Story code D 93574 Ink Don Rosa Pages 16 | Story Don Rosa Hero Donald Duck Layout 4 rows per page | |
The Duck Who Never Was is a Disney comic written and drawn by Don Rosa. It was written to celebrate Donald Duck's sixtieth anniversary.
Contents
Plot
It is Donald Duck's birthday, but he becomes depressed when he discovers that his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, forgot his birthday. Donald then applies for a job as a museum janitor, but his application form is turned upside down so that he is mistaken for sixty years old, an age at which the job isn't available. While walking out of the museum, Donald is hit by a magic urn and the birthday genie appears and offers him a wish.
Donald does not believe the genie and inadvertently wishes that he were never born, a wish that the genie grants him. It only gradually dawns on Donald that he has been abruptly transported to an alternate reality: the world as it would be if he had never existed.
When Donald gets out of the museum he finds the street damaged and his car gone. He sees Grandma Duck's car, although it is occupied not by Grandma Duck but by Gyro Gearloose. Donald asks him what he is doing in Grandma Duck's car, and Gyro answers that he bought her car and her farm years ago. Donald is shocked when Gyro says that he was once a brilliant inventor but he once created some think boxes that made animals as smart as people, but when he reversed their polarity he was caught in the ray and was given a normal human brain and was never able to invent again. (The reference is to an old Carl Barks comic that ended quite differently, because of the presence of Donald.)
Donald is confused but walks to Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin to use the telephone where he finds his Grandma who tells him that she sold the farm to Gyro because she could not run it alone (Gus Goose never worked for her) and that Daisy Duck bought this building from Scrooge years ago to use it as her printing plant: She is now a wealthy novelist, having started writing romance novels to fill her lonely life. A haggard Daisy appears, looking like a diva wearing tons of makeup. She throws Donald outside (pummeling him with empty bottles, subtly suggesting that in this reality, she has become an alcoholic).
Donald realises that this is real and that he was now never born. He meets Gus Goose, who tells him that he went to work for Scrooge McDuck as his top assistant (he was the only relative Scrooge had who works for him and he is not as smart as Donald). On his first day at work, Magica De Spell turned up outside the money bin, selling hamburgers for a dime. Gus ignorantly handed her the Number One Dime, causing Scrooge to have a fit when he learnt what his new assistant had done. He came too late to stop Magica from turning the dime into a magical amulet, which she then used to become the richest person in the world.
The loss of the dime destroyed Scrooge's self-confidence, allowing Flintheart Glomgold to cheat him out of his money. Scrooge lost everything, and Glomgold relocated the former McDuck empire to his own home base. Losing the McDuck taxes is slowly turning Duckburg into a ghost town.
Donald flees in horror and drives to his cousin Gladstone Gander's house, thinking that if he saw that Gladstone was as miserable as everyone else it would cheer him up, but he does not find Gladstone. He instead finds grossly overweight versions of Huey, Dewey and Louie, sitting on the couch eating junk food: they lived with Gladstone since they were ducklings and didn't join the Junior Woodchucks. Gladstone then appears (he was the only one who has not suffered from Donald's absence) and accuses Donald of stealing his car.
When Donald tries to run away, he hits a Beagle Boy in a police outfit (they turned "straight" after Scrooge went bust, but are implied to be a highly corrupt police force). Donald jumps to Gladstone's car and drives to the museum hoping to find the urn and set things right. He crashes through the museum's walls and finds the urn but thinks that he used his only wish. The genie reveals that Donald gets one wish for each time he touches the urn on his birthday. Donald is hit by the urn on his head and is knocked out cold. When he wakes up, he thinks it was just a dream but as he drives away the genie's voice is heard, implying that all of this was real. Donald realises that he is very important, everyone throws him a surprise party and he is given his job back.
Inspiration
The plot is inspired by the 1946 movie classic It's a Wonderful Life, a title that is repeatedly alluded to in the dialogue.