On Guard

On Guard is a 1968 comic story drawn by Tony Strobl. It features Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Gladstone Gander, one of the Beagle Boys, and, in his debut, Guard Gunther.
==Plot==
Ever since he was a child, Donald Duck has dreamed of being a guard at his Uncle Scrooge's Money Bin. As an adult, he finally applies for the job, only to be laughed off by his uncle and made a janitor in the Bin instead. When Donald's cousin, Gladstone Gander, loans him his lucky wishing coin for a day, Donald decides to use to help him finally land the job of a guard, but will his plan work?
===References===
*Donald Duck is revealed to have longed to be a guard at his uncle Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin since he was a child, having played "money-bin guard" in his youth and, as a teenager, once owned a car that resembled an armored car of sorts. Whether this car was a modified version of the 313 or a different car entirely is unclear.
*The Money Bin is called the "McDuck Money Bin" according to signs seen around the structure.
*Gladstone Gander implies that his supernatural luck is achieved through his "lucky wishing coin", a silver coin with an emblem of a horseshoe on it. He also openly complains about his luck, declaring to Donald that "the luck-filled life is a boring bit".
*Scrooge owns another money bin on the east coast, with this one being referred to as the "East Coast Bin." Guard Gunther is a guard there.
===Continuity===
*On Guard is one of several stories to provide an explanation for Gladstone's luck. Among other accounts which offer contradictory sources are another Strobl-drawn story, The Battle at Hadrian's Wall (1966), which posits that Gladstone's luck is derived from the Lepra-Duck's Wishing Stone, and The Sign of the Triple Distelfink (1998), which states that Gladstone is supernaturally lucky thanks to a distelfink-hex painted on the barn that his mother, Daphne Duck, was born in.
*The implication that Donald applied to be a guard at the Money Bin as soon as possible seemingly contradicts both the cartoon This Is Your Life, Donald Duck (1960), which has Jiminy Cricket say that Donald's first full-time job after college was in the United States Army, and Don Rosa's The Richest Duck in the World (1994), which has Donald imply that he only met Scrooge once when he was a child until Christmas 1947. The Richest Duck in the World also says that Scrooge's business was shut down from 1942 to 1947, thus allowing one to hypothesize that Donald applied for the job as soon as he could, with that date being in late 1947 or early 1948. Ultimately, there may be no issue, as On Guard is not explicit about its date and could hypothetically take place when it was released in 1968.
==Behind the scenes==
On Guard is a comic story drawn by Tony Strobl. Its author is unknown. It was first released in 1968 and in that year alone was published five different countries -- the United States of America, Australia, Brazil, Italy, and Spain. It would later be published in many other countries.
On Guard might provide a rare example of a story which is set entirely in the "past" of the Prime Universe. The story documents Donald Duck's childhood dream of being a guard at the Money Bin and shows him applying for it as an adult, with the implication seeming to be that he applied for the job immediately after completing or otherwise abandoning his formal education. That Donald's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck, do not appear could be seen as further evidence that the events of the story occurred before most "present-day" stories do.
===Notes & References===
Category:Stories
Category:Comic Stories
Category:Donald Duck stories
Category:Scrooge McDuck stories
Category:Beagle Boys stories
Category:Gladstone Gander stories
Category:Guard Gunther stories
Category:1968 stories
Category:Tony Strobl stories