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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Ducktales Reviews: The Phantom and the Sorceress

Ducktales returns! The Phantom Blot returns to animation after too damn long with a neat backstory, an infnity guantlet and a hate boner for anything magic related. And since Lena is magic related she’s forced to go to her worst enemy and local close up magician Magica De Spell for help. Also Gladstone is here because we missed him and for no other reason. But we missed him so it’s okay. Friendship Is Magic, under the cut.

Woo-ooo! We’re back! Months later and in a new room, with new things to be depressed about because this year is groundhog day and everyone is bill murray, which isn’t as fun as it should be, Ducktales is finally back on screens and in my heart. And my galbladder.. he really likes ducktales. But yeah with the recent cancelation of the venture bros, it’s nice to get it’s spirtual littlte brother back just a few weeks later to help fill the void, and while a comparison to it now I know frank’s a fan and noticed the simlarties between rusty and gyro thanks to a tumblr post, the same post for both things inf act, I might just do that one day. But tha’ts not what your here, for , iv’e had to rewrite this intro enough times, Pitter Patter, let’s get at er.

This episodes opens with Scrooge sitting down for his morning tea when the kids pop out of the tv and hte bored way he figures it out is really hilarious. David Tennat is really good at selling just how Scrooge has both seen it all and has the deductive skills of Barbra Gordon. What eveyrone syaing “Of batman” gets old after a while and she’s just as smart as he is, especially as oracle. Point is it’s a good bit. As he correclty guesses the kids were playing Legends of Nerverquest or whatever that game Huey and Della played last season is called, one of them wished it was real, presumibly Dewey, and Lena’s magic accidently made it happen. And since it’s her first spotlight episode of the season, and possibly only one since this season is kind of packed, it’s time to talk about Lena! Admitely I PLANNED to do at least her first episode and her two season 2 episodes before this, but life got in the way so here we are. Lena.. is easily one of my faviortes, the number of weblena chats have made that clear. She’sd got a compelling arc, the show tackles abuse well in her narrative, and she and webby have really sweet chemstiry. Plus she brought us Violet and i’ll always be greatful for that and she’s voiced by Kimiko Glenn in her first major voice acting role so that helps too. SHe’s a great addition to the cast and the canon. Same, as the previous comment made obvious, goes for Violet, and the three togther have a great dynamic and i’ts nice to finally see an episode with JUST the three of them post “Friendship Hates Magic.”.

But yeah Lena’s magic’s been going haywire and I do feel the setups abit rushed.. hilarious but rushed. While Night on Kilmotor hill did establish her magic can run wild, it was also vauge if it was because of her, or it was because magica was messing with her head. IT’s still a plausable setup since we haven’t really SEEN her use her magic or have any intrest and doing so and she’s only done so either while working for magica, to undo something magica did, or to give her sister a mace so she could literally go midevil on some alien ass, it just feels a bit abrubt. And while Night on Kilmotor hill also set up a problem we hadn’t seen on screen, it felt like it gave us more time to ease into it and Lena’s issues, and made it clear SOMETHING was up instead of just telling us that. The rest of hte episode is still good i’ve just seen the show be way better at setup than this.

