The End of the Beginning! is a comic story scripted and penciled by John Blair Moore, and inked by George Wildman, adapting the second quarter of Darkly Dawns The Duck (cartoon), whose script was by Tad Stones, Jan Strnad and Jymn Magon. The fourth and final chapter of Brawl in the Family, it features Darkwing Duck, Taurus Bulba, Tantalus, Launchpad McQuack, Gosalyn Mallard, Hammerhead Hannigan, Hoof and Mouth, Clovis and Mrs Cavanaugh.
Plot[]
Things come to a head between criminal Taurus Bulba's quest to plunge America in a reign of terror using the Ram Rod, and obscure superhero Darkwing Duck's quest to become famous and protect kidnapped orphan girl Gosalyn Mallard, when Darkwing's self-proclaimed new sidekick Launchpad McQuack breaks him out of jail just in time to catch up to Bulba on top of the Canard Tower…
References[]
- Gosalyn, in her improvised eulogy to Darkwing Duck, refers to the smoking ruins of the Tower as “a mute but eloquent monument to the Daredevil Duck of Destiny, who met his Waterloo, his Reichenbach Falls, in the pursuit of Truth and Justice and in unselfish devotion to a little girl”.
Continuity[]
- This story adapts the climax of the feature-length pilot of Darkwing Duck, Darkly Dawns The Duck (1991). As with other episodes of Brawl in the Family, the adaption is generally very faithful, with only minor variations and additions; most notably, the explosion of the Ram Rod does not cause the destruction of St. Canard Tower; rather, in his rage, Taurus Bulba demands that Clovis activate the self-destruct mechanism of his Airship.
- As a result, Clovis is not seen escaping her fate, instead implicitly dying in the explosion; the televised episode Hot Spells (1992) later seemed to follow this version of events, as it featured a cameo by Clovis in the afterlife.
Behind the scenes[]
The End of the Beginning! was printed in January of 1992 in the fourth and final issue of a Darkwing Duck limited comic series devoted solely to the publication of Brawl in the Family’s four chapters.
The story was later reprinted in the U.S. Disney's Colossal Comics Collection #4 and in Darkwing Duck Classics #1.