The Search for the Zodiac Stone

"The Search for the Zodiac Stone!: An Epic Yarn of Mice and Ducks!" is a twelve-part comic series originally published in Topolino #1780-1791 in 1990. Originally written by Bruno Sarda, it received a full English translation by Jonathan Gray 25 years after its original publication, when it was localized in issues #721-732 of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, published by IDW Publishing. (It should be noted, though, that an excerpt from the last chapter was previously localized as a stand-alone story, "The Old West Diary of Goofalo Bill", in Goofy Adventures #7.) At a combined total of 347 pages, it is the longest comic book story starring the Mouse/Duck universe characters.
==Summary==
===Chapter 1: The Secret Society!===
In an abandoned barn on Roanoke Island, Mickey and Goofy overhear Dr. Adam Astronomo explaining to members of the secret Zodiac Society about the Zodiac Stone, a legendary talisman that lets its user see into the future - which he subsequently splits up and gives its pieces to each member to be warn as pendants. The society catches Mickey and Goofy and accuse them of being spies, only for the duo to be sent back to the present in the Time Machine Chamber of the Mouseton Museum. They are welcomed back by Professor Zapotec and Dr. Marlin. Mickey and Goofy explain their findings and discover that the latter accidentally brought a list of names that they assume are the owners of each Zodiac pendant. However, it turns out that the list are the names of the ancestors of the current owners, and that the stones may have been lost to time. 
After deciding that they would find each pendant, the four head out to eat. However, Pegleg Pete (who doesn’t actually have a pegleg) happens to be working at the restaurant the group are dining at. He overhears them talking about the Zodiac Stone and decides to go looking for the Zodiac Stone. Chaos ensues, and Pete eventually gets away with the list of names. Mickey is furious at this prospect, fearing that Pete might endanger the owners of the pendants. However, Dr. Marlin’s genealogy machine finds the first two descendants: Cabell and Calloway Cotton, first cousins who live next door to each other in Florida. 
Mickey and Goofy fly out to Miami to find the Cottons and their pendants. Surprisingly, when they go to Cabell Cotton’s house they are not greeted by him, but his butler Robespierre instead. Robespierre explains that the Cotton cousins are in Brazil cataloguing unique flora and fauna, and when Mickey questions Robespierre about the pendants, the latter replies that neither cousin wears jewellery. As Mickey and Goofy leave the property, Robespierre asks them to throw a coin into Cabell’s aquarium. As the duo prepare to leave for Brazil, a comment from Goofy gets Mickey to go back to the Cotton property. Upon returning to the property, Mickey asks Goofy to help him get inside the aquarium. Mickey eventually retrieves the first pendant - engraved with the symbols of Aquarius - and he and Goofy quickly leave to catch their flight.
===Chapter 2: Scorpion Valley!===
Mickey and Goofy arrive in Manaus, Brazil on the outskirts of the Amazon Rainforest. They run into Teck “Eagle-Eye” Tuckeree, an ironically-named blind pilot from whom the duo hitch a ride. After a perilous flight, they arrive at Stackeree Village where they are welcomed by the local tribe. Mickey informs them that they are looking for the Cotton cousins, but the chief informs them that a group of five are also looking for them, which Mickey assumes are Pegleg Pete and his gang. The chief also warns them about Scorpion Valley, a place overrun with blights, terrors, and terrored blights. 
Mickey and Goofy leave the tribe and go by boat to find Scorpion Valley, which is filled with volcanic smog caused by fumaroles, which they mistake for fog. As they venture through Scorpion Valley, they see, and are ambushed by, giant bugs and arachnids. However, Mickey notices that none of the bugs have any shadows, which means that he and Goofy are hallucinating from the smoke. They put boulders on the fumaroles and eventually run into Cal Cotton, who takes them back to his shared camp. Eventually, Cabell returns, and when Mickey asks if he could sell Cal’s Scorpio pendant, he admits that he already sold it to an old man who haggled him down. Mickey assumes Pete’s gang was behind this, but the cousins insist that the pendant was sold with real money.
After leaving the Cotton camp, Mickey and Goofy begin looking for Pete and his gang before they end up running into Scrooge, Donald, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie, who already have the Scorpio pendant. Mickey is relieved at this revelation, but an earthquake - which was caused by the fumaroles being plugged - soon hits the area, forcing everyone to make a run for it.
