Director Bradford Buzzard is the main antagonist of the 2017 DuckTales reboot series.
He is the former chairman of McDuck Enterprises' board of directors along with Bentley and Buford who is revealed to be the founder and leader of F.O.W.L. and head of its High Command. He is also the archenemy of the entire Clan McDuck, especially with being Scrooge McDuck's most personal arch-nemesis, and the grandson of the famous explorer, Isabella Finch, whose thirst for adventure unfortunately led him down indirectly to the path of villainy.
He was originally voiced by Danny Mann in Darkwing Duck and later voiced by Marc Evan Jackson for the DuckTales remake/rebooted series.
Personality[]
Before being revealed as the founder and leader of FOWL, Bradford was already presented as a greedy person who only cared about the finances of McDuck Enterprises, is described as cheap, and it shows as he continually pushes for Scrooge to make cuts to spending. Despite being part of Scrooge's board of directors and the chairman of the company, Bradford is shown to not have the best relationship with Scrooge, frequently arguing with him on many occasions, mostly about the budget of the company.
Though despite this, he was shown to have been reasonable on some occasions, as he did allow Scrooge to search for Della Duck for over 10 years before shutting him down after it was clear all he was going to do was bankrupt himself, though Bradford was also shown to have smiled at it. Bradford also seemed genuinely disgusted at Glomgold for disrespecting Scrooge at his fake funeral, showing he possibly could have had some heart.
However, this is all a facade to hide his true nature: an extremely intelligent, sadistic, ruthless, uncaring, and corrupt businessman who wants nothing more than to take over the world and be perfectly fine with the idea of eliminating Scrooge's entire family just to achieve their goal. Bradford is also shown to have no problem with hurting children even before he was revealed as the leader of FOWL; he had suggested to Louie that they cut funding to the magic wards on a mysterious island in the Heron Sea.
His facial expressions and body language imply that he knew exactly what he was doing when he tricked Louie into releasing the Bombie, a being that would hunt Louie down for such an action. After he reveals himself as the leader of FOWL, he puts the triplets into situations that could get them killed several times. He also has an even stronger desire for money than shown before, wanting to commit grand larceny on a global scale and embezzling some of Scrooge's money behind the shadows, all to fund more of F.O.W.L.'s operations.
Just like with Scrooge, Bradford is also shown to have a poor relationship with the other members of FOWL. He and Black Heron argue frequently, and Bradford is often annoyed by his other minions' lack of intelligence. He is also shown to mistreat his minions; for example, he placed a mechanism in Steelbeak’s metal beak, allowing him to clamp him when he feels like it. He also gets annoyed with the other members' supervillain-like schemes, believing they are doing nothing but drawing the attention of FOWL's operations to the authorities.
Bradford is also shown to be a massive coward, running away from any danger he gets himself into and often relying on surprise or cheap tactics to win. For example, in "Let's Get Dangerous", he is more focused on escaping rather than putting himself in danger to save reality. Even when the triplets find out about Bradford's true nature, he surprises the triplets by pushing them into the Ramrod and runs away in a failed attempt to cover his tracks.
Bradford is considered to be delusional in nature as he stubbornly refuses to see himself as evil, believing his plans will ultimately bring order and stability to the world. He also dismisses the idea of FOWL being a supervillain organization several times, despite the fact that his agents truly see themselves as villains due to their notorious activities; even the heinous Taurus Bulba rightfully chews out Bradford for his complete cowardice and denial over it.
Bradford also originally called the organization OWL as he believed that his goal would be for the good of the world, and only added the "Fiendish" part at the beginning when Heron refused to help if he didn't. Adding to this, when he was unmasked by the triplets as the leader of FOWL and they called him a bad guy, he tells them that "bad guy" is only a matter of perspective and he would be considered one in the triplets' perspective.
In "The First Adventure!", it is revealed Bradford was once an accountant for S.H.U.S.H and did have good intentions in his goals, wanting to rule the world from behind the shadows because he saw how much stopping chaos was costing the organization, only founding FOWL when Ludwig von Drake dismissed his idea. Even in "The Last Adventure", when being turned into a monstrous form by the Sword of Swanstantine, Bradford furiously blames the Ducks for turning him into a 'base villain', only for the Ducks to furiously retort that he himself was always a villain as the Sword only reflects on his dark nature.
It was also shown that Bradford had at least some level of standards, though often for pragmatic reasons. He is against villains like General Lunaris and Bulba's attempts to destroy the world as Bradford wants to rule it from the shadows. When Bulba's Ramrod threatens to destroy the world, Bradford chews him out for this, to which Bulba responds by going rogue against Bradford. He also thinks some things are too dangerous to be used, only wanting the Papyrus of Binding because he sees it as a threat to order. However, this all goes moot in "The Last Adventure" as Bradford has no qualms in reengineering the Solego Circuit's functions into eliminating objects and people from existence and the Papyrus for his true plot to rid the world of all adventures, showing that he and his standards are hypocritical in nature.
