WMG / Disney Ducks Comic Universe

Scrooge, Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie found and drank from the fountain of youth.

• How else has Scrooge been around since the 1800s to the present and besides they have found the seven lost cities of gold, Xanadu, dinosaurs, magic and creatures that live beneath the earth and cause earthquakes. It's not to much a stretch to imagine.
  • This is actually canon — at least partway! In one Carl Barks story, That's No Fable! from 1953, Scrooge and his nephews actually do find the Fountain of Youth, and are shown drinking from it. Granted, in this particular story, drinking the water only makes you more limber and gives you a huge energy boost (Scrooge spontaneously begins doing cartwheels after drinking!); to get the youth effect you have to swim in it — which they are stopped from doing. Still, just drinking from the fountain may have had long-term effects that the Ducks simply did not realize at the time....
  • Don Rosa's own explanation was that the "present" in his DuckVerse Comics all take place in the 40's-50's-60's. In the same era that Barks wrote stories.
    • Yes but that only works for his work and Barks', because there have been plenty of more recent stories by recent authors that these stories happen in modern days (sometimes, the date is cited; there as been a story featured in 2001 about the characters celebrating…2001 so how do you explain that with Don Rosa's point of view ?

Dickie Duck is Scrooge's biological granddaughter.

• What was the first story to feature Goldie after her introduction in Back to the Klondike? The story by Romano Scarpa introducing Paperetta (aka Dickie)! Come on... Scrooge's old flame randomly shows up on his proverbial doorstep with a granddaughter of unknown parentage and asks Scrooge to take her in for no apparent reason. He accepts, also for no apparent reason. Then, almost as quickly as they introduced her, the writers try to ignore her existence and seem determined never to give a straight answer about her origins. Sure, nobody's covering up anything here. Again. Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Rumpus McFowl... this family's got kids out of wedlock running all over the place!
  • Considering that she's often found working for Bridget, the question becomes, does Bridget know this?
    • Probably yes, and was told by Goldie herself. The one time they met, after all, Goldie encouraged Brigit to pursue Scrooge, and Brigit asked about it. With Goldie admitting the deed so Scrooge wouldn't have an easy way out.
  • Lets not forget the time aspect to this - for this to work, Scrooge and Goldie would have had to have concieved when they were doing something that "wasn't a hanging offense". Scrooge didn't have any protection, and neither did Goldie. But then the follow up, Hearts of the Yukon, would have to take place in such a time that she was pregnant, and knew it, but not noticeable - supposing they just gave the hell up on them actually being ducks and just made them people, that means about 5 months. Prisoner of White Agony Creek began in the Spring of 1897, and they were together for a month before the ..... anyway, that means it could have happened in the beginning, considering Scrooge said there was no thaw yet. This means that it happened near mid April. Hearts of the Yukon, their follow up, takes place in January 1898 - a full 9 months after the incident. She couldn't hide a child back in those days. Whatever happened, no-one was produced. Scrooge has no children.
    • ...supposing they just made them (like) people. Did they? "It's not a lie unless they have proof." I'd rather just assume they didn't than think about that too much.
  • We're still assuming Dickie is Goldie's biological granddaughter: it also may be assumed, since last time they saw themselves Scrooge left Goldie with enough money to take care of herself and the whole Dawson City and when Goldie called Scrooge's help in raising Dickie she was, again, poor and almost forgotten, that Dickie is the offspring of a random family helped by Goldie when she, briefly, regained her fortune, they remained close enough for Dickie to assist her "grandma" when she fell on hard times again and Goldie started to consider her surrogate family. Since Scrooge is also one of the few people dear to her, it's also safe to assume that, when Goldie felt unable to arrange a bright future for her protegeè, she called upon the only duck he could trust. Furthermore, Dawson is also described as an old, quiet town, while Duckburg, brimming with life, was a better choice for a teen girl trying to find her place in the world: the last act of love and charity left to Goldie was sending Dickie away.
    • In the theatrical cartoon, "Don's Fountain of Youth", Donald Duck convinces Huey, Dewey and Louie that the eponymous pool has turned him into a baby — and then into an egg. It's a con, and the theatrical Nephews aren't the All-Knowing Oracles of the Barks tales, but they treat Donald's "transformation" as the logical result of such an immersion. I believe that I've seen references to the "Duck Family Album" in old Disney comics — possibly including those by Barks — which show various Duck characters as "just a baby": i.e., as eggs wearing bonnets or trademark sailor hats.
    • In the DuckTales (1987) episode "Sweet Duck of Youth", when they actually find the Fountain of Youth, they discover it merely makes your reflection look young. The triplets all turn into eggs when they look in it, just like Donald pretends he has been youthenized into in "Don's Fountain of Youth".
    • Graphic proof◊ from Marco Rita's From Egg To Duck, although the comic it is from is non-canon in many regards (such as saying that Donald was a lost egg found and raised by Grandma Duck and Scrooge).
  • Wacky theory: Dickie was intended to be Scrooge's grandaughter and the contradictions with what we know from Don Rosa's writings are simply due to different writers with different interpretations. The comics revolving around the Duck Clan aren't any different from other comic books in regards to continuity and timescales.
    • Yes, time can never be trusted very far with comic books.
    • Especially since the Italian Duck stories take place in a universe very different from Don Rosa's vision. There are several Duck canons that only vaguely overlap.
    • Ducks come from eggs, as mentioned above. I don't think it takes 9 months to hatch an egg.
    • Since the actual process is never clearly defined, you can make up any rule you want.
  • (I think that the cartoon with the triplets scamming Donald above was actually based on a Barks comic? I recall reading the same story once.) The egg idea gives a possible loophole to make both canons work: Goldie may have not been able to hide a child, but instead gave away the egg to be hatched by someone else. (We can assume that she would have been as ashamed as protective about her reputation in Klondike.) So the child was probably raised somewhere else, while Goldie got older and matured herself. She was feeling increasingly responsible which peaked when Scrooge himself and his nephews showed up. She went on to seek out her child, only to be told that he or she was dead or disappeared, but - to her surprise - has left behind a daughter who is a good girl and works hard to support herself, but just can't help causing trouble with her modern ways. Goldie realizes that she deserves a better chance at life in Duckburg and takes her with her, but never tells her her true origins.