===Chapter 3: A Fistful of Shillings!===
Continuing from where we left off, everyone dives into the Amazon River to escape from the earthquake, only to be ambushed by a group of alligators. It’s only then that the Cotton cousins, who happened to be canoeing by, come to their rescue. Back in Mouseton, it’s revealed that Scrooge actually has a list of the Zodiac Society descendants, which he found when he was cleaning his library. Scrooge then reveals that he had obtained the Libra pendant from Jamey “Jim” McBenton, a band frontman who lives in a castle in Scotland. Jamey has a deceased uncle - Haggis McBenton who has been haunting him since he moved into the castle. The reason for this is because Haggis was overcharged three shillings over a hundred years ago, and has been haunting the castle since, even to the point of not allowing Jamey to move in his band. Scrooge agrees to avenge Haggis, and the latter tells him he has three days to regain his three shillings.
They locate Rattlebag McSwindle’s fabric shop, where Scrooge tries to haggle him down, but eventually fails to do so. Later that night, the group stage a robbery to get the shillings: Donald pretends to be a robber and Jamey pretends to save Rattlebag. However, when Jamey asks for a reward, Rattlebag offers him a handshake instead. The next day, the group tries something more elaborate: Scrooge pretends to be a homeless man selling posies, Donald pretends to be a cyclist, Hewey, Duey, and Louie pretend to be a lottery commissioner, and Jamey pretends to be a passerby who gets sold a posy. The trick gets Rattlebag to come out of his shop and want to buy a posy. 
However, his luck takes a nosedive when a tax inspector, and when Rattlebag tries to confront Scrooge, he has already left. When they get back, Scrooge gives Haggis his three shillings, but some confusion arises when Jamey mentions that he signed a contract with a record label owner. While Jamey assumed that it was just a disguise, it dawns on him that the contract was genuine, elating him. True to his word, Haggis allows Jamey to move his band over to the castle, and gives Scrooge the pendant.
===Chapter 4: The Greater Circus Mystery===
After Scrooge finishes his tale, he refuses to relinquish his pendants, asking instead for Mickey to give up his. When Marlin and Zapotec refuse to make a sale, Scrooge throws a stink before Mickey proposes a deal: he, Goofy, and the Ducks should find the pendants together. Scrooge agrees to this offer, but asks about Dr. Marlin’s Time Machine. Goofy almost mentions that it’s a time machine, but Mickey and Marlin stop him, and when Scrooge leaves Mickey chews Goofy out. 
The location of the Leo pendant is Circus Hercules, run by Lothar Hercules. He agrees to give Mickey and Goofy the pendant…but there is one problem: he can’t find the pedant. The Leo pendant’s first owner was Magnus Hercules, Lothar’s uncle and an elephant trainer, who hid the pendant in a place known only to him. Lothar suggests that they look in his family trunk, which he hasn’t opened for a while. Although it appears to be only full of stage costumes, the group finds Magnus’s old journal which details how he brought up an elephant named Ellie. In the middle of reading the journal, a tiger is set loose, but Lothar is able to tame it. When they get back to the trailer, they find the journal missing. Mickey deduces that Pete was eavesdropping on them and used the tiger as a diversion. They also find a circus entertainer, who has been injured, who reveals that the suspect had large shoes on them. 
But there’s no time for detective work, it’s almost time for the circus to start. While watching clowns performing, Mickey realises that they all have big shoes. He then asks Lothar if he hired four clowns, only for it to turn out that he only hired three. They and Goofy leave the circus only to hear elephant noises. Ellie, Lothar’s elephant, has taken hold of Pete. Lothar confronts Pete while Mickey finds the pendant inside Ellie’s bow. Pete swipes the pendant from Mickey and attempts to get away, only to be caught by a lion. Mickey asks Goofy to watch Pete while he gets the cops, but when he gets back, Goofy says Pete went to “wash his face”. In other words, he escaped.
===Chapter 5: Mode Star===
Meanwhile, Donald is working in Scrooge’s sweatshop, tasked with designing uniforms for marines. However, Donald ends up sleeping on the job and the room is filled to the top with uniforms. When Scrooge finds out, he chastises Donald for the mistake and sends him to the owner of the Virgo pendant while Scrooge takes care of the mess. 
Tristian Dior, a five-star fashion maven forces Donald to try on several of his outfits, but before could give Donald the pendant, an alien spaceship comes down from the sky. The occupants of the craft are Ladiens, ducklike aliens from the planet Vogue. They abduct Tristian, saying that they need him for their annual Fashion Festival, and Donald chases after the Ladiens, stowing away in the back. The spacecraft leaves Earth and lands on Vogue. Once out of the craft, Donald wanders the streets of the planet, lamenting that he’ll never come home, with or without the pendant. He eventually hears shouting, which is coming for the ruler of Vogue, Queen Glamdozer. Tristian is designing outfits for the festival, but she isn’t satisfied with any of them. 