His hypocritical nature was further shown when he blamed the Ducks for Magica De Spell and General Lunaris' attacks, despite being aware that he was the one who set off the events behind the shadows in the first place. He even berated his agents for indulging in petty villainy such as a peal of evil laughter, only for himself to engage as such while attempting to drop Donald into the Solego Circuit after outwitting Scrooge. Also, even though he has magical artifacts housed in storage and chooses not to use them for most of the series out of fear that it would cause more chaos, he still uses the Sword of Swanstantine against Scrooge in their final battle.
It was later revealed that the true cause of his evil nature was because he felt traumatized by the adventures that his grandmother Isabella Finch dragged him into when he was a child, despite the fact that his grandmother wanted to instill a sense of true adventure for a better life. However, because Bradford only saw the dark side of adventure (the dangers that he and his grandmother went through), he refuses to see past this as he genuinely believes that adventures are causing chaos to the world and that the only way to bring order is to end all adventures.
It is also shown that he secretly despises Scrooge due to the latter's love of adventures and that he is willing to harm Scrooge's family in order to coerce him to sign a contract (with the usage of the Papyrus) that would forbid Scrooge from ever adventuring again. This intention also drove Bradford in turning against his own minions as he willingly send Black Heron and his clones to their deaths in the Solego Circuit to avoid any possibility of causing unpredictable chaos by their actions; he even tried to do the same to Donald out of spite after successfully forcing Scrooge to sign the contract.
However, Bradford's power-hungry nature eventually led to him shedding all the redeeming qualities he once had and is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way, which proved to be his downfall as his disposal of Black Heron and his clones drove May and June to free Scrooge's family, depower the Solego Circuit and battle against him. Even Louie manages to exploit a major loophole in Bradford's contract by stating that family is the greatest adventure, to which the Papyrus obliges, which depowers Bradford and leaves him at the mercy of Magica, Flintheart Glomgold, Ma Beagle and the Beagle Boys, with Magica furiously mind-wiping him forever and turning him into a mindless vulture as punishment for his crimes.
Overall, despite his tragic backstory, good intentions, and redemptive qualities, Bradford threw it all aside and allowed his hatred of adventure and the Duck family to consume him, making him no better than the threats (especially Lunaris and Bulba) that he opposed. He is more than willing to kill at least hundreds of people, including children, simply out of his hatred of adventure. Moreover, he happily caused great harm to Scrooge and his family, despite the fact that Scrooge trusted him very much, and he would not hesitate to kill his closest allies or even members of his own family (as Buford and Bentley are his clones) all for the sake of power and control. All this makes Bradford by far the most personal and hated enemy of Scrooge and his family.
Physical Appearance[]
Bradford Buzzard is a rather hideous anthropomorphic bird, being one-quarter finch and three-quarters buzzard, with greying, balding hair, a prominent beak with a black front, and spectacles. His face is pink, while his hands and tail feathers are grey.
He usually wears a business suit except the one time he dons colorful armor to embrace being a supervillain. The armor increases in artistic detail when he powers up a second time, so he can fire purple laser blasts and plasma balls at his enemies.
After Magica De Spell transformed him, he appeared as a completely ordinary buzzard.
Trivia[]
- He is the main leader of F.O.W.L. and is Scrooge’s most evil arch-enemy in the Ducktales series reboot.
- It had been said that Bradford is over a hundred years old like Scrooge, though Scrooge calls him an octogenarian, implying he is in his 80s instead. That said, it's possible that Scrooge is referring to how Bradford is physically 80 even if the latter is chronologically over a hundred.
- Being one-quarter finch through his grandmother, Isabella Finch, Bradford is the second known interspecies hybrid character in the 2017 TV series' continuity, the first being Gladstone Gander.
- A plot hole created by the first episode is that Bentley is shown seated center and speaking rather than Bradford. All subsequent episodes have Bradford seated center and speaking, with it later revealed that the other two are clones who cannot speak in full coherent sentences.
- The finale reveals that Isabella Finch forced Bradford to go on adventures with her, calling it educational, but it led Bradford to becoming a traumatized control freak. Due to this, Bradford is Huey's dark parallel, because if not for Scrooge's, Donald's and Della's moral compass, Huey could have ended up the same way that Bradford did. Also, Bradford could serve as a polar opposite to Webby, mostly because they were both shaped by their grandmothers' personality traits.