We won’t spoil today’s episode of DuckTales for you, but as I made breakfast and my girls watched the episode I overheard one reference that has me extremely excited to watch it.

As many of you know when we started this site and podcast we did so as fans of DuckTales both from the past and present. It was from your recommendations that we started to ease our way into the fan favorite comics written by legendary Duckmen Carl Bark’s and Don Rosa.

What we found in the pages of Fantagraphics libraries were a treasure trove of Disney Duck stories. We quickly became fans of their work, and now are on a journey to read all of their published work.

Not long into our journey we came upon the 12 chapters of Don Rosa’s “The Life and Times Of Scrooge McDuck.” The DuckStory so good that even those who have never opened a DisneyDuck comic know that it exists. We quickly feel in love with the story, the art, and the its legacy.

Early into Disney’s new DuckTales the producers of the show shared that Life and Times had been required reading for the writing team. When you watch the new show you definitely feel that there are inspirations from those stories and other sources. I love the blending of these different forms and applaud the show for where it breaks away and does something new.

Back to Buckaroo of the Badlands!

The reference that perked my ears was when Goldie was explaining to Rockerduck that he didn’t know who he was messing with when he tried to pull one on Scrooge McDuck. That’s when they referred to him as “The Buckaroo of the Badlands.”

“The Buckaroo of the Badlands” was the third story of Don Rosa’s 12 chartered story of Scrooge McDuck’s life. It takes place after Scrooge has left his home in Scotland after being inspired by his Number One Dime, and sailed the Mighty Mississippi River as the Captain of his own riverboat. At the age of fifteen, Scrooge has taken a train to find his fortune in the Wild West.

Things do not go as planned, and Scrooge finds himself stranded until he is taken in by Murdo McKenzie and his cowboys. Scrooge joins them and begins training his trusty stead (who he names after his littlest, most I’ll-tempered sister Hortense… Who happens to be the mother of Donald and Della Duck!). He is later entrusted with the task of protecting a prize bull, and when cattle thieves steal the bull he goes on the adventure that will give him the nick name “The Buckaroo of the Badlands!”

This was one of my favorite stories of the series. Carl Bark’s was a huge fan of westerns and Don Rosa’s stories of Scrooge as a Cowboy are definitively appropriate. Some of the events from this story will go on to influence big moments in his life later (square eggs, learning to rope and ride, saving a future president).

We highly recommend reading The Life and Times Of Scrooge McDuck. It has recently been published by Fantagraphics in a hardback edition in the US. We haven’t seen a printing of the collection in some time, so it’s a great time to discover them. You can check out our review below as well as find a link to purchase it from Amazon.

The Complete Life and Times of $crooge McDuck Vol. 1 Review