It’s only when Donald is caught by a guard for spying on Queen Glamdozer does the queen choose a design she likes: Donald’s own clothes! She thanks him for the inspiration, and she offers him a reward. Back on Earth, Scrooge is grumbling in his office, when the Ladiens’s spaceship lands outside. Donald not only retrieved the pendant, but the Ladiens offer Scrooge a chest of rare gems, and take the overload of sailor uniform with them back to Vogue.
===Chapter 6: Ah... Sunny Hawaii!===
Pete is invited by the Phantom Blot to his home on the outskirts of Mouseton. Pete is trying to convince the Blot to join him find the zodiac pendants. The Blot suggests that they let Mickey find all the pendants so they can see into the future themselves. Speaking of, it looks like the search for the pendants has come to a standstill. Boris Telefloro has seemingly disappeared along with his pendant. With no other options, Mickey reaches out to Scrooge, who suggests that Donald could find the pendant. 
He, Huey, Dewey, and Louie are on vacation in Hawaii. Donald has entered a pearl-hunting contest, to which the boys jeer him for. The prize for the contest are free tickets to the lottery happening that night and dinner with Miss Aloha, the glitziest fashion model in Hawaii. Soon the hunt begins, but the organisers have arranged some “twists” to encourage the spirit of competition. Amongst them are a jack-in-the-box, a gilded fish statue, and an octopus statue with boxing glove contraptions inside. During the hunt, Donald runs into a dogfish, which he believes to be the dog the note on the octopus was talking about. Donald is chased by the dogfish, and he finds a dog statue which has the pearl in its mouth. Donald takes the pearl, swims back up to land (hitting the dogfish in the process), and is declared winner. 
That night, it is time for the lottery to begin, which turns out to be Gladstone Gander, who just so happens to be in Hawaii as well. However, it’s not just him that’s there, Mickey is too! Mickey reveals that his research for Boris Telefloro, a pearl hunter who sold them on the market, led him to Hawaii. He also owned the Pisces pendant. Upon hearing the name, the native Hawaiians turn on Mickey and the ducks, thinking that they are associated in some way to Mr. Telefloro. They reveal that he lied about abandoning his crew, who actually stole their pearls, and that they threw his pendant into the ocean. The natives then attack the group with fish, but are able to barely escape on a rowboat. After Gladstone laughs at Donald for getting hit, the latter hits the former with one of the fish, which just so happens to have the pendant in its mouth.
===Chapter 7: Paris is Goofing!===
Mickey and Goofy are in France on the hunt for the next pendant. The owner is said to be Count Roland Gallant, a successful cookie tycoon who turns out to look almost exactly like Goofy. Roland agrees to hand over his Gemini pendant only if Goofy does him a favour: they must trade places for a while so Roland can hide from industrial spies. Goofy accepts this deal, but quickly finds out that Roland’s life isn’t as simple as it appears. Between hectic visits to art galleries and business meetings where he accidentally pitches a line of zodiac-themed cookies.
Things only get stranger when Guffy Gallant, Roland’s shorter twin brother breaks into the Gallant Chateau and kidnaps Goofy, thinking that he is Roland. Mickey tries to find Goofy by searching the walls for a hidden entrance, but struggles to find it. Meanwhile, Guffy has Goofy strapped to a board in a secret chamber. Guffy complains about how Roland always had the easier life, and he threatens to saw Goofy’s legs to make them both even - not just in height. Mickey manages to save Goofy in the nick of time, and Roland returns. He congratulates Goofy and gives him the pendant…only to reveal that there were no industrial spies at all. Mickey and Goofy are disgusted by this fact, causing the latter to attack Roland.
===Chapter 8: Spectrus===
Donald is flying back home already having procured the Capricorn pendant. Once the plane lands, Donald discovers that there is a paparazzi waiting outside, but not for him. The paparazzi are here for Throgmorton, a master sculptor. Amongst the crowd is the supervillain Spectrus, who is disguised as a photographer. He blinds Throgmorton and some officers with his camera, and swipes Throgmorton’s trophy, before revealing his true identity. Donald attempts to incapacitate Spectrus, but the latter uses his magic to turn the wrench Donald was holding into a snake and then a scorpion. Donald flees, dropping the pendant, and Spectrus takes it along with the already stolen trophy.