The money vault is a sham.

The money vault is filled with worthless paper and coins topped with a layer of a million or so bucks. Scrooge keeps all his real cash in banks like normal people. The vault is to keep the attention of his legions of adversaries so they don't (A) hack the banks and (B) cause real trouble by literally knocking over, say, casinos full of innocent people.

• In the Don Rosa series, it is filled with real money, but it's only Scrooge's coin collection kept for sentimental reasons. The vast majority of his wealthis where it should be, in banks and investments. That said, there's a LOT there, and it's not like the Beagle Boys are really capable of stealing 65% of a computer company or something.
• Technically it's all the money he earned on his own, not counting investments, interest etc. He's THAT rich that he can afford to store so much money in such an impractical manner, since he has plenty more.
• I vote sham. How else could Scrooge dive into a pile of solid coins with no ill effects (the coins would have to reduce Scrooge's speed/kinetic energy gradually, and I don't think a pile of metal has much give).
  • No it doesn't work that way in the real world of course, but then again that's an Incredibly lame pun ya know, 'liquid assets'.
• But when other characters try to dive into a pile of money, they land on top of it painfully. Scrooge being able to defy the laws of physics this way is just Rule of Cool meeting Rule of Funny or another sign of his signature badass-itude.
• It's been shown time and again that Scrooge had super strength when he was younger. It's faded with age, but the presence of so much of his own hard-earned cash rejuvinates him enough to pull that kind of stuff.
• In another story of Don Rosa we are shown that it is indeed filled with money when Donald Duck starts to mine for rare coins (which Scrooge hoards by the hundred)
• Sure, but let's go back to the Carl Barks stories. You know, Scrooge's creator. He showed in the story against the Marahaya of Huduyustan that Scrooge indeed only has a few billions in sight. But then there's a hidden hatch, which really showes us 3 cubic acres of cash. In another, his vault is so full he needs to spend money, or his bin is going to burst. It it were fake, he would probably have put it in the vault. In yet another one, Scrooge fill the bin with water to drown the Beagle Boys out, who are digging a tunnel under the money bin. They would, if there wasn't the coldest night in years, which makes the bin burst open and 3 cubic acres of ice slide down. The end shows the Beagles scraping the money out of the ice, in the part which is usually 3 cubic acres deep.