But yeah Lena’s magic keeps runing their fun and she feels bad about it, while Scrooge ends up putting his foot and spats in his mouth by voicing his hatred of magic, with all his nephews giving him a “Grandpa no look” and Webby glaring at him.. and whiel I didn’t realize it while watching it.. whiel sh’es given him a disaporving look, the equilvent of shooting bambi in the face emtoinally, she’s only been THIS angry with him one other time.. and it was the time he said “Your not family”. Thankfully this time he’s not in defnstive arrogant bastard mode, so he meekly walks it back to exclude her and she shrugs it off: She hates magic too. And really.. it’s not hard to see WHY given that most times it’s enterted her life, it’s nearly got everyone she loves killed, and that the only spellcaster she knows personally is the absuive aunt whose gaslighted her on multiple occasions, most recently to try and renslave her. Thankfully before Webby can make an old man bleed for his insesntivity, Della reveals some magical creature is there and Scrooge, while annoyed it’s more magic, is happy for another adventure and invites everyone along. And I jsut love that he dosen’t even show the slightest hesitation bringing Violet and Lena along. As far as he’s concerned probably their family too, maybe not as much as Webby but their still welcome. I mean granted i’m sure della and donald had an awkard conversation with Ty and Indy over all this to make sure it was cool, but still, it’s a nice gesture on his part and show’s his personality: He really dosen’t care who comes along as long as they can pull their weight and share his love for adventure, their welcome. It’s also nice ot see him and Lena interact since the two really haven’t since the shadow war: Sure he’s been in the same room with her twice, btu they haven’t really spoken. Though my honest guess is they could’ve genuinely meant for Scrooge to adopt her into the family.. but when coming up with Violet found her family adopting her and them becoming sisters to be a better idea and went with that. And to be fair it is, and not just for shipping purposes, I just wish we got some closure on that line, but i’m also aware the show has a LOT of ground to cover each season, so I understand it probably got squeezed out by all the other stuff going on and don’t really sweat it since we got something better anyway, her getting two gay dads and a sister, it just felt worth talking about. And in universe.. I feel he didn’t simply because he didn’t either know she was back or have a chance to, though i’m also damn certain, at least in my own headcanon, he helped those men formally adopt her. I mean he owns most of the city, and they probably also had to make Lena legally exist in the first place since I doubt Magica bothered to put her on any offical records that weren’t signed in blood and written on paper made of avian flesh, which given SCrooge’s experince is probably not the first time he had to get a person into official records who came into being by way of magic or some other weirdness.

Anyways, Lena opts out of the adventure because she’s worried about it going haywire and Webby opts out out of sympathy and while Violet is clearly keen to go, she gladly does so for her sister.. though this just makes Lena feel worse since now her girlfriend and her sister are missing out on stuff because of her, and suggests just going to sleep before she whoopsie daisy magics them to death. The girls end up woken from their sleep however by a bang at the door. It’s Gladstone!

Yup it’s time to talk about another character I haven’t talked about yet. Gladstone is easily one of the show’s best overhauls. See in the comics while Gladstone is just as lucky and lazy.. he’s also just..

Okay i’m amazed it’s taken this long for me to refrence jean ralphio in one of these reviews but i’m glad it was for this. Back on topic, while I know Gladstone in the comics has his fans, and is softend a bit in european comics, but in most stories i’ve read with him he’s an insufferably arrogant dick. Even BEFORE getting his luck, his first apperance, which I own in trade and read earlier this year, has him trying to take Donald’s house and kick him and the nephews out on the street over a drunken wager to take a polar dive, which Donald fials because life hates him and he’s a coward. Thankfully Daisy rushed in and saved the day because she’s great sometimes ,and turned things on him wiht his own drunken crap, but still, it says something when your first apperance is trying to force three ten year olds and your own cousin out into the cold.

He .. did not get any better once his super luck came into play. Instead he just flautned it all the time and tried to constnatly win Daisy over from donald.. which had varying sucess based on how much of a shallow dick she was being that story, and in general was just unplesant. He really only works for me in comic in those aformetioned softer times: when a writer makes his luck ruin his love life or add actual depth instead of him just being the raincloud on donal’ds parade. The original ducktales and the going quackers game are the only places I can think of he showed up otherwise, prototype in the old disney shorts nonwithstanding, and Ducktales Classic made him a nice guy from what i’ve heard. Thankfully frank and crew knew exactly what to do to adapt him perfectly: He still retains some aspects from the comics: Donald and Scrooge still hate him, Donald for Gladstone always winning and always having it easy while Donald.. is donald and thus utterly miserable half the time and on fire the other half, and Scrooge because he’s a lazy asshole who gets whatever he wants with the least effort, which didn’t change. What did change was his attitude. While he still is proud of getting whatever he wants in life with no effort and being “the best at getting something for nothing” he dosen’t lord it over everyone else. Sure he’s proud of it but he dosen’t rub Donald’s nose in how much better off he is on purpose, and genuinely loves his family, something I really coudln’t say about most versions of comic Gladstone. While he’s self serving he’s perfectly happy to share his luck with whoever else: He can always get more money whenever he needs it because of course he will. The other factor helping is , as with this entire reboot, the voice acting, in this case the marvelous Paul F Thompkins of Bojack and so much other stuff fame, who really sells the “Sleazy vegas layabout” vibe this series gives him, updating his old aristocratic asshole vibe to something more fun to watch and really being a treat anytime gladstone comes up. Gladstone singing in season 2 was entirely something Paul Improvised during his first apperance they made sure to use eventually. He’s a delight any time he shows up and a total 180 from his utterly agrviating original version.