For the next few days, Donald hides away in his house, wallowing at his loss. However, his pity party doesn’t last long, as he decides to take on Spectrus as the Duck Avenger. That evening, Spectrus goes to a bank, where he hypnotises everyone into becoming worker bees, and eventually heads to an opera house to rob some more money. However, Spectrus is joined by a special guest: none other than the Duck Avenger. When the Duck Avenger tries to capture Spectrus, the supervillain clones himself and eventually hypnotises the Duck Avenger into becoming a ballerina. 
The tabloids the following day are merciless. Donald enlists the help of Gyro Gearloose, who reveals that Spectrus’s hypnotic eyes are completely supernatural. However, he proposes a way to beat Spectrus. A few days later, Spectrus is up to his usual shenanigans at the Duckberg Museum. He tries to steal a gold sculpture belonging to Throgmorton, but destroys it upon learning that it’s made of paper-mache. He then gets fooled by a Duck Avenger decoy and tries to hypnotise it. A projection appears behind Spectrus, which shows a video of him trying to hypnotise the decoy, which hypnotises him. The Duck Avenger pops out of a fish statue, revealing that the whole thing was a trap. He then takes the pendant from Spectrus, who gets sent to prison.
===Chapter 9: The Tropics of Cancer===
Joined by Minnie and Pluto, Mickey sets off to a Caribbean island to locate the Cancer pendant. It belongs to the Antilles family, who run a luxury resort on the island. Angel Antilles, the hotel’s manager says that although she has the pendant, she will only give it to Mickey if he agrees to help her brother Apollo. Apollo needs help tracking down a spy who goes by the moniker: the Chameleon. Problem is, the Chameleon is as slippery as his name implies, and every sudden movement scares the daylights out of Apollo. 
Minnie is naturally irritated at the real purpose of this trip, thinking it was just a romantic vacation, but she soon swallows her pride and joins Mickey to hunt down the Chameleon after some convincing. In the meantime, Pluto gets pinched by a crab and runs straight into a tourist wearing an obvious disguise. Later, when Minnie finds herself in an elevator with the disguised tourist, she removes the disguise thinking that he’s the Chameleon, only for the tourist to reveal himself to be actor Al Panino. He tells Minnie that he was in disguise so that he could enjoy a quiet vacation, and tells Minnie not to tell anyone that he’s here. Though frustrated by Minnie’s reckless behaviour, Mickey congratulates her for making headway on the case. While in town that afternoon, the Mice spot another tourist who turns out to be a fisherman. They chase him down in a taxi, exposing his rouse, he is actually a dirt farmer from Mississippi. 
They discuss their failures to the Antilles before a mailman arrives with a ticking package. Mickey freaks out, thinking that it’s a bomb, and he throws it out the window before attacking the mailman. Angel reveals that the ticking was actually a clock which she sent for repairs, and fed up with Mickey’s lack of progress on the Chameleon case, she suggests to Apollo that they seek aid from somewhere else. Mickey is bummed at this prospect, but Minnie notes that she can’t smell Angel’s strong perfume, so they quickly chase after her. They find Angel, who is just seconds away from shooting her brother, and Mickey sicks Pluto on her. The person pretending to be Angel turns out to be the Chameleon, who turns out to be a woman, Contessa. Apollo is relieved at this, thanking the Mice for finding the Chameleon, and are given the pendant as promised.
===Chapter 10: Blondbeard's Pirate Plunder ===
Huey, Dewey, and Louie are visiting Grandma Duck’s farm, but they quickly become bored with the quiet country life. They also lament that they haven’t been able to find any of the zodiac pendants. Grandma Duck overhears the boys complaining and tells them that the woodland surrounding the farm was refuge to dangerous pirates. The boys are intrigued, and wonder what Grandma Duck could do if she found real pirate treasure. Later that evening, Grandma Duck tells the story of a group of pirates known as the “Cousins of The Coast”, led by Dread Captain Blondbeard. They were captured by a naval fleet led by James ‘Pintail’ Cook, except for Blondbeard, who was rumoured to have buried treasure in the Black Forest. 
The next day, Huey, Dewey, and Louie awake to a fake treasure hunt arranged by Grandma Duck, pretending to be Blondbeard. Instead of treasure, Grandma Duck has buried chocolate cake. The boys find hidden scrolls around the farmland, one of which was a red bandanna that ends up getting ripped apart by a nearby bull. They eventually find a thicket and start digging for treasure. 
Grandma Duck senses that something is wrong when the boys haven’t returned to the house. She takes Cousin Gus to look for the boys and finds them in the thicket digging for treasure. She regretfully tells them that there is no real treasure, before Louie finds a treasure chest which contains a satchel of gold doubloons and the Taurus pendant!
