Darkwing Duck has been adapted as a comic book series under at least four different publishers.
Disney Comics[]
The first Darkwing Duck comic book was a four-issue mini-series published by Disney Comics from September to December of 1991. Coinciding with the show's premiere on the Disney Afternoon and ABC, it featured "Brawl in the Family", a comic adaptation of the show's two-part series premiere, "Darkly Dawns the Duck".
Like the TaleSpin mini-series before it, it was intended to serve as the beginning for a regular Darkwing Duck comic book. However, right when the mini-series came out, the Disney Comics Implosion occurred and resulted in the cancellation of most of the company's regular titles. As a result, plans for a regular Darkwing title were cancelled, and for the next three years, Darkwing Duck comics were featured only in Disney Adventures.
"Brawl in the Family" was fully reprinted in Disney's Colossal Comics Collection #4, and later reprinted again by Boom! Studios for the trade paperback Darkwing Duck Classics, which also contained the first four Darkwing Duck stories from Disney Adventures.
In July 2022, it was announced the Disney Comics series will be reprinted in trade collections by Dynamite Entertainment.[1]
Boom! Studios[]
The second Darkwing Duck comic series, published by Boom! Studios, was originally announced as a four-issue miniseries, but then extended into an ongoing title due to positive fan reaction. It ultimately ran for 18 issues, with the addition of a special "annual issue", from June 2010 to October 2011. The series was written by Aaron Sparrow (uncredited), Ian Brill, and drawn by James Silvani, and was set one year after the end of the show. Each story arc in the comic was four issues long, as 88 total pages of story was the required length for Boom!'s trade paperbacks.
Revised versions of all of this comic's first four story arcs, plus the stories from the annual, were printed in Darkwing Duck: The Definitively Dangerous Edition as a lead-in to the comic's continuation under Joe Books. The four revised arcs were also released digitally on Amazon Kindle. "Dangerous Currency", the comic's final arc, was not reprinted as it was not approved by the Walt Disney Company and is thus considered non-canon. (Aaron Sparrow had plans to write a new Darkwing Duck/DuckTales crossover for the Joe Books series, but the comic was cancelled before it happened.)
In July 2018, it was announced that the Boom! Studios comic book series would be reprinted in Disney Afternoon Giant from IDW Publishing.[2] "The Duck Knight Returns" arc was reprinted in issues #5-8, but it unfortunately used the original Ian Brill version rather than the Definitively Dangerous Edition rewrite.
Story arcs[]
Creator controversy[]
Throughout the run of the Darkwing Duck comic series, there was controversy as to who was responsible for the series. Editor Aaron Sparrow is largely credited with the idea to relaunch the property and has claimed to have plotted the first year's arcs and come up with many of the concepts for following story arcs.[3] This has been publicly disputed by Boom! and credited series writer Ian Brill. However, artist James Silvani publicly credited Aaron Sparrow not only with the idea of bringing the series back, but assisting him in ghost-writing much of the series and changing a lot of the concepts Brill brought to the series following Sparrow's departure from Boom! Studios. This seems to be further corroborated by the fact that Sparrow and Silvani have both stated they did not write any of the final arc of the series, "Dangerous Currency", which was largely panned by fans for having many glaring character inconsistencies, particularly in the case of Gizmoduck.[4]
Darkwing Duck creator Tad Stones also publicly credited Aaron Sparrow with bringing the character back in a 2010 Boom Kids! "Get A Sketch" panel at Comic-Con International. It may also be noted that Sparrow continues to make public appearances with Silvani and Stones, and Ian Brill does not. In a 2011 livestream interview, Tad Stones admits that he was unhappy with later issues of the series, and particularly criticized the election arc, of which he "tried to talk them out of". When questioned on whether he had read the entire comic series he stated: "Not the later stuff. I applaud what James tried to do. I hear he saved them, but I thought the central premises were wrong." [5]
In 2013, Disney European publisher Egmont released a compendium of the first three story arcs from the comic. Aaron Sparrow's story credits were not only restored, but he and James Silvani created an all-new 3-page introduction, and Ian Brill's dialogue was replaced with original dialogue by Sparrow.
