#also yeah fenton's wearing the suit he wears in the original series

[meerkatp]

Wedding day

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “Moonvasion!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Storyboard by: Vince Aparo, Kristen Gish, Victoria Harris, Ben Holm, Sam King, Kat Marusik, Stephan Park, William Ruzicka, Brandon Warren

Directed by: Tanner Johnson & Jason Zurek

The last episode of Season 2.

Well, this is it, the season finale for DuckTales 2017 Season 2. It's been a long journey, sometimes feeling a lot longer than usual, but I'm finally going to tackle this episode. It's the Moonvasion they were building up to since "The Golden Spear!", and I can only assume they are not messing around with this one.

There is certainly one way to tell when they are not messing around: the episode immediately begins with the opening theme song. They knew they either wanted to get it out of the way first, or just omit it entirely. It would just seem wrong to not have it, and I will say that this episode doesn't seem rushed to the point where its omission would have improved the episode at all.

After the theme song, we see Scrooge calmly pouring a cup of tea with the sounds of the Scottish Highlands in the background, with no bother in the world. He looks at the clear blue sky, and turns his chair around.

Suddenly, Della shows up to tell Scrooge that she hopes he can keep that same feeling unconditional love he had when she showed up at the door after her long unwanted stay on the Moon, pointing towards the window. In other words, "please don't be mad." Scrooge immediately gets that this is probably not going to be something pleasant, and this is shown right from his worried expression.

Scrooge is horrified to see several golden versions of the Spear of Selene landing on various places in Duckberg. Needless to say, Della doesn't exactly get her request. Maybe not to the extent of the "sea monster" incident from the original, but still understandably unhappy.

Scrooge gets everyone together to watch the news. Roxanne Featherly tries to report the news on this Moonvasion in a professional way, even though the people who make the on-screen text can't seem to keep their composure. This does give a little bit of humor to this mostly serious scene, which is probably for the best.

Gizmoduck, the beloved resident superhero and "top man for the job", shows up to confront these space invaders. Even wearing his mighty GizmoDuck suit, Fenton just can't seem to shake off his utter fright at being the first person to talk to someone from another planet. Can they even speak any Earth language? Actually, that never seems to come up.

However, the one language he is sure that would work is the universal language of pie. And...it works? The soldiers of the moon decide to stop their Moonvasion. The rest of the episode involves Huey, Dewey, and Louie going to Penguin Pete's, and Louie gets a toothache.

No, of course not, the Moonlanders take out their lasers and fire at will, having their pie and eating it too, both literally and figuratively. One thing I can definitely commend here is the scale of this invasion. We see that fisherperson's wharf from "The Ballad of Duke Baloney" get invaded. The Waddle headquarters get invaded as well, which leads to a joke about Mark Beaks taking selfies while he's under attack. Yup, that's Mark Beaks, alright.

Scrooge and his kin barely make it to the Money Bin, where Scrooge would tell Gyro to unleash one of his big weapons. He tries to unleash the Unstoppabomb, the Doomsday Ray, and a weapon so destructive and secret that the Moonlanders wouldn't have been able to find and destroy it. Turns out, that Unstoppabomb was not as unstoppable as advertised, the Doomsday Ray was as destroyed as it was generically named, and Scrooge couldn't even name that last one before Gyro interrupts him with the bad news about it. All in all, a good use of the Rule of Three here.

After Gyro decides to sort of praise these invaders for such a well thought out plan, General Lunaris shows up on Gyro's projector. There's no pretense of him being the peaceful leader he was in his first appearance; his only goal is to make that blue orb fear the mighty Moon as much as he feared it. One of his big steps? He's going after the Scrooge family, and shows footage of one of the spears landing right on the McDuck Manor.

Scrooge asks if the satellites were destroyed by the aliens too, but Huey tells him that Louie did it last week. Huh, last week; the allusion would have worked better if DuckTales was on a weekly schedule rather than the "DuckBomb" treatment it got. Also, it's good to know that last episode was important.

Gyro has his plan to rally Scrooge's troops together: a bunch of Lil Bulbs, led by a Lil Bulb with a crack in its head. I like that distinction; even if one could tell who is the leader just by its actions. These Lil Bulbs have a walkie-talkie feature, and are on their own network.

