Taurus Bulba

Taurus BulbaDarkwing Duck character
Background information
First appearance	"Darkly Dawns the Duck"
Voiced by	Tim Curry
Character information
Personality	Dark, sinister, menacing, sadistic, callous, murderous, villainous, tough, malicious, dangerous, prideful, stingy
Home	St. Canard
Pets	Tantalus (condor)
Minions	Hammerhead Hannigan, Hoof and Mouth, Clovis, Tantalus
Enemies	Darkwing Duck, Launchpad McQuack, Gosalyn Mallard, Quackerjack, Megavolt, Bushroot, Liquidator
Quote	"I underestimated you once, Darkwing Duck. This time, you simply die!"

Bulba as the Steerminator.

Taurus Bulba is a major criminal supervillain in Darkwing Duck, first introduced as a criminal mastermind serving a 99-year sentence for his crimes. Darkwing considers him to be his deadliest enemy, and the one villain he personally fears.

History

Not much is known about Taurus Bulba's background. At the start of "Darkly Dawns the Duck", Taurus is serving a 99-year jail sentence, yet is still involved in criminal affairs from the prison. In fact, he seems to find being incarcerated to be only a minor inconvenience, viewing his prison cell as the perfect hideout and cover for his ongoing activities. From prison, he manages a gang consisting of Hammerhead Hannigan, Hoof, Mouth, Clovis, and Tantalus.

After his henchmen steal the Waddlemeyer Ramrod, Bulba orders them to kidnap Professor Waddlemeyer's granddaughter, Gosalyn, believing that she knows the secret code to activate the Ramrod. Although the trio are unsuccessful on their first attempt, thanks to Darkwing Duck, Bulba then decides now is the time to make his escape from prison, destroying much of the jailhouse in the process of launching his hidden airship. At the climax of "Darkly Dawns the Duck", Bulba forces Darkwing to give him the arming code by threatening to drop Gosalyn to her death. Darkwing fights Bulba and ended up destroying the Ramrod, as well as the top of St. Canard Tower. Though heavily injured, Darkwing survives, but Taurus is seemingly killed in the explosion.

But thanks to the efforts of F.O.W.L., Bulba managed to survive, or perhaps was resurrected, being made into a nearly unstoppable cyborg in the season 2 episode "Steerminator". F.O.W.L. subsequently assumes that Bulba would be willing to join them after resurrecting him; this could have been quite disasterous for Darkwing Duck; fortunely for DW, Bulba's ego has him pointedly declines the offer, destroying the F.O.W.L. laboratory and terrorizing Steelbeak in the process, and he now has only one insane obbession; he instead goes off to exact revenge on Darkwing and Gosalyn. His one weakness as the Steerminator is that he now suffers an overheating probem, which causes his mind and body to "lock up" just like a troubled computer. After being once again defeated by Darkwing and Gosalyn, he flees into the sky thanks to his cyborg enhancements, swearing that he would get his revenge.

In Boom! Studios' Darkwing Duck comic, Taurus Bulba returned in the first story arc, "The Duck Knight Returns", as the CEO and mastermind behind the mega-corporation Quackwerks. It is stated that, between the events of "Steerminator" and the comic, Bulba went to war against F.O.W.L. for turning him into a cyborg, and was destroyed in battle, but he was able to control his consciousness so that he could travel through and possess electronics, eventually reforming his cyborg body after possessing Gyro Gearloose's blender and demanding that Gyro give him the Gizmoduck suit. Gyro reluctantly gave him the password, but the suit did not register Bulba as a person due to being a cyborg. So Bulba took over St. Canard in order to net him the Gizmosuit and have all his prisoners say the entire English language to get the password, which Gyro had now changed to avoid chances of that happening. Later, Gosalyn defeated Bulba once and for all after saving St. Canard and registering the Gizmosuit herself.

Personality

Apart from a few wry comedic moments, Taurus Bulba is a menacing character. He possesses incredible cunning as well as prodigious physical strength. In "Darkly Dawns the Duck", it is strongly implied his henchmen murdered Gosalyn's grandfather Professor Waddlemeyer, on his order (though apparently they did so in reverse order, killing him before getting the machine's codes from him), and his men and pet condor Tantalus also nearly kill Gosalyn as well. Gosalyn is afraid of him in both of his animated appearances, though she apparently overcomes her fear during "Steerminator" while caged alongside Honker.

After being rebuilt as the Steerminator, Bulba has become completely unhinged, with a single-minded obsession to destroy Darkwing Duck. This obsession is also born out in the Boom! comics where Bulba actually uses a silhouette resembling Darkwing's as the insignia for Quackwerks.

Appearances

TV episodes

• "Darkly Dawns the Duck" (1991)
• "Steerminator" (1992)

Books

• The Darkest Night (1991)

Comics

• "Brawl in the Family" (1991/1992)
• "The Duck Knight Returns" (2010)

Video games

• Darkwing Duck (2010)

External links

• Disney Wiki: Taurus Bulba
• Darkwing Duck Wiki: Taurus Bulba