Daring duck of mystery
Champion of right
Swoops out of the shadows
Darkwing owns the night
Somewhere some villain schemes
But his number’s up

(3-2-1)

Darkwing Duck (When there’s trouble you call DW)
Darkwing Duck (Let’s get dangerous!)
Darkwing Duck (Darkwing, Darkwing, duck!)

When there’s trouble you call the Justice Ducks! Darkwing is now part of a bigger team in Dynamite Comics’ third comic series featuring the characters of the 1991 classic Disney TV animated show, Darkwing Duck. Dynamite’s first Darkwing comic debuted in January 2023 and ran for 10 issues. A comic devoted to Darkwing’s nemesis, Negaduck, launched in September 2023.

Today, we will take a look at Justice Ducks #3 published by Dynamite Comics.

Release Date: May 15th, 2024

Writer: Roger Langridge

Artist: Carlo Lauro

Letterer: Jeff Eckleberry

Editor: Nate Cosby

Covers by: Jae Lee, Roger Langridge, Francesco Tomaselli, Trish Forstner

Official Synopsis: MAKEWAY! DARKWING DUCK IS HUGE! Wait…is Darkwing huge, or are THE JUSTICE DUCKS tiny? It’s madcap alien-based tomfoolery by ROGER LANGRIDGE (The Muppets) and CARLO LAURO (Darkwing Duck)!

My Recap and Review

*STOP READING HERE IF YOU WANT TO AVOID ALL SPOILERS*

It is great that we are back to the regular schedule of monthly comic releases in this series. The title of the story in Justice Ducks #3 is “The Smallest Show on Earth”. The issue starts off with a news briefing that “The Southern Duck” statue has been stolen. No one on the Justice Ducks is too concerned although they will keep an eye out because nothing that big could be hiding too many places. It is Stegmutt’s birthday which means that the Francesco Tomaselli cover from Justice Ducks #2 of Stegmutt blowing out candles on a birthday cake was really meant for this issue. Stegmutt wants to celebrate with the Justice Ducks doing a team outing to the circus which is performing in St. Canard. Darkwing thinks that is a great idea that they should go so that he can have the headquarters all to himself, but then Gosalyn wants to go. So it is off to the Cirque Des Petites Choses (translation: Circus of the Little Things).

The circus show has every type of act that you can imagine at a circus including: balancing, juggling, contorting, high flying, and acrobatics acts…but no clowns. There is a dashing and daring pirate duck cheering in the crowd. For the final act, the ringmaster will make an audience member disappear. Gosalyn volunteers and is picked to join the act, and she completely disappears. DW and the rest of the Justice Ducks look all over for Gosalyn after the show, but she is nowhere to be found. The team splits up to look for her. Morgana, Stegmutt, Gizmoduck, and Neptunia check the Ringmaster’s tent which looks suspiciously like a space ship. The ringmaster detects them and blasts them with a shrinking ray. Darkwing meanwhile discovers a wagon which is full of glass bottles holding miniaturized versions of framed works of art and statues.

The Justice Ducks find a shrunken Gosalyn hiding in a popcorn bag. Morgana transforms the poor one bag into a vehicle which they use to track down DW who is being tied up by the circus performers who are all revealed to be aliens. The Justice Ducks and DW are able to defeat the aliens and tie them up with the long limbs of the contortionist alien. Morgana turns the stolen works of art from the bottles into conjured illusions who distract the ringmaster long enough so that Stegmutt is able to grab the shrink Ray to restore Gosalyn and the Justice Ducks back to normal size. Stegmutt also finds a clown lever that turned off a shielding device that alerts an alien police squad of clowns to the circus location. Stegmutt finally gets to see the clowns for his birthday. The clowns take the aliens and the stolen art back to space. The Southern Duck is returned to the art appreciating citizens of St. Canard except it was accidentally placed on the north side of town. The statue is now referred to as the Northern Duck. My favorite page of this issue is the last page where Drake Mallard is sculpting a very derpy Darkwing Duck statue to replace the Southern Duck on it’s original pedestal…Derpwing Duck!

This was overall a fun issue that felt like it could be an episode of the original show. I like that this series has a theme of space creatures in every issue and features all original out of this world villains for the Justice Ducks to bring to justice.

There have not been any solicitations for Justice Ducks issues past issue #5. So enjoy this limited Justice Ducks run and also the Negaduck series which ends after issue #8 while we have it. Stay dangerous!

The next issue of Justice Ducks will get dangerous at your local comic book shop in June. Please make sure to support the other Dynamite Comics Disney releases: Negaduck, Gargoyles Quest, Lilo and Stitch, Hercules, and Disney Villains Cruella De Vil.

Let us know what you thought of Justice Ducks #3 in the comments below. What cover(s) did you get?

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