Darkwing Duck

Darkwing Duck

Darkwing Duck is a masked superhero (or creepy vigilante depending on who you ask) residing in St. Canard. His adopted daughter is Gosalyn Mallard.

Real World Background

Drake Mallard/Darkwing Duck is an average citizen by day and St. Canard's resident superhero by night. He possesses a mix of genuine altruism and gigantic narcissism – two drives that constantly clash during his adventures. Darkwing's origins are rather fuzzy. During his childhood and teenage years, Drake was a complete dork, but by his high school days, he had already developed an obsession with crime-fighting. However, he frequently claims to have become a superhero after his teenage years and has operated as Darkwing Duck for an unspecified amount of time. Furthermore, he was at least partially inspired by S.H.U.S.H. agent Derek Blunt and trained in martial arts by Goose Lee. In his earliest days of crime-fighting, he was more focused on the headlines from his career, to the point where he laments having no life outside his showboating and no friends to turn to outside of Launchpad McQuack, Gosalyn, and Honker Muddlefoot, who help keep him grounded.

His two recurring catchphrases are "I am the terror that flaps in the night" (followed by an improvised metaphor before he gives his name), and the battle cry "let's get dangerous". Darkwing Duck's costume, gas gun, and flashy introductions are reminiscent of pulp heroes like The Shadow, Batman, and The Green Hornet, as well as Zorro. Because of loose continuity in the show, as well as Darkwing's self-aggrandizing habits, he has multiple origin stories as to how and why he became Darkwing Duck.

Darkwing Duck was developed as a last-minute replacement with concept artwork by Michael Peraza for a proposed reboot of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, when the management team realized that Disney did not own the rights to the characters (Disney merely held home video rights to the series). Darkwing Duck entered production roughly one year after DuckTales ended. Darkwing Duck was inspired by two specific episodes of DuckTales: "Double-O-Duck" starring Launchpad McQuack as a secret agent, and "The Masked Mallard" in which Scrooge McDuck becomes a masked vigilante superhero wearing a purple uniform and cape. The name "The Masked Mallard" became an epithet often used in the new show to refer to Darkwing himself.

Tad Stones was directed to come up with a series for The Disney Afternoon around the premise of Double-O-Duck, as an executive liked the title Double-O Duck as a spoof of James Bond and felt Launchpad McQuack would take the starring role. It turned out that the title Double-O Duck could not be used as the Broccoli family owned the 'double-o' title.

A new name was selected, "Darkwing Duck". Thus, Stones designed a new character for the lead, Drake Mallard, while selecting McQuack as the sidekick. This name would result in a new look (Double-O Duck was to wear a white tuxedo and black domino mask). Other elements of the show, such as Darkwing's habit of coining new catchphrases every time he announced himself, would be invented during production. (As an in-joke, the episode "A Duck by Any Other Name" had Drake suggest "Double-O Duck" as his new secret identity, and Launchpad remarked that it "seems kinda silly".)

Where most prior Disney Afternoon series included at least some preexisting animated characters, Darkwing Duck featured a completely original cast. Even the DuckTales characters it reused had no counterpart in early Disney shorts or the comics. The only exception was the episode "In Like Blunt", which featured cameo appearances by the Beagle Boys, Flintheart Glomgold and Magica De Spell.

Though it was originally thought by some fans to be a spin-off of the 1987 DuckTales series, creator Tad Stones stated in a 2016 report that the two shows exist in different universes.

Darkwing Duck was voiced by Jim Cummings.