His Majesty, McDuck is a comic story written and drawn by Don Rosa. It features Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck, Akers McCovet, the Beagle Boys and the Mayor of Duckburg. In its first known appearance, the Bicorn Duck portrait is also visible.
Plot[]
Out of sheer coincidence, Scrooge McDuck discovers that, much to his surprise, Killmotor Hill is, in fact, not part of the United States of America, and is, at the moment, unclaimed land. Of course, he immediately delcares himself King Scrooge McDuck of McDuckland… and contacts the American tax office, asking for a refund on fifty years' worth of taxes, since for all that time he was actually living on a piece of land that wasn't part of the US. Things backfire when the Beagle Boys, led by crook Akers McCovet, try to take over McDuckland, as the Duckburg police is no longer required to intervene…
References[]
- On June the 17th, 1579, Sir Francis Drake took possession of Killmotor Hill, founding Fort Drakeborough. He left a brass plaque there as proof.
Continuity[]
- A Money Tree can be seen in Scrooge McDuck's office; it is unknown if this is an allusion to Culprits, Inc. (1965), or, more likely, to a Carl Barks-drawn cover (that of Uncle Scrooge #18) which also features a money tree.
- This particular version of the Mayor of Duckburg was first seen in Carl Barks's The Snowman Contest (1957).
- Scrooge McDuck refers to the circumstances of his purchase of Killmotor Hill, depicted in more details by Rosa in Last Sled to Dawson (1988).
Errors[]
- On page 3, Scrooge tells Huey to close the wood stove's door, but the nephew in question is wearing blue, which would make him Dewey.
Behind the scenes[]
This story was first printed in 1989 in Uncle Scrooge Adventures #14. It was then reprinted in Uncle Scrooge #331, Uncle Scrooge Adventures by Don Rosa #8 and, of course, the Don Rosa Library.
This story's plot is inspired by the film Passport to Pimlico, where a district of London turns into an independent state thanks to an administrative mistake.
Initially, Don Rosa meant to sue Azure Blue and Sharky as the leaders of the Beagle Boys. However, the editors, fearing that recent readers might not recognize the characters (who had, so far, only appeared in one American story, The Golden Helmet), asked him to replace them with a new antagonist, prompting the creation of Akers McCovet.