While the Lil Bulbs are doing their work, Scrooge tells the kids that there's some good news for them. Some could expect this would lead to another "please stay out of this" situation like the last big finale, but instead, Della tells her kids and her kid's best friend that they're going on a worldwide quest to find even more reinforcements. She's going to need all the skills, from Webby's skills, Dewey's gusto, Huey's know-how, and Louie's...

...ability to see the angles that she couldn't. Yeah, at this point, Della has completely forgiven Louie, even though he was only grounded a week ago. Any anger towards him would just get in the way of this plot. Besides, it's probably better to have anyone who can win Scrooge's money on Scrooge's team. She leads the kids to the Cloudslayer, and they take off.

We then cut to someone who prefers a different name for that plane. Launchpad tries to drive out of his garage, only to find out long after he got in the car that the car was on fire. It's just as likely this had nothing to do with the Moonlanders, but one Moonlander shows up anyway to zap him. That Moonlander is interrupted by a purple smoke bomb, held by someone who is now really getting into the role.

Once again, Launchpad and Darkwing Duck team up, but this time, the role of Darkwing Duck is being played by Drake Mallard! Yeah, that was the big twist of the last episode to feature him that I intentionally left out; it turns out Darkwing Duck's biggest fan has the same name as his secret identity in the original. The reboot never clarifies if that's the case in the fictional Darkwing Duck show, though it's likely it was just never shown.

Darkwing Duck even comes with his famous intro: He is the terror that flaps in the night! He is the scream you can hear in space! He is...

...nobody important, according to the Moonlanders, who just run off. The purple guy was so least of a threat that the one guy totally forgot that he was going to zap Launchpad. Thankfully for Darkwing, one of the Lil Bulbs thinks he's important, and they get the message to go to the Money Bin. A bunch of other people get visits from a Lil Bulb as well, most of them intended, and one of them accidentally gets caught by Gibbous.

Oh yeah, those two Moonlanders that were curious about the dogs were named Gibbous and Zenith. Thanks, last minute research.

Meanwhile, on the worldwide trip, Della's first stop is at Egypt. Unfortunately, the Moonlanders have already landed a Spear on the territory, and Djinn, the "Dijon but way better" character, and Amunet, former follower of Toth-Ra, are too busy fending off against the invading Moonlanders. Louie tells his mom to land, thinking of a plan to get Djinn and Amunet on the plane.

She does the opposite of that, claiming that there's nowhere to land. Even Dewey points out the error in his mom's logic. It is as if she’s too afraid to land. While she is worrying, the Lil Bulb is still getting a signal, where we get this tidbit from Amunet:

Amunet: If only there was some sort of Moon God!

They're probably not going to find the Egyptian Moon God Khonsu, but this statement does remind them of a different moon deity.

Going back to the Bin, we see that Scrooge's troops are already gathered, and they all have ideas to stop this Moonvasion. It seems like every Duckberg dweller that can help out is here, including the hosts of the fully funded for about 50 seasons Ottoman Empire. No, not that one, Djinn. Also, there's this:

Gyro Gearloose: (After saying his "Clone Army" plan) We'll send GizmoDuck out as a decoy!

M'Ma Cabrera: (grabs Gyro by the collar) You hurt him, I hurt you.

Gizmoduck: Ha ha! Thank you for your concern, random citizen!

M'Ma Cabrera: I'm your mother, I know you're GizmoDuck.

Gizmoduck: Ma! Secret identity.

I was thinking Gizmoduck just plain gave up on that, but he's trying. Oh, is he trying.

Speaking of problems, after Darkwing Duck attempts to dramatically say his plan, to no effect, he gets greeted by Gizmoduck. His response of a grunt shows that he is none too pleased by the offer of a handshake, continuing from his distaste of Gizmoduck from his appearances in the original Darkwing Duck. While a reason is not stated, it's a bit clear even from just this episode that it may be jealousy. Gizmoduck is a beloved hero, while everyone from Moonlanders to the other people in the room pay him no mind. Eventually, everyone decides to go with Scrooge's plan to fight them head on.

Meanwhile, Della just reached Ithaquack to find Selene, and maybe Storkules as well. If you're going to fight invaders from the moon, why not get the goddess of it?

