The Headless Man-Horse, more properly the Headless Man-Horse of the Apocalypse also nicknamed Manny, is a supernatural, sentient, bipedal headless horse from the 2017 Continuum.
Description[]
The Headless Man-Horse is a strange, magical creature resembling a gray horse with a vaguely human torso, and no head on his neck. Being voiceless but intelligent, he communicates through tapping morse code with his hooves.
Little is known of the Headless Man-Horse's past, save that he had been driven to evil by his belief that his headlessness made him a “freak” (though he did not seem to see anything amiss about the rest of his constitution). He eventually faced off against Scrooge McDuck, to the point that Scrooge considered the creature one of his arch-nemeses. Scrooge managed to seal the Man-Horse within his own magical saddle, which Scrooge stored in his garage at McDuck Manor and subsequently forgot about.
In 2017, Louie Duck, on his first visit to the Manor, accidentally released the monster by tripping over the saddle. Captain Peghook, another enemy of Scrooge, was also released almost at the same moment, and the two teamed up in a short-lived attempt to get revenge. Scrooge, however, soon vanquished Peghook, and, in the process, the stone head of a statue of Scrooge was tossed at the Man-Horse. Overjoyed, the Man-Horse adopted this head as its own (of little use though it may be) and wore it on his neck ever since.
The Headless Man-Horse was found roaming the Manor at some later point and McDuck, noting his friendlier disposition than before, tested his Arch-nemesis Rehabilitation Program on him. The Man-Horse, now calling himself “Manny”, graduated from it in 2018, and with such flying colors that Scrooge trusted him to handle his company's business in his absence. Manny soon went mad with power, however, carelessly spending Scrooge's funds for his personal comfort. The Buzzard Brothers were forced to call Scrooge back from his treasure-hunting adventure early, for him to fire the Man-Horse, sending him back to Rehabilitation.
When he once again graduated from the Program, truly tamed at last, the Man-Horse was once again hired by Scrooge, but this time in the more modest position of Gyro Gearloose's new lab assistant (alongside Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera).
After Scrooge McDuck refused to appear on Dewey Dew-Night!, Dewey Duck invited the Man-Horse to appear on the show, however, the interview ended in disaster as Dewey could not understand the Man-Horse's Morse code-like tapping and accidentally angered him by handing him a pen, which he could not use due to having hooves. The Man-Horse then destroyed the set and ran off.
Manny later assisted in the battle against Magica's Shadows during the "Shadow War".
Behind the scenes[]
The Headless Man-Horse was created in 2017 for Woo-oo!, the pilot of DuckTales 2017. He has proven a divisive character; the surreal nature of his character, which makes him endearing to many (including one of the show's head writers, Francisco Angones, as repeatedly demonstrated on his blog), has also alienated more grounded viewers to him.
Voice actor[]
- Keith David