Malcolm McDuck

Malcolm McDuck
INDUCKS	Malcolm McDuck
Character Information
Aliases	"Matey" McDuck
Species	Anthropomorphic Duck
Birth	≈ 1530
Death	At some point after 1579
Residence	England (formerly) Fort Drakeborough
Behind the Scenes
First seen	April of 1956
In	Back to Long Ago!

Malcolm McDuck was an anthropomorphic duck.

Description

A member of the Clan McDuck, Malcolm "Matey" McDuck was a high-ranking officer on the British Falcon Rover in 1564. That year, Malcolm was asked by Queen Elizabeth I to locate the fabled Wishing Crown and bring it to her. Discovering the island on which the crown was located, Malcolm dove into a pool of allegedly bewitched water, at the bottom of which was a secret lever that would reveal the Crown. Hearing voices behind him, Malcolm swam out a tunnel instead of risking the Crown being discovered. Upon surfacing, Malcolm found himself slowly turning to gold, and realized that the water truly was bewitched, before turning into a solid gold statue.

453 years later, Malcolm's descendant Scrooge McDuck cleared away a few rocks covering the entrance to the cavern in which Malcolm was standing, causing sunlight to shine directly onto the frozen Malcolm McDuck, breaking the curse. Malcolm became acquainted with his descendant and helped him fight off two pirates trying to steal the Wishing Crown, the same two pirates whose voices Malcolm had heard centuries ago, who had also been turned to gold and freed earlier that morning by Scrooge. The pirates eventually took the Crown and wished themselves back to their own time, neglecting to wish that the Crown would come with them. Malcolm then used the Crown to wish Scrooge's nephews back (Scrooge had accidentally wished them to disappear earlier that day) instead of wishing himself back to his own time as he had been planning.

Thinking that he would have to stay in the 21st century forever with all of the Crown's three wishes used, Malcolm picked up the crown, and the stone on top of it fell off and hatched a small sea turtle. The turtle crawled to the sea and grew to enormous size, and, as thanks to the group for allowing it to re-incarnate itself, granted Scrooge one last wish. Scrooge wished that Malcolm could return to his own time, and Malcolm was sent back, along with the now-stoneless crown as a gift for his queen. Crashing into a tree upon arrival, Malcolm passed out, and, waking, decided that the whole thing must have been a dream and that he had been dazzled by the Crown shining in the sunlight. Returning to his ship, Malcolm saw that his crew had captured the two pirates who had tried to steal the crown.

Malcolm McDuck as he appear on Don Rosa's Duck Family Tree.

Later that year, Captain Loyal Hawk asked Malcolm as well as Bos'n Pintail Duck to bury a sealed chest on an island in the Caribbean (which, unbeknownst to them, only contained potatoes, then a novelty). Three days later, the Falcon Rover was sunken by the Spanish navy, allegedly with all hands, while trying to go back to the treasure island on Malcolm's demand. However, Malcolm escaped the shipwreck and went on to become Sir Francis Drake's first mate on the Golden Hind. In 1579, Sir Drake put his loyal friend in charge of the colony of Drakeborough. Whatever became of Malcolm afterward is unknown, although he appears to have had offsprings while in Drakeborough, as there were at least two documented American-born McDucks in 17th century Calisota. Through lineage, Malcolm is scrooge's 10th great-grandfather.

Behind the scenes

Malcolm "Matey" McDuck first appeared in April 1956 in Carl Barks's Back to Long Ago!. He has reappeared many times in stories by other authors.

Malcolm made his first animated appearance (albeit as a static portrait) in 2018 in Surprise!

Trivia

• It is debatable if Sir Drake had any association to Malcolm McDuck at all. On one hand, The History of the Clan McDuck details that Malcolm was Drake's first mate on the Golden Hind. But on the other hand, according to Sir Quackly McDuck in The New Laird of Castle McDuck, Malcolm went down with the Falcon Rover. Besides, in The Guardians of the Lost Library, the highest-ranking person left at Drake Borough at the time was named Fenton Penworthy. Though it is possible Malcolm died and Fenton was next in line.