Unfortunately, Zeus has to get in the way of that, because he's Zeus, and he's nothing like the kind Disney God-dad people may know. It's a shame, because both Storkules and Selene want to help out the mortals. Well, Storkules just wants to help out Donald Duck, but his help would have helped everyone else, too. But alas, Zeus would rather not do anything that would benefit his most hated mortal. He even does the cliched line.

Zeus: We are not going to help Scrooge McDuck! If a mortal jumped off a bridge, would you, too?

Storkules: Yes, father, for I am immortal!

(Zeus zaps him)

Okay, I guess there was some element of the Disney version in here after all.

Della bangs on the door, asking that they need to hide. Louie assumes this means they need to hide so they can come up with a plan when they come back to Duckberg, until Della blurts out that they can't go back to Duckberg.

(Pardon the interruption, but here's an editor's note: I pride myself with taking my own screenshots rather than taking them from somewhere else, though there are times where I couldn't do that. To make a long story short, this was one of those times. Special thanks to the website KissThemGoodbye for the rest of the screenshots for this review. I will replace these with my own as soon as I can actually do that.)

Going back to Duckberg, we end up getting the first big fight between the gathered Duckberg citizens and a troop of Moonlanders. There's a lot going on here.

Duckworth in his demon form doing what he does best. This is going to seem very weird for those not familiar with that.

Lena turns one of the ray guns into a raven. More actual real life birds!

Violet gets to use a pink mace. Comes with being friends with Lena.

Gyro gets to use the clone army he's been teasing about since "Timephoon!"

Gizmoduck gets to repeat his pie plan, except he's actually going to pie them in the face.

Officer/M'Ma Cabrera gets to use her own skills to disarm a Moonlander.

Oh, and Scrooge gets to ride on Manny the Headless Horse, wearing his Scottish gear. He even gets to jump on the Moonlanders with his cane just like he did in the NES game!

Oh, oh, Darkwing Duck ends up getting involved in a great plan to distract the Moonlanders, mostly involving him switching clothes with the Richest Duck in the World.

A play by play would take a long time to describe, but trust me, it's surprisingly action packed for something involving the Disney Ducks.

While all of this fighting is going on in Duckberg, above the ocean, Della is thinking of ways to hide. After a bit of questioning, she emotionally calls out that she just doesn't want the kids to be lost like she was. It does seem a bit odd; it's not like she wasn't involved when the kids on dangerous adventures before. Then again, this is a much bigger story than teaming up with Dewey to get a tree seed, even if that tree seed was so much harder to get than she thought. Unfortunately, any kind of sense-talking from the kids would have to wait, as one of the golden bootleg Spears is on their tail. Eventually, they get shot down, complete with a shot of the Cloudslayer heading for a crash towards the ocean.

Another golden bootleg Spear, the one that landed on the Manor, is finally approached by Scrooge, only for him to fall through it.

It turns out, that Golden Spear was just a Golden Distraction, and General Lunaris gives him a big speech on fear. To make a long story short, he tells Scrooge his big plan: have a giant rocket latch on to the Earth, and use that rocket to make the Earth spin around the mighty Moon.

And, in a bit of his wisdom, he decided to tell his plan just when the rocket is latching on to the Earth. There's no race against time, because it's already done. This is certainly the "darkest moment" of the episode, and this will be exemplified when we see Scrooge again.

Meanwhile, good news, they did survive, as they crash landed on an island. Even better news, this island isn't entirely uninhabited, as we find out exactly whatever happened to Donald Duck.

He turned into Tom Hanks' character from Cast Away, complete with his own inanimate buddy. In this case, it's a watermelon in the shape of a character that may otherwise never appear in DuckTales. Maybe. This watermelon ends up being this episode's Barksian Modulator, as Donald's Mickey impression is surprisingly accurate despite his impediment.

With some yelling, of course, because of all the misunderstandings between each other. For all Della knew, her brother was just on some cruise, not even taking the time to even write a letter to his family. It’s the classic misunderstanding, which would usually mean a few minutes of moping.

Thankfully, the "few minutes of moping after a misunderstanding" trope doesn't last too long, as we get a brother and sister hug not too long after. Dewey definitely had to help out, though. I guess he doesn't like the misunderstanding trope, either.

Finally reunited with her brother, Della sets out her plan to stay on the island until Scrooge fixes everything. See, Scrooge would definitely know what he's doing!

Scrooge: Ooh, I have no idea what I'm doing!

