a week later, and a news crew is doing a report on the story (now mentioning that participants will stay young, which is again not quite what they were promising earlier). The story gets a bit confused about what does and doesn't count as "appearing in a comic", or why they suddenly need to pay for it to work. The news reporter, who didn't pay, should be equally affected as the paying customers, by the logic of that book...
So, yes, Donald and the kids are totally grifting people out of their money with something they should logically be able to get for free just by appearing in the comic. Nice touch, writers.
Nevermind that their customers aren't even named, which tends to exclude characters from the timeless cartoon character category, but I guess the prof missed that part.
The first customer to return is the woman from Gepetto, who has been starved on a poverty diet. Not quite what she wanted, no.
And, oh hell, I spoke too soon, there's fucking Hiawatha... Great, just great. I just wish the comics would put this caricature to rest for good. The guy who stayed with the indians has insect bites. At least they didn't put him in indian getup, thank god...
The other customers complain as well (the one with Gyro has bruises everywhere from the harness, which, um, okay), and demand their money back, as well as damages. They also accuse Donald of lying when he said they could become younger, which, yeah, that wasn't actually what the book said would happen (and they clearly didn't bother reading it).
They then take dinner while plotting how much money they are going to sue for. Oddly, the Ducks complain about them having this feast, that they themselves paid for, apparently with the profits from the whole affair, so that doesn't really make sense either way (it means they would have earned nothing even if it had been a success).
Donald bemoans how professor Halfwit (yes, that's his name) is a fraud, but Gyro mentions that it is possible to stay young forever, as proven by Einstein: by flying at speeds close to the speed of light, you travel forward through time. So Gyro scans for anything in space flying near the speed of light (because of course he can) and immediately finds Della's rocket (because of course he does, nevermind that there's plenty of stuff flying that fast around black holes). So Gyro contacts her (because of course he can, his tech is basically magic), and she's happy to see everyone, though she misses her kids.
So they weren't kidding about her flying at light speed. Don't ask how they did that with the world's first rocket...
So basically, she's been flying for 15 minutes, and plans to fly for 15 more before returning, and has traveled forwards in time for... I don't know, eight years? And it will take her at least eight years more to return, I guess.
And then her kids lie to her about who they are so she doesn't want to return home earlier, which I don't get. They're basically condemning her to 16 more years of time travel this way, which doesn't seem all that heartwarming to me.
All this time, Donald is staying out of her view, not saying a word to his sister, who, remember, he thinks has been dead all this time, and Gyro just sort of flippantly gestures "I dunno, Donald" to him.
So after that weird conversation, Donald asks the kids why they didn't tell Della the truth, and they say they don't want her to come back earlier, because they like it too much with Donald.
What the actual fuck? That's... that's really messed up. Condemning your mom to 16 more years of time travel so you can spend more time with Donald... that's a horrible thing to do.
I guess they handwave it with the idea that they won't age because of comic book time... but they did age. The comic even explicitly says so, with Della not recognizing them because they're older. So even that handwave doesn't work!
Donald offers his customers the same trip through space, telling them they can stay away for an eternity while not aging a day. Which... holy shit, Donald, do you know what you're saying? That's a really cruel fate. His guests naturally don't feel particularly inclined, and thank him for the meal.
Then the prof comes back and tells them he was wrong, and that reading comics keeps you young. Cute. Whatever. And of course the story ends with extolling the virtues of subscribing to this magazine. Eugh, who wrote this, Scrooge?
There's another unrelated comic, but forget that, I'm not really in the mood for reading more.
What a bizarre, dark turn for this story! Who thought this was a good idea? What, they discover Della is still alive, only to just let her continue traveling through time for another few decades? And the characters don't even seem to care that much, either about finding out she's alive or about lying to her and letting her travel through time some more without so much as suggesting rescuing her from this terrible stituation? And this is apparently supposed to be a happy ending for... well, for Donald and the nephews, apparently, because they care more about being a family together than getting their mother/sister back.
Man, Ducktales did much better by her in comparison. That one actually chose a real happy ending, rather than pussying out at the last minute and preserving the status quo, at the cost of making the main characters look like awful jerks.
Which makes that cover, with Della as part of the happy family, all the more jarring and galling, by the way.
Edited by Redmess on Mar 16th 2023 at 4:10:29 PM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesIt seems that way, yeah. And this is why no one would touch the Della question with a 20 foot pole for the past 80 years...
If you're not planning on actually bringing her back, and you don't want to say she died, then you leave it well enough alone. That's basically been the rule, and as this comic shows, for good reason.
Edited by Redmess on Mar 13th 2023 at 10:38:46 AM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesSome sad news today: Lance Reddick, voice of Lunaris in DuckTales (2017), has passed away.
Many thanks to him for bringing such a memorable and fun villain to life, and may he rest in peace.
Edited by dragonfire5000 on Mar 17th 2023 at 7:01:53 AM
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."Photos of Mickey's Toontown have come up. One of them is on Goofy's family photos with one having a surprise.
Seems not only is Webby gonna be in parks, she's based on the 2017 version (albeit in the art style of the classic shorts).
Also, more footage
of the Donald Duck's Boat attraction, showing the nephews and Webby based on their looks in this series.
Any thoughts knowing the show has a stronger presence in parks now?

By the way, what will the heroes do when the adventures on Earth are over? Will they get bored, fly into space again, visit other dimensions? What do you think?