As for why he’s here.. said luck. is gone. After being hit by some weird energy, Gladstone suddenly, since he didn’t see it hit him, finds himself living normally: going to a restraunt offers no free meal for being 100th custmoer or anything, his wallet dosen’t magically have 20 dollars in it, and the atm gives him 20 dollars.. which would seem normal except it’s actually usually a sack of rubys. Naturally Gladstone having coasted his entire life on his magical luck, has no idea how to function as a normal human being and is utterly hilarious as he breaks down. Admitely he’s not the biggest part of the plot, he’s mostly here for comic relief and COULD have been eaisly cut.. but he’s so hilarious and seeing him utterly fail at being a normal person and whine about things as simple as walking or going up stairs is just groovy. As for what weird magical bolt took it, Violet being violet figures it out quick: The Phantom Blot! For those unfamiliar, he’s a charcter from the mickey mouse comics, though I know him from one episode of house and mouse that adapted those comics that I need to read more of, a master schemer and old school villian par excellence and Mickey’s greatest foe. I was ecastic to see him come here and in the capable hands of Giancarlo Espisto. While I haven’t watched brekaing bad i’ve heard nothing but good thigns and he does his best with what little he’s given. But here instead of a master schemer he’s an infamous magic theif and is obviously the one who drained gladstone.. and unforutntely for scrooge the boys and presumibly everyone else... we see him in action using his fancy infnity guantlet esque magic draining gauntlet to drain the portal they took. Ruh Roh. It gets worse when he mistakes Lena for magica, and charges after her, though Webby is able to hold him off with the axe she grabbed on the way to the door earlier, and damages his gauntlet. he retreats.. but it’s obvious he’ll be back and both Webby and Violet come to the conclusion Lena needs to grasp her magic in order to survive.. and both have the same unfortunate relization: They only know one person who can do it and Lena, once she realizes what hteir thinking, wnats nothing to do with her, and neither do they. But they have no options: they have to go to magica. So they journey to her house on Dagobah, with Gladstone tagging along because they need a wacky comedic sidekick to help lighten the mood what with the serious, grim hunter wanting to murder a teenage girl inf nront of her tweenage girlfriend and kid sister, and their only resort being going back to her abuser for help. Magica however isn’t all that helpful at first. Being Magica her first move is to make a grab for the Amulet to get her power back, which her running crew thwart quickly but naturally Lena still wants nothing to do with her and Magica just insults her for not using magic and because she’s a terrible person. SHe does however end up changing her tune when she hears the blot’s involved. She whisks them inside while we get a cutaway to FOWL headquarters where blot is working on his guantlet more on him in a minute. We soon get the Blot’s backstory which is actually really inttresting and invovled even if it’s not a lot like who he is in the comcis or house of mouse: A long ass time ago before meddling kids got in her way, Magica took over a small vililage with the threat of destroying it and eveyrone in it outright unless they gave her tributes.. and when those got boring she just did it anyway. Problem was, as happens a lot when evil sorecerers calously destroy hometowns, one of them survivied. It’s even lampshaded by Magica as she points out Blot wasn’t the first. The problem was.. he was persitant. The blot never gave up, coming up with better tech to fight her magic each time and coming back stronger and likely more determined. I like this verson: While he’s not the bwahahah mastermindk, he’s still an utter threat, a force with an unyielding hatred and a burning mission to take out the target of his hate and anything like her. He reminds me a lot of toffee from star vs but if htey actually gave his backstory on screen. A meancing, somehwat quite, or mostly silent in the blot’s case, immortal menace who’s deterimiend to wipe out those who wronged him and anything related to them and has warped from what was once probably a decen tperson into a human engine of destruction with one goal and one goal only. He’s a good enoguh villian for the episode, I just hope if he comes back they give him better lines. his dialouge is really what dosen’t work for me as whiel his backstory and aura of meance work, Giancarlo is given nothing to work with line wise. He dosen’t need to be a chatty cathy or anything, just give him one or too really cool lines. Sometimes tha’ts all you need. Watch how the pros do it.

