DuckTales #4

Writers: Joey Cavalieri and Joe Caramagna
Artists: Luca Usai and Gianfranco Floric
Colorists: Dario Calabria and Studio Kawaii
Letterer: Tom B. Long
Publisher: IDW

The new Ducktales series is a great nostalgic yet modern series with enough fun for all ages. This fourth issue, like the others, features two stories and both are great at really showcasing the triplets’ characters. The writing has been consistently funny and interesting.

A lot of comic tie-in anthology series can suffer from very bland unoriginal stories. Are the stories in this issue ground-breaking? Well, no, but they aren’t your common boring quick-fix scenario that I feel is rampant in these types of series. The writers for this series did a fantastic job at making original stories with funny dialogue to go along with the new detailed style of the Ducktales universe.

The first story, Happy Happy Valley, involves the triplets, Webby, Uncle Scrooge, Donald, and Launchpad getting stuck on an island that ends up being way too big of a slice of paradise for them. The character of Gladys Seeya is crazy and adds a lot of entertaining tension. The story brings you along on an adventure that the gang must get through while having some laughs along the way.

The second story, Fight, includes some very sharp artwork that I think made the already incredible story even better. There is a curse on the Samurai helmet that Dewey accidently puts on and the curse has an intense backstory to it. As the curse is now on Dewey, making him fight his own brothers, we get an awesome fight scene between him and Louie. The panel drawn as a Street Fighter-esq game screen with Louie’s scared big-eyed stare is one of my favorite pieces of comic artwork. Following that panel are some action-packed battling. This whole story was refreshing for a cartoon anthology series because it was original and exciting and definitely left me looking forward to the next issue.

The team of writers and artists should be very proud of another issue well done. They, once again, made such an enjoyable issue for these beloved Ducktales characters.