We also see Scrooge digging in his money in some stories, several meters deep, and it has been seen open from the side several times. I think it's kind of justified that Scrooge has 3 cubic acres of money.

• This isn't supported by the episode "The Money Vanishes", where the Beagle Boys steal Gyro's furniture mover ray and trick Scrooge into spraying his money so they can teleport it to their hideout. The money disappears layers at a time until Scrooge falls to the bottom of the money bin, while meanwhile the Beagle Boys' several-story hideout is full to bursting with money.
• About a month or so before the reboot premiered, Disney challenged a certain YouTuber and mathematician who happened to be a fan to calculate the worth of the Money Bin's contents.^note Just the Money Bin itself, not investments, real estate, or Scrooge's checking account Even the most conservative estimate would be enough to crash the global economy, while the highest (and most likely) one was over 500 times as much money that actually exists in any form as of this writing.

Scrooge has money-related superpowers, and may not realize it.

He can dive through a pile of coins like it was water, and it's been shown that anyone else who tries to dive into the coins gets exactly what you'd expect. He's probably right at the top of the Fiction 500, so it's not like he's bad at predicting cash flows and stocks. If the money he earned on his own, not counting investments and the like, can fill such a huge room, he'd pretty much have to be preturnaturally affluent.

• And he can tell of every single coin when, where and how he acquired it. We're talking about millions, if not billions of coins here. That's some super memory.
• He can also smell money.
• Then there was this time the Beagle Boys made of with a load of his cash. Scrooge was walking down the street on the other side of town, but stopped dead when he felt what he described as "an empty feeling in my wallet".
  • The Beagle Boys actually did trick Scrooge out of his fortune one time; he asked that before being evicted that they grant an old duck's wish: to swim around his wealth just one more time. After watching him dive through the coins like a porpoise, naturally the Boys want to give it a go themselves. The resulting concussions they get from diving head-first into the nearly-solid mass of gold and silver coins allows Scrooge to capture the crooks and reclaim his fortune.
• Three cubic acres of money make some sort of a five-dimensioned amount of cash.
  • you know what other creature can do all that? dragons! Scrooge is half dragon and the money bin is his hoard!
• One story shows these abilities as genetic and inheritable. Donald has the right gene, but due to his general lack of mental faculty, it activated only for a short time (don't ask, it's a comic book). This is just one step away from superpowers, as well as implying that the triplets may exhibit these abilities too, in a couple of years. Makes one shudder...

The entire Scrooge McDuck Universe is just a daydream young Scrooge is having about his future while on the ship going from Scotland to America.

At the end of Don Rosa's "The Last of the Clan McDuck", Scrooge sees images of himself and his future wealth appear in the sky. But did this daydream ever stop? Maybe all subsequent stories are just a continuation of his egomanic daydreams.

• Which would pretty mean that virtually all Donald Duck stories are non-canon, including the one where he can stay in his rich uncle's cabin for Christmas which coincidentally is the same story that first shows Scrooge. It would undo any Scrooge story, giving Don Rosa no reason to start making Scrooge comics including the The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, making this WMG one big paradox. No, Don Rosa wouldn't want to do that to himself. Continuing: Carl Barks would run out of ideas by 1955, stop Disney comics leading to the discontinuation of the Donald Duck comics somewhere around the 1970s/1980s if not earlier.

