Zeus is a supporting antagonist in the 2017 DuckTales reboot series, serving as the main antagonist of the Season 1 episode "The Spear of Selene!" and Season 3 episode "New Gods on the Block", and a minor antagonist in the Season 2 episodes "The Golden Spear!" and "Moonvasion!". He is the King of the Greek gods, who possesses an unrelenting desire to prove his superiority over Scrooge McDuck. For an almighty God, Zeus is very petty and spoiled, especially when it comes to beating Scrooge McDuck.
He was voiced by Michael Chiklis, who notably portrayed Vic Mackey in The Shield and Nathaniel Barnes in Gotham.
Biography[]
Past[]
As the god of hospitality, Zeus, according to himself, was renowned on Ithiquack, a vacationing spot for gods and heroes, for his kindness and generosity. However, Scrooge McDuck eventually visited the island and proved himself better than Zeus at virtually everything, enraging the latter, who developed a bitter hatred and obsessive desire to prove his superiority over Scrooge. Scrooge and his nephew Donald Duck eventually stopped vacationing at Ithiquack because of Zeus' constant rivalry with the former. He also brought forth thunderstorms to cast out the other gods and mortals of the island when they complained against Zeus for banishing Scrooge.
Season 1[]
In "The Spear of Selene", thanks to both Dewey and Webby (who wanted to investigate the Spear of Selene), Launchpad crashes their plane, the Sunchaser, into Ithiquack, to the shock of both Scrooge and Donald, who both desire to get off the island as soon as possible. However, Zeus discovers that Scrooge and Donald have returned and is greatly angered, detailing his story of why he despises McDuck to them, Huey, Louie and his son, Storkules. He further states that all the other gods moved away from Ithiquack because he was bested by a lowly mortal, although Scrooge discovers an urn depicting Zeus terrorizing his own people, and he explains that "there may have also been a year lightning storm". Despite his father's petty anger, Storkules manages to convince Zeus to throw a party for his guests.
Soon enough, however, Zeus becomes enraged at Scrooge again, leading to the latter suggesting that the gods left Ithiquack not because they liked him, but because they didn't like Zeus. Because of this, Zeus challenges Scrooge's family to a contest to prove who's family is superior, and surrounds the island in a lightning force field to prevent them from leaving. Following this, Zeus continues to rage as Scrooge's family beats Storkules at every contest. For the final challenge, Zeus tells the contestants to steal some fleece from a small child, something which Storkules finds himself unable to do, as he could not consider himself a hero if he did so. However, it turns out that the small child is actually a mind controlling siren who takes control of Storkules, and Zeus then orders his brainwashed son to destroy the McDucks.
Before Storkules can destroy the McDucks, Donald returns and helps Scrooge hold Storkules off long enough for Huey to get the siren to stop singing. Zeus yells at his son to stop hugging Donald, but Scrooge states that they are best friends, and that he and Zeus have been letting their pride hurt their family for decades. Scrooge offers a truce, but Zeus denies him, unable to accept not beating Scrooge, who offers one final contest. Scrooge then looses said contest purposefully, and the prideful Zeus releases the force field while gloating about his victory. The McDucks prepare to leave the island, however, Dewey accidentally beats Zeus out using the Sphere of Selene, encoring his wrath once more. The McDucks rush to escape the island, only to find that Launchpad has completely destroyed the Sunchaser.
Season 2[]
In "Storkules in Duckberg!", Storkules mentions that Zeus sent harpies after him due to his lute playing. Because of the resulting chaos in Maceduckia and the aforementioned lute playing, Zeus banished Storkules from Ithiquack and ordered him to become a responsible adult. Through either design or accident, the harpies eventually followed Storkules to Duckburg where they terrorized the citizens until the McDuck Clan and Storkules managed to tame them and use them to help the transport and mass produce lemonade for McDuck Enterprises.
In "The Golden Spear!", Zeus is enraged to discover that Scrooge's nephew Dewey took the Sandals of Hermes from Storkules' chest and has been named the messenger of the gods and declares war on Dewey, summoning lightning storms around their home. Zeus confronts Storkules in person and fights Dewey, Storkules, and Donald over allowing a mortal into the Greek Pantheon. Zeus eventually retreats back to Ithiquack still counting it as a win despite Dewey still having the sandals.
In "Moonvasion!", when Della Duck and her kids arrive seeking help, Zeus opens the door and shoots lighting at Della from his finger, with her barely dodging it. Zeus has grounded Selene and Storkules, keeping them from helping Scrooge and his family despite his children pleading with him. Zeus even zaps Storkules with lightning several times to protect them from the Moonlanders, despite Selene and Storkules' pleas to him. Storkules and Selene eventually manage to overpower Zeus and tie him up and Storkules proceeds to set the Earth back into orbit after the Moonlanders set it to revolve around the moon while Selene contacts General Lunaris, the leader of the invasion, and informs him his ship is now stuck orbiting Earth thanks to her, making it Earth's newest moon.
Season 3[]
In the episode New Gods on the Block, Zeus is removed from his title as King of the Gods because the other Gods are sick of his immature and cruel behavior and they also strip him of his powers via his headpiece. Needless to say, he believes that this is a huge injustice and spends the episode trying to recover his headpiece and reclaim his title while Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby audition to be Zeus's replacement. After failing to get his brother Hades to help, he tricks Storkules into releasing a Titan so that he can vanquish it and be seen as worthy enough to regain his status, but fails miserably. Regardless, when the McDucks defeat the Titan, he steals back his headpiece, regains his powers, and sends the Titan back to the Underworld but falls into the pit caused by Titan's surfacing and into the Underworld himself and is mocked by Hades.
Zeus later makes one final non-speaking cameo appearance in the series finale The Last Adventure! where he is shown to be captured by FOWL along with his children. His fate after Bradford was defeated and turned into a mindless buzzard by Magica De Spell is unclear, although its highly likely he was freed with the rest of FOWL's prisoners.
Trivia[]
- Zeus is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods of Mount Olympus.
- This version of Zeus is close to his portrayal in Greek Mythology, being a ruthless god who's apathetic to the plight of mortals.
- Ironically, Zeus' plot to release a Titan to take over the Greek Parthenon and his final fate of falling deep in the underworld are similar to that of Hades from the Disney film.
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 Villains
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Glomgold Industries De Spell Family Rockerduck Family Beagle Boys FOWL Air Pirates Fearsome Four New Quackmore Institute Others See Also | ||