Somewhere in the multiverse, Darkwing Duck has spent the last 35 years suffering through something far worse than Negaduck, Megavolt or Bushroot. Nobody knows who he is.

That is the wonderfully strange premise behind Disney+’s newly announced Darkwing Duck animated series.

Disney officially greenlit the project on 22 September 2026, confirming an all-new continuation of the cult 1990s series rather than a straightforward remake. Even more unexpectedly, Darkwing himself has a new voice.

Mark Hamill is playing Drake Mallard.

 

Let’s get dangerous again

The original Darkwing Duck premiered in 1991 and followed suburban father Drake Mallard’s adventures as the enormously theatrical masked hero Darkwing Duck.

He was heroic, brave and capable.

He was also convinced that every crime-fighting moment deserved an entrance.

The new series takes that ego and turns it into the centre of the premise.

According to Disney’s official description, Darkwing has spent 35 years trapped in an alternate world where nobody has ever heard of his superhero exploits.

For Darkwing Duck, that might genuinely qualify as a nightmare.

His way back into action arrives through Duckie, a rebellious teenager who knows about his heroic history and pulls him into another adventure.

The pair will encounter familiar villains including Negaduck and Megavolt and reunite with Launchpad, Gosalyn and Morgana as the story expands into a threat involving the universe itself.

That instantly distinguishes the project from the standard nostalgia reboot formula.

Rather than simply restarting Darkwing at the beginning, Disney is playing with the amount of time that has passed since the original programme.

 

Mark Hamill is Darkwing Duck

Mark Hamill leads the voice cast as Drake Mallard.

That is already an interesting piece of animation history. Hamill is obviously Luke Skywalker to generations of Star Wars fans, but animation audiences know him just as strongly for decades of voice acting, particularly as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series and numerous subsequent DC projects.

He is joined by Seth Rogen as Launchpad McQuack, Lizzy Caplan as Gosalyn Mallard and Lilimar as the new character Duckie.

Dan Stevens plays Glade McTowers, while the wider cast includes Tiffany Shepis, Kathryn Newton, Teo Briones, Tyler Dean Flores, Katie Rich and Nat Faxon.

Seth Rogen is also producing through Point Grey Pictures with Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Alex McAtee and Gabby Grantham.

Sean Tretta and Borja Peña Gorostegui serve as executive producers.

Perhaps most reassuringly for longtime fans, original Darkwing Duck creator Tad Stones consulted on the new series.

Why Darkwing remains such a perfect nostalgia property

Darkwing Duck came from an era when Disney television animation was producing DuckTales, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin and Gargoyles.

But Darkwing occupied his own wonderfully odd space.

The series could parody Batman and classic pulp heroes one minute, stage a genuine superhero adventure the next and then return home to stories about Drake trying to be a father to Gosalyn.

That mixture is probably why the character has survived far beyond the original programme’s run.

Darkwing has already appeared again in the 2017 DuckTales series, but this new Disney+ project is being positioned as an actual continuation of the Darkwing Duck franchise.

 

What we still don’t know

Disney has not announced a premiere date. It has also not confirmed the episode count or exactly how this strange alternate reality connects to the original continuity. Those are questions for later.

For now, what is official is considerably more interesting than a vague announcement that Disney is “rebooting” another old cartoon. Darkwing Duck has been forgotten by an entire universe. Mark Hamill is now playing him. And after 35 years, somebody is finally going to remind the world to get dangerous.