Gladstone Gander is a secret Reality Warper

One story suggested that his supernatural luck is the result of Fortuna, goddess of luck, falling in love with him. But that was an isolated incident. I think he has the ability to manipulate reality in a rather Haruhi Suzumiya like fashion. Fortunately for the universe he is willing to chalk up his unending fortunes to "luck" and laze around without any sort of goals beyond comfort. Scrooge may in fact be a danger to the entire cosmos, as if his occasional attempts to make Gladstone ambitious ever succeeded, he'd probably end up ruling the world.

• Or he is simply a Kappa-level psyker.

Fergus and Downy McDuck had a Slap-Slap-Kiss relationship.

Psychologically, kids subconsciously imitate the romantic relationship between their parents when forming their own. Both Scrooge (with his New Old Flame Goldie) and his sister Hortense (with her husband Quackmore Duck) fit this trope.

Hortense Duck died shortly before Christmas 1947.

It was the death of his sister (and the subsequent reminiscing and possibly left over guilt from never making amends) that prompted Scrooge to reconnect with her son, Donald, and grandsons Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

• Supported for how Donald reacts when he see his mother on Dream of a Lifetime.
• That also explains Matilda's short temper and strong resent towards Scrooge in A Letter from Home, so much differently from her young self. She was already disgusted by Scrooge's attitudes years prior, but was also hoping that someday he would snap back to reality, apologize for his behavior and reconcile with Hortense and her. Losing her little sister without that ever happening took away what was left of Matilda's faith in Scrooge and broke her spirit, turning her into a cold, disilluded person.

Linked to the above, Hortense died of a severe heartbreak.

It goes like this: Hortense and Quackmore first had to support her daughter when Della had triplets before she was ready. Then the kids' father gave up on them, making Della even more vulnerable. Finally, Della herself gave up on her sons and, even if Donald agreed to take the boys off their grandparents' hands, the pressure of having their daughter disappear on them was the last blow to Quackmore's worsening health. After losing her daughter and her husband in quick sequence (and being out of touch with her brother), Hortense doesn't last long before her own health fails.

Alternative to Hortense dies theory. Hortense is alive and well

The Letter from Home comic has Donald obviously knowing Matilda is the one in charge. I don't believe we are ever outright told that Matilda told him, despite her obviously knowing that he knows. It could simply be so simple that Donald has full contact with Hortense, but realizes(knowing her well) that unlike Matilda, Hortense would likely strangle Scrooge on sight. In fact, one of the reasons Donald setting up Scrooge and Matilda was so that Matilda can tell Hortense that Scrooge has changed for the better. Essentially, Donald pulled The Plan on his Mother by way of his Aunt.

Huey's, Dewey's, and Louie's father is from Tralla La, aka Xanadu.

This,◊ from Rosa's commentary printed along with Return to Xanadu in Uncle Scrooge #357.

• That would explain why that guy looks all mangled and burned: he's never been the same since his bratty sons set off a firecracker under his chair.

Huey, Dewey and Louie were born as result of Brother–Sister Incest between Donald and his twin sister Della.

Yeah, I'm going to straight to Hell for this. But just seeing how the in their early appearances the triplets were constantly pushed to Don by Della and vice-versa, and how great lengths they seem to go to avoid seeing each other, it would make sense that there's something extremely scandalous going on in the background.

• That makes too much sense for my liking so I would like to declare officially that I hate for totally raping that last bit of lovable childhood I had.
• That WMG is negated by the story "The Duck Who Never Was" by Don Rosa. In the alternate reality where Donald was never born, the triplets still exist, therefore Donald isn't their father.
  • Wasn't that alternate reality just a dream?
    • The genie who granted that wish doesn't think so.
    • Technically you could argue that the genie either created a convincing illusion or an alternate reality to teach Don a lesson. Whatever happens in it doesn't necessarily accurately reflect the "reality" of Donald Duck's universe.
    • Even it was just an illusion, it shouldn't have such logical impossibilities that would be easily noticeable by Donald, in order to be convincing for him.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie's father is Howard

They don't talk about him because it's assumed that Howard up and abandoned his family and Della similarly didn't take his departure well. Howard doesn't talk about it because remembering his old life is too painful. And since Disney owns Marvel now adding this as a Retcon is easy as duck soup.

