Matterhorn Bobsleds poster

When doing some fact checking for yesterday’s post about Disney Magic Kingdom Comics, I came across a poster for the Matterhorn Bobsleds. I immediately recognized the similarity with a Donald Duck cover we got earlier this year. I had no idea the Donald Duck #11 cover was a parody of an old poster!

Disney Magic Kindom Comics

Disney Magic Kingdom Comics, all cover variants

The second issue in the two-part mini-series Disney Magic Kindom Comics came on sale last week. This mini-series is celebrating 60 years of Disney parks, and not just that Disneyland in California turned 60 last year – so we have stories from Disney World and Disneyland Paris too.

The two issues have a mix of old classics, a couple of rarely reprinted oddities and two stories that are new to the USA. I’m not going to do a review of all stories, but I have a few notes I want to point out. So let’s see if I find something to say about all stories:

Uncle Scrooge  - Fantastic River Race

This story by Carl Barks has Uncle Scrooge and Grandma Duck taking the Mark Twain Riverboat at Disneyland, where Scrooge is telling about his steamboat days at the Mississippi River.

The first thing to notice in this story is that Scrooge is referring to Grandma as just "Grandma" too, and not Elvira (or any other name) like we recently saw he did in Scrooge's Last Adventure. But most of the story is taking place in Scrooge’s past, where we get to meet Blackheart Beagle and his brawling sons and Gyro’s grandfather Ratchet Gearloose. For any fan of Uncle Scrooge or Don Rosa’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, this story is a must-read.

Donald and Mickey in Frontierland

This is the story I was personally looking most forward to in the first issue of Disney Magic Kindom Comics. I’ve read it before in the British Donald and Mickey, but like most stories in that title it’s heavily remounted and edited. I suspected it was cut too, but comparing the two prints it’s actually not as bad as I thought. I’ve never seen the original Digest version, but I think the story is slightly edited to fit a new layout in the IDW print too.

From the Britsh Donald and Mickey #119 and DMKC #1

On the image above, the IDW print seems to have cut half the panel, but I'm not sure how the original looked. Under is a comparison of the layot in the British and IDW prints. As you can see one panel with Donald and Mickey in the canoe has been cut i two halves in Disney Magic Kingdom Comics.

From the Britsh Donald and Mickey #120 and DMKC #1

While most characters you find in Disney parks are based on movie characters, the Country Bear Jamboree is an original attraction that later made it to the movies – and in this case the comics. We got a cover with the bears last year, but I think Donald and Mickey in Frontierland is the only comic story with the characters (?). In the story we have Donald and Mickey wanting to see the show, but three of the bears have disappeared! Then rest of the story takes place around in Disney World trying to find the missing bears.

Uncle Scrooge - Red Rogue's Treasure

Another story told by Scrooge, this time in Disneyland Paris with Daisy, Donald and the boys.

The introduction in DMKC #1 say "Finally Magica De Spell is up to tricks in a Disneyland Paris epic: created for a series of tie-ins that hit North America in 1992, but unlike the rest, never published here until today!". I think the stories in question are the following stories, published in 1992 to celebrate the opening of Euro Disney (now Disneyland Paris):

D 91127 The Honorary Westerners
D 91140 Adventures in Fantasyland
D 91141 Red Rogue's Treasure
D 91173 The Trip To The Future
D 91210 Plunkett's Emporium

But according to inducks only two of the five were previously published in the USA, so even with Red Rogue's Treasure now being published there are still two left.

Goofy in Fantasyland

The story starts with Goofy, Minnie and Pluto having fun with the different attractions in Fantasyland. But when Goofy and Pluto gets lost in Snow White's Scary Adventures, the story gets weird and the park world is changed to a real fantasy world. Goofy and Pluto are suddenly in a bizarre mix of the worlds of Allice in Wonderland, Snow White and Peter Pan…
 

From Goofy in Fantasyland

Uncle Scrooge - Plunkett's Emporium

The second issue of this mini-series starts off with another one of the 1992 Euro Disney stories. This one is actually published before in Uncle Scrooge #269. Again we see memories from Scrooge’s past, this time competing with Glomgold.
 

As Scrooge and Glomgold are working together at Plunkett's Emporium, this story from Scrooge’s youth must take place after the events in The Terror of the Transvaal.

Donald Duck in Mastering the Matterhorn

This Carl Barks story might not be an obvious Disneyland story as it appears to take place at the real Matterhorn. But we do have the "toboggan ride", and probably closer to how Walt Disney originally imagined it (maybe without the rockets…) than the roller coaster it ended up being.

Reading the original comic with the intro page, it becomes more obvious that this is a Disneyland story.

From the intro page in Four Color/One Shots #1025

This story is one of the "Phooey"-stories as one panel actually have four nephews, with Phooey being the fan name for the 4th. But for some reason IDW decided to correct this by removing one of the nephews! You can barely see him, and it’s a nice little Easter egg to look for – so I think they should have just left him there.
 

Mickey Mouse's Incredible Disneyland Adventure

Another new-to-the-USA story originally made for Disneyland’s 30th anniversary.
 

Mickey is taking the train to Mouseton but ends up at the platform of a Mouseton replica at Disneyland. Although the the word Toontown was not used originally, we basically have Mickey’s Toontown in the comics (1985) before the real attraction was even built! (1993 in Disneyland)

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The pre-release covers for DMKC #1 had different logos than then final published version. The first pre-releas one at the top, the second pre-release logo in the middle, and the final one at the bottom:

If you missed out on the first issue or can’t find one currently on sale – don’t worry! Both issues are going to be collected in a trade paperback, scheduled for a December 2016 release. And all IDW trades can easily be ordered from various online bookstores.

Pre-release cover for the trade paperback collecting Disney Magic Kingdom Comics