An Italian comic series that shows the Disney super heroes from Mouse and Duck comic worlds as a team. Think The Avengers and Justice League with classic Disney characters. The original story was scripted by Alessandro Ferrari, Giorgio Salati, and Riccardo Secchi. First published from February to April, 2008. There have been a number of sequels.
When Scrooge McDuck and his money bin disappear, Mickey Mouse and Eega Beeva assemble the heroes Paperinik (Donald Duck), Paperinika (Daisy Duck), the Red Bat (Fethry Duck) and Super Goof (take a guess), plus new heroes Cloverleaf (Gladstone Gander) and Iron Gus (Gus Goose) to find the Ultrapods, pieces of a hidden weapon named the Ultramachine, before Emil Eagle and his supervillain team, the Bad-7, do. The Bad-7 are composed of Pete, the Phantom Blot, Roller Dollar (John Rockerduck) and ex-Paperinik enemies Inquinator, Sapphire and Spectrus.
This series provides examples of:
- The Ace: Two of them, Paperinik and Super Goofy. While Paperinika has a little experience, Mickey is intimately familiar with the villains, and Cloverleaf has luck going for him, Donald and Goofy tops them all in both experience and power level.
- When Paperinik and the Phantom Blot are about to fight, the caption straight-up calls them the champions of their teams.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Ultramachine, upon its completion, inadvertently turns Eega Beeva into a giant (and berserk) version of himself.
- Badass Bookworm: Mickey Mouse. He's initially a little disappointed about not being part of the team, but he tracks down Scrooge's Money Bin thanks to his cleverness and ability in making deductions. Later, he's the one who manages to slip past a rampaging Ultra-Eega's guard and disable the Ultra Machine, turning him back to normal.
- Badass in Distress:
- Mickey, upon being captured by Pete.
- Scrooge McDuck spends much of the story trapped in Emil Eagle's lair.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Paperinik and Paperinika. They vocally loathe each other as usual but, to their private chagrin, end up realizing that they're also attracted to each other.
- …But He Sounds Handsome: Inverted: when Scrooge sees Roller Dollar, he has no idea who he is, but decides that he already hates him more than the other Sinister Seven.
- Butt-Monkey:
- The Beagle Boys, to the extent that even the other villains consider them a joke. They can't even break out of Emil Eagle's prison cells on their own; they need to rely on Scrooge's schemes to get free. And even then, they repeatedly get themselves (and Scrooge) thrown back in the slammer.
- Mickey Mouse to a lesser extent, as he often gets excluded from the action (until the finale). Try as he might, the poor guy keeps getting stuck as the guy who goes out for pizza or does the rest of the team's laundry. Justified, as the rest of the team consist of experienced superheroes while he is, and has always been, a Badass Normal.
- Character Development: Paperinik and Paperinika. In this story, they finally start to develop respect for one another, and end up developing into a bickering-yet-efficient Battle Couple with some ironic romantic tension.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Each of the Sinister Seven plans to turn on the others once they assemble the Ultra Machine.
- Clark Kenting:
- Happens a lot with Paperinik and Paperinika, who routinely fail to recognize each other in and out of costume.
- Super Goof wears a paper bag when he's out of Super Peanuts "I have to hide my real identity, that's totally different from Super Goof's one!"
- Clothes Make the Superman: Everyone:
- On the good guys' side, Eega provided them with "Ultrasuits" that augment their usual abilities. It's not really noticeable with Super Goof (who uses his mysterious Super Goobers to fuel his powers), Cloverleaf (who has always been supernaturally lucky even before becoming a superhero) and Paperinik (who has always been quite skilled and powerful using only his gadgets), but Paperinika and Red Bat are more formidable than usual, and for Iron Gus it's the source of all his superpowers. Eega himself has an Ultrasuit allowing him to summon prehistoric animals for combat, and the Ultramachine transforms him into a giant berserk version of himself.
- On the bad guys' side, Pete, Sapphire, Roller Dollar and the Phantom Blot have been explicitly shown to have these: Pete has a suit that gives him Combat Tentacles, Sapphire has gloves that augment her electric blasts (and will short-circuit her if worn inside-out), all of Roller Dollar's abilities come from his costume or the robots he can summon and control through it, and the M on Blot's new costume allows him to control his powers. Spectrus and Inquinator are also implied to get their new abilities through this.
- Clue from Ed.: Done when the saga was published in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #699, as it's Boom's first run of the series which had been not running for about a year, and dealing with Disney Superheroes that American audiences wouldn't be expected to be familiar with (except maybe Super Goof, thanks to House of Mouse). They decide to turn it into a running gag, pointing out things that should be really obvious. (hence the name "-Obvious Aaron")
- Continuity Nod: The Ultraheroes' base is Villa Rosa, from Paperinik's origin story.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Sleeping in the same room as Inquinator.
- Cool Old Guy: Scrooge.
