New DuckTales Animated Series

We suspected Magica would appear in the show because she was one of the main villains from the original series, but it was never made explicit whether or when she'd make an appearance. This means that just because there's no indication at the moment that Merlock would make an appearance, they may as well include him as a surprise plot twist.

Yes, my point exactly. All it takes is one episode.

They've already set up F.O.W.L. to be next season's arc villain. The only way Merlock could fit in there is if he serves the role Duckthulu did in DW's comic.

Why does he have to be an arc villain?

Yeah he can be a one off or two parter villain.

Wouldn't that be a wasted potential for such an iconic villain?

I think it's also possible to connect him with F.O.W.L. in some way. Perhaps a mysterious hooded figure shows up at F.O.W.L.'s headquarters, offering them a team-up as they have a common enemy in Scrooge McDuck. Or as a last desperate measure to destroy Scrooge, F.O.W.L. decides to summon the spirit of an ancient, powerful wizard and unleash him on Scrooge.

Or the season simply has more than one arc with different main antagonists. Season 1 had Magica as the main villain for Webby & Lena's arc and Mark Beaks for Gizmoduck's arc; Season 2 had Glomgold for Scrooge's arc and Lunaris for Della's arc.

I don't think Merlock does team-ups, much less work for someone else. Merlock has underlings and slaves, he does not share power, and he certainly doesn't take orders.

Having Merlock join FOWL would only serve to diminish his character.

Fair enough, my first scenario would not really work. In my second scenario, F.O.W.L. summoning Merlock will most likely seriously backfire, with the evil wizard turning against his summoners.

Sort of like when they resurrected Taurus Bulba? I remember he turned on them almost immediately.

Edited by sgamer82 on Oct 16th 2019 at 6:54:13 AM

Yes, sort of like that. Although, considering that Taurus Bulba will also be in Ducktales, maybe they want to use him for that plot again...

I've kind of stopped wanting them to bring in classic villains, since all they've done so far is lampoon or deconstruct them. $100 says that Bulba or Merlock are voiced by Rhys Darby because 'oh boy, it sure would be subversive'.

Who's Rhys Darby and why would he be subversive?

I mean, they brought back Negaduck and so far it seems he'll be played with no twists or big changes to him. He's even voiced by Jim Cummings.

No he's not. He is voiced by a very convincing impersonator.

Edited by kkhohoho on Oct 16th 2019 at 10:20:42 AM

It is Jim voicing Negaduck, it's Starling that's voiced by someone else.

I'm not holding my breath on Negaduck just yet, since they haven't really used him in a story yet (his first episode was more of a pre-Negaduck episode).

Is it odd that they seem to respect Darkwing Duck characters much more than they do Ducktales characters? They made huge changes to Launchpad, Gyro, and Beakley, but they seem to go to great lengths to stay close to the source material when it comes to Darkwing Duck.

I think there's a mixup here. Unless I'm mistaken, Jim Starling/Negaduck is Jim Cummings, and the new Drake Mallard is someone else.

The change to Beakley was the exact opposite of disrespect tho.

And yes, Drake/Darkwing II is played by Chris Diamantopoulos, Starling/Negaduck is played by Jim Cummings.

Change in adaptation is not disrespect by default.

Also, Darkwing is pretty heavily changed. Rather extremely, due to the whole Show Within a Show thing. Negaduck's origins and motivations are entirely different. Darkwing is a poseur trying to prove himself to a team of accomplished heroes and adventurers rather than a loner. If you're fans of the Fearsome Five (minus Negaduck), too bad they're probably not going to show up as villains. Etc.

I didn't mean they show disrespect, I meant they made significant changes to these characters, much more so than they did to Darkwing Duck characters.

That's mostly changes to circumstances, though. The core character traits are still largely there.

Edited by Redmess on Oct 16th 2019 at 8:04:54 PM

I think part of the problem is that in the original Ducktales, a lot of the characters are basically just archetypal plot devices, without a lot of depth or defining characteristics (aka Webby being "generic girl", etc), which doesn't leave to work with in a more character driven era of storytelling.

Darkwing never had that problem. Most of the major characters and their dynamics are very well defined and specific, which gives the show it's distinct quirky feel.

Edited by megaeliz on Oct 16th 2019 at 4:41:20 AM

On top of that, this series (and the later Legend of the Three Caballeros ) are the only 2 Disney shows involving the classic characters to go for serialized storytelling. Sticking with stock character archetypes is fine for a more episodic series due to the smaller scale, but for something telling a larger story, especially in a weekly television series, you need a bit more "oomph" to get people to stick around. For example, Huey, Dewey, and Louie being The Dividual is fine in other projects, as is Donald mainly just being the angry guy, but for something telling a larger story, you need well defined characters, such as Donald in this series channeling his temper into being a loving and overprotective character.

That is a good point, though that just emphasizes how flat they made Launchpad's character, who was comparatively much more complex in the original. And Beakley wasn't all that complex for a long time, either, she was basically just replaced with another archetype (the granny who is (usually) secretly a super spy).

And to be frank, even if Beakley has had her character upgraded for the reboot, she's criminally underutilized in the overall plot itself.

Yeah, Beakley was just upgraded from one character archetype to another. And the irony is, the old Beakley could be a badass too in some episodes, so she really hasn't changed that much.

Also, I don't really like how the show equates "cool grandmother" with being aloof and serious all the time. I suspect most kids would rather have the old Beakley than the new one, if it came down to it. The new one has a cool job, but a rather detached personality.