Mickey's Inferno is an Italian comic story parodying Dante's Inferno, featuring Mickey as Dante and Goofy as Virgil and an array of Disney characters. It was originally published in six parts in Topolino #7-12, spanning from October 1949 to March of 1950.
It did not receive an English translation until 2006 when an abridged version was printed in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #666. A complete version was released in 2016 by Papercutz as the first of a "Great Parodies" series.
Summary[]
After starring in a stage play of Dante's Inferno, Mickey and Goofy are put under a hypnotic spell by a mesmerizer hired by Pete to believe that they are their characters. They soon find themselves on a journey through the actual Inferno, tracing Dante's journey through the seven circles of hell, now populated by a variety of classic Disney characters. The deeper Mickey and Goofy go, the more they begin to remember their true selves.
Highlights include:
- Naughty children from Pleasure Island tormenting the souls of strict teachers
- Dumbo, suddenly voiced and having trouble flying, giving Mickey and Goofy a ride through the burning city of Dis with fiery Furies giving him an extra boost through the air.
- Pluto filling in for his mythological namesake.
- Mickey and Goofy have an encounter with Pete that turns into a tag-team wrestling match between him, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear commentated over by a suddenly voiced Dopey.
- Donald Duck appearing in various forms determined to follow Mickey and Goofy out of the inferno, first appearing after the wrestling match, traveling with José Carioca and Panchito only to fall off the Magic Serape, and morphing onto the faces of a group of Old Hag-faced harpies.
- A forest composed of the souls of rascals and con-men, including Honest John and Gideon, is used as lumber to create school desks (with Geppetto being seen as the furniture maker) for unruly classrooms of destructive Pleasure Island donkey children (with Doc being seen as the teacher). Mickey finds a way to break the cycle, which results in the appearance of the Blue Fairy and Jiminy Cricket to turn the donkeys human again and lead them to Heaven. Honest John and Gideon retreat into the distance after making a failed attempt at turning the children astray again.
- After riding a camel through a desert of raining fire, Mickey and Goofy meet The Reluctant Dragon, playing the part of the dragon Geryon from the original story, who ferries them across a series of mountains.
- After trying to trick Goofy inside of a pit for punishing hucksters, Br'er Rabbit escapes a tarpit of hot chocolate and molasses by tricking Br'er Bear into its depths.
- The hungry Big Bad Wolf is partly skeletonized when he is tricked by an illusion of Fifer Pig "huffing and puffing and blowing him up", after which is is tarred, feathered, and shot at by Br'er Fox mistaking him for poultry.
- Before entering the final circle dedicated to punishing traitors, two faces of Donald appear in flames representing his good and bad nature. Mickey and Goofy put the fires out to get their friend again, who joins them for the story's ending.
In the icy center of the Inferno, the trio finally encounter Dante himself, who has become fed up with the nonsense of this parody of his work, tying up the comic's creators to punish them for what he sees as treachery. Mickey argues that all the authors did was help re-introduce his masterwork to a new audience, which convinces him to let all of them go.