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I do like this verison, I jsut think they could do more, but given the show has a good track record for only getting better with their villians with every use, I have no worries about that and he’s still a cool enough threat. I also wish we got more of fowl or why he’s working with them. just a small scene with one of them was all I asked, because we’ve barely gotten fowl this season. It’s really one of the season’s only real problems so far: 8 episodes in and while FOWL agents have shown up twice, adn one of the episodes did advance that plot by showing off heron and steelbeak, we really haven’t seen any progress on their plans to both take the missing mysteries or kill the Clan McDuck. HOpefully this changes as we go and again, it dosen’t ditract from the episode itself, jsut the season as a whole. Anyways, Lena is still relucntant because Magica is terrible and keeps slipping in how much she wants to take the amulet every five minutes. I love the show and catherine tate’s take on magica: just as hammy and nuts as before but when she does have magic, she’s the utter threat she was before too times ten. But yeah while Lena’s relunctant.. neither of htem really has a choice> Magica needs her amulet secure to get her magic back, and Lena needs to not die. So they relucntantly agree to work together among more hilarous sniping. Cue a training montage set to a hell of an 80′s tune. The show really has a good habit of making good incdental music to use in bits like this. Lena trains, uses gladstone as the training dummy, and it’s funny as it is creative and we even get some karate kids bit and the obvious star wars refrences. Meanwhile the blot approaches ever closer.. We also find out something important from Magica as she chastises Lena for having fun with her friends while training after Lena uses blue magic instead of purple: Turns out much like spellcasters in say owl house or my little pony each caster has a specific color to their magic, a Colur of magic if you will. Magica’s, and lena using hers is purple while the blue magic we’ve seen from her is her own powered by friendship and love. It’s a nice advancement of what we’ve seen so far: We’ve seen her magic powered by webby is stronger than her other stuff, and we’ve seen it come out during times their bond, or in the case of kilmotor hill her bond with everyone, is strongest. We knew something was diffrent with the magics and it’s now given a though and clearly well thought out explination why: Magica’s magic is hers and Lena was just borrowing it.. the blue stuff is hers and hers alone. Magica does try to get her to master it by having one of her friends shoot her.. Webby of course strongly objects so Violet takes it up since it is for study after all and her sister can take a hit. Lena also wonders how she can even do magic without the amulet, but as Magica makes clear, and as I outlined above, the amulet is just help. The blue magic is her. Lena fails to use it though to deflect in time.. and to make matters worse the blot shows up after plopping gladstone down and wants to kill them both. We then get easily the best laugh of the episode.. as Magica tries stage magic and the blot wonders what the hell he’s looknig at. I mean this is his mortal enemy, the monster who killed everyone he’d ever known or loved... pulling out a bunch of colored rags and asking him to pick a card. It’s amazing. Lena attacks from the side and Webby and Violet quickly asist, with Magica joining in to use the rope to bind him and Lena’s magic kicking in, turning the rope into chain and summoning a snake.. but in a show of badassery the blot easily shrugs it off: he absorbs the magic, escapes and knocks them around while Webby asks the snake for help.. can she speak snake? She hopes so.

Then things get dire as The Blot starts absorbing the magic.. and killing lena as she starts to fade away. Magica of course can’t even feign dispaointment in anything but loosing her magic. And that’s also something I really love here: The show makes no attempt to make magica better or turn around because it just isn’t who she is and even if she did after all the abuse she did, Lena would have zero reason to forgive her. It’s nice that they DON’T try redemeing her or shoing a brighter side: she’s a bad person, a worse caregiver and they only came to her because they had no choice.

