Magica De Spell is great. For those unaware, Magica is an evil witch hell bent on stealing Scrooges lucky dime, because the first coin from the richest duck ever can be melted into an amulet which –depending on the author – will give her the powers of King Midas, or just great power and wealth in general. Countless stories have been written with the basic story framework of “Magica has new scheme to steal the dime, fails”, as this premise can be remixed in infinite different ways. Sometimes the story is about multiple time-travelling versions of Gyro Gearloose working to stop Magicas onslaught. Sometimes she flips gravity 90 degrees for Donald and Scrooge specifically to incapacitate them. Sometimes the hunt is on for the lucky coin from a pirate captain who was actually the richest duck ever, when adjusted for inflation.

But most entertaining are probably the stories from Magicas perspective, which have a real Pinky and The Brain/Wile e. Coyote vibes; she’s still ostensibly the villain, but you can’t help but root for her. You know she can never win, but you love to watch her try, because she’s driven, because she tries her damndest against a foe who himself can be pretty unlikeable. It’s a classic case of a character spending massive effort for to obtain a comparatively “lazy” shortcut to wealth, where she would most likely be hugely successful if she applied her skills elsewhere.

Speaking of…

Todays story: “Amelia e le due numero 1”, english title would probably be “Double or nothing”. Written by Antonella Pandini, art by Alessia Martusciello, first published 2000 in Italy

Multiverses are all the rage nowadays. You get to engage in all sorts of fun what-if scenarios and visit countless alternate versions of beloved characters. And if you’re Magica de Spell, you can abuse this concept for your benefit. Her scheme here is deceptively simple in retrospect (though it read as high concept to a Danish kid in 2001): If stealing the dime from Scrooge is too difficult…then find a parallel universe where it isn’t. And so Magica scans the multiverse, and comes across two likely candidates; in one Scrooge and Magica are completely unaware of each others existence. Scrooge is more or less the same, with the Magica simply trying to be the witchiest witch there is (and sporting a killer Mohawk hairdo).

In the other more interesting case, Magica is Scrooges closest confidant and business partner, with her sporting a more modern, “corporate” look. Meanwhile Scrooge in this universe is way more benign and charitable, and is lovingly married to Euro-character Brigitta Macbridge. Heck there’s even flowers on the money bin. Its’ as if the lack of threat to his dime and help from Magica has brought out the best in him.

And what I really love is that Good!Magica is not pretending, her partnership with Scrooge is completely genuine. It is an alternate universe in the truest sense, and though Orginal!Magica finds the universe revolting at first, it also appeals to her a great deal because she’s nothing if not petty.

Magica gets the dime effortlessly and heads back, but in true Comedic Villain Protagonist fashion she won’t quit while she’s’ ahead and decides to double dip in the other universe to get two dimes, and forge a Cosmic Amulet of Even Moar Power. Magica gets the other coin in short order, but at this point the resident Magicas of the other universes have gotten wise to her incursions, and they pursue her – Good!Magica to help her business partner, Punk!Magica because who the hell does original!Magica thinks she is barging in to steal what should’ve been hers.

And so we have another magic duel on our hands; I believe Ducktales Magica as well as purist comic incarnations have her as a purely potions and tricks type of witch, but here she’s flying on broomsticks and blasting magic from her fingertips. Frankly I don’t care, and while the magic duel here is brief, it looks great. The art is great in general in this comic, lots of great expressions and posing. Ultimately OG!Magica manages to shunt her duplicates back home and seal their portals. She revels in her victory as she finally manages to forge her amulet, whereupon shit hits the fan as the amulet promptly wrecks the very fabric of reality.

In making the amulet from materials from different realities Magica has crafted a completely unnatural object that tears down the borders between dimensions, and leaves her stranded in an empty black void with her alternate selves taunting her. Tripping herself up at the finish line is the norm in Magica-lead stories, but I don’t think she’s ever topped this for sheer scale.

And so as Magica does the only thing she can and unmakes the amulet, we get an ending that only a comic book could deliver as she crashes back home through all the realities, getting pelted with witch-repelling garlic (which is a thing here I guess) from Scrooges moneybin each step of the way.

Nowadays even more could be done with the multiverse concept, but for a breezy, comedic 31 page jaunt this comic holds up exceptionally well, and as I said, it just looks cool. It’s a great showcase for what these comics can offer, for how they can make virtually any character the main character. You’d never get a Magica animated series, at best I could see a show like Ducktales doing a one off episode focusing on her like this, but she has literally hundreds of comics to her name.

ELSEWHERE IN THE EURO MULTIVERSE

• Cousin Fethry bullshits his way into a provisional attorneys license, and tries to get someone in legal trouble so he has someone to defend in court.
• Donald gets amnesia during an errand for Scrooge, becomes an entrepreneur with a hot new partner. Scrooge and Daisy are pissed.
• The possible centerpiece of this volume is a Mickey Mouse vampire story where he and Goofy go to Transylvania, which is…something else. I definitely need to cover this one day, I’m tempted to just post the whole thing. One of the characters is called Van Mousing, who at one point exclaims “from the bowels of hell my enemy has returned to spread misery and destruction!”

• In a case of mistaken identity, a clueless Donald is embroiled in a world of international spies and assassins, with everything revolving around an Elephant which ultimately is revealed to have a map to an Uranium mine scrawled on his ear.
• Seeking to escape an exceptionally severe blizzard, Donald attempts to deliver a package by midnight in order to earn a tropical vacation. Over a comparatively beefy 50 page story he gets a bomb cuffed to his wrist after a run in with a murderous duo of counterfeiters, and needs to chase the key to the cuffs all over the city getting into all sorts of misadventures. It could’ve totally been a 20 minute Donald-focused episode of Quack Pack, and I mean that as an absolute compliment