Huey, Dewey and Louie are the result of a teenage pregnancy.

In the penultimate chapter of "Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck", Della and Donald were shown to be younger than the triplets. This takes place 17 years before "present day". This means that Della was, at the very most, 16 years old when she gave birth to her children.

• Actually, more or less confirmed by Word of God! Check out this comment.
• According to Don Rosa's timeline, Della would have been 20 years old when she had the boys.

The witnesses of the destruction of Soapy Slick's steamer were lying.

The steamer wasn't destroyed by metal fatigue causing smokestacks to collapse, a cast-iron stove crashing through three bulkheads, or a freak tidal wave from the Bering Sea, but rather a very angry Scrooge McDuck.

• I think the whole point is that no one could agree on what happened that day, and people were making up all sorts of explanations both mundane and fantastic. In "Hearts of the Yukon", Scrooge himself claimed that he broke free when a boiler exploded... then goes on to claim that he "licked a baker's dozen [of Soapy Slick's men]! And the baker!"

Quack Pack is Donald's Dying Dream.

• Quack Pack was a spinoff of DuckTales (1987) that was more of a tribute of the original Donald Duck cartoons (with a 90s flavor) than a sequel to the aforementioned show. The reason that it was so different from Duck Tales was because Donald never left the Navy. During Duck Tales his carrier ship was torpedoed, resulting in everyone aboard being killed. As he was drowning he began hallucinating about what his future could have been with Daisy and his nephews. Scrooge does not appear because he would have died in-between Donald coming home for good and re-adopting the boys. The reason for the references to the old Donald Duck cartoons is because his brain is also trying to find comfort to counter the very frightening (and painful) experience of his lungs filling with water. The series ends when Donald finally expires.

The Junior Woodchucks are connected to the Fireside Girls.

Both have a handbook containing knowledge on everything ever, and their members have a tendency to be affiliated with/be main characters.

• The only problem being that one exists in a world populated by humanoid animals while the other has never shown speaking animals, much less the type seen in the Scrooge-verse.
  • PnF Earth is another planet, perhaps discovered and kept secret by the founders of the OWCA. The Fireside Girl and Junior Woodchuck Handbooks are offshoots of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tailored to the organization's planet by the group's leaders.

Della Duck and her husband are working for the The High Council

Della and her husband are agents for the High Council.The firecracker incident was just an excuse for an injury obtained while on a mission.The last time she left the boys with Donald was to protect them while she and her husband went on a prolonged assignment. The reason they hasn't come back since is because they are trying to let their children have a normal life while they work. Donald is aware of their involvement which is why he hasn't made an overly large effort to locate them.

Della Duck and her husband died at some point.

In a 1940s Donald Duck newspaper strip, Donald applies for child benefit as the sole guardian of Huey, Dewey, and Louie. It would seem unlikely that Donald had been granted custody of the boys unless something happened to their parents. Since Huey, Dewey, and Louie were originally created for the newspaper strip (and the child benefit strip was drawn by Al Taliaferro, their co-creator), this would be the most canonical explanation of what happened to Della and her husband. Most likely, Della's husband died in the Second World War (the 1940s strips show that WWII happened in the Disney Ducks Comic Universe), though Della's ultimate fate is unknown.

The Disney Ducks Comic Universe takes place in an Alternate Universe where the asteroid impact 65 million years ago that killed the dinosaurs never happened.

Thus, theropods evolved into birds, their intelligence developed and they took on a more humanoid shape, and became the dominant species. And some dinosaurs avoided extinction altogether like the ones from the Duck Tales episode "Dinosaur Ducks". Mammals eventually gained some kind of a foot hold, and became Dog Faces.

