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This Near Pure Evil was headlined on July 2022. | ||
| “ | This has gone too far. The ducks almost cost us the world today. And without the world… who would we larceny against? The pieces are finally in place. Time to come out of the shadows, take control, and end Clan McDuck. If the McDuck family wants an adventure… we'll give them their last. | „ |
| ~ Bradford Buzzard announcing his plans after being revealed as the leader of F.O.W.L. to the audience. |
| “ | Scrooge: Ha ha! Give it up! You lost the second you decided to challenge the McDucks! Adventure is in our blood! It binds our family together! And nothing can tear us apart! Bradford: I've torn you apart once before. Scrooge: What are you babbling about? Bradford: How do you think Della found out you built the Spear of Selene? |
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| ~ Bradford reveals that he told Della about Spear of Selene - his infamous quote. |
Director Bradford Buzzard is the main antagonist of the 2017 DuckTales reboot series.
Throughout most of the series, he was the chairman of Scrooge's company and one of the members of the board of directors along with his clones, Bentley and Buford, until it's revealed in the Season 2 finale that he is actually a member of The High Command and leader of F.O.W.L. He is the greatest archenemy of Clan McDuck, while also being most personal arch-nemesis of Scrooge McDuck and the grand author of all his pain. He is also the grandson of the famous explorer, Isabella Finch, whose thirst for adventure unfortunately (and indirectly) led him down the path of villainy.
He was voiced by Marc Evan Jackson.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- While he doesn't view himself as evil, he still knows what is right and wrong and chews out others who do the same crimes he did but without his orders, which not only proves he is delusional, but also extremely hypocritical. Plus, he embraces his evil while empowered by the Sword of Swanstantine anyway, though he still blames the McDuck family for making himself turned into a base villain before Beakley and Della points this out.
- While originally an extremist with good intentions, by the time of the finale, he becomes a complete hypocrite who wants to remove adventure and fun and rule the world with an iron fist just so he can be safe and not so the world can be safe, proving his motive to be a selfish one.
- Plus, his plan to kill many innocent people just because they were even minutely connected to adventures to erase chaos itself can cause chaos, and by this logic, even he himself is minutely connected to adventure because of his grandmother being an adventurer, yet he spares himself, proving more of his hypocrisy.
- After he was publicly revealed as the head of F.O.W.L., Bradford has become one of, if not the, biggest nemesis for Scrooge. It's worth noting that unlike with his most traditional enemies, Scrooge actually does treat Bradford very seriously as a threat; after all, unlike the others, Bradford's reveal showed he'd been working with Scrooge for years without the old adventurer even suspecting him.
- This leads to Scrooge doubting for a time that he can win against him, due to how well Bradford knows him and his secrets. And to Bradford's credit, he pushes Scrooge to his absolute limit and nearly wins. He's also undoubtedly the one who inflicts the most personal pain and damage on Scrooge by telling Della about the Spear of Selene with the hope that her disappearance would break him. This provokes far more hatred and rage from Scrooge than he has ever previously displayed for any of his other foes (and none of Scrooge's other sworn enemies did this) when Bradford tells him about it.
- He cares about no one but himself, he views his F.O.W.L. agents as pawns to achieve his own goal, before planning to eliminate them later, once they served their purpose.
- While he does have some comedic moments, they do not detract from his villainy. In fact, most of those moments relate to his henchmen, while Bradford didn't have any personal comedic moments, thus he is played seriously in-universe.
- One of his comedic moments was hurrying up a decision after seeing Louie fight off Lil’ Bulb, but this was to get away from the danger.
- Another one was when he attempts to swallow a communication device to keep up his cover, but it was more to show off how evil he is and the lengths he’d go to.
- Even the reveal of him being a part of FOWL was played for laughs with Black Heron saying he’d rather fly in an unmarked helicopter, with him blatantly replying '''YES!''' But all the comedy was from Black Heron rather than him.
- While it can be argued that Bradford's defeat makes him too comedic, he is still treated as a serious threat. Plus, Bradford being turned into a mindless animal is similar to how he had many of Scrooge's greatest enemies when Steelbeak fought Launchpad.
