“Mirror Mirror”

Mirror Mirror is a DuckTales fanfiction written by a fan going by “soulful-sin” (fanfiction writers usually have just the silliest name; this isn't a special case). More precisely, its appeal lies in that it is a crossover of sorts between the classic Duck universe and DuckTales 2017. 

(An unrelatd, but also very entertaining, fanmade take 

on the ‘Webby meets Webby’ premise.)

The basic plot is that the 1987 version of Webby Vanderquack is dared by the triplets to touch a creepy old mirror Scrooge has in his archives. Naturally, the mirror turns out to be a cursed artifact, which transports her to alternate dimension — a strange world where the boys have different personalities, where it's already the 21st century, and where she is herself a strong, independent adventurer rather than the meek little girl who has to stow away if she wants to go on any adventures at all with Scrooge and the boys. The mirror then gets shattered, trapping Webby in the DT17 universe, and Scrooge has to make a deal with Magica De Spell to repair it. 

The story certainly has a lot going for it. 

For one thing, all the characters, from both series, are written perfectly in-character (it's impossible not to hear Louie-17 as Bobby Moynihan or Scrooge-87 as Alan Young), and the crossover unfolds very nicely. The story manages to make you care about classic-Webby even with the other, universally-considered-more-interesting Webby running around at the same time. Both worlds are, in general, rendered very faithfully — with the irritating, borderline-inexplicable exception that Duckburg is persistently misspelled as “Duckberg”. 

Soulful-sin also tentatively takes a stab at a possible return of Lena De Spell, which may not be the most imaginative, but allows for emotional stuff between her and Webby. (For good or ill, the story has a lot of ‘emotional stuff’. No romance per se, though the author stated their love of the Webby/Lena pairing elsewhere, but just general angst.)

There are, I think, two blunders in this story's conceit, beyond the fact that the writing, while solid, is not quite of professional quality. The first is a surprising absence of the humor so essential to both DuckTales series' appeal. The second is that, forced to acknowledge DT17's Della plotline, Soulful-sin felt compelled to clarify Della's fate in the prime timeline as well, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with… anything. Not only is Family Ties ignored (which is odd, considering its very clear parallels with the DT17 story), but the Mirror Mirror version implies that Scrooge was indeed adventuring with Della around the time of the triplets' birth, a blatant DT17 contamination that in no way fits the classic timeline. 

Still, the DuckTales fanfiction community isn't exactly of Harry Potter level in scale, and we should take what we can get. Mirror Mirror is definitely on the upper end of Duck fanfiction as it exists for now, and if you've ever wondered what the two worlds crashing into each other might look like, and don't mind a healthy helping of sappy angst, it's a pleasant enough read.

Ye Olde Post-Scriptum

Three other weird decisions by Soulful-sin that I fail to understand: 17-Magica swears a lot (though it's never taken down word for word; we're just told 'she cursed', 'she said a string of very bad words Mrs Beakley certainly wouldn't approve of', etc.). Classic-Scrooge is orders of magnitude less wealthy than 17-Scrooge……er, why? And finally, there are repeated reference to this post-Shadow War story taking place in 2017, as opposed to the canonical 2018. No idea why. Since there was a Christmas episode halfway through the season, one would presume it was obvious that the year's changed, but apparently not to Soulfun-sin. 

“Storkules in Duckburg”

Well, whadayaknow? Our next review still has to do with Hercules! Kind of.

This latest episode of DuckTales 2017 isn't the best, but definitely ends up on the better side of the series' decidedly hit-and-miss episodes. Also, I'm not qualified enough to be sure (having never seen the film myself), but I think Ghostbusters enthusiasts may particularly enjoy it. The structure seems very similar.

This episode is primarily about Bobby Moynihan's Louie Duck, which I like. My ranking of the DT17 kids is probably {{Webby > Louie > Huey > Dewey}} — in a show where Scrooge's adventurousness is upped both to ape Don Rosa and to avoid accusations of excessive pro-capitalism, Louie is the one who is most often allowed to be amusingly greedy and miserly. Not that he's just Young-Scrooge, of course — he's much more of a spender and bon viveur than his great-uncle. But the point is, I like Louie. And this episode provided a good character arc for him, as he learns the realities of what being a businessman means, concretely. 

But, of course, Chris Diamantopoulos's Storkules (introduced last season in The Spear of Selene) is the other focus of the episode. He's amusing, although beyond Diamantopoulos's skillful scenery-chewing, and the repetitive gags you can squeeze out of his hero-worship of Donald, I'm not entirely sure what he brings to show that Launchpad didn't. Don't get me wrong, this repeat appearance was fun (I do believe I liked him better here than I did in Spear), but I'm undecided on the ending's implication that Storkules is going to become a semi-regular in Duckburg like Gyro or Fenton. 

It is amusing to see the gag of the Ancient Greek characters relating info through ornate jars carry on from Spear, however. I wonder if the whole thing is a direct allusion to the manner of the narration of Disney's Hercules, or if it's more-or-less-coincidental. 

