Disneytoon-cember Part 5: Darkwing Duck

Hands down my favorite Disneytoon of all time. A majority I talk to say that Ducktales was the greatest Disneytoon but in my opinion it was Duckwing Duck all the way. The show was basically a parody of Batman only with a more comedic edge and geared more towards children. The show basically focuses on the adventures of a superhero named Darkwing Duck who protects his city from super villains and crime. Basically the same idea as Batman only this show was funnier and actually managed to make Darkwing a little more human. For starters Darkwing wasn’t a superhero to protect the city out of responsibility he did it for fame and glory. He wasn’t forced into the position of being a hero he choose to do this all himself because he wanted the fame and glory. How crazy is that? Disney has had egotistical characters in the past but they’ve always been side characters not the main character. Here, the egotistical character is the main character. Every time he’s on screen he’s always begging for the attention and even endangers the mission at times just so he could get all the glory. But that’s kind of what made him so likable. He was just like a kid begging for attention and it was never a nasty kind of attention he was just a regular guy with a dream, followed it, and wanted to be recognized for it. Is that so wrong? He also didn’t have a tragic backstory which is common for all superheroes in fact we’re never given a real story into how Darkwing Duck got started.

Of course Darkwing had great characters to work off of. His sidekick was Lauchpad who still maintained his character from Ducktales and was still a great character to have on the show. Darkwing also had a daughter named Gosalyn who was one of the greatest kid characters of all-time. She is wild, always getting into trouble, and just a unique character. At times she’s more adult than Darkwing and the interactions off the two was very touching. You could tell that Darkwing really did care about Gosalyn. There were a few episodes where he was ready to give up crime fighting just to be a good father for her. Actually that was one of the unique things about Darkwing he tried to do what no other superhero tried to do, blend/balance out his normal and superhero life. In the show he’s in a relationship with a villain gone good named Morgana and tries desperately to add her to his normal life. I forget if it worked out in the end but still the fact that he tried to blend/balance his two lives together was very admirable. It was as if he was trying to attain his own sense of happiness in the world. Speaking of villains just like Batman had a good rogue gallery so did Darkwing. We had Megabolt, Bushroot, Quackerjack, Liquidator, Steelbeak and Negaduck. All of these characters were based off of Batman and Marvel villains. While Negaduck was probably the evilest out of all the villains the best villain had to be Megabolt. His interactions with Darkwing were just great because the two were somewhat identical in many ways. Other than great characters and episodes inspired by DC and Marvel comics the show had witty dialog, good themes, it got dark and serious at times, and had action scenes that were both good and funny. Ducktales was a great show and my second favorite Disneytoon but Darkwing Duck will always be my favorite Disneytoon out there. Also, Darkwing Duck had the best opening in my opinion, https://youtu.be/375ENQbru8s.

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