- “It's a cat! It's a tank! No... it's Cat-Tankerous!”
- ―Cat-Tankerous
Mortimer L. Marquand is a character created for the Darkwing Duck comic books published by Boom! Studios. He was introduced as a one-off villain called Cat-Tankerous, but returned as a neutral character in the comic's short-lived continuation by Joe Books. He is a young, socially awkward anthropomorphic cat who is one of Gosalyn Mallard's classmates at the private school she currently attends.
Background[]
In the original version of Mortimer's debut story, "Cat-tastrophe" (as published in Boom! Studios' Darkwing Duck #14), his backstory showed him as having an unrequited crush on Gosalyn. After seeing her heroics as Gosmoduck during the events of "Crisis on Infinite Darkwings", Mortimer attempted to build his own Gizmosuit, thinking they could be together that way, but to no avail. He then receives an enormous suit of indestructible armor, along with a note telling him to "be a better man" (delivered by the Phantom Blot). Mortimer dons the armor, unaware that the ink on the note has now filled him with an obsession of defeating Darkwing Duck.
When "Cat-tastrophe" was reprinted in Darkwing Duck: The Definitively Dangerous Edition, Mortimer's backstory was revised, making him a little more sympathetic and also retconning his crush on Gosalyn to instead be a platonic admiration. In this version, his social awkwardness and love of comic books made him a popular target of the school bullies, but Gosalyn came to his aid at one point, leading him to admire her strength. Like in the original version, he unsuccessfully tries building his own superhero suit to impress her and then receives the Cat-Tankerous armor from the Blot, whose note now instead says "Show them who you really are."
Appearances[]
"Cat-tastrophe" finds Mortimer, having donned the Cat-tankerous armor and his mind having been infected by the Phantom Blot's evil ink, rampaging through St. Canard and demanding that Darkwing Duck, who's currently running for mayor, come face him so he could embarrass him on national television. Of course, with his Juggernaut-like armor, Cat-tankerous proves to be too formidable a match for the Duck Knight, wrecking much of the city in the process. However, Gosalyn, watching the battle on TV, recognizes Mortimer in his armor, and runs to the battle, calling him out on his bullying. This distraction allows Darkwing a chance to pull Mortimer out of his armor. After explaining to Darkwing and Gosalyn how he got the armor, Mortimer is taken away by the police.
In "Orange is the New Purple", the three-issue opening arc for the Joe Books series, it is revealed that Mortimer had been sentenced to at least 4,700 hours of community service for the damages. During his and Gosalyn's class's field trip to St. Canard's new maximum-security penitentiary, Mortimer takes an interest in learning about the villains locked up there (providing a reintroduction to some of them for the readers). Soon after, Negaduck triggers the prison's emergency lockdown to trap Darkwing (and, unbeknownst to him, Gosalyn and Mortimer) inside with the criminals. In the mayhem, Mortimer wanders into solitary confinement and comes by the cell inhabited by Fluffy, who recognizes him as Cat-Tankerous. Interested in Mortimer's mention of the unstoppable armor suit he used to have, Fluffy offers a deal with Mortimer. Mortimer then lets himself be brought to Negaduck, saying that he wants to be a bad guy like them. Negaduck doesn't take him seriously and orders Megavolt to get rid of him, but after Mortimer actually gives Megavolt a good thrashing, Negaduck decides maybe he could make Mortimer his understudy. However, Negaduck then finds out that Gosalyn is in the prison as well and orders the other villains to capture her with Darkwing so he can make her his understudy instead. When Gosalyn refuses, Negaduck orders Mortimer to tie Darkwing and Gosalyn up to a hook so they can be blasted by his Railgun. Mortimer does so, but not before slashing at Darkwing's necktie... and also the ropes in which they were tied up, allowing them to escape. At the end of the story, Mortimer is shown coming home, secretly having sneaked Fluffy out of prison in his backpack.
Mortimer is last seen at the very end of Joe Books' Darkwing Duck #5, in which we see that he and Fluffy are working on a project involving the Cat-Tankerous armor. Unfortunately, the comic was cancelled before any further development was made on this plot thread, and when the license was picked up by Dynamite Entertainment in 2022, they opted to replace the book's creative team and completely start over from scratch, thereby indicating that whatever plan Mortimer and Fluffy were up to will never be revealed.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Ian Brill's original version of Cat-Tankerous was an ordinary female housecat who became intelligent. Likely due to that essentially being a repeat of Fluffy's origin, James Silvani and Christopher Burns reworked the character into his current form.
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