And he third big thing in the episode (and I know it's all beginning to sound like a lot, but if there's one thing to say for Storkules in Duckburg, it's that it's well-written; all of this comes together very nicely) are, of course, the Harpies. Their designs seem to be a mix between Romano Scarpa's Harpies, Carl Barks's Larkies, and the DuckTales Classic redesign of the latter. 

Far from the verbose oddball-gourmets of Barks, and despite their wearing jewelry, they are here reimagined as nonsentient monsters who single-mindedly try to steal what their victims love most. It's not a bad concept for a DuckTales monster, and I'll give props to the writers for making them agents of the Gods' wrath like they were in the original myths, as opposed to independent agents… but I have two problems with this. 

The first is that, come on, you can't introduce most-prized-possession-seeking monsters into Duckburg (nay, in McDuck Manor!!) and not have them go after the Lucky Dime. The second is that, well, the chatty comic Larkies are iconic and for good reason, and this feels like another Gyro Gearloose situation — the new version's neat, but has diddly-squat to do with the equally-neat original and spoils an opportunity to see them in animation. 

Still, I did like them on their own terms, as I said; and if it had to happen to one particular Barks monster, best it be them than, say, Smorgasbord, since we did see relatively accurate Barksian Harpies in the 1987 series. 

In terms of easter-eggs and mythology-gags (on which DuckTales 2017 has always heavily rely to garner the goodwill/forgiveness of comic-fans), the sharp-eyed may notice, among the portraits in Donald's houseboat, a variation on Barks's famous Tiny-Boat Composition that we have seen iterated over and over and over with a variety of characters and backgrounds, though I'll be darned if I have any idea what it's called;

…one of Storkules's crates bears the words “Donald Fan Art” (marking what is probably the first in-universe use of the word 'fan art' in Ducklore, though I could be wrong); Cape Suzette is mentioned (though I don't know if that still counts as an easter-egg at this point); and, most importantly, the entire climax has the Harpies lift Donald's Houseboat into the air, in a repeat of what they did with the Argo in Barks's Golden Fleecing. I'm a big fan of this, being a big fan of flying boats in general. (You can blame my younger self's repeated viewings of Peter Pan and Return to Neverland.)

Another thing I'd like to note, though it's highly subjective, is that DuckTales 2017's world (call it the 2017 Continuum, Earth-17, whatever) is finally beginning to feel organic. The episode features the returns of Funso's Fun-Zone, Dewey Dew-Night, the aforementioned Cape Suzette, driving that can only be attributed to an unseen Launchpad, cameos by Miss Quackfaster, Glomgold and Officer Cabrera… and where in The Shadow War such things felt like "special winks to the audience" (hey, remember this? and this? and that thing?), here it all mostly all felt natural. Perhaps it's just time, or perhaps the screenwriters are getting better at screenwritin'; probably a little bit of both. Their treatment of Donald is certainly improving, at least, pointing towards the skill-honing hypothesis. 

Beyond that, this episode has all of DuckTales 2017's usual strengths: lively character animation, as seen in the particularly-memorable screenshot above; great voice acting all-around; witty banter. The score continues to be reliable, even if I didn't pick out any particular heights, unlike in the previous episode, The Ballad of Duke Baloney, which had one of the best soundtracks in the series yet (rivaled only, I think, by that of The Shadow War). 

Unless you find the DuckTales 2017 nephews obnoxious (in which case you'd better wait for the Scrooge-centric Christmas episode we've been promised… looks like it'll be a hoot!), I'm definitely recommending this episode. 

Mandatory Post-Scriptum:

…Does Webby look cute in her "1950's family man" outfit, or what? 

“The Loves of Hercules”

I love 1950's/1960's sword-and-sandal films (or, as they are picturesquely known in French, peplums). They are the most formulaic nonsense ever put to screen, but in a wholesome, very entertaining way. 

1960's The Loves of Hercules — a Franco-Italian coproduction most notable for starring Jayne Mansfield as Queen Deianira and her husband Miklòs "Mickey" "Mr Universe" Hargitay as Ancient Times' greatest strongman — is no exception. 

It hits nearly all the beats that I have come to know from other Hercules and Maciste films of the era: the Amazons and their beguiling Queen with an interest in the hero; a lead with as much character as the lump of wood he uses to crush his foes; colorful physical feats; a Queen who longs for love; an evil advisor thereof, seeking power; an uprising against the usurper; a few encounters with random monsters; and, most infuriatingly, the same plot-thread I keep seeing over and over of the evil Amazon (or something) Queen who kills/petrifies/eats/whatever all her lovers and takes an interest in the hero who is temporarily bewitched until he snaps out of it. 

Also, honorable mentions to "mashing together bits and pieces of various connected myths in a way that makes little to no sense", and to "the American dub feels free to rewrite part of the story, why not?" (American may be surprised to learn that Hercules does not in fact visit the Underworld in the original version; the place with the sulphur clouds is just a random canyon). 

So what's to like about this one? 

