Scrooge McDuck
- Rampaging across the African savannah and intimidating a lion into serving as a mount, then publicly smacking down and humiliating a young Flintheart Glomgold, who had just left him to die in the savannah. (The Terror of the Transvaal)
- And how did Scrooge intimidate that lion? By roaring at it!
- When someone tells Glomgold that "a cowboy" (Scrooge) has shown up at the bar, looking for him, he laughs it off, making a crack about a cowboy being an apprentice milkman. Scrooge's response?Scrooge: No, it's your worst nightmare, you no-good, lowdown, backstabbing, dirty-dealing so-and-so! FILL YOUR HAND!
- Choosing to leave a priceless sacred opal in its place, when he knew his theft wouldn't be discovered for a thousand years. (Dreamtime Duck of the Never-Never).
- Made more awesome by the fact he fully knew nobody would find out for such a long time and found himself toying with the idea, started an Evil Laugh, and then left after putting it back in its place:Scrooge: (holds the opal above his head triumphantly) It's worth millions! And who needs self-respect when you're rich?! HAHAHAHAHAHAAaaaw, nuts! (puts the opal back on its pedestal and leaves)
- Made more awesome by the fact he fully knew nobody would find out for such a long time and found himself toying with the idea, started an Evil Laugh, and then left after putting it back in its place:
- Most of The King of the Klondike:
- Cowing Wyatt Earp by simply taking out his #1 Dime and swinging it around. Seriously, Scrooge's legend had grown so much by this point that even the legendary marshal was awed by him.
- How he surveys his new claim for gold. Getting a hike with an eagle that snatched him, and how he casually remarks that it got him a better view; and when he decides to cut off the ride, he just cuts off a rope to get loose from the bird, making a lasso in mid-air and aims for the nearest tree to dampen the impact. Then he lassos the top of the tree, and hits the ground feet first; exactly at the right spot.
- Upon establishing a dig site, he spends time building a wooden cabin. Atop a large hill, and alone. Which included chopping down whole trees and carrying them on his back. Not impressive enough? He carries such trees, which could easily be as heavy as 2,000 pounds bare minimum, uphill while remarking that he's exhausted; and he refers to this as 'light hauling'!
◊ - Bringing down an entire steamboat around Soapy Slick, with his bare hands, after Soapy makes fun of the death of Scrooge's mother (just before he tries to kill him, to boot), and then hauling the crooked casino host and his cronies to jail. Also a tiny bit Nightmare Fuel due to Scrooge's Unstoppable Rage.
- You really need to read that to fully comprehend just how badass Scrooge is. The incident was so Beyond the Impossible that even live witnesses were terrified into believing a variety of freak accident stories to even make sense of it — including him hurling an entire grand piano through a window — with the one constant being Scrooge walking out of there dirtied, angered, but completely unscathed otherwise.
- Incidentally, the former page image — of Scrooge looking pissed beyond all mortal comprehension, chained at both wrists with an ominous CRREEEAAK sound effect — is from this story, mere moments before he tears both of the steamboat's smokestacks down. And that's literally just the beginning of what he does to Slick, his boat, and his entire crew of criminals therein.
Soapy: (scrunches up and tosses away the letter) Well, I know Scrooge would rather be hard at work than hanging around this den of iniquity! So get an anchor, boys; "Scroogey" wants to search the river bottom for paydirt! HAR HAR! (in response to his men pointing at an utterly furious Scrooge with looks of absolute horror) Hm? What is it? Wha-(CRREEEAAK◊)Soapy: (realises what he's gotten himself into) …oops! - His discovery of the Goose Egg Nugget:Scrooge: Great honk, this rock is heavy! How could it weigh so much unless… unless it's gold! Gotta rinse off the mud! A nugget this big would make me the richest man in the Klondike! But if it is gold, that will mean my quest is finished! I'll be rich! I'll never be the same again! Will clean air smell any sweeter? Will sunny days be any brighter? Will starry nights hold any more wonder or will I lose all that? Do I really want to be… rich? (ponders; gets a glim of gold in his eyes) YES! (washes rock) It's GOLD! SOLID GOLD! As big as a goose egg! Ha ha ha ha ha... I'm RICH! RICH! RICH!
- ...and the "The End" message is replaced with "The Beginning".
- Related to The King of the Klondike, there is."GET—OUT—OF—MY—DREAM!"
- Scrooge going back to rescue the bad guy's sled dogs (but not the bad guys themselves) from an ice floe about to go over a waterfall. (The Prisoner Of White Agony Creek) The bad guys survive anyway due to crashing into Soapy Smith's new riverboat below the falls.Soapy: I don't know why, but somehow, I have the feeling that McDuck just cost me a second riverboat…
- And then there's later in the story where he and Goldie's ultimate Slap-Slap-Kiss relationship leads to the most sexually charged scene in a core Disney Story. Extra points for the interference of Hanging Judge Roy Bean, who up until this point had been portrayed as a comically strict Knight Templar who tried to hang people for basically any reason.Roy Bean: Based on careful deliberation — and many years of experience with life — it is the verdict of this court that what's going on in that cabin is not a hangin' offense in Langtry, Texas — or anywhere else. Thank gosh!
- Chasing after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid through the Yukon while riding two caribou at once and dual-wielding a pair of pickaxes. It doesn't get much more badass than that.
- Cassidy and Kid couldn't believe what they were seeing when they saw this, and the only thing stopping them from screaming in holy terror was the sheer awesomeness of the sight.
- And then there's later in the story where he and Goldie's ultimate Slap-Slap-Kiss relationship leads to the most sexually charged scene in a core Disney Story. Extra points for the interference of Hanging Judge Roy Bean, who up until this point had been portrayed as a comically strict Knight Templar who tried to hang people for basically any reason.
- Beating up Theodore Roosevelt in The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut.
- Not to mention almost negotiating perpetual rights to the airplane and the movie camera in exchange for keeping his mouth shut about the archaeological treasures he's found.
- Taking out a group of Beagle Boys fifty years his junior in The Richest Duck In The World.
- From that same chapter, showing a very skeptical Donald his ginormous money bin.
- Scrooge gets one by collapsing Fort Duckburg on Teddy Roosevelt, and then preparing to fight him with a piece of wood the size of a telegraph pole. (The Invader of Fort Duckburg)
- Roosevelt gets one too: after having a fort tower fall directly on him and seeing his entire cavalry run away in terror, his reaction is to charge at Scrooge without hesitation, sword and gun in hand.
- "Cold Heart of the Klondike" from the Life and Times album, which was written for Scrooge and Goldie:Oh me! Oh life! Here in the wild
Nothing but two cold Klondike hearts
Charm of a dancehall girl
A true star of the North
Those precious 30 days
A letter in the snow
Love lost yet always there
A burning need of life - Scrooge defeating Angus Whiskerville in an old-fashioned duel (complete with plate armor and swords), despite the old bastard cheating like crazy. It's covered in the Life And Times album track "Duels And Cloudscapes".
- Scrooge taking on the Dalton Gang alongside Geronimo himself. He takes down the gang after they steal the revolvers belonging to Buffalo Bill and Angus McDuck, not realizing that a western show actor wouldn't load his guns with real bullets.
Others
- When Goldie first encounters the frozen mammoth that serves as the guardian to Scrooge's mine, she does not faint as he expected but whips out a derringer and shoots it… which Scrooge quickly realizes she could have done to him any moment before that. (The Prisoner of White Agony Creek)
- In the same story, HD&L (remember, preteens) innocently ask whatever happened while Scrooge and Goldie were alone in White Agony Creek. Donald quickly shoos them away, implying that he is perfectly aware of what would happen when a young woman and man, both attracted to the other, spend a month alone together…
- Hortense McDuck defending Castle McDuck from the Whiskerville, complete with Casual Danger Dialogue… (''The New Laird of Castle McDuck")
- …topped, of course, by scaring away the United States Cavalry with a broom. (The Invader of Fort Duckburg)
- Howard Rockerduck working his tail off to help Scrooge register his copper claim, knowing all the while that he'll lose his own mine in Raider of the Copper Hill, because he hopes it will teach his own son a lesson. It's also implied that he does it to share the sheer experience of prospecting again with Scrooge, the way he once felt when he was a gold miner during the 1848 gold rush.
- Also, he taught Scrooge how to be a prospector for two cents. This makes him indirectly responsible for Scrooge becoming rich.
- Every deceased member of the McDuck clan, popping out to frighten away the Whiskervilles in The New Laird of Castle McDuck, which finally drives off the bastards from Dismal Downs for good.
- Huey, Dewey, and Louie deducing that Scrooge has owned the map to the Last Dutchman mine for years and had never realized it. (The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff) Cue Scrooge's Oh, Crap! moment when he realizes he glued the map face down into the memory album.
- When Scrooge's Uncle Pothole makes the mistake of talking down to Annie Oakley, her response is to blow the bowl of his corncob pipe off with a rifle blast (The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff):Pothole: I… I think I riled her!
Buffalo Bill: Nah! When she really gets mad, she'll aim for the other end of your pipe! - Don Rosa's most awesome act was resisting the urge to ignore the infamous robber baron Noodle Incident and not only working it into the story but depicting it and what it does to Scrooge so well.
- As an extension of this? Foola Zoola goes from a Hollywood Voodoo-practicing Ethnic Scrappy to being the only antagonist in the book with more moral fiber than Scrooge (who, granted, has fallen quite a bit at this point). Complete with his own Pre-Asskicking One-Liner!
Foola Zoola: I see that arrogant duckboy getting his tail kicked from here to Cape Town if he doesn't show respect for the Gods! - When Scrooge gets knocked out while making a deal, Matilda and Hortense get a crowning moment by deciding to teach him a lesson by making the deal in exchange for Roosevelt's stuffed bear (The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut)…
- …And then Huey, Dewey, and Louie get a moment forty years later by pointing out something that Scrooge missed: that he is the owner of the very first teddy bear, as important (and expensive) an artifact as any of his other finds.
- Theodore Roosevelt, bronco-busting a giant jaguar statue in a landslide down a mountain.
- Followed up with a Funny Moment two panels later:George: Mr. President, are you all right, sir?
Roosevelt: Yes, George, but this jaguar is about to cause a big mess!
George: Not house-broken, sir?
- Followed up with a Funny Moment two panels later:
