#solego

Part 1: TaleSpin: Crystal Chaos

SPIN IT!  Let’s.. dig this intro page, which serve as a “cover” of sorts since these were magazine stories but are just as attractive and eyecatching as ac omic cover to me, giving us a taste of the story and making is wonder just what is happening. It’s a tad cluttered, but it dosen’t hold the cover back and each story has something like this, with two nice connecting touches: each story has the character who gets possessed out of the main cast with eeire, yellow glowing eyes, and each one shows the crystal slowly getting bigger, till it engulfs the entire page for the final part. 

Onto the story itself, Baloo, Kit and Molly are doing their monthly suply run to the isle of Rankiroon where the famous professor pottershed is trying to figure out why the people of this island disappeared centuries ago. 

His dig has found plenty of artifacts of their civilizatoi which our heroes are picking up. and given their remotely valuable, that attracts the Sky Pirates just as Baloo is flying in. Baloo makes quick work of them though in the most badass and Baloo way possible: he rams the big old ned their tryign to swipe the artifacts with  using the sea duck, the weight of the impact tossing the pirates into the sea. It also causes some trouble for late though as an eeerie red gem and it’s gold setting both fall out, the gem into a flour barrel and the setting into the ocean. 

Our heroes depart and we meet the professor and his son Bisk, who to my surprise isn’t just a know it all little shit whose rude to molly, but vitally important later. We’ll get to that. Pottershed is trying to prove the chaos god Solego destroyed this civilization. 

For now our heroes head home where Rebecca gives Baloo the riot act for being late despite you know, saving their client.. then once he points that out gets mad her daughter was on board for that. 

Thankfully Molly smoothes things over so Rebcca instead goes to check on inventory for next month... and finds the gem after it falls out of a the barrel it ended up in. She touches it and hears the booming voice of Solego himself, who forces her despite her best attempts to fight him off to put the necklace attached to the ruby on. It’s a deeply unerving scene as Rebecca, unlike the other thralls that Solego picks up over the story, is desperatley trying to fight him for control and failing, forced to obey him. It only gets worse when Solego snaps at Molly when she comes in. 

This big of evil overlord nonsense backfires though as Molly can tell Rebecca’s wrong: even at her worst she woudln’t yell at her chlid like that. Rebcca isn’t pleased but Solego simply uses the threat of harming Molly to get her to coperate and steal the Sea Duck.

This once again backfires as, already warned by a panicking Molly, Baloo gets proof her suspcions are true: Becky can’t fly. Somehow Rebecca’s day only gets worse as Baloo and the Kids (The latter not his choice) lasso their way onto the plane, hodling it as a human chain.. and Solego forces her to shake them them off to Rebeccas utter horror. 

Rebebecca does show how badass she can be though, using every ounce of her free will to swerve the plane and save them and then fighting off the god once the rest of our heroes get on board and yanking the chain off.  We also get an utterly heartwarming moment with mother and daughter. 

Aww. So with that Baloo decide sto dump the necklace in the ocean, having kit use tongs to get the deed done. While the professor might be upset, it’s better than riskign taking the thing back to him. So with that the necklace is gone.

Crystal Chaos is a great start to the epic, setting up some foreshadowing and a Chekov's gunman for later. The real highlight though is Rebecca, who gets to really shine here. While she is possessed for most of her page time, she fights Solego every step she can and ends up being the only one to shake off his influence entirely, her love for her daughter winning out. It shows just what a great character. The writing is pitch perfect for the series tone and this is something every chapter has for it’s respective series, while adding a tinge of creepiness to all via our antagonist. 

Part 2: Chip’n”Dale: Rescue Rangers: To Half and Half Not

Now since there is no case too big, and this happens to be a pretty friggin big case, it’s time to call ccccchip n dale. 

So Solego’s gem is found about 30 years later in as digified and epic a manner as you’d expect...

To be fair i’m sure we all want to be spit out by a recently caught fish into waiting hands. Granted i’d want those waiting hands to be Demi Lovato or Keith David but point is , we al lhve our things, let Solego have his fun. 

So Solego naturally posses this random fisherman and has him leave the ruby at a musuem. Since public museums werne’t a thing yet and the most the story tells us when we get his backstory is that his civilization was “ancient”, i’m going to guess this lost society invented the public musuem.. and the plane..... and the fish spitting you into waiting arms fetish. 

Conviently it turns out not only is the museum in.... chipndaleburg having a touring exposition of the treasures of Rankkiroon, but said museum is dipslaying the setting. We also get some more lore hints as the comic also shows off a block of jade that the pieces were found in. Hmmmm. 

So the Rescue Rangers also happen to be there on another case: Fat Cat’s goons are trying to steal the settiing. Dale wonders why their even here since ther’es a security systme and why Fat Cat even cares.. and is shot down by Gadet, pointing out that their backup if they can get past said system, and Chip, who basically says “Its magic and stuff shut your yapper”. 

Naturally Fat Cat’s hired goons get through the defenses. Luckily our heroes already had a plan tucked away and Gadget simply crossbows some flint. I also want to take a moment to appricate the tech here as it’s all cobbled together from junk about the heroes size and it’s fun to look at: The Cat Gang uses a grapple gun, but iwth a plunger up top , and mor eimpressively a protractor refitted with a sharper blade and a suction cup to cut the glass. Meanwhile on the good guys side Gadget’s mini-crossbrow is made of a pencil nub and a doll comb. It’s just really neat stuff and shows off the fun you can have when your characters are small like this. It’s why I have a soft spot in my heart for shrinking heroes.. that and hank pym is concentrated awesome and I won’t hear any arguments otherwise. 

Said crossbow has flint which triggers the sprinkler, causing the alarms to go off. A fight insues in a cool setting as the sprinklers are causing a small flood... might want to get those checked...not a huge deal for the... humans that..c ome in...

Okay.. okay... they had Dog Faces earlier so these COULD be those.. and we don’t see the face. .but they are drawn with human hands.. but this version of the rescue rangers is implied to fit in with the rest of these four shows where there are no humans.. so are there humans in just one town? are they segregated? if so why is there a human only town? Do the funny animals know mice can talk? Was there some offscreen war? Your raising questions no one wants to ask or answer Legend of the Chaos God, please stop. 

Chaos, naturally ensues as our heroes chase fat cat who has just the best response to their telling him to stop. 

A chase insues and Gadget uses a teacup so her and Montery can ride afte rhim. They end up finding the box.. somehow.. .the curator must leave his office full of precious artifacts unlocked, and Fat Cat ends up dropping the setting.. and Gadget ends up dropping on top of Solego who takes hold. once again the effect is GENINELY creepy

Seeing Solego take over such innocent characters is really terrifying. Thankfuly he dosen’t last long as the Rangers Assume Fat Cat is attacking gadget and stop him, which shocks her into letting the rock go. Due to having him in her mind, Gadget now knows at least enough: The gem contains a god, he can posses whoever touches it and he wants the setting to take over the world. 

So naturally he hypnotizes the feeblest mind they have: Dale. However it is noticeable that he changes tactics slightly this time. Instaead of talking to the subject WHILE he has them in his thrall, he only does so to hypnotize them.  While a large part of the reason Rebecca could throw him off was motherly love, it also didn’t help that Solego let her KNOW what he was doing every seconda nd thus wasted precious energy trying to force her to do it instea dof spending that MAKING HER do it, a mistake he rectifies with Dale who parachutes after the setting. Our heroes follow. I’ll also note the art here REALLY gets how to do something like this, as the possessed versions of the characters all move slightly different, giving Solego a sense of personality even before he speaks more in this chapter or is fully formed in the finale. 

Solego faces down Fat Cat who clearly has figured out that’s not Dale in the driver’s seat.. and dosen’t care, citing that if he want sit that bad, the setting has to be powerful. This leads to a cool chase on a t-rex skeleton which Solego ends up winning, We get a really cool chase through the stuff as fat cat’s goons try to get the setting, solego tries to ge tthe setting and our heroes try to stop both of them.  Bringing in an archmedes screw and a folcault pendlum for good measure. 

The chase ends with the gem and the setting falling into fat cat’s hands, with Solego seemingly have won.. for all of a panel till the generator behind him shocks him conveniently. 

As a result our heroes get both pieces, and have their raven friends Edgar and Allen fly them to opposite ends so they can’t be reunited. And we end on.. this panel. 

The boys faces are fine but gadget looks off in both. In the first she just has DURRRRRRRRRR written all over it and in the last one while it’;s drawn better, she looks angry for some reason. Like “you’d better be right Chip or i’ll throat rip ya” angry. It’s weird

To Halve and Half not is another excellent chapter. It’s only real flaws are the flood scene gets a bit hard to follow in terms of where everything is, but it luckily doesn't trip up the story. Other than that it’s another stellar entry; Fat Cat gets to square off with our arc villian, the climax is cool and like the last issue almost everyone gets something to do, Monty being the only one who really doesn’t. But given the limited runtime, that’s fair enough and he still gets more than enough screen time that he isn’t left out or feels irrelevant to the story. 

Part 3: Goof Troop: Spookus Ex Machina

So it’s time to report to the Goof Troop, as Edgar ends up dropping the gem due to exaustion, with it landing in the grille of a car.

Naturally giving Pete likes flashing his cash around, it’s his new car. Given Pete’s divorced a few years after this, it’s not suprising he didn’t ask Peg and plans to just schmooze her later. We also see Max and Pj as the car is loaded into the driveway. Turns out it’s a smart car before those were a thing, with those mechanical arms you see holding our heroes in peril on the cover used normally to polish hub cabs and what not. Pete then shooes the children away.. and that’s the last we see of them in this story

Yeah. I feel they were ONLY included on the Jewel in the intro by mandate as the two are drawn smiling all happy and such while Pete and Goofy are drawn more like the characters are in other installments. But I do get why: The story just works better JUST focusing on Pete and Goofy with Peg in a supporting roll, and I can’t blame them for wanting this story to be streamlined when it was likely the hardest one to come up with: the other four shows in this five part crossover are all action adventure shows with a touch o comedy. A horrifying ancient evil fits into the puply adventure stylings of TaleSpin,  Chip N Dale and DuckTales perfectly, and equally squares up with the superhero themed darkwing duck. 

But an evil chaos god out to destroy the world sticks out like a sore thumb in the sticommy world of goof troop, and it was hard enough making those two elements mesh without putting kids at the mercy of a haunted car. For TaleSpin and DuckTales , both of whom use kids an dperil int heir chapters, i’ts a normal tuesday but for Goof Troop it might be jarring enough to kill any comedy. 

So while pete sings the praises of his new haunted car, though sadly not literally... though now I really want to hear Pete sing “Jane’s a Car” from the nightmare time episode of the same name. 

It’s really disappointing that much like that episode of nightmare time they cut out the full on sex scene between Pete and Solego. 

So Pete commences with schmoozing Peg, and actually SUCCEEDS this time. It’s eerie. It’s like the two times Team Rocket has actually won. This is bad news for Goofy who senses SOMETHING’S wrong with the car but like any good horror protagonist he can’t exactly tell Pete. And I meant what I said as this chapter shifts into a horror movie vibe, which fits: our heroes this time aren’t seasoned adventurers used to this kind of stuff, their two subruban schmucks.  So much like a horror movie it’s normal people who can’t go to the authorties or even their own families against an unstoppable horror. 

That night Solego muses, actually happy with his new car body and with technology. It’s a nice change: most ancient evils detest technology or are baffled by it, but Solego fully embracing it and realizing it’s FAR easier to posses something that can’t fight back and that can easier guard his vulnerable gem. 

He’s clever though, deciding to get the info of where to go next BEFORE he strikes to get Pete’s key’s so he can move more than the cars mechanical arms.. and using Goofy’s tv to do it, looking on the news and finding out that Scrooge bought the Gem off a pawn shop, and is keeping it in his bin for safekeeping. With that Solego knows where he must go... and Goofy follows Solego’s cord to find the car ALIVE. 

Goofy goes to warn Pete who dosen’t remotely belivie goofy as you’d expect... until Solego makes his presence known, demanding the keys. After bluffing to Peg, Goofy suggests they perform an exorcism. Yes folks this story has Goofy PERFORMING AN EXORCISM ON A CAR. 

That went as well as expected but boy is it one of the best moments in the Disney Canon and I will fight you on that fact. Goofy tried exorcising a car possessed by an ancient snake god, including STAKING THE THING.  The only missing is Goofy shouting “Die monster you don’t belong in this world!” And given Symphony of the Night wasn’t out yet, that’s more than acceptable. 

So the car yanks them inside and they have no choice but to give Solego the keys less he do something worse. It dosen’t get any better when Pete DOES give him the key as Solego drags them with him to Duckburg, but before he can kill them or drop them off in kansas, where they’d pray for death, Goofy instead swerves the car off a cliff, giving Pete and Goofy just enough time to jump out and Solego no time to repair the car. 

As Pete mopes about his lost car he still has to payoff, Solego simply calls for a tow. How he knew what tows are I don’t know but at least this time it’s reasonable given he’s linked to the car’s brain, it likely knows how to autodial a tow service and Solego simply absorbed the info. 

Spookus Ex Machina is a fun story. It’s surprisingly creepy in parts, mostly the red glow of the car’s headlights under Solego’s influence, but it’s mostly a fun Goof Troop adventure with some horror elements. It still fits just fine with the rest of the stories, while playing to Goof Troops sitcom strengths. It also has Goofy , once more for clarity PERFORMING A GODDAMN EXEORCISM ON A CAR. I can’t hate any story having that and I sadly doubt we’ll ever see a scene like this again in the disney canon. 

Part 4: DuckTales: Tow for Broke

DuckTales was LONG finished at this point, having finished back in 1990... but it was still replaying, had ties to Darkwing Duck as much as the creator tries to act like that’s not a thing (It is tad, it is), and was still monstrously popular. So having it here was a no brainer. 

So we open with Scrooge being an asshole

Scrooge is mad someone (Aka Solego) towed himself there under his name and tells Fenton to refuse to pay the towman, who goes to get a hotel and some rest while they sort this out. Fenton is of course upset because he knows Scrooge will blame him for this .. when Solego gets really clever, using the fact he CAN talk in the gem to cry for help.. then hypnotizing Fenton to pick him up the first chance he gets. 

Like Rebecca Fenton fights back,though in his own way: as soon as he feels the mind control coming on summons the Gizmoduck armor,. which allows him to fight it off better. It’s a valiant effort.. that backfires HORRIBLY as Solego naturally takes a liking to having a technologial body that’s not only more like an actual body than the last one, but gives him a full arsenal so he dumps fenton out and puts up a hologram of his own visage...

He naturally goes on a rampage, easily tearing past the triplets, who Fenton clues in as much as he can without giving away his identity. I’d question why hide it from them.. but frankly the triplet’s IQ in this series flops between “Genius” and...

So not telling them is the right call. Solego demands his setting and Scrooge unlike the triplets figures out it’s not Fenton... given the big terrifying projection and the fact GizmoSolego is acting nothing like Fenton, it shoudlnt’ of taken a deductive genius, so this is probably one of the boys cat swinging days. 

Solego eventually senses the setting isn’t in the bin, and departs, with the police chasing him.. but being utterly useless. The boys switch back to clever mode and consult the JWG. Shockingly the book DOSNE’T have much, which is in itself eerie: given this book normally has everything about everything the fact all it has about Solego is that he’s a god of distruction and to see Potsherd, the professor from part 1. Curiously despite being old even 30 years ago, he’s the one who sponsored the museum tour we saw in part 2 and s Scrooge has him flown out to see them to see if he knows anything that can stop the rampaging god.  You KNOW it’s serious when Scrooge is actually paying money with no caveats or griping about Jet Fuel. 