But as the magic’s absorbed magica does tell her to find the source of the power and we get a great scene: She first thinks of all the abuse magica’s done to her and it’s a harrowing montage to watch. But webby, breaks through that, since that obviouslyf ails and reminds her of where HER magic comes from: Her and webby. and we get an adorable,a nd shiptastic montage as we see more clips from past episodes.. but this time we see their adorable fistbump from “Beagle BOy Birthday Massacre”, their hug from “Jaw$!” and Lena’s return to the world and hug with her lady and future sister from “Friendship hates magic”. IT’s her friends, her sister and the love of her life who are her real source of power, and her magic connects to htem as lena ccccchanges. And I mean entirely, her outfit changes and she gets these.. weird bright blue eyes. Like I like the rest of her outfits, a white and blue attire to show her change with a badass cape, looks like a superhero so naturally I love it.. her eyes just look really off. Like when Milo Muprhy’s law tried to give characters colored irses. Because no one else in ducktales has them it just loosk.. weird.. Otherwise though I like it. We then get a beam struggle, but with adde dhelp from her friends and her new power, Lena eventually beats the blot, as her sheer power overloads the guantlet and sends him running. However in the confusion the amulet was lost.. and Magica gets it back. Lena whollops her easily, pointing out her magic’s purpose is to protect the world from people like her. It’s a nice development too: Lena realizes MAGIC isn’t inherently evil... it’s how it’s used. Star Vs could’ve maybe taken this lesson, but regardless, it’s a nice bit of character development realizing that magic is a part of her IS Her, and she shoudln’t have to give up something in her nature because of her abuser. Magica, while repowered, is force dto lookf or her staff while Lena gladly floats team magic home. Also with the guantlet broken gladstone is back, as a rain of 20 dolalr bills he uses as tissues confims, and the portal returns, and with Lena you know, havin ga whole superhero outfit, glowing blue eyes and her hair streak now blue, they know something clearly happend and the episode just kind of ends. Still a good one. Final Thoughts: This was a good one as I just said. While I had my nitpicks here and there as I also said, Lena’s strong character, and the game performances of Espisito, Thompkins, and Tate really add to our usual trlo, and as I mentioned before it’s nice ot see team magic get their own episode now their a full team. IT’s just a good romp and a good way back. I”ve made my complaints clear but their drowned out by good jokes, good character stuff, and good worldbuilding that makes this an utter thrill and a great one to come back to and i’tll also be intresting to see where Lena goes from here. But wherever she goes she’ll have webby. They can be whot hey are, independent together, if theyt ry. And yes that’s my shiping song for htem and yes I have one.

Quick bit before I go I dind’t get to, Gladstone flirts with magica when she lands in his arms, a little something for the shippers and a nice gesture on frakn’s part. Whle she rejects him and he dumps her in the sludge with a shrug. I mean.. their probably going to bang at some point. Gladstone’s powers mean he’ll likely find her when sh’es super horny and more than willing, and he’ll be like “eh why not boobs”. I mean I thought about this: I figure his powers allow him to find a willing partner, any gender or none at all I see him as pansexual, who happens to probablyb e loaded and diseased free, whenever he happens to be into it who naturallyw orks out perfectly because if he gets money whenever he wants it, why not sex? It’s not even a concious thing as we’ve seen things just work out for him so of course he probably gets laid, and as we see here it’s only if the other person consets. Good for him. Hope to see him again sooner. I want to see more of him and della interacting and see what she thinks of him. Freshe eys andall that.

But yeah this was great to come back to. If you liked this i’ve reviewed the rest of the season up to this point and will be reviewing each episdoe every monday till they stop again, so keep an eye out for that. You can check the tabs on my blogs for more reviews, come back this weekend for regular loud house coverag,e follow for more reviews or shoot me a pm if you’d like to comission me to do an episode. For just 5 bucks i’ll review any episode of any animated show of your choosing, and as i’ve only covered one season 2 episode of ducktales, there’s over 40 left ot choose from if you have any you want to hear my thoughts on. Until then stay safe, quack hard, and Go Team Venture! Play us out Steg .. and Co.

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#ducktales #the phantom and the sorceress #weblena #lena saberwing #webby vanderquack #violet sabrewing #scrooge mcduck #gladstone gander #magica despell #the phantom blot #giancarlo esposito #reviews #animation #disney #disney channel

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