- His defeat was also played for satisfaction, considering over what he has done to Scrooge and his family.
Background[]
- His backstory is that he was terrified of the adventures he was forced to go to with his grandmother, but this does not justify his crimes and how heinous his acts are at all, because if someone else suffered the same past, he would still have him or her killed even though he or she is minutely connected to adventure. Plus, Scrooge's annoyed glare immediately after he tells his backstory proves that the story was never intended for the audience to have sympathy for him.
- During his work for S.H.U.S.H., he already suggested to Director Ludwig von Drake that they should become a world-dominating organization instead of a world-saving one for the sake of order and profit, wanting to rule the world with an iron fist and under full order. When his request was denied, he helped a dangerous criminal, Black Heron, escape from prison and founded the Fiendish Organization for World Larceny (F.O.W.L. for short).
- When he and Black Heron went after the Papyrus of Binding, he allowed Heron to almost kill Scrooge's niece and nephew Della and Donald, who were only children at the time. When he was exposed as a traitor of S.H.U.S.H., he initially tried to kill Scrooge, but instead decided to use the Papyrus to wipe the Ducks' memories that he was there and began to work with Scrooge as a level-headed ally for his company with his "brothers", just to prevent Scrooge from interfering with F.O.W.L.'s plans ever again.
- It is also heavily implied in the series finale that during his work for Scrooge, he killed Duckworth in order to further emotionally torment Scrooge. However, he only shows scenes connected to Duckworth, meaning that there's no true proof that Bradford did this. But if that was true, it would make him a bit worse.
- Knowing of Della's love of adventure, he tells Della that Scrooge built the Spear of Selene, causing her to steal it and fly it into a cosmic storm and get lost out in space, thus driving Scrooge into a deep depression and Donald to cut all ties with him. Additionally, Bradford smiles at Scrooge's despair when he cuts the funding for Della's disappearance and his clones drag Scrooge out.
- This makes Bradford the most personally evil villain in the show to the protagonists, as Della's disappearance negatively affected each member of her family in different ways.
- This action has the most impact compared to the other villains in the show, as Della's disappearance tore the McDuck family apart, and them reuniting and later disbanding again (after the triplets found out what happened to their mother) gradually led to Magica De Spell being freed (due to Scrooge being depressed over his family abandoning him which left him more vulnerable to Magica's plot) and nearly destroying Duckburg (had Mrs. Beakley did not help Webby and Launchpad with keeping Donald and the boys from leaving and convinced them to forgive Scrooge, allowing them to defeat Magica), and Magica's defeat led to Della becoming even more eager to return to Earth, which eventually led to General Lunaris' invasion and the near destruction of the world. Despite this, Bradford denies any responsibility and still pins the blame on the McDucks for the events.
- When he reveals this truth to Scrooge years later, he reveals it in a sadistic manner, his words tricking him into giving him the opportunity to attack him.
- He used Scrooge's DNA to create April, and then May, and June so he can use them to find the Papyrus of Binding to use they Scrooge McDuck and then dispose of them when they outlived their usefulness.
- This also helps in cementing Bradford as the one who has the crimes with the most impact, as it leads to Agent 22 breaking into F.O.W.L. and rescuing April, who would then be raised as Webby Vanderquack, which is also a contributing factor to the release of Magica De Spell as 22's parenting led her to be socially awkward, which led to her befriending Lena De Spell, Magica De Spell's creation and "niece".
- This fact is even worse, considering that he scolded both May and June for bad grammar and bringing Webby as a hostage instead of willingly, despite them successfully bringing him the Sword of Swanstantine and the Blessed Bagpipes.
Season 2[]
- He only showed remorse and sadness at Scrooge’s funeral because it was all an act.
- Although he showed disgust at Glomgold's behavior during Scrooge's fake funeral, it is heavily implied that Bradford was out of hatred towards Glomgold, for being completely annoying and psychopathic. It is also worth noticing that Glomgold's behavior at the funeral is disorderly, something that Bradford was clearly against.