It's nicely shot, for one thing, and as always, the cast are solid with the exception of the bland-as-gruel Hercules. Jayne Mansfield, here and elsewhere, mercifully does far more than looking pretty for the camera — she was a genuine, and not-untalented, actress, and the difference between her portrayl of the real Deianira and of Hippolyta magically impersonating her makes that clear enough. 

The monsters encountered along the way are also pretty creative. There's a great atmosphere in the Forest of the Dead, and the lovers-turned-trees are a surprisingly haunting creation, albethey this film's take on that "preying-mantis Queen" trope that just refused to die in those days. The Ape-Man at the end is… introduced without any explanation of why we shouldn't be surprised to find an Ape-Man in Ancient Greece (there's a similar thing in Hercules/Maciste Versus the Moon Men, so I presume this was just "a thing" at the time, for some reason), but he has hints of the strange tragedy of King Kong in his breif appearance, and the make-up, while admittedly the fakest thing ever, is also kind of arresting. 

Don't you feel sorry for this poor hirsute chap? Just a little?

Next up… oh, I'm sorry, did I call the Ape-Man the fakest thing in the movie? How could I forget the briefly-appearing Hydra who, for reasons yet to be determined by science, gave its name to the movie in some countries? 

This film's Hydra is what I assume everyone must have thought was an awesome animatronic (its eyes glow and lbik! It breathes fire!), but the truth is, in any but the widest and foggiest shots, it just looks like a big, painted, carboard-covered machine. Which it is. Its claws are also not in any way articulated, leaving the poor stuntman to struggle under its paws, trying its very best to make you believe that the monster is grabbing him — like something out of an Ed Wood film. 

Yet it is certainly memorable. The design gave up on trying to look real, but it still managed to be impressive and creative (certainly, there's a sense of gigantism to this Hydra that is rarely evoked by other movie versions of the beast), and the sound design in the scene must be praised. That howling is not easily forgotten. 

One thing I can't quite forgive the movie for, however, is that they kind of got the concept of the Hydra backwards. Hercules, through the use of a woodsman'saxe he seemingly conjures out of his own personal Hammerspace, chops off one of its heads… and that's… enough to kill it. No "two more heads grow up when you cut one off", not even a "you have to kill all the heads". Whuh? 

Mind, there's a surprisingly atmospheric shots later of the Hydra's still carcass that almost makes you forget its underwhelming demise. So that's something. 

Okay, let's talk villains. I love me a good villain, and Massimo Serato's Licos brushes with greatness, in the “so obviously evil let's not even pretend I'm not a cartoon villain” category. He looks and acts in such hilariously, obviously villainous way that you can't help but love the character. Yet he does not cackle or revel in his power — if you're in for that sort of thing, there's some darker, more tragic depth to Licos, even if it is but barely explored; he mentions having “given up on love long ago” to pursue only power, and it's up to anyone's imagination what might have prompted this drastic choice. 

Like all great sword-and-sandal villains, he also owns a designated death trap, though unlike Hippolyta (who, spoiler, dies strangled by one of her own cursed trees), he does not die by it. It's pretty cool. A bridge above a sulphur bit on which the victim is made to stand and can be opened inwards, letting the poor victim plummet to their doom. It is extremely reminiscent of the more modern bridge used by the king of all evil masterminds, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, in You Only Live Twice. The sulphur pit is put to good use in the climactic battle, incidentally — it's an impressive set on multiple levels and has all sorts of interesting staging possibilities. 

“A bridge? Is that the best you can doOOOOWAAAAHHHRGH----”

And over 2000 years later… 

“A brdge? Please! The other guy had a laser, a nuclear bomb

to blow up Fort Knox, and a decapitating hat, is that really

the best you canaaaAAAAAHOHGODNO---”

I have little to say about it, but I feel like I should mention Carlo Innocenzi's composition, too. Italian sword-and-sandal films's scores are rarely bad, but there is a tendency for them to be forgettable orchestral sludge with little character or theme, good enough to accompany the action, but hardly something you'd listen to for its own merits. Not so here. Innocenzi's frequent use of minor-key and a chorus brings a real character to this score. 

Oh, and we must have our trivia-focused Post-Scriptum once again:

• One, what is up with this poster? 

          Looks to me like someone didn't get the memo that clean-shaven Mickey Hargitay was playing  

          Hercules, and just drew Steve Reeves again. 

• Two, am I the only one who thinks Maga the Enchantress looks exactly like Docto Who's Ohila? If there's any relationship it must, of course, be the other way around, but it's striking either way. Just look at'em. Twins, I tellsja. 

(Has Steven Moffat seen this film?)

• And three, a question. The opening credits proclaim that one “Sandrine” (no last name given) plays some significant part in the movie. You may recognize this sort of crediting as the way pop-singers are usually credited when they try out acting, and I presumed Sandrine must be some French or Italian 1960's singer long forgotten. But who does she play? imdb has no friggin' clue. The following screencap is not edited, there's genuinely just a blank. 

Me = confused.