Darkwing Duck #5

History

Dynamite's 2025 Darkwing Duck ongoing was announced in late 2024 as a restart of the publisher's existing Disney licensed line, with writer Daniel Kibblesmith — a self-described childhood devotee of the Disney Afternoon block — and the art team of Ted Brandt and Ro Stein taking over from the 2023 Amanda Deibert/Carlo Lauro volume. The series launched in February 2025 with a framing conceit explicitly styled as 'Darkwing Duck: Year One,' positioning Drake Mallard as the unreliable narrator of his own heroic autobiography. Original animated series creator Tad Stones was brought in to supply variant cover art for the run, giving the relaunch a direct creative throughline back to the character's 1991 television origins. Issues #1 through #6 — which include issue #5 — were subsequently collected as 'Darkwing Duck Vol. 1 HC: Year One, Part One,' confirming the arc's planned six-issue structure from the outset.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published August 20, 2025 by Dynamite Entertainment; written by Daniel Kibblesmith, primary interior art by Ted Brandt and Ro Stein, with Carlo Lauro returning as artist for this specific issue.
• Official story description: 'Fate conspires to throw Darkwing into conflict once again with the malevolent Megavolt!' — a rematch that revisits and advances the arch-nemesis question first posed in issue #1.
• The plot sends Darkwing Duck and Megavolt into cyberspace, where Megavolt attempts a 'virtual heist' in the early internet; the setting is deliberately period-accurate to the 1990s, including visual gags referencing dial-up culture, flying-toaster screensavers, digital cookies rendered as literal chocolate-chip cookies, and the 'Ask Jeeves' search engine.
• The issue maintains continuity with issue #1's Megavolt encounter (explicitly referenced in the narrative) and carries forward the series-wide 'Year One' autobiography framing — Drake Mallard recounting (and likely embellishing) his early adventures to adopted daughter Gosalyn.
• Carlo Lauro — who drew the preceding 2023 Dynamite Darkwing Duck series — provides art for this installment, reviewers noting his style reads closer to the original animated series' visual grammar than the regular Brandt & Stein issues.
• Variant cover contributors across the series include Tad Stones (creator of the original 1991 animated series), Mark Bagley, Nicoletta Baldari, and Ciro Cangialosi; Stones's participation was highlighted as a deliberate creative endorsement of the new run.
• Issues #1–6 of this volume were collected as 'Darkwing Duck Vol. 1 HC: Year One, Part One,' confirming that issue #5 falls within the first collected arc of the Kibblesmith run.
• The 2025 series is Dynamite's second Darkwing Duck ongoing volume (following the 2023 Deibert/Lauro run) and the property's fourth distinct comic-book series overall, the others being the 1991 Disney Comics mini-series, Marvel's Disney Afternoon run (1994–1995), and the Boom!/Joe Books continuation.

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