Donald served in both World War II and The Korean War

Since the beginning Donald was implied to have some military experience. He probably joined the Navy as a pilot after Pearl Harbor. Then a combat wound made him unable to pilot, and he was a normal sailor (most probably an aircraft mechanic or an engineer) until 1944, when his brother-in-law died in combat, and returned home to raise Huey, Dewey, and Louie for a while as their mother recovered from depression.
Donald returned to raise his nephews in 1946, after Della had remarried and they had hospitalized the new husband, and became their sole guardian when Della and her new husband ran away. He continued raising them until 1950, when he was recalled in service for The Korean War, and left them in Scrooge's care. And, as DuckTales (1987) shows, for some reason Donald was assigned to a carrier in service in the Atlantic instead than to a ship on the war theatre...

• Half-confirmed: Donald joined the army during WWII, and briefly joined the Nazis.
• Confirmed: Donald has been retroactively promoted to Seargent and then granted an honorable discharge for his services in the 80's.

Scrooge eventually returned to Goldie

Partly WMG, partly based on Don Rosa's own comments. In his commentary to his story "A Little Something Special", he hinted that he thought Scrooge's final fate would be to return to Goldie someday. In an unrelated commentary, he also thought that Scrooge would be the sort of legendary person that instead of dying amongst his friends and family, would instead "disappear" somewhere. Combining these two mentions sounds like the perfect end to Scrooge's life. When he thought it was time, he left a note for his nephews on his desk and left. When Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie found it, it was a "Thank You" letter for all their adventures, but now the time had come for him to leave on his final adventure, one which he had to do alone and they were not to try and find him. With that he retired, and all his money and businesses belonged to them now. Donald and his nephews cried a combination of both sad and happy tears as they had a feeling they knew where he had gone to. Indeed, Scrooge returned to Dawson to reunite with and marry Goldie, and spend the last years of his life with her. Donald and his nephews never told anyone in order to respect his wish of living the rest of his life in peace. One day they received a letter informing them that their uncle and his wife had passed away, to which they finally traveled to Dawson to visit their graves. Not only that; Scrooge and Goldie had requested that they be buried by Scrooge's old prospecting cabin in White Agony Valley.

You may cry now.

• Possibly partially confirmed by Go Slowly Now, Sands Of Time on the Life And Times music album, which is based on the Rosa canon.

• Apparently confirmed by a fan interview where Don Rosa allegedly revealed he had wanted to make a story where Scrooge faked his death (only letting Donald, Huey, Dewey and Louie be in the know) to return to Goldie and live his remaining years with her. This would have gone against the established Duck universe "canon" that Scrooge is meant to permanently live in his money bin, however, so Disney sadly refused him to write it.

The reason José Carioca has Paulista (from São Paulo) accent and not the expected Carioca (from Rio de Janeiro) accent

His family name is Carioca, but he's actually from São Paulo. He later moved to Rio for work and kept the accent because it helped him with courting girls, and then to Bahia, where, as told in the Brazilian stories, he settled down.

• A Volta do Zé Carioca (1955), José's very first story made in Brazil, seems to confirm that he was actually born in São Paulo, lived for some time in other places (likely Rio and Bahia, and maybe the United States as well) and returned to his home city, where he settled down. It should be noted, however, that virtually all Brazilian stories made after that seem to retcon this, as they take place in Rio (not in Bahia, as written above). That doesn't entirely rule out him at least being born and raised in São Paulo, though.

“The Dream of a Lifetime” was Scrooge McDuck’s final adventure in the Barks/Rosa Canon

Scrooge, in his dreams, had been reliving the night back in the Yukon where he might have been able to reconcile with Glittering Goldie (but had instead been knocked unconscious by a block of ice launched from a fire hose). But, one night, because of the interference of the Beagle Boys (attempting to utilize his dreams to learn the combination for the Money Bin), and the aid of his nephew Donald (trying to stop the dream-thieves), he was able to obtain the one treasure he could never get, even if he was only able to do so in a dream: Goldie’s love.