- He attempted to kill Louie by cutting off the funding on the defenses on Falcon Island that contained Bombie and his smile heavily implies he knew about the curse.
- He also tried to kill him with a satellite, using Louie's orders as a disguise.
- While clearly against Lunaris' plan to destroy the Earth, he never even bothered to try stopping him.
Season 3[]
- When the triplets discover that he is the leader of F.O.W.L., he traps them in another universe using the Ramrod without hesitation or remorse despite scolding Taurus Bulba on how it risks destroying the multiverse and that he himself knew it would. After failing to modify the circuit, he attempts to flee for his life rather than help the McDucks destroy the Ramrod to save all of reality.
- Once he discovers that Gandra Dee plans to leave F.O.W.L. and use F.O.W.L.'s resources to create GizmoCloud, he has her imprisoned in the Lost Library to be eliminated later.
- His worst crime is in the finale when he kidnaps and falsely imprisons hundreds of people, including children, and plans to erase them all from reality because they were connected to Scrooge McDuck, even those who were minutely connected. Even the villains captured, such as Magica De Spell (especially her), Flintheart Glomgold, Ma Beagle, and the Beagle Boys, hold major disdain for him due to this and were even the ones who defeated him.
- Once Webby discovered who she is, Bradford manipulated her into obtaining the Papyrus of Binding for him, before sadistically telling her that she created her to help him defeat Scrooge for good.
- When Scrooge mentions that he would have to eliminate his own agents for his plan to work, he proves this point by throwing his "brothers", Bentley and Buford, as well as his right-hand, Black Heron, into the Solego Vortex, thus killing them in cold blood.
- He is the only villain in the series to kill people who are related to them by blood.
- He is one of only two villains to successfully murder someone onscreen alongside Ponce de Leon, though Ponce's killing was only shown in a flashback.
- Plus, his clones, despite being sapient, couldn't even develop an individual personality to even plan to cause chaos, which makes it worse.
- This is made even worse since it horrified May and June, and even Gandra, who realizes that he's going to get rid of his own team too, and also caused May and June to redeem themselves as they viewed Heron as their mother figure, even though she didn't even love them in return.
- He forces Scrooge to sign the contract that was written in the Papyrus of Binding to keep his family safe and stop adventuring against his will, after which he uses Donald Duck, his nephew, as leverage so Scrooge can sign it.
- Even though Scrooge signs the contract, he still tosses Donald into the Solego Vortex to erase him from existence even though he promised to let his family go, which proves he was going to kill the McDuck family even if the contract was signed, to the point where Scrooge signing it would make it easier for him to be killed.
- He also starts embracing his villainy more openly, admitting that while it was petty and needless, it was a "special occasion".
- He attempts to kill Scrooge while the latter is in chains after Gyro shuts down the Solego Vortex, therefore subverting any honor he may have.
- Even after he was defeated by the McDuck family and their allies, he refused to show remorse for his actions and instead pathetically begs Scrooge's enemies to spare him by saying he's not a villain, showing that he's a massive coward who cares for nobody but himself.
What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]
- Despite how horrible Bradford's crimes are, he fails the Heinous Standards due to being too pragmatic, as he has access to some of, if not the highest resources in the entire franchise, with an entire organization at his control and tons of magical artifacts that give him the ability to get away with extraordinarily heinous crimes on a nigh-omniversal scale, yet he refuses to use his resources to their potential which, while for pragmatic reasons that are by no means redeeming, severely undermine how heinous he is, especially compared to villains with fewer resources like Bulba and Lunaris (the latter who lacked any supernatural advantages, yet still aimed for a kill count far higher in scale than Bradford did).
- And although he was the reason that Bulba was able to nearly destroy all of reality, he did not intend for it to happen and even tried to stop Bulba until he was hit by a taser, and even though he refused to take responsibility for what happened, though for pragmatic reasons, he was still mad that Bulba jeopardized so many innocent lives.
External Links[]
- Bradford Buzzard on the Villains Wiki
- Bradford Buzzard on the Disney Wiki
- Bradford Buzzard on the DuckTales Wiki
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