Wah, wah, wah, waaah. See, I told you.

Scrooge can't figure out a plan. The Moonlanders have already won. He would need a plan from an unlikely source. He may get one, but not with that exact wording. Not a plan, but a scheme.

We get a great Glomgold moment here, where he gets to do his big plan to get to the rocket in his usual way of presenting his plans: a blueprint presentation. He starts by showing off that the Earth will definitely freeze if Lunaris's rocket starts, so he has to get the best possible weapon: a Sharka! It's a shark...with a parka!

Scrooge: I'm going to miss being a planet.

Forgot a word there, Scrooge, though considering himself as the soon-be-be-former-planet he's on wouldn't be too beyond him.

Eventually, Della does learn to trust her kids, and not to worry about adventure destroying them, and it's all because of a heartfelt talk with the angle-seer. It seemed like he was the last sibling to get any bonding moment. Dewey had his adventure at the Doomsday Vault, Louie got to learn a lesson about not doing schemes that would hurt his family, and Huey did...

...whatever this was supposed to be.

After that bonding, they run into a problem: The Cloudslayer has been destroyed! How can they get off the island?

Simple: Cousin Fethry, who is still on the giant crawdad from his last appearance, along with Gladstone Gander. As much as I didn't exactly like the episode he first appeared in, I will say one thing that episode did right that this episode doesn't: it doesn't look that impressive seeing the crawdad in full. Maybe since the Moonvasion is supposed to be the big event, we got to make this crawdad "small".

After a tragic event happens with a beloved character, at least, that's how Frank Angones advertised it, we go back to see exactly what kind of plan Glomgold has come up with to destroy that giant rocket.

Sure enough, it's embarrassing for everyone involved. Everyone has to put on a costume, and, in Scrooge's case, he has to dress up as his worst enemy. No, not Glomgold, that's what Glomgold wishes it would be, it's Santa Claus!

Somehow, it works. Even the Sharkas manage to do some major damage. For a Glomgold plan, it manages to work absolutely perfectly; maybe it's because he's actually doing something for good this time.

I'm not going to spoil too much, but all of this eventually leads to a big space fight very reminiscent of Star Wars. At least one would-be missed opportunity due to Zeus gets rectified. Turns out, Lunaris doesn't even know his own "planet's" goddess.

In the end, they get a pretty super happy ending, actually. Happier than I would think.

Yeah, this is pretty much a finale for the whole series, there's no real loose ends. Pretty much the only loose end right now is whatever happened to the Terries and Fermies. That's a loose end I don't really mind never getting anything, actually. This would be a pretty good shot to end the series on, as it seems like everyone's going to live happily ever after...

...or will they?! No, really, there's a scene right at the end that's a huge cliffhanger for Season 3. It does make me wonder if it would have been in the final cut if DuckTales 2017 didn't get its third season. Disney did greenlight the second season before the show even started. It wouldn't be out of place for a cartoon to end on a cliffhanger; even that old Sonic cartoon ended with some evil eyes in the darkness. Only time will tell what would happen, but one question I can answer now is...

How does it, and this season, stack up?

While most of the Moonvasion tetralogy was just barely great, after watching this, I can say it was worth it.

As for the season. I did pull out the Disgusted Donalds for this one for two episodes in particular, though that was more because I've raised my standards for this show throughout the years. Honestly, even the Disgusted Donalds in this season are better than the Tenderfeet plot.

Still, there is a lot to love about Season 2, and I couldn't possibly give it anything less than another Happy.

And that is it for DuckTales 2017 Season 2. I'm going on vacation. And not the kind of vacation Donald Duck took. See you later!

← The Richest Duck In The World! 🦆 Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks! →

[astrodances]

Breaking Point

Vengeful Babes Week - Day 5: Future

Day: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

Huzzah! I finished Vengeful Babes Week! Yaaay! This particular shot is inspired by the now-canon fact that Dani would’ve moved in with the Fentons had the series continued, but it doesn’t include “Phantom Planet” for reasons you’ll see. ;) Enjoy!

Danny had always known he and Valerie had a complicated relationship. Their short stint of dating appeared to be the peak of it, yet thankfully it had mellowed out into the usual social awkward friendship status with Fenton and a mutual acknowledgement of being frenemies with Phantom.

