The Master of the Mississippi is a comic story written and drawn by Don Rosa. It features Scrooge McDuck, Pothole McDuck, several Beagle Boys (including Blackheart Beagle), Ratchet Gearloose and Porker Hogg.
Description
A young Scrooge McDuck arrives in Louisville where he tries to contact an uncle of his who already lives there: Angus McDuck, who (as Scrooge soon finds out) is now nicknamed Pothole. A lucky gambler, Pothole has just won a whole steamboat, which he decides to use to search for a sunken treasure. However, the boat's original owner, swindling businessman and casino-owner Porker Hogg, follows them and attempts to steal the treasure, with the help of the local Beagle Boys, who would later turn out to be the fathers of those that currently seek Scrooge's money in Duckburg.
Continuity
- The story makes heavy references to Carl Barks's The Fantastic River Race (1957), for introducing the concept of a young Scrooge as a steamboat captain on the Mississippi, with Ratchet Gearloose as his mechanic, antagonized by Blackheart Beagle and his sons. It is implied that Barks's story is sandwiched between Pages 21 and 22 of Rosa's story, with Rosa even taking care to depict, from Page 22 onwards, the damages incurred by the Dilly Dollar over the course of Fantastic River Race.
- Scrooge's Wedding (2014) would later feature a conflicting account of how Scrooge lost his boat and left the Mississippi following the events of Fantastic River Race.
- The characters of Pothole McDuck and Porker Hogg and their ever-unfinished race was first referenced in Carl Barks's The Great Steamboat Race (1955), though the story drew no links between it and Scrooge's own stint as a riverboat captain.
- The story also references a brief scene of Barks's Hall of the Mermaid Queen (1967), where Scrooge mentions having earned a dollar in a steamboat race in 1880. Similarly, the ending, where Scrooge decides to work on a train called the Wabbash Cannonball, refers to an offhand comment of Scrooge's in The Cattle King (1967).
- Once Upon a Dime (1987) presents a similar, but conflicting, account of Scrooge's involvement in a riverboat race shortly after his arrival in America; in this version, the uncle on whose behalf he was competing was not Pothole, but rather the hitherto-unknown Catfish McDuck.
Behind the scenes
This story is Chapter 2 of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. It was first printed in the Danish special issue of Anders And & Co entitled Her er dit liv, Joakim. It was first printed in English in Uncle Scrooge #286 and was then reprinted in Uncle Scrooge Adventures in Color by Don Rosa #1, in Volume 4 of the Don Rosa Library, and, of course, in the various editions of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.