Having faced every challenge in his life head-on and gained many treasures in the process (and not just of the material variety), Scrooge’s lust for adventure was finally satisfied. As Donald, his nephews, Gyro Gearloose, the Beagle Boys, and the police left him to his rest, he died in his sleep that very night, a tear down his cheek, and a smile on his face. With a lifetime of adventure, wealth beyond imagination, a family who cared for him and for whom he cared for (in his own special way), and the love of his life, Scrooge McDuck died the richest duck in the world.

The United States flag has the same number of stars as in Real Life

West Virginia re-merged into Virginia at some point after the Civil War, close to when Calisota was admitted as a State.

• There is an alternate explanation; it has been implied that Calisota is something of an independent state, since it has its own embassy abroad (not completely independent, but kind of how Monaco is not exactly just a part of France without being totally independent either).
  • Unlikely, as we know that Duckburg was the site of a battle in the American Civil War where Donald's namesake great-grandfather gained the Medal of Honor for single-handedly disrupting the Confederate defensive line by blowing up Fort Duckburg.

Scrooge McDuck didn't die.

Instead, he finally left for the land of Kalevala with Väinämöinen. It's his final adventure... because it will never end.

Scrooge died soon after the events of "Zio Paperone e l'Ultima Avventura"

That adventure was a dilly◊, and the title does translates as "Uncle Scrooge and the Last Adventure"...

On Paperinik's origin: there was no lottery won by Gladstone

Gladstone actually inherited lord Quackett/Fantomius' whole estate (he's likely the closest living relative of his fiancee Dolly, and nobody knows if lord Quackett and Dolly actually tied the knot), and, feeling like helping Donald instead of putting him down but knowing he'd never accept charity from him and/or having a reputation to keep, made sure that Donald got Villa Rose but disguised it as a lottery prize for himself that happened to go to Donald by a mailman's accident, also helping Donald feel like he got one over him.

• Confirmed and Jossed by a more recent story: after retiring from thieving, Fantomius time-traveled to a time where the world would need a new Fantomius and choose Donald as his heir, making up the lottery won by Gladstone as a covert mean to pass his legacy to him and personally delivering (in disguise) the property.

Ludwig von Drake is a former Nazi scientist

He helped build rockets for those wacky nazi ducks during the war. This is why he hosted shows about outer space in The '60s, even though he's often portrayed as a psychiatrist. After the war he got picked up by Operation Paperclip to help build rockets against those dirty commie ducks, went to America and reunited with his distant nephew Donald.

Donald is incompetent to Scrooge on purpose

Donald Duck tends to be The Load when helping his Uncle Scrooge to find and retrieve treasure. But he's actually trying to get his uncle killed with Obfuscating Stupidity so that, as his next of kin, Donald may inherit the fabulous McDuck wealth.

• Alternatively, and less insulting to Donald, he uses Obfuscating Stupidity and lack of competence to get on his irritating uncle's nerves.

Neighbor Jones is a descendant of the Whiskervilles.

That’s why he’s always feuding with Donald.

Flintheart Glomgold is a crested duck

It would make sense, especially since his "hair" was always white if we go by his appearance in ''The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck". It basically looks exactly like a crested dick's crest, it's just more extensive.

The causality connection between the Number One Dime and Scrooge's success goes both ways

At first it was an ordinary dime kept as a keepsake, but over time a magical / emotional connection developed to the point that Scrooge is now dependent on retaining the dime to keep functioning as a businessman and financist.

Rebo was the unwitting defender of the solar system from outside threats

Rebo, leader of the last surviving Saturnians, may have lacked the numbers to become a Galactic Conqueror (the last Saturnians numbering three, himself included), but commanded extreme firepower (the Jovians, for all their advanced technology, were helpless until they invented the Virtual Duck, and all it did was to trick him into plunging his flagship into the Sun) and had immense weapon factories at his disposal. Then in the 1995 story "Donald and Rebo's Return" his flagship was destroyed and he was stranded on Earth, forever unable to return to Saturn and his base of power... And soon after Paperinik New Adventures and the Junior Woodchucks story "Threat from the Infinite" featured two different groups of alien invaders.