But now the issue of dating had made things complicated again.

Only this time, Valerie was dating Dani. And Dani was moving in with the Fentons.

Danny was completely fine with his cousin and hunter dating. They'd seem to really hit it off after rescuing Danielle from Vlad. He just hadn't anticipated the consequences.

When Dani moved in as the newest member of the Fenton clan, Valerie began to hang out at Fenton Works a whole lot more. It would've been okay, but Danny could see the way Valerie was always on high alert, making sure her half-ghost girlfriend was safe in a house of unsuspecting ghost hunters.

Or so she thought.

Unfortunately, she was keeping too close of an eye on things for Danny's comfort. He himself was already doing a good job of keeping Dani and her secret safe. He taught her how to keep a straight face if and when one of his parent's inventions ever honed in on her ecto-signature.

It's just that Valerie didn't know these things. She knew that Phantom was also keeping an eye on Dani, and that Fenton wouldn't harm her anyway, but she didn't know they were one and the same. That she never needed to worry, regardless of which Danny her girlfriend was hanging out with.

But one night, after Valerie had gone home, Danielle came into Danny's bedroom with some troubling news.

"She knows."

Danny nearly choked on his soda and scrambled up off of his bed. He knew exactly what she meant, but he still shouted, "What?!"

"Well, she sort of does." Dani walked casually across the room, plopping down in her cousin's desk chair. "When I was saying goodbye to her just now, she asked me if there were any other half-ghosts besides me and Vlad. I told her I wasn't sure, but then she told me she thinks that you and Phantom are the same guy. She made me promise not to tell, but I think the circumstances deem otherwise."

Danny looked paler than he did in his ghost form. He started pacing around the room, speaking his thoughts aloud. "This is bad. This is so bad..."

Dani just slouched back in the chair, more amused than anything else. "I think it's kind of funny." After Danny's death glare, she continued, "Look, she knows I'm half-ghost, and she hasn't tried to shoot at Phantom in a long time. You guys are friends, I think you should tell her."

"Are you nuts?" Danny turned to her, his face twisted in panic. "After everything that's happened between us - if she found out it was me who did all those things she hunted Phantom for, t-that would...oh man, I can't even imagine how she'd react!"

The room fell silent as Danny's head filled with over-dramatic scenarios. Dani felt torn between wanting to help him, and wanting to laugh over how ridiculous the whole snafu was.

"You gotta convince her I'm not Phantom," Danny finally said.

"Oh, come on! I say we just let her suspicions simmer for a little while, have some fun with it. I'll pretend to spy on you like she asked-"

"She WHAT?!"

Danny was now in Dani's face, his hands gripping her shoulders with a death grip. She finally couldn't help herself and burst into full-on laughter.

"Danny, relax. Look, I really don't think she would hurt you if she found out. If she was going to, I think she would've just flown right up here and done it the moment she had the idea."

Danny's hands fell to his sides, and he returned to pacing.

"It'll be okay. I'll keep her at enough of a distance, but maybe we can play a few tricks in the meantime, alright?" Dani watched his shoulders finally surrender their tension.

"Fine," Danny sighed.

"Yes!" Dani hopped up to give her cousin a hug. "This is gonna be so fun!"

It was Danny's turn to laugh. "Val sure knows how to pick 'em," he deadpanned.

A pillow from his bed effectively silenced him.

It had been a little over a week since "Operation: Craze the Hunter" had been approved, and Valerie was nearing her breaking point.

It was like they were purposely teasing her, she was sure of it! Every little denial of her not-so-subtle prodding, Dani's surprisingly unhelpful spying, and Phantom's muffled laughter whenever she turned her back were starting to wear on her.

Everything seemed to click into place when the adoption papers for Dani were approved. When Jack first called her "Dani Fenton," Valerie could've smacked herself. As much as she loved her girlfriend, she really needed to work on original names.

And Danny needed to do a better job of protecting his alter ego.

This fool-proof evidence had Valerie nearly bursting at the seams. The day after Dani was officially adopted, Valerie went with her and Danny to the mall for some lunch.

She spent most of the time debating in her head how she was going to bring the topic up, make Danny spill. Right before the group left their table, Val pulled Dani aside.

"I need you to keep Danny distracted for a few minutes, then just go to his car in the parking lot," was her only instruction.

