Scrooge McDuck made his debut in the Carl Barks story, Christmas on Bear Mountain, which was first published by Dell Comics in Four Color Comics #178 in 1947. Scrooge’s legacy and adventures are legendary, and Fantagraphics is helping duck fans celebrate Scrooge’s milestone 75th anniversary with a collection of his memorable stories that take place on Bear Mountain by various writers and artists including Carl Barks, Don Rosa, Daniel Branca, and Giorgio Cavazzano.

Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge & Donald Duck: Bear Mountain Tales

Book Description:

In this stand-alone collection of Scrooge McDuck’s amazing comics adventures, which celebrates the 75th anniversary of the iconic character created by Carl Barks, Scrooge and Donald return to the site of their first meeting!

In 1947, Carl Barks’s comics story “Christmas on Bear Mountain” didn’t just introduce the Scrooge McDuck character ― it took Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie to Scrooge’s Bear Mountain cabin, where beastly bruins made for holiday havoc! In keeping with that memorable debut, Bear Mountain has been the site of countless Duckburg sagas ever since. This special single volume edition collects Daniel Branca’s “Return to Bear Mountain,” in which Scrooge engages in a gambit with nasty gnomes; Don Rosa’s “The Richest Duck in the World,” which features Donald’s first visit to the fabled Money Bin; and there’s a crash course with Launchpad McQuack in “New Year’s Daze.” An unforgettable batch of birthday stories and winter adventures is here!

Included Stories

There are 19 stories included in the 260 pages of Bear Mountain Tales:

• Christmas on Bear Mountain
• Ducking Out
• Bear Right
• Return to Bear Mountain
• Growf!
• When Christmas Went Cuckoo
• Bolivar’s Job
• The Man Who Drew Ducks
• Missing Mogul Mystery
• The Richest Duck in the World
• Lost on Bear Mountain
• New Year’s Daze
• Another Christmas on Bear Mountain
• Christmas Magic
• The Snow Duck of Bear Mountain
• Holiday Hideaway on Bear Mountain
• Scaredy Showdown
• Nightmare on Bear Mountain!
• The Wonderful Wishing Crown

Christmas in Bear Mountain is of course the very first appearance of Scrooge McDuck. Scrooge invites his nephew Donald and great nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie to his cabin on Bear Mountain. Scrooge dresses up in a bear costume to test Donald to see if he is fearless which Scrooge would then reward Donald with a real present that he would be sure to love. The Duck family are having the best Christmas ever until Donald chops down their Christmas tree and brings it into the cabin. The tree is inhabited by a curious bear cub, and where there is a bear cub the mama is not far behind.

Donald gets temporarily lost in the forest of Bear Mountain when he is hiding from his Uncle Scrooge whom he thinks will try to get some free work out of him in Ducking Out. The bears find Donald first.

Scrooge and Donald head to Scrooge’s mountain lodge for some fishing, and the taxi ends up taking an unexpected short cut down the mountain when a bear is sighted in Bear Right.

Donald, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Grandma Duck and Gus are invited by Scrooge to spend Christmas at his cabin in Return to Bear Mountain. Mysterious pranks are being played at the cabin that the Duck family need to solve so that they can enjoy their Christmas.

Donald escorts what he believes is a snow covered Scrooge into the cabin to thaw out by the fire in Growf!

I could not come up with a more appropriate title for When Christmas Went Cuckoo. This one gets weird from the start when an invisible wall tries to stop Donald and Daisy from getting to Bear Mountain. This is followed up by talking woodland creatures going into attack mode. The story concludes with aliens and Santa Claus.

Donald want his St. Bernard dog, Bolivar, to become a mail dog for the Bear Mountain route in Bolivar’s Job. Donald may be more noble to do the job more than Bolivar.

In The Man Who Drew Ducks, we get the story about how Carl Barks first met Scrooge McDuck and convinced the Richest Duck in the World to let him sketch him for his comic story Christmas on Bear Mountain.

The Junior Woodchucks use their dog General Snoozie to track down their Mogul in the Bear Mountain woods in Missing Mogul Mystery.

Don Rosa’s twelfth chapter of his The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, The Richest Duck in the World, tells the story of what happens the day after Scrooge invited Donald and his nephews to spend Christmas Eve in his cabin on Bear Mountain. Scrooge’s family makes him feel like his young self again and prime for decades of family adventures.

Donald and the boys get Lost on Bear Mountain when they visit their Uncle Scrooge for a Winter weekend and a blizzard covers the mountain in snow.

Donald makes a New Year’s resolution to beat his brimstone of a temper in New Year’s Daze. Donald, Daisy, and the boys head to Bear Mountain for Scrooge’s New Year’s Eve party. Donald’s resolution may be harder to keep than he thought as he has to spend a lot of time with Launchpad McQuack. Launchpad mentions and sings the theme song for his hero, Darkwing Duck, in this story. Let’s get dangerous!

Santa Claus’ grandfather takes Scrooge back in time to that first Christmas on Bear Mountain when he failed in his attempt to dress up as a bear to test his nephew Donald’s courage in Another Christmas on Bear Mountain.

Scrooge is hiding in his cabin on Bear Mountain from the sorceress Magica De Spell who only wants his number one dime for Christmas in Christmas Magic. Magica is equipped with magical wishing mistletoe that she plans on using on Scrooge so that he gives her his special dime. She is going to have to get through all of the snow, ice, bears, and nephews first to try to get to Scrooge.

Donald leads the owner of an icicle factory up Bear Mountain to meet up with his Uncle Scrooge who is stranded due to the roads being closed in The Snow Duck of Bear Mountain. Scrooge wants to merge the icicle factory with his ice cream plant. Donald proves that he only likes snow on his television.

Scrooge wants Donald to attend Duckburg’s annual holiday ball disguised and impersonating Scrooge so that he can enjoy a nice holiday at his cabin in Holiday Hideaway on Bear Mountain. After hitting his head on a tree branch, Scrooge is visited by the Bear of Christmases that Never Was spirit.

Scrooge and Donald have a bet on who would be scared first when they go to Bear Mountain to celebrate another Christmas in Scaredy Showdown. First one to be scared provides Christmas dinner. Donald brings the old bear costume that Scrooge tried to scare him with to Bear Mountain, and he tells Scrooge and his nephews of a tale about a behemoth bear that terrorized the residents of Bear Mountain. Donald and Scrooge must beware of the real bear inhabitants of Bear Mountain.

We get a DuckTales (2017) story with Nightmare on Bear Mountain! Scrooge heads to Bear Mountain alone to meet with Somnambulo whom vowed he would take Scrooge’s family away from him for Scrooge taken an artifact that was important to him. Mrs. Beakley, Dewey, and Launchpad McQuack crash the party.

Instead of spending his dreaded birthday in solitude at his cabin on Bear Mountain, Scrooge goes on an adventure with Donald and his nephews in search of a crown that grants wishes in The Wonderful Wishing Crown. After a wonderful family adventure he invites everyone to the cabin as he has second thoughts, and he wants to be surrounded by his family for his birthdays.

Final Thoughts

As we get ready to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Scrooge McDuck’s debut in Christmas on Bear Mountain next month, this book is a great comprehensive keepsake of all the tales that took place on Bear Mountain. This collection has nineteen Bear Mountain tales including the legendary and essential reading for Scrooge McDuck fans, Christmas on Bear Mountain and The Richest Duck in the World.

David Gerstein and his team did a great job of curating all of the stories for this collection. A DuckTales (2017) story from the recent comic series that takes place on Bear Mountain is even included in this collection. There were quite a few stories in this book that were new to me. New Years Daze where Launchpad McQuack inadvertently gets Donald to break his New Years Resolution was hilarious, and we even get a Darkwing Duck name drop on Bear Mountain, We also get to see Magica De Spell on Bear Mountain in Christmas Magic.

I really enjoyed this comprehensive volume of tales on the subject matter of the Bear Mountain location. I feel like the only thing that I could possibly do that I could do to learn more about Bear Mountain would be to visit the cabin itself. I look forward to more collections by Fantagraphics of related story subjects in the future.

The back of the book includes comic covers from several of the Bear Mountain tales.

As a reminder: It would take a lot of time and money to compile a comic collection that included all of these stories. Anything that takes a lot of time and money would not be approved by Scrooge McDuck.

Thank you to Fantagraphics for allowing us to go through this Disney Duck journey. I feel smarter for increasing my Disney Duck knowledge base by reading this volume.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

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Order: Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: Bear Mountain Tales

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