===Chapter 11: The Partners of the Pendant===
It looks like the search is at another dead end. The owner of the Aries pendant, Jake Marley, sold it along with everything he owned to pay off gambling debts. The name interests Scrooge, as he used to know Jake Marley. However, his memory is quite foggy, and he has seemingly forgotten certain details. 
This proves to be a challenge when Mickey and Donald set out to retrace Scrooge and Jake’s steps. He gets Mickey lost in the Sahara Desert, and Donald beat up in northern Canada. Scrooge keeps getting the two lost as they scour the planet. Mickey and Donald reach their limits when Scrooge tells them that he and Jade dissolved their partnership in Carthage, and both Mouse and Duck decide to give up and go home. However, trouble is lurking around the corner in the form of Magica De Spell. She misinterprets Donald looking for the pendant to mean that he is looking for the magic ram totem she is seeking. She finds it buried under the ground and tests its magic on a local’s house, which explodes when the ram barrels into it.
Meanwhile, there’s a thunderstorm over in Duckberg. Scrooge is inside reading a newspaper when Magica breaks into Scrooge’s money bin and demands that he gives her his number one dime. He tearfully hands her the dime before Donald and Mickey return to take it from her. Magica starts getting angry and starts threatening the trio. However, her tantrum is short-lived when she and the ram get struck by lightning due to the ram’s metal horns. Magica leaves in a huff and Mickey, Donald, and Scrooge laugh at their victory. However, when Scrooge puts the dime back, it turns out that the pendant was in the money bin already. Mickey and Donald’s joy turns to rage when they find this out and they chase Scrooge around with a lamp, mimicking the now destroyed magic ram.
===Chapter 12: Legacies of the Zodiac!===
It's the grand finale…but in the Mouseton Museum, things are looking anything but grand. There’s only one pendant left to find: the Sagittarius pendant, which has seemingly vanished along with its owner Newton Figg. This time, it looks like the search is officially over. However, Goofy finds an old diary belonging to his ancestor, Goofalo Bill, which just so happens to mention Newton Figg. 
The diary details how Goofalo Bill rescued Newton Figg from a group of bullies, how he gave him a change of more appropriate clothes, and how they got captured by a local Native American tribe after wandering too far from the wagon train. The daughter of the chief wants to marry Newton Figg, so the chief orders him to prove himself as a bow-and-arrow warrior. Although Newton doesn’t know much, if anything, about archery, but Goofalo Bill teaches him. After a month, Newton Figg becomes a master archer. As promised, the chief marries his daughter off to Newton, who gives Goofalo Bill his pendant. 
Mickey asks Goofy where he found the diary, to which the latter says he found it in the attic. They quickly drive to Goofy’s house where they find the pendant sewn onto the quiver. They inform the Ducks who go by helicopter to Mouseton, but just as they reach the museum, Pegleg Pete and the Phantom Blot make their grand entrance. They explain their master plan to the group before Pete puts the last pendant into place. Once the Zodiac Stone is complete, Dr. Astronomo appears in spirit form, having been trapped in here via a curse. He reveals that the search was partly his doing, meaning all the coincidences that led to the finding of each pendant were him seeing the future. He also reveals that the stone taught him that the future can only be seen day-by-day, and that seeing any further future is a curse. He eventually disappears, and the Zodiac Stone turns to dust. While no one is happy at this turnout, they eventually come to terms with it, realising that they don’t need a magic stone to see the future.
==Trivia==
*When disguising himself, Pete uses the alias "Sylvester Macaroni", the name of his character in Symphony Hour.
*The title "The Greater Circus Mystery" is a reference to the video game The Great Circus Mystery starring Mickey and Minnie.
==Cover gallery==
WDC&S 722 regular cover.jpg|Chapter 2 (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #722)
WDC&S 723.jpg|Chapter 3 (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #723)
WDCS 724 cvrA.jpg|Chapter 4 (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #724)
STK688598.jpg|Chapter 5 (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #725)
STK692654.jpg|Chapter 7 (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #727)
WDC&S 728.jpg|Chapter 8 (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #728)
WDC&S 731.jpg|Chapter 11 (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #731)
WDC&S 732 regular cover.jpg|Chapter 12 (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #732)
==See also==
* "Mythos Island"
==External links==
* "" at the I.N.D.U.C.K.S.
Category:Mickey Mouse comic stories
Category:Donald Duck comic stories
Category:Uncle Scrooge comic stories
Category:Crossovers