Dani stared at her suspiciously. "What are you gonna do, Val?"

"Let's just say, Phantom's going to need to make a very quick appearance." She smirked, then pulled Dani in for a quick kiss. "Just remember I still love you. Nothing bad is gonna happen."

Before Dani could respond, Valerie was walking out the mall doors, a clever grin on her face. Danny would have to use his powers, probably before he even had a chance to transform. His secret's time was up.

She ducked into the parking lot and in between two cars, then willed her suit to cover her body from head to toe. When the two Fentons finally walked past her hiding spot, she put her plan into action.

Valerie flew out on her jet sled from between the cars, stealthily flying behind the two just until...

"Watch out!"

The shout came from Valerie, who was planning to shoot at the ground right behind Dani as if there was a ghost there. The plan was to make Danny's protective instincts kick into gear.

But right as she pulled the trigger on her ecto-gun, Phantom phased into view right in front of her...with Fenton still completely human at Dani's side. She barely had time to register the ray of ice power that froze her gun before Phantom was flying off with a cocky smirk, baiting her to chase him and get them away from the humans.

But Dani and Danny were right there, both staring at her dumbfounded under the pretense that neither of them knew who the Red Huntress was.

"I...don't worry, I'll get that ghost," Valerie promised, keeping up the ruse.

She took off swiftly into the air, pretending like she was going after Phantom, but instead altered her course. She was going to Fenton Works.

She'd reach the breaking point.

"So apparently Val's back at our place," Dani told Danny, pocketing her phone. "I think you won."

"Not quite yet," Danny replied, driving his jeep through the streets of Amity Park.

Dani groaned, leaning her head back. "Oh come on! That duplicate stunt you pulled back there was pretty cruel, man."

He chuckled, turning onto their street. "Hey, you said yourself we should have a little fun."

"True," Dani conceded with a tiny grin. "But still, I think it's safe to tell her now. I'll be in the room just in case though."

"Yeah, alright..."

Danny put his jeep in park in Fenton Works' driveway, then went inside with Danielle. After some invisible searching, they found Val laying on Dani's bed, watching some show on TV.

Instead of going back out into the hall, however, Danny floated carefully in the air beside the bed, prompting Dani to do the same. With a deep breath, he then popped into sight, as his human self.

After the scream ended, Danny calmly said, "Hey, Val, there's something I gotta tell you..."

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “Who is Gizmoduck?”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Christian Magalhaes

Directed by: Tanner Johnson

Storyboard by: Emmy Cicirega, Ben Holm, Jason Reicher

It’s Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera, right? Well, it's a little more complicated than that.

The episode starts with Donald Duck trying to get a loan from the bank for the repairs for his houseboat. I'm assuming this is due to all that damage that shark did to it. This would be the perfect job for Donald, as he was able to take them on in a previous episode. If only he wasn't all tied up with one of those pens on a string.

Thankfully for everyone, at least at first, Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera was also in the bank trying to open an account. Right from the beginning, we're hinted at Fenton's financial situation: since he's an unpaid intern, he has to ask the bank if he can open an account with no money. After he accidently says his catchphrase while failing to hide from all of this, the suit activates. Sadly, there's no repeat of the amazing magical girl transformation sequence here.

Gizmoduck still pretty much beats everyone out of sheer luck, due to not having total control over his suit. The one time he tries to hit Bouncer Beagle with a pie, the hand just throws it on the ground.

It's not just incompetence: there's an internal Processor Core, represented on his interface as a Little Bulb. When he uses too many of his powers, it overloads and makes him spin around shooting lasers and pies everywhere. While this succeeds in making the Beagle Boys run off before getting a single dime out of the bank, this does destroy it.

Huey was there, and he was enamoured by all of this, as shown here. Not everyone else is happy, though. Because of this kind of destruction, Gizmoduck has a Spider-Man-like reputation when it comes to the media. Huey tries to tell Roxanne Featherly, the recurring anchorwoman, about how Gizmoduck is a hero and that he saved him, but this doesn't stop the news from calling him "Robo-Crook". Not a recurring theme.

This episode does not focus on Scrooge and the nephews, or even Donald as he just disappears into the "far more interested in repairing his houseboat than participating in adventures" void. Instead, the vast majority of this episode's focus is on Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera. It's a neat change from the usual.

