Darkwing Duck #4 Review

Welcome back everybody to Darkwing Duck. We open with our hero on top of the St. Canard bridge delivering his signature introduction, only to realize that he is needed on the exact opposite side of town. And indeed, there is trouble afoot, as the St. Canard Jewelry exchange is being robbed by a new villain known as Gnatmare, a tiny gnat who’s been mutated to have unimaginable super strength. Our hero arrives on the scene, but clearly, the Gnatmare is far too strong for DW. Our hero does his best to fight back, but Gnatmare is too small to fall into Darkwing’s traps and our hero finds himself painfully shoved into a metal safe for his trouble.

After a dejected Darkwing returns home, Gosalyn decides to take matters into her own hands and swipes a helmet used to control insects that once belonged to a super villain from her father’s vault. Gosalyn uses the helmet to track down Gnatmare and gets a brief glimpse into his head. Apparently, as an ordinary bug, Gnatmare was often pushed around. When people weren’t trying to swat him, they made him into their personal shoe shine boy. One day, Gnatmare flew into a F.O.W.L. laboratory and was hit by an experimental ray that made him what he is now. However, Gnatmare’s willpower is too strong to be controlled and the villain violently forces Gosalyn out of his head. To make matters worse, because of Gosalyn’s little stunt, Gnatmare now knows where Gosalyn is and comes after her. Fortunately, Darkwing arrives to make the save, only to receive another beating at the hands of Gnatmare. However, later that night, while he’s being bandaged up, Darkwing hatches a plan to finally defeat the diminutive evil doer. To the end of stopping Gnatmare, Darkwing cuts a deal with the villainous Megavolt. In exchange for a reduced sentence and a subscription to a magazine for electronic devices (which Megavolt looks at like it’s playboy), Megavolt has agreed to serve as a makeshift bug zapper. And so the trap is set, all that’s left is to call out Gnatmare, which Gosalyn does with a very amusing Goodfellas reference. Despite Darkwing getting hit in the head with an oldsmobile, the trap is successfully sprung, Gnatmare is defeated and Megavolt returns to jail.

Elsewhere, a comic book artist receives a package with a cryptic note that reads “If at first you don’t succeed, rise, rise again.”

What Works: The comedy in this issue is great. Seeing Darkwing go up against a villain who’s so small he can’t be seen and get beaten to a pulp each time always gets a laugh. I particularly liked Gosalyn’s “Go get your shine box” line. Gnatmare himself is a cool villain and certainly fits the mold of the typical Darkwing Duck enemy: humorous, but still a threat. What Doesn’t: I felt the resolution with Megavolt was a little rushed.

Overall: 5/5

This series has been great across the board and with the promise of the return of a popular villain from Disney Adventures magazine next month, it’s not stopping anytime soon.