Rebo and the Saturnians are of the same species as the Xerbians

There's many similarities between them: both species are green-skinned humanoids with weird feet, they have incredibly advanced technology (Rebo is casually able to mass-produce hundreds of thousands robots once he has the design), and Rebo is shown to be an immensely skilled weapon developer limited only by his lack of creativity and sucking at robotics, just like Xerbians are all scientists (to the point that when they ask if there's a doctor around they need to specify they mean a medic, as every adult has a doctorate). Also, the Xerbians are well aware of humanity and its warlike nature, to the point that after their homeworld was overran by the Evronians one of the escaping ships made a beeline for Earth to warn humanity and pass them their advanced technology in the belief they'd be able to take on the Evronians and stop them, and when that ship was intercepted by the Evronians for some reason it reached Saturn's orbit, and the Evronians, contrary to their usual modus operandi, left in a hurry without wrecking it after capturing the crew. It's possible that either Rebo and his men are the survivors of the losing side of a civil war on Xerba and took refuge on an outpost on Saturn, or that the Xerbians are the descendants of pacifist Saturnians that escaped for a different solar system - thus when the Antra was intercepted by the Evronians the captain moved the ship into Saturn's orbit hoping for Rebo to come to the rescue of people from the same species or pick a fight with the Evronians for daring to come into his turf (both being things he could do, especially the latter)... Except Rebo was already stranded on Earth and the Evronians took care of not triggering the automated defenses.

Brigitta helped raising Goldie's child

Brigitta's origin story shows that she too was in Dawson during the Gold Rush (she was a shop owner and met Scrooge between him kidnapping Goldie for a month and Sam Steele's arrival), and not only the two stories where she and Goldie interacted show they're good friends, Brigitta is a close friend with Goldie's granddaughter Dickie. They likely became friends over their mutual pining over Scrooge, and since Goldie was a single mother and Brigitta was childless...

The modern day Jubal Pomp is the Identical Grandson of the one that tried to rob Scrooge during the Gold Rush

In his debut story "The Secret of Success" Jubal looks at Brigitta with subtle contempt, even mockingly calling her Brigitta "grandma" and kidnapping her to force Scrooge to part with the titular secret (actually a letter from Scrooge's grandfather reminding him to always be honest, prevident, and thrifty), but in Brigitta's origin story they work together to try and scam Scrooge out of his gold before he betrays her, and he doesn't look nearly as old as her or Scrooge. They're likely grandfather and grandson, with the younger initially having contempt for Brigitta because his grandfather mistook how her relationship with Scrooge evolved.

Scrooge is secretly funding the Junior Woodchucks

In some stories (especially Italian ones) the Junior Woodchucks have access to surprisingly advanced technology, and he has occasionally used them to investigate his own companies whenever he has reason to think they're breaking environmental laws (and has fired said subordinates on the spot if the Woodchucks reported they were indeed breaking said laws). Both could be explained by Scrooge funding the JWs for his own reasons, keeping it secret because he never discloses when he does charity unless it's tax refundable, though he occasionally holds it over the Duckburg troop to have them check his subordinates, as he knows from experience how honest they are.

The Tz'oook accidentally destroyed the magnetic field on their Earth

The very first plan of the Tz'oook in "Threath From the Infinity" is to reverse the magnetic poles and move in while humanity is reeling from the devastation, and while they can't pull it off due their left-over technology for it existing in the cities they abandoned on the parallel Earth they hail from and not ours they still have the technology. Considering their reckless attitude toward the environment and that their Earth is revealed to have been reduced to a lifeless rock, it's likely they were messing with the planet's magnetic field right before the Siberian Trap eruption forced them to flee... And the event killed the technicians manning the magnetic field manipulating technology, leaving it active and eventually destroying the magnetic field, allowing for solar radiation to strip down the atmosphere and reduce the planet to the lifeless rock that is eventually shown.

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