Another hint at the financial situation is that he still lives with his mother; this reboot’s version of M'Ma Crackshell, who, according to the credits, everyone else calls Officer Cabrera. She's a police officer in this version, constantly carrying her badge. She speaks a few Spanish words, and is addicted to telanovelas, continuing from the original's addiction to soap operas.

This episode has a lot of slapstick even when he doesn't have the suit on. He has to juggle around a missile while talking to his mom, and having to use a stretchy arm to stop a pie from hitting her in the face. The pies are a running gag throughout the episode.

We cut to Mark Beaks, talking to one of his interns about how much he wants Gizmoduck. Okay, maybe that's not the best way to word that, but I'm keeping it. Because it wasn't hinted enough that this guy is a villain, he does all of this in the dark. Mark Beaks also builds an emblem with Waddle's logo on it. That may be the first thing he's ever built that isn't a smartphone app and/or stolen from someone in a while.

If you don't pay attention to the background, you'll miss out on some excellent foreshadowing. That's something that happens in this series a lot, and I appreciate it.

After that, we see Gyro training Fenton in the ways to use the suit. This only consists of reflex tests, which doesn't really excite Fenton. Unlike Fenton's dreams of being able to use Gizmoduck to save the world, Gyro only wanted him to do mundane tasks like lifting boxes to high places.

Gyro warns Fenton that he better not use the suit in a way that would make it go haywire, and make him lose all of his funding. Yeah, Gyro doesn't have any idea about the bank incident. The news crew didn't get a good shot at who this robo-crook looks like, but I would think this genius would be able to put two-and-two together. Fenton can hope that someone won't tell him about this amazing robotic hero who has tons of gizmos at his disposal...

...especially not when Gyro is having trouble with the Pep machine. That running gag will be as present as that guy from Lilo and Stitch’s ice cream falling to the ground. Gyro goes to the junkyard and finds Gizmoduck in the middle of a slapstick montage of him figuring out which gizmos are malfunctioning, and he's not too happy.

In the middle of all this, he accidentally fires a missile, which he has to chase after. Even he laments that this isn't a continuation of the pie joke, possibly caused by Gyro turning those down earlier in the episode. End scene, cut to commercial.

This missile almost ends up hitting a helicopter piloted by a certain someone everyone seems to know. This stranger he saves happens to be really excited about this, and says "yay" with glee as he is flown to safety. No surprise, since he happens to be...

...the memelord himself, Mark Beaks. As a thank you for saving him from the destroyed helicopter, he offers Gizmoduck a job opportunity. He tells him that the city doesn't exactly like him, and with his help, he can become the beloved hero of Duckburg he wanted to be. Or, in his exact words and convienent smartphone app...

Mark Beaks: See, right now, you're a bad meme.

Yeah, have you seen his new Gizmoduck Meme Generator? I will say this; this episode is by far his best appearance in my opinion. It is apparent in that earlier scene, but it will be even more apparent later in the episode.

Despite the huge job opportunity, he decides not to accept it, and flies away. I would almost think he would have taken it immediately after Gyro got angry at him, but it would seem a little out of character for him to immediately turn his back on.

However, it's not too out of character for the reboot's Gyro to turn his back on Fenton. Gyro and Little Bulb respond the best way they know how: by firing him and literally setting the suit on fire to start again on a suit that doesn't have gizmos. How he managed to know about the helicopter incident but not the bank incident is not really explained. Maybe Huey told him about it, too. That rascal.

The Headless Man Horse is there, too, still doing his one joke while wearing the Scrooge head. I think they're trying to make him a meme. Eh.

He says Blathering Blatherskite, and crashes through the walls and flies off to Waddle. A very disappointed Huey looks on, hinting at a future scene. Gyro apparently doesn't notice his suit he was going to incinerate just flew out of the building.

He comes back to Mark Beaks to seal the deal, as he doesn't have a job any more. Mark Beaks even rebrands him as Waddle Duck, as shown in a PowerPoint presentation. Things are looking up, not only can he be a hero, but he even gets some love from his M’Ma. She's glad that he is working at a real job at Waddle instead of an unpaid internship with Scrooge.

We get a true montage: not only does Waddleduck help out a variety of people with various mundane problems, it is all backed by a Waddle Duck theme that feels like it's straight out an 80's movie. This is even repeated at the end credits, giving us an alternate credits theme for the first time.

Ironically enough, this is pretty close to how Gyro wanted the suit to be used in the first place, and the simple tasks aren't complicated enough to make the suit go haywire.

One of the customers is Huey, who isn't too happy with Fenton's business decision. He uses the app to tell Waddleduck to throw away a piece of paper that represents his faith in him. Huey has every reason to not be a fan of Mark Beaks, either, as he experienced first-hand that he's a crook. He still uses their products, but that's pretty accurate to real life. There's a lot of reasons to not like Wal-Mart, but dammit, some businesses need cheap soap!

Eventually, he’s going to have a problem. While he's lifting up a car to help someone parallel park, Waddleduck notices that the Beagle Boys are robbing a poor family. Much like RoboCop, Waddleduck has some new directives: he can't save anyone unless they install the app and give all their details.

He goes up to Mark Beaks' office, clearly angered by the situation, to turn off the directive. His office happens to be in darkness in this scene, which hints that this is going to be the huge twist!

While I’m not going to delve too much into the big plot twists in this episode, I really need to talk about this particular one. Much like the last time I had to do this in the Goldie O'Gilt episode, it wasn’t even a matter of if, but when and how Mark Beaks’ plan is going to happen, but it's still a delight to see without me spoiling it to you. Watch the episode, it's good.

← From the Confidential Casefiles of Agent 22! 🦆 The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck! →

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Ultimately, Mark Beaks decides that it wouldn't be great if someone else was the beloved hero, and taps a few things on his phone. He removes Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera as the owner of the suit, and puts himself in his place. He doesn't even have to say the codeword to take off Fenton's suit, that's the power of the Waddle emblem. Yeah, that's definitely not the best way to word that, but I'm keeping it.

He even gets his own transformation sequence, which is even more Sailor Moon than Fenton’s from Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System! I guess two transformation sequences would have been too much.

The real Robo-Crook shows up at a press conference, and his first course of action is to show off his secret identity as Mark Beaks. He hasn't even done anything, and he's already a terrible superhero. Maybe he's just that confident in his guards. Huey doesn't buy it at all. He never does figure out who Gizmoduck is, which I was a little confused by until I realized he didn't even appear in Gizmoduck's debut episode.

One can probably guess how this will mess up for Mark Beaks. Even with all of his experience with it, Fenton Crackshell could barely control his super-suit. Mark Beaks got this suit a minute ago. He also decided to get rid of the directive that prevented the suit from using its gizmos to help anyone except people who have the app, so he has no restriction on how he uses its powers!

Sure enough, the same going haywire that happened to Fenton in the beginning happens to Mark Beaks here, minus the whole "stopping a bank robbery" thing. He was just showing off by firing lasers randomly and not really caring that its causing destruction, which is fitting for his character. They actually stop to show a scene where the smartphone he used to steal the suit gets run over by him bumbling around, causing the Waddle logo emblem to fall off of his chest. Without this scene, there would have been a plot hole later in the episode.

They have to resolve another issue, as well: that pesky Processor Core that's causing all of this. It's Huey that helps out in this situation, I won't spoil exactly how, but not before he gets into danger due to the malfunctioning suit. One of the lasers hits a billboard that he and Fenton's M'Ma happened to be under. In a heroic move, Fenton leaps towards the falling billboard, and, with intention this time, says the magic words.

It turns out that emblem was the only thing keeping Fenton, or anyone else who knows the secret passphrase, from stealing back the suit. I would have questioned how he was able to do this after getting hacked, but that scene I mentioned earlier does explain it quite well. Mark Beaks just kind of disappears after this; it's more than likely he'll get away with what he did being that he's rich. There's some nice development there. I will say that a scene at the end reminds me of a certain Batman movie to the point where it could be a reference to it.

Thankfully, it is not played straight, and it does end well for Fenton and anyone who wants to see more Gizmoduck. This is helped by an appearance of a character who you expected to see, swooping in at the last minute. Who is this sort-of Deus Ex "Machina" helping out the machina? Watch the episode to find out.

How does it stack up?

My expectations were simply to see more Gizmoduck, and this pretty much delivered. It's a good slice of the life of a superhero.

Another day, another bin, another Lena episode. Can't wait.

← From the Confidential Casefiles of Agent 22! 🦆 The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck! →