Once upon a time, a gigantic rampaging dragon and a human woman fell in love. The product of their union was Duncan, a Half-Human Hybrid. Though they divorced, Duncan's parents share custody. He spends most of his time trying to fit in at school despite his obviously draconic features, and when with his dad he is tutored in the ways of becoming the next king of the world's Kaiju.
For real.
Fun fact: The character was originally supposed to be a member of the Young Avengers in the Marvel Universe and Duncan was to be the son of the alien dragon Fin Fang Foom, a foe of Iron Man.
An All-CGI Cartoon animated movie based on the comic premiered November 2010, on Cartoon Network, directed by Peter Chung, the creator of Æon Flux.
This comic book series provides examples of:
- Action Girl/Action Mom: Margaret, in the movie at least. Flies jets, shoots, threatens Belloc and means it.
- Adaptation Distillation
- All-CGI Cartoon: The Made-for-TV Movie adaptation was produced by Pistor Productions and Cartoon Network Studios in complete CGI.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Kids at school sometimes foolishly persist in picking on Duncan despite the fact that he's a fire-breathing monster and his dad is ten times worse.
- Alliterative Name: A school example: Herbert Hoover High.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Which Belloc lampshades when Duncan finds himself in disbelief that aliens are real.Belloc: The dragon boy finds extraterrestial life farfetched.
- Art Shift: The beginning show the movie in a traditional type of animation, before becoming CGI for the entire movie.
- Betty and Veronica: Isabel and Jenna.
- Kenny (Betty) and Duncan (Veronica) for Isabel's Archie, however this is all one sided from Kenny's point-of-view.
- Big "NO!": Duncan gives one when Barnes orders another full attack on Belloc.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Though Duncan looks mostly human, he eats coal rather than human food.
- He apparently enjoys Twinkies though. At least, we can assume so as his mother packed some in his lunch.
- Bullying a Dragon: Troy doesn't see anything wrong with bullying Duncan, even after he discovers his powerful abilities.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Duncan immediately does this to his father for forcing him into something he doesn't want, even though Belloc wasn't in his life for sixteen years.
- Captain Ersatz: Duncan's father, the dragon Belloc, is initially presented as a Captain Ersatz of Godzilla, but is later developed beyond that into the more traditional, Tolkien-esque ancient dragon of intelligence and greed who hoards treasure, then his backstory was revealed to be more in the line of Fin Fang Foom as he and the other kaiju are aliens.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Belloc knew he made the right choice to mate with Margaret.
- Cursed with Awesome: Orange skin and bullying aside, one can't help but wonder what Duncan finds so terrible about being inhumanly strong, impervious to extreme heat, and being able to breathe fire... and this is before he gets his true powers unlocked.
- Cut Short: The second issue of the third series ends in the middle of a fight, a preview for the third issue's cover is shown... and it never came out despite numerous hanging plot threads.
- Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: Duncan's mom. The first thing most people think when they show Duncan's monstrous, 100 story tall father is "How did that work?" Duncan, however, does not want to know.
- Draconic Humanoid: The main character is one of these, thanks to his father being an actual 60-foot Dragon.
- Evil Laugh: The kaiju are very fond of this.
- Fingore: Duncan defeats one kaiju in the movie by bending its finger back 180 degrees. Ouch.
- Four-Fingered Hands:
- Duncan plays this for laughs, asking the principal to "Help me out here. Exactly which one is "the bird"?" and showing the five fingered principal, his four fingered hands.
- The animated movie gives him five fingers. As giving the horns is the recurring hand gesture of the movie, this is easy to notice.
- A Glass in the Hand: Kenny manages a glass in each hand.
- Gosh Dangit To Heck: Barnes is fond of this.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Duncan is the son of a human woman Margaret Rosenblatt and the dragon Belloc.
- High School: Where most of the story takes place.
- High-School Dance: The climax starts here of all places.
- Hopeless Suitor: Kenny to Isabel, and Isabel to Duncan.
- Hot-Blooded: Duncan. Clearly gets it from his dad.
- Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: Firebreather stars the offspring of a pairing between a human woman and a giant dragon, which resulted in a scaled, orange-skinned, four-fingered, but essentially human-looking offspring. She tried to explain how this happened, but we don't know because her son covered his ears. Apparently it was quite simple.
- Humans Are Insects: In the adaptation, Belloc states that despite what the humans think, the kaiju were on Earth first, and to that end, many of them view humans as an infestation in their world.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Duncan isn't exactly happy with how his appearance and dragon-based abilities isolate him from everyone else at school.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Margaret basically said this trope as a reason why Duncan didn't kill the two Kaijus. Though he wanted to but his reason not to is because "it wouldn't change anything". Meaning that the rest of Belloc's subjects still wouldn't accept Duncan as their future king.
- Innocently Insensitive: Jenna gives Duncan the cold shoulder when he comments on how Troy would want his dad to just disappear. A few minutes later, Isabel informs Duncan that Jenna's father is dead.
- Interspecies Romance: Naturally. Duncan's mom does try to explain this to him, saying "I bet you're wondering how you were conceived."
Duncan covers his ears and tries not to listen. The Cartoon Network adaptation keeps that exchange. - Jerk Jock: Troy plays it completely straight.
- Kaiju: Belloc and all of his rivals and subjects. They're even called Kaiju in-universe.
- Love at First Sight/Single-Target Sexuality: Duncan towards Jenna.
- And apparently, Belloc towards Margaret.
- Love Dodecahedron: Kenny likes Isabel, who likes Duncan, who likes Jenna, who's dating Troy. In the movie Jenna and Troy have broken up.
- Magic Pants: So magic in fact that lava doesn't even singe them.
- Except for the very bottoms, which quickly rise to mid-calf.
- Adverted in the comic, in which his father's breath fries everything including his Fruit of the Loom.
- Male Gaze: Duncan towards Jenna twice.
- Mama Bear: Margaret. She'll take on anyone who threatens Duncan. Including his father.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: Duncan is the size of a normal human, yet has physical strength on par with a full-sized Kaiju.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Even though he doesn't exactly say it, Kenny feels this way after telling Duncan's secret at the dance.
- Jenna gets one after discovering that it was Duncan who helped her pay for the dance, and she just brushed him off.
- Never Heard That One Before:Duncan: Kenny Rogers, huh? Do you know when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em?Kenny: [deadpan] No. Not even a little.
- No Flow in CGI: The movie has its moments of falling into this.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Belloc is a Kaiju that looks like a Draconic Humanoid when he's standing up, but more like a western dragon when he bends down.
- Papa Wolf: The protagonist's dad is a Kaiju; messing with his son is something few are willing to do a second time. Let's put it this way, if you hate the city you live in enough to take them out - yourself included - hurting Duncan almost assures success.
- Parkour: The chase scene in the movie.
- Pun: "And orange you just adorable."
- Shirtless Scene: By comparison, the lava does remove his shirt nicely, though Duncan is quick to abandon it whenever he starts fighting.
- Shout-Out:
- The way several of the kaiju move throughout the film is similar to the old Godzilla films.
- Belloc is the King of the Monsters, or Godzilla.
- One of the unnamed monsters that makes a brief appearance when Belloc names Duncan as his heir bears a definite resemblance to Death Pisaro.
- The two villainous kaiju are named after biblical demons (Astaroth and Abbadon)
- Belloc bares some resemblance to Fin Fang Foom.
- Single Girl Seeks Most Popular Guy: Gender Flipped, Jenna calls Duncan out on this.
- The Starscreams: Two of Belloc's subjects are not pleased with their king ordering them not to harm any humans. But mating with one is the last straw.
- Stock Scream: Used during the school chase scene.
- The Talk: Barnes tries this in Volume 1 Issue 2.
- It has a few details, but is cut mercifully short by Belloc's new security system.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Duncan doesn't want to take of a Kaiju even if it nearly killed him.
- Took a Level in Badass: Duncan takes several over the course of the film.
- You Do Not Want To Know: While many fans would like to know just how Duncan was conceived, he clearly does not.
