legs: when Mickey expressed surprise at this, Pete described one of his legs as a new, "streamlined, modern" artificial leg. In 1944, Walt Disney decided to retire the character from the shorts; comics historian Alberto Becattini writes that this was "partly because he was concerned that it seemed to be a case of mocking the afflicted, partly because the animators could never remember which leg was the wooden one." Pete also left the comic strip for a few years; his last appearance was in "The World of Tomorrow", which ran from July to September 1944. However, Pete continued to appear in the comic books – in 1945, he was the heavy in the Donald Duck comic "Frozen Gold" (Four Color #62, Jan 1945) and in Mickey's "The Riddle of the Red Hat" (Four Color #79, Aug 1945). He surfaced again in a number of "giveaway" comics in 1946 and '47 – "Mickey's Christmas Trees" (Donald and Mickey Merry Christmas, 1946), "Donald and the Pirates" (Cheerios Premium #W1, 1947), "Mickey Mouse and the Haunted House" (Cheerios Premium #W4, 1947), "Mickey Mouse at the Rodeo" (Cheerios Premium #X4, 1947), "Mickey Mouse's Helicopter" (Boys and Girls March of Comics Giveaway #8, 1947) – and came back to the comic books in "Mickey Mouse and the Submarine Pirates" (Four Color #141, March 1947). With Pete still appearing in comic books, Gottfredson brought him back to the comic strip in "Pegleg Pete Reforms" (March 1947). His last appearance in the strip was in "The Isle of Moola-La" (April-Oct 1952). From then on, he made many more appearances in the comic books. In Mickey Mouse in Death Valley and in several subsequent storylines, Pete was portrayed as Sylvester Shyster's henchman. From 1934, he gradually started to work on his own. Sometimes, Pete also teams up with other bad guys in the Disney universe, such as Scrooge McDuck's enemies (the Beagle Boys and Magica De Spell), Mad Madam Mim, Captain Hook, and the Evil Queen. In various comics stories, his right-hand man is a skinny, bearded criminal named Scuttle. In Italian comics, his girlfriend Trudy (Trudy Van Tubb) is his frequent partner-in-crime. His cousin the "mad scientist" Portis is another, less frequent, accomplice. In the 1943 comic strip story Mickey Mouse on a Secret Mission, he was an agent of Nazi Germany, working as the henchman of Gestapo spy Von Weasel. In the 1950 comic strip story