When it was announced in 2014 that the comic was going to be continued under Joe Books, it was stated that the Definitively Dangerous Edition omnibus leading in to the new series would contain revised art and a new epilogue, and that the scripts had been "painstakingly rewritten" by Aaron Sparrow to better match the cartoon. The omnibus also did not contain "Dangerous Currency", seeming to further call into question Ian Brill's claims of sole authorship. Brill subsequently stated on his Tumblr account that he and the comic's former editor, Christoper Burns, felt "this book will not reflect our intentions for the material, [so] we wish for our names to be removed from the book, and for our names not to be used in the promotion of the book."[6]
Joe Books[]
The third Darkwing Duck comic series, published by Joe Books, continued from where issue #16 of the preceding series left off. Artist James Silvani announced the series on his Twitter account in October 2014, in that a new ongoing Darkwing Duck series would begin publication in 2015. Silvani said in his Tumblr post that "Aaron and I have already begun and will give more details as soon as possible."[7][8]
Aaron Sparrow stated that, unlike the previous series, the new comic would not be required to have every story be a four-issue arc.[9] He also stated that the new comic would have a few new crossovers with DuckTales[10] (replacing the no-longer-canon "Dangerous Currency" arc).
In July 2015, it was stated that the comic was being delayed for the time being, in consideration of other "duck projects."[11] In November, Aaron Sparrow confirmed that production had resumed and that the series would be debuting in the spring of 2016. It was officially announced on January 18, 2016, that the new series would begin in April 2016.[12][13]
Unfortunately, despite strong sales and positive reception from critics and fans, Disney never promoted the comic or allowed the creators to do interviews about it,[14][15] resulting in only eight issues seeing print.
Issues[]
Reprint collections[]
Collects issues #1-4.
Collects issues #5-8.
Dynamite Entertainment[]
Brenda Hickey's variant cover for issue #1 of the first Dynamite series.
Tad Stones' variant cover for issue #1 of the second Dynamite series.
In July 2022, it was announced that a new Darkwing Duck comic will be published by Dynamite Entertainment in 2023.[16] Unfortunately, this new series does not continue the storyline from the Boom!/Joe Books titles,[17] instead being written by Amanda Deibert and drawn by Carlo Lauro. As such, many of the plot threads from the preceding series will never, ever be resolved. For this reason, along with the comic contradicting numerous things from the actual cartoons (most notably bringing Dr. NoGood, a deceased one-shot DuckTales villain, back to life with no explanation) and the previous comics, it is not considered canon to the cartoon.
The series' first issue was released on January 25, 2023, and ran for a total of ten issues. A spin-off mini-series starring Negaduck began on September 13th of the same year, running for eight issues. A second mini-series, focusing on the Justice Ducks team and written by Roger Langridge, launched on January 24, 2024 and ran for five issues.
On November 22, 2024, Dynamite announced that the series would be restarted, this time with Daniel Kibblesmith on writing duty and Ted Brandt and Ro Stein providing artwork. Darkwing Duck creator Tad Stones will also be providing variant cover art for the series. The first issue of the new series will be released on February 12, 2025.
References[]
- ↑ https://www.cbr.com/disney-darkwing-duck-series-dynamite-entertainment/
- ↑ https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/07/25/idw-october-solicitations-2018-disney-afternoon-giant-darth-vader-castle-star-wars/
- ↑ "Comic Q&A: Ask The Professionals", The Old Haunt: A Darkwing Duck forum
- ↑ "Dangerous Currency: Crossover Talkback", The Old Haunt: A Darkwing Duck forum
- ↑ "Chatlog: Livestream with Tad Stones and Aaron Sparrow", Negaverse.net
- ↑ "A statement about the Darkwing Duck omnibus" on Ian Brill's Tumblr
- ↑ "The Duck Knight Returns... again!" post on James Silvani's Tumblr
- ↑ Comic Book Resources: Joe Books' "Darkwing Duck" Omnibus to Lead into New Ongoing
- ↑ Post by Aaron Sparrow on The Old Haunt forum
- ↑ Mentioned in this post on The Old Haunt Forum
- ↑ DAF Radio.net: Jim Hill on the Future of Disney Infinity
- ↑ Dis Kingdom: Darkwing Duck Comic Book Coming In April
- ↑ Post on James Silvani's Tumblr
- ↑ Tweet by Aaron Sparrow
- ↑ Tweet by Aaron Sparrow
- ↑ https://www.cbr.com/disney-darkwing-duck-series-dynamite-entertainment/
- ↑ Tweet by Aaron Sparrow
External links[]
- The Disney Afternoon Wiki: Darkwing Duck (Disney Comics)
- The Disney Afternoon Wiki: Darkwing Duck (Boom! Studios)
- The Disney Afternoon Wiki: Darkwing Duck (Joe Books)
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