"How Do You Pick Which Building Gets Which?," in Darkwing Duck (vol. 1) #9, by Ian Brill (writer), James Silvani (artist), Lisa Moore (colorist), Deron Bennett (letterer)
This was originally solicited as a mini-series, but apparently had enough positive response it became an ongoing by the time the second issue actually shipped. Which made it the first ongoing series from outside Marvel or DC I bought regularly (meaning not for just one arc, ala Buffy the Vampire Slayer). I don't retain affection for everything I enjoyed in my childhood, but Darkwing Duck? Yeah, apparently.
Ian Brill and James Silvani took the "time jump" approach, in that the series starts with things at an unfamiliar place, and advances from there, revealing what happened as things progress. In this case, that Darkwing's retired from crimefighting and taken a soul-crushing cubicle job for the monopolistic company that's taken over the city. His sidekick is gone, his arch-foes are either missing or also working for the same company as him. It gives the reader a few different mysteries to wonder about, and lets the creative team do the "hero comes out of retirement" story.
(More than a couple of the covers are Dark Knight Returns homages/parodies).
After that, there's a general return to the status quo, but it gets shaken up by bringing a lot of mystical elements into play. Which isn't something entirely foreign to Darkwing stories - his girlfriend was a witch or sorceress, I'm not sure which is the more accurate term - but it's not his typical setting. Darkwing getting tangled up in FOWL's attempts to raise "Duckthulu" didn't work for me as much as Negaduck and Scrooge's old enemy Magica having themselves a temporary team-up, but Lovecraftian horrors are maybe a little too metaphysical for me? I prefer a horror you can punch back at.
Silvani is able to capture the characters and the look of St. Canard perfectly, as well as keeping up with the action sequences and adding all sorts of little Easter eggs. They create a couple of new villains, including One-Off, a former pitcher who can throw any object with unerring accuracy, but he has to throw something different every time. Lots of opportunity for fun there. The second story involves a bunch of mind-controlled Darkwings from different universes running amok, and Silvani nails the various references, from Doctor Who Darkwing, to Optimus Darkwing.
(Although the best Darkwing is Bowling Ball Darkwing, obviously. )
The last few issues are a crossover with a Ducktales series that had just started, but I think there were some disagreements between Brill and Darkwing's creators, maybe. I know when they released the big collected edition of the whole series, Brill stated some of it had been changed from what he wrote originally. All my copies are in single issues, so I had to infer some of the changes from the next Darkwing series, which didn't show up until 2016.
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