- He gets trapped along with the Beagle Boys by Emil Eagle, and his reaction is to immediately start planning his escape. The only reason he gets caught again is thanks to the Beagle Boys' bumbling. This barely deters the World's Richest Duck, who keeps thinking up another way to escape Emil Eagle's prison — which he succeeds at no less than three other times. The last time, the Ultraheroes end up trapped in nearby cells, and when Scrooge escapes again he lampshades it to the astonished heroes by scoffing that it's all he's been doing since he ended up there.
- His badass record holds once he's back in Duckburg. Where most wealthy tycoons would be worn out by their captivity, Scrooge just hops on the phone and starts calling up his underlings to recoup the financial losses that he's suffered due to his (forced) inactivity. He only stops when an Ultra-Machine-transformed Eega shows up and advances toward the Money Bin—and even then, Scrooge barely bats an eye at the sight; instead, he promptly mans the controls to activate the Money Bin's defense systems. Keep in mind, Ultra-Eega is trashing the Ultraheroes and the Sinister 7 almost effortlessly.
- And finally, after it's all said and done, Scrooge chews out the Ultraheroes and the Sinister Seven for interrupting him with their shenanigans, declaring that he'll sic the Money Bin's defenses on them next if they don't get off his lawn.
- Designated Girl Fight: Paperinika versus Sapphire. Justified, as Paperinika has a bone to pick with Sapphire... not that the latter knows (Sapphire's debut story had her unwittingly piss off Daisy, specifically, and Paperinika didn't even show up back then).
- Determinator: Paperinik. The Phantom Blot tries to force him to surrender by nearly drowning him with his new power, which allows Blot to become liquid. But Paperinik, instead, resists and finds how to disable Blot's costume, making him lose control of his power.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap:
- In the third episode, Iron Gus wolfs down the Super Goof's superpower-granting peanuts, keeping the latter out of the battle for nearly three episodes.
- Cloverleaf loses his fight against Pete due to his belief that by losing he'd become popular. Otherwise, he'd have been undefeatable.
- Egocentric Team Naming: When the Ultraheroes are thinking about what to name their team, Gladstone suggests "Cloverleaf and Friends, with the 'and Friends' in small writing".
- Empowered Badass Normal:
- All the Bad-7 receive power-ups thanks to Emil's technology, with some of them having had no prior powers:
- The Phantom Blot already faced against Super Goof and Mickey before without using powers, and can now become liquid.
- Inquinator used to be just a Idiosyncrazy Paperinik foe with a fixation on dirt, junk and garbage, but now has actual power over it and can avoid getting annihilated by Super Goof.
- While he never faced superheroes before, Pete was already a capable combatant before getting the Combat Tentacles.
- On the good guys' side, Gus: when sufficiently provoked he'll develop Super-Strength, and here he has a surprisingly effective food-based arsenal.
- All the Bad-7 receive power-ups thanks to Emil's technology, with some of them having had no prior powers:
- Enemy Mine: The Ultraheroes and the Bad-7 fight together against an Ultramachine-controlled Eega Beeva in the final issue of the story. The bad guys are pretty hesitant at first, but then Mickey points out that without Duckburg they'll have nothing to steal...
- Failure Is the Only Option: A Running Gag/subplot is Scrooge and the Beagle Boys enduring one Thwarted Escape after another because, well... it's the Beagle Boys.
- Future Spandex: The Ultraheroes receive this, with Paperinik, Paperinika, Super Goof and Red Bat starting to wear it at Eega's insistence. Also, Roller Dollar, Pete and Spectrus have changed into these, making more obvious the fact they received power-ups from Emil.
- Good Colors, Evil Colors: The Ultraheroes all wear blue, while the Bad-7 all wear red.
- Hero with an F in Good: Both new heroes. Cloverleaf is capable of helping the villains if he believes it'll make him popular, and any time Iron Gus does something heroic it's just by accident.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Phantom Blot in his fight against Paperinik. He's basically already won but he wants Paperinik to openly admit defeat; this gives the latter time to find the device that gives Blot his powers, disabling it.
- Humongous Mecha: Inquinator creates one to fight Super Goofy. Despite being made of trash, it was strong enough to send the superheroes around the world and back with a single punch.
- Hypnotic Eyes: Spectrus and Sapphire have them. Spectrus is so good that, as shown in a pre-Ultraheroes story, he can hypnotize through video tapes, and hypnotizes all the animals of a forest to use them as minions.
- It's All About Me: Oh my, Gladstone. He only joins the Ultraheroes to give a little twist to his life, and after that he only cares about being famous. He is willing to actually let the Bad-7 complete the Ultramachine, to stop them all by himself and getting recognition for it. Things go a little differently.
- The Law of Conservation of Detail: In his fight against Pete, Gladstone's luck causes a plane to lose a cargo of golf balls. Later on, just before Paperinik and Paperinika's fight, the news mention it as a mysterious accident.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: The Phantom Blot, initially, just ignores the Red Bat, not considering him an actual opponent. He is right, but since he gets some power by the Rule of Funny, he manages to be more of a nuisance than expected, until the Phantom Blot decides that it's enough and actually fights him. Curb stomping ensues.
- Making a Splash: The Phantom Blot can turn himself into a liquid, thanks to a technological device he wears on his belt.
- Master of Illusion: Spectrus' Stage Magician tricks got amplified in this story.
- Monumental Damage: Not a big deal for a casual reader, but a frequent Duck reader will recognize this trope when the statue of Cornelius Coot, Duckburg's founder, is hit.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Spectrus uses his powers on all the animals in the park to send them against Paperinik. Then we see Paperinik coming out of that fight unscathed, also defeating Spectrus and taking the Ultrapod. It's quite awesome like that, but you get the true idea of how after seeing how badly Spectrus and Sapphire get beaten when the animals turn on them.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Both the Red Bat and Iron Gus are this for the Ultraheroes.
- Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: "No one will stop my fury." Also a little Badass Boast Althougth Eega means it as an advice. Counts as a Wham Line too.
- Psycho Electro: Averted by Sapphire. She isn't a nice person, but perfectly sane, despite her electric powers.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: When everything else fails, Roller Dollar resolves to send his robots against civilians, since Iron Gus, a superhero, will go to save them. It works... but only because he attacks an ice cream kiosk, and Gus is saving it.
- Running Gag:
- The Bad-7 and the Ultraheroes take their pizzas from the same restaurant, the former sending every time a different member to steal them, the latter always sends Mickey to regularly buy it. The two of them keep meeting by the door, never noticing each other because they are too lost in their own thoughts.
- Red Bat trying to sell igloos (and, later on, Eega considering the idea and eventually buying one).
- Scrooge's plans of evasion are ruined thanks to the Beagle Boys' foolishness. Three times!
- The Scrappy: In-universe, at least, Cloverleaf. When he faces Pete, his arrogance makes the crowd cheer for the villain rather than for him, and this causes him a 10-Minute Retirement. At the end, in the whole story, he only gets one fan, and that's only because he is (admittedly) the most unsympathetic person in his class. Ironically, the readers didn't dislike him that much.
- Secret Identity: All the heroes. This is a major problem for Paperinik and Paperinika, as they actually start getting along and even falling for each other... which causes them no small amount of angst, since they both already have a significant other - the other's secret identity.
- She's Not My Girlfriend: Paperinik says this about Paperinika, while she says he's not her boyfriend. Of course, since they don't know each other's identity, they don't realize that they are, in fact, boyfriend and girlfriend.
- Sock Puppet: Cloverleaf sets one up to beef up his public image. Naturally, it doesn't work.
- Story-Breaker Power:
- Super Goof is basically a clumsier Superman with a timer on his powers, thus he got handed a Drama-Preserving Handicap.
- Same deal with Cloverleaf, except he's unbelievably lucky. Subverted, however, as his luck only works for him. He's completely useless unless defeating the villain would directly benefit him.
- The Team Normal: Mickey. The most important thing the rest of the super-powered team considers him good for is going out to get pizza.
- Took a Level in Badass: Aside for the Empowered Badass Normals, Spectrus: previously he was a thief using his Hypnotic Eyes to help himself that Paperinik could defeat by spraying his face with onion juice (it would irritate his eyes, making him helpless), but here his Stage Magician tricks are upgraded to powerful illusions, making him capable of holding his own in a straight fight against Paperinik, something he failed to do after his debut story.
- Took a Level in Dumbass: The Beagle Boys are not geniuses, but they're complete idiots here.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Rockerduck. From simple Duckburg-based business rival of Scrooge's to a super-villain.
- Underwear of Power: Subverted and Averted, respectively, with Super Goof and Spectrus: their classic outfits are long underwear (with a devil tail for Spectrus), but Super Goof changes to a new costume in-story and Spectrus simply shows up with a more classic spandex suit. Then Gus wears Super Goof's classic costume after gobbling down his super-empowering peanuts...
- You Don't Look Like You:
- Villain Ball: The Phantom Blot has the Ultrapod, but instead, he chooses to try and force Paperinik to surrender, giving the latter the chance to defeat him and take the Ultrapod. It even gets lampshaded by the other Bad-7.
- Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?: A variation: the Ultrapods are unbreakable, so the heroes can't just destroy one and must watch them. But in the end, Eega puts one into his short trousers, and then destroys them, making the Ultrapod (and the Ultramachine) actually gone for good. The reason it wasn't done before? Eega didn't think about it.
- Worthy Opponent: How Paperinik and the Phantom Blot see each other by the end, shaking hands and admitting each other's abilities.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Emil Eagle has prepared cells to shut down all the Ultraheroes' technology and superpower. Too bad Cloverleaf doesn't rely on either, but on luck, and it's just fine (since it seemingly works only for him, and he is quite selfish, it's not a big issue.