The Potsherd our heros found though turns out to be Bisk, who in the 30 years since has grown up and is a far nicer person as an adult, glad to help Scrooge. We also get some more backstory: Turns out scrooge is the diver who found the setting the first time, mentoind back in part 2, and while not willing to sell it, was willing to loan it out for the tour. Scrooge mentions the jewel and Bisk is horrified to realize his father was right: Solego is real. 

As a result he gladly tells the ducks all he knows and thus we finally get an expllination as to who Solego is: Long ago, Solego was the most powerful sorcerer in the world, conquering all who stood in his way and only getting stronger and stronger as he rampaged and conquered throughout the ancient world. The Chaos God Moniker came from the fact that, much like Voldermort, no one dare speak his actual name. He also made himself immortal, meaning no one could hope to stop him.

Eventually though , as often is the case, someone stepped up to stop him: a young wizard of Rakkinroon named D’Shane, who created the amulet to seal Solego. Despite the dread wizard’s sheer power, D’Shane somehow overpowered the wizard and sealed him up: He put solego’s mind in the gem and his power in the setting, hence why Solego can’t just whip himself up a body. Presumibly the body taking is simply still there since i’ts metnal and thus coudln’t be properly seperated. The jade block was designed to keep them seperate until Pottersherd made the horrible mistake of seperating them for study, though even he wasn’t stupid enough to touch the gem, attaching the chain for that. Though as we learned, that simply gave him a way to be portable, a for effort. He then recaps what happened with Baloo and we get back to present day. 

Bisk is at least hopeful the bin can keep it safe.. only to learn Scrooge sent it to St. Canard to be cleaned. Meanwhile Solego muses about just how wonderful technogy is and plans to add it to his arsenal once he’s back in full.. for now he’s headed for St. Canard. WIth little time left scrooge sends fenton to go help while he calls S.H.U.S.H. to get the one man who can possilly stop solego on the job: Darkwing Duck. 

Tow For Broke is a decent chapter but it has it’s flaws due to the form: GizmoSolego is truly terrifying, and the exposition is neat, explaning who Solego is just in time for the finale while leaving it open for our heroes to find out his weakness next time. 

The chapter’s own weakness is in the use of the characters: Our characters never really fight Solego: Fenton looses his armor to him, Scrooge yells at the guy and that’s it. While Scrooge bringing bisk in is vital, so he and fenton still contribute to the story just fine, it just dosen’t feel as much like a DuckTales story and more like a bunch of table setting. And table setting in a big event like tthis normally isn’t bad.. but after getting three complete adventures that felt like their respective shows at their best, ti’s a bit of a let down if a necessary one. 

Part 5: Darkwing Duck: Reign and Thunder

So we’ve come to our epic conclusion with the only choice to go head to head with the god himself: Darkwing Duck

We open at SHUSH HQ, where J. Gander Hoover is briefing our hero on his most important assignment yet: to pick something up from the jewelers. Launchpad has understandable questions

I mean he’s not wrong.. especially since he was one of them. Though to be fair EVERYONE Scrooge has working for him is low paid. It’s why he’s been under investigation so many time.. and why he pays for the alligator pit in his office. 

Fenton rushes in to impart how serious this is and drags our heroes off, explaining things on the way. Our heroes arrive too late as Solego has already arrived first.. and has a solution for wordy superheroes

This leads ... to the inevitible. After 30 years of struggling, Solego has finally reunited the two pieces.... 

Darkwing, being Darkwing, decides insulting the guy is the best option which nearly gets them killed and assumes they’ve fought worse

For the record you really haven’t.. which is a shock. Solego prepares to “Summon forth the black army’ Darkwing naturally goads him and we find out just what that army is

Solego can bring inanimate objects to life, which is mildly comedic.. but still terrifying. Someone being able to turn EVERY object around you into a living weapon who only wants to kill you.. it explains why he was so feared. Solego naturally does so with some stone lions after Darkwing tells him to pick on someone his own size. Darkwing ends up a flagpole and requires Gizmoduck to help.. and being Darkwing yells at the guy fo rhelping and want shim to leave. 

Gizmo has a score to settle though..a nd dies for it. Well more like ends up exploding out of the gizmosuit screaming because they clearly drew fenton in there to avoid the implication he died, especailly since Darkwing talks about Solego “disnentgrating him” next panel. I mean fenton probably still died so.. there’s that. 

With that only Darkwing stands against him.... which Launchpad takes offense to, mistakingly making a “what am I chopped liver joke” in front of an angry god, thus getting transformed. It’s pretty horrifying thougH: in minutes he’s kileld two of the shows best heroes, and has darkwing running scared. He’s almost completely won and soon reveals darkwing ONLY lived this long because Solego wanted a challenge and gives one hell of a villian speech. 

So we’ve come to the weakest part of this five parter. While it is pretty good as a whole, and i’ll explain why more in a bit, this climax.. isp retty disapointing. Darkwing ducks behind a satlite dish with no help in site

And said dish just HAPPENS to be reflective and, as Bisk explains during the summation soon after this, is how D’Shane Beat him years ago. Solego is put back in the gem and setting , his victims are revivied and Bisk puts the gem and setting back in the block, ending the Legend of the Chaos god once and for all. 

Bisk putting him back isn’t bad, it’s fitting and gives the story a nice bookend.. btu the way Darkwing beats him is just weak. Ther’es no strategy, no Darkwing thinking that’d work.. our hero just gets VERY lucky. While it would probably work for one of the chapter endings it just dosen’t work as a finale: all they had to do was make it inteitonal. Instead humanity wins by pure dumb luck and i’ts just utterly unsatsifying. 

That said, Reign and Thunder isn’t a terrible climax. While HOW our big bad looses sucks eggs, the build up is still intense; Solego easily gets his power back, and is in control the whole time, eaisly dispatching our other two heroes, and is geninely terrifying> The tone fits darkwing perfectly, mixing the sheer terror with some godo gags and egotisim.. I just wish it hadn’t ended on such a weak note. 

Final Thoughts:

While , one more time, the ending is a tad week as a whole, Legend of the Chaos God was fondly remembered for good reason. It’s an epic story, weaving together all five shows and leaving clues throughout to who Solego is and to his backstory we get towards the end, and setting up things that become important later. It feels like a complete story that simply switches main characters each time, each bit adding more and more till it builds up to an okay climax. Even with the bullshit dues ex machina ending.. it’s still a fun ride, with each show , even DuckTales which easily had the weakest chapter, feeling like one of the shows best episodes in print form. 

Unsuprisingly fans later down the line loved this story and wanted to honor it. A sequel to the story was intended for the Boom! Darkwing Duck Comic, and given Rescue Rangers and DuckTales comics had launched toward the end of Boom!’s time with Disney, it’d likely be another big crossover. That was shelved sadly due to Marvel buying Disney, and Disney taking their sweet time to get comics published half decently again, going to IDW, their own ill fated JOe Book simprint, and eventualyl settling on fantagraphics, who have now taken over full reprint duties, leading to the very collection this story was in. Given Fantagraphics has also reprinted Wizards of Mickey alongisde this collection, it does give one hope said darkwing duck comics may return.. and may finally get a proper finale. 

But the story did end up getting the nod, something the creators were incredibly proud of in the afterword for this story printed in said collection: Solego got a cameo in the DT17 episode “Let’s Get Dangerous”. Fittingly given the mutliverse theme, he was retooled itno a mad inventor who created a VERY dangerous way of travleing the multiverse. I wouldn’t be shocked if Frank had bigger plans for him and simply hadn’t got to him but who knows? Maybe w’e’ll get a legend of the chaos god movie if Disney pulls their head out of their ass. Time will tell. But as it stands we just have this epic.. and given how awesome it is, that’s more than enough. This story , warts and all, is a shining example of how to do a crossover right and I highly recommend seeking it out, especially this month given how suprisingly perfect i is for spooky season.