Review: DuckTales “The First Adventure!”

Overview

In a prequel story long before the events of the very first episode, Scrooge McDuck is forced to babysit young Donald and Della as they go on their first adventure to find a powerful artifact, unaware that Bradford is taking on this mission personally with ulterior motives..


Our Take

Ever since the “Last Christmas” holiday special from 2018, there was a vague hint of Donald & Della’s relationship as children which was an episode roughly made before Della eventually came into the picture during the course of Season 2. But this feels like one hell of a prequel story as we see the early beginnings of many characters involved within the Ducktales universe long before the existence of Della’s kids or Webby such as Scrooge’s Butler Duckworth being alive at the time, Ms. Beakley during her early super-spy years as “Agent 22”, Ludwing Von Drake being the founder of the world-saving organization “S.H.U.S.H.” with the biggest highlight having younger versions of Donald & Della and their first adventure with Scrooge in search of a magical Pirate Treasure.

I should also point out that Donald in this episode is voiced by Cristina Vee of RWBY and Madoka Magica fame who takes the helm voicing a younger version of Donald Duck who’s appearance and attitude come across as an angsty pre-teen rocker with the 90’s grunge fashion-sense of Kurt Cobain. While Della’s kid-design hasn’t really changed much aside from a lack of aviator goggles or having both feet since her current self has an artificial left foot.

Throughout their adventure, we also see a series of other early beginnings as well including where Della’s desire to be a pilot came from, and the creation of F.O.W.L. along with how Bradford has spent so many years deceptively under Scrooge’s nose as his business partner while secretly cultivating his crime syndicate behind the scenes with the longest-running joke being that despite creating the organization itself, Bradford’s villainous ambitions make him serious enough to be a threat, yet those who work for Bradford such as Black Heron tend to be flaunting showboats about their super-villainy and suck at keeping a low-profile.

Overall this was a fun prequel episode that recontextualizes everything we now know about F.O.W.L. while painting Bradford as both a cunning & calculating threat who’s been behind the scenes up until “Let’s Get Dangerous. “