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1. I apologize for not posting this comment sooner, but I only got this book just last week, and since two of the Gummi Bears stories here are adapted from early episodes of the show, I also wanted to watch the original episodes to take note on what got changed in the jump (or should that be “bounce”?) to print. But now, better late than never, let me share some fun facts you didn’t mention in this review:

   * The adaptation of “A New Beginning”, being based on a full-length episode, trimmed quite a bit. The introductory scenes for most of the human characters are skipped over, as is most of Cavin’s first visit to Gummi Glen. As a result, the main six Gummi Bears are apparently already aware of Duke Igthorn’s catapult plan (rather than Cubbi and Sunni finding it out along with Cavin right before the first commercial break), and since Tummi doesn’t feed Cavin some Gummiberry Juice early on in this version, the bears instead learn about the juice giving humans super-strength from the Great Book of Gummi. The story’s climax also plays out a little differently, removing the Gummis fighting off the ogres and Igthorn getting a taste of the Gummiberry Juice himself. As for dialogue, the most notable changes I found are that the ogres speak proper English and Zummi says two spoonerisms that weren’t in the TV episode.

   * “Can I Keep Him?” is based on a much shorter episode, but it has about as many changes from its animated counterpart. Zummi and Gruffi are left out of this version, resulting in Grammi instead being the one who gives Cubbi the flute. The dragon has a much cuddlier design here, and the way Sunni and Cubbi drop into Drekmore is more accidental, with Igthorn not even noticing the dragon when they do. The biggest difference is that there’s two pages devoted to Igthorn fantasizing about how he plans to run the kingdom, which doesn’t appear in the animated version (maybe it was cut for time?). And finally, the pink creature that responds to Cubbi’s re-damaged flute at the end comes from the sea rather than the sky.

   * Like “Cat in a Hot Tin Suit” in the last volume, “Fluffy’s Reign of Terror!” is presented with Fluffy’s dialogue having his Sylvester-style lisp from his first appearance. Ironically, Fluffy’s creator Doug Gray later admitted that Marv Wolfman removing the lisp in the later two stories was actually a good idea, which kinda makes it weird that they opted to reinstate it for these reprints.

   * On the subject of “Fluffy’s Reign of Terror!”, I also HAVE to mention the panel on page 36 where Drake and Launchpad are watching The Simpsons. Obviously it’s already funny to look at now that Disney owns The Simpsons, but what makes it even crazier is that the Disney Adventures issue this story first appeared in had Bart and Lisa on the cover AND also included an excerpt from Bartman #1 (notably the first time a Simpsons comic appeared in the magazine). You’d almost think someone on DA’s staff was trying to tell Frank Wells that Disney should buy out 20th Century Fox 25 years early.

   * I’ve probably mentioned this before, but now that it’s in this volume, I should probably mention it again here. When Aaron Sparrow was the editor for Boom! Studios’ Disney comic line, he’d wanted to serialize “Legend of the Silverhorn” in the pages of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories as a way of testing the waters for his Darkwing Duck revival comic. But the Boom! higher-ups nixed the plan, and the issues it was planned for instead ran Andrea “Casty” Castellan’s “Mickey Mouse on Quandomai Island”. (Of course, given that Boom! insisted all their Disney comic story arcs run for exactly four 22-page issues, this story would’ve likely only taken up two issues!) In fact, Magic Eye Studios’ cover for the first issue of Boom!’s eventual short-lived Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers series, itself a redraw of this story’s original cover, was actually intended for the WDC&S issue in which this story was planned to appear! (Boom! using that cover art for “Worldwide Rescue” was also the entire reason the Pi-Rats appeared in that story.)

   * Compared to “The Curse of Flabbergé” in the previous volume, David Gerstein and Jonathan Gray’s translation for “The Arcadian Urn” isn’t rewritten as much. They even oddly kept the continuity error of Donald somehow remembering the events of the TV episodes “Earth-Quack!” and “The Land of Trala La”. (Yes, I know he was in the original comics those episodes were based on, but this is a DuckTales story and therefore shouldn’t remember visiting those episodes’ events.) But there are two noticeable changes. The upper right panel on page 159 previously had Donald telling Launchpad that “flyin’ Darkwing and Uncle Scrooge around doesn’t make you a Power Ranger!” This reprint changes it to say “Super Snooper”, which honestly works better since not only is it a call-back to a classic Carl Barks story, but Disney had already sold the Power Rangers franchise back to Haim Saban even before this story’s appearance in Uncle Scrooge #399. On the other hand, though, the top panel on page 167 now has Donald and Launchpad mentioning Fethry instead of Mickey as in the previous printing. Sigh. I guess Disney now wants to pretend Mickey doesn’t exist in the original DuckTales too.

   * Actually, “Not Our Kind of Folks” didn’t appear in ANY Issue of Disney Adventures. In fact, according to INDUCKS, this is the first time this particular TaleSpin story has been printed ANYWHERE. And apparently, there’s at least two other unpublished Talespin stories, which I hope we’ll see in future volumes (hint hint, in case David Gerstein is reading these blog posts).

   As for what you DID say in this review, sorry, but I don’t think Goof Troop and Bonkers fans can really rejoice at this volume, since their presence here is limited to just a few single-page gags. I can name at least three full length stories for both shows that I’d love to see reprinted in this series (again, hint hint 😉 ).

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