Ducky Dozen (A.R.M.O.R. agents; Marvel Zombies Destroy! characters)

DUCKY DOZEN

Membership: Battlestar/Lemar Hoskin, Blazing Skull/Mark Todd (see comments), Kurt "Breeze" Barton (see comments), Dragoon, Timothy "Dum-Dum" Dugan (see comments), Dynaman/Lagaro (see comments), Eternal Brain (see comments), Flexo (see comments), Gur, Howard the Duck, Red Raven (see comments), Taxi Taylor

Purpose: To destroy the cross-dimensional battleship (Valhalla's hammer) of Earth-12591's Nazis and thwart their plot to invade and infest/infect/conquer Earth-616

Aliases: None

Affiliations: A.R.M.O.R. (Alternate Reality Monitoring and Operational Response), Suffragists of Earth-12591 (Columbia, Libertas, Miss America/Madeline Joyce, Riveter/Roz/Rosalind), Zephyr Zog of Earth-12591

Enemies: Zombies of Earth-12591, including the zombie Asgardians (especially Skurge the Executioner and presumably the Valkyrior), Invaders (Bucky/James Barnes, Destroyer/Roger Aubrey, Golden Girl/Betty Ross, Human Torch/Jim Hammond, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Spitfire/Jacqueline Falsworth, Vision/Aarkus, Whizzer/Bob Frank)., and the Waffen-ZZ (Dum-Dum Dugan, possibly other members of the Howling Commandos)

Base of Operations: None, as the surviving members disbanded;
formerly mobile on Earth-12591
former A.R.M.O.R. base

First Appearance: Marvel Zombies Destroy! #1 (July, 2012)

History:
ducky_dozen-mzd2-shooting (Marvel Zombies Destroy! #1 (fb) - BTS) - Learning that the Nazi zombies of Earth-12591 had neared completion of a cross-dimensional battleship (Valhalla's hammer) with which they planned to invade and infest/infect/conquer Earth-616, ARMOR gathered a number of agents to destroy the battleship and thwart the Nazi zombies' plot: Battlestar and/or Howard the Duck apparently gathered Blazing Skull, Breeze Barton, Dynaman, Eternal Brain, Flexo, Red Raven, Taxi Taylor, Dragoon of the Dragon-Men of Ligra, and Gur of the Lion-People of Ligra (see comments).

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #2 (fb) - BTS) - Howard was instructed to meet up with Earth-12591's resistance (the Suffragists).

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #3 (fb) - BTS) - With or without instructions from his superiors, Howard planned to recruit "Dum Dum" Dugan so he could impersonate his Earth-12591 zombie counterpart and get them into the base.

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #1) - Aided by Battlestar, Howard recruited "Dum Dum" Dugan into the group and then introduced him to the rest of the Ducky Dozen. Red Raven's questioning of women in the battlefield led to confrontations with Breeze, Dragoon, and Gur, before Taxi clocked Raven across the head.

Arriving on Earth-12591 via a ship transported there by Taxi Taylor, they were almost instantly attacked by zombies, and Gur was swiftly zombified, leading Howard to kick him out of the craft. At Howard's guidance, Breeze Barton took to the air and blasted apart other zombies being launched at their craft, but damage from Dugan's use of heavy artillery inside the ship soon caused it to crash.

They were then confronted by Zombie Invaders (Bucky, Destroyer, Golden Girl, Human Torch, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Spitfire, Vision/Aarkus, Whizzer), and Namor tore Barton in half.

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #2) - After noting that they were to meet the resistance, Howard was saved from being consumed by the Whizzer by Dynaman, who was subsequently consumed by a zombie(?)-squid controlled by zombie Namor. With the aid of the arriving Suffragists (Columbia, Libertas, Miss America, Riveter), the Invaders were destroyed, although Red Raven was zombified while saving Taxi from Golden Girl, leading Columbia to destroy him.

Howard and the remaining members of the Ducky Dozen joined the Suffragists in their headquarters, where they were introduced to Zephyr Zog, a Nazi scientist aiