The Darkest Night is a picture book published as a spinoff of the Disney cartoon series Darkwing Duck. It was written by Andrew Helfer and illustrated by Don Williams and Jim Story.
Darkwing Duck receives a shake-up to his world when he gets accused and nearly arrested on charges of having gone bad. Determined to clear his name, Darkwing sets off to find out who framed him.
This book includes examples of the following tropes:
- Clear My Name: Darkwing escapes SHUSH's attempt to arrest him and runs off to solve the crime wave and prove that he wasn't responsible for any of it.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The citizenry seems to like Darkwing more and place more trust in him (before the crime spree) than they do in the show, in which Darkwing can never escape his bad publicity no matter how hard he tries.
- Taurus Bulba appears as the head of FOWL and Darkwing's archenemy, rather than an independent crime boss who sees Darkwing as more of a nuisance (at least at the beginning of the show).
- The Thunderquack is called the Thunderquacker.
- Masquerading As the Unseen: Taurus Bulba has twelve other ducks dress in copies of Darkwing's iconic outfit and commit crimes ranging from robbery to vandalism. Given that few people know who Darkwing actually is, none of the citizenry can tell the difference and Darkwing's reputation takes a dive.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: When Darkwing gets outed while posing as one of the lookalikes, Bulba climbs over the desk, declaring to the impersonators that defeating Darkwing is his prerogative.
- We Will Meet Again: Bulba tells Darkwing that he'll come back to kill him as he escapes out a window.
