Flintheart Glomgold
The Second Richest Duck in the World.
Flintheart Glomgold is a cartoon character created in 1956 by Carl Barks. He is a South African American Pekin Duck and the business rival of Scrooge McDuck, usually portrayed as an ambitious, ruthless and manipulative businessman who shares many of the same qualities as Scrooge—the drive for massive wealth and the cunning and creativity to obtain the same—but he lacks any of Scrooge's tendencies towards generosity and compassion. In Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, he is said to be a Boer.
Glomgold is one of Scrooge's main rivals along with the Beagle Boys, Magica De Spell, and John D. Rockerduck, and also holds the title of being the "Second Richest Duck in the World" while Scrooge is the richest. His appearance is deliberately similar to that of Scrooge, but he is usually drawn with a full beard and sideburns as opposed to simple side-whiskers, black or purple frock coat instead of Scrooge's red or blue one, and a dark tam o'shanter instead of Scrooge's top hat.
Quick Facts
- Franchise
- Donald Duck
- First
- "The Second-Richest Duck" in Uncle Scrooge #15 (September 1956)
- Creator
- Carl Barks
- Voice
- Hal Smith (1987–1990)
- Brian George (2013)
- Keith Ferguson (2017–present)
- Also known as
- Duke Baloney (DuckTales reboot only)
- Nationality
- South African; American (DuckTales)
Lore & Background
Glomgold first appeared in "The Second-Richest Duck", first published in September 1956. In this story, Scrooge learns that a businessman from the valley of the Limpopo, South Africa has also claimed the title of Richest Duck. Scrooge travels to South Africa with Donald and his three grandnephews, and the two rivals race through "The Heart of Africa" to determine who deserves the title, competing in everything from cash to gold mines to who has the largest ball of string.
Flintheart, like Scrooge, keeps a percentage of his fortune in his own Money Bin, identical to Scrooge's except the external logo: a dollar sign on McDuck's and a pound sign on Glomgold's. While Scrooge's main sources of wealth are his industries, Flintheart's are his diamond mines. Scrooge's Money Bin is in Duckburg, Calisota, United States; Flintheart's is in the center of a valley near the Limpopo, surrounded by wildlife. Flintheart lives a life of solitude with no family, friends, or rivals except Scrooge.
In "The Money Champ" (September 1959), Flintheart uses underhand plots against Scrooge, and his thoughts reveal that insecurities about his own worth drive his efforts and dishonest tactics, which he believes are betrayals of "his dear old mother's fondest hopes." In "So Far and no Safari" (January 1966), Flintheart's intentions are murderous: he shoots down Scrooge's plane with machine guns and bombards him in the Kalahari Desert, but his own plane crash-lands. The story ends with both rivals exhausted at an auction, the outcome unrevealed.
Reader's Guide
Glomgold is characterized as an unrepentant miser, tycoon, plutocrat, and general villain who rarely sees any problem with breaking the law, cheating, or using other unfair tactics to become the world's richest duck. This makes him a "broken mirror" of Scrooge McDuck, whose own avarice is tempered with his belief in earning money strictly through honest means. After Barks' retirement, Glomgold appeared infrequently until 1979, when Egmont editors Lars Bergström and Stefan Printz-Påhlson revived the character.
Since then, he has appeared in more than 100 Egmont stories, some depicting him as an influential member of Duckburg's Billionaires Club (which also includes Scrooge and John D. Rockerduck). In Werner Wejp-Olsen and Daniel Branca's 1981 story "The Top Treasure in Town", his grandfather Stoneheart Glomgold is introduced. In Lars Jensen and Vicar's 2002 story "Happy Birthday, Flintheart Glomgold", his nephew Slackjaw Snorehead is introduced—a genial slacker and genius with a talent for business who prefers to do nothing.
In Lars Jensen and Marco Rota's 2005 story "The Glomgold Heritage", his father Brickheart Glomgold and mother appear briefly; it reveals that Stoneheart was a Scotsman who moved to London and later traveled to South Africa with his son after being wrongly accused of theft, teaching the Glomgolds that the world was unfair and they had to look out for themselves even outside the law.
More in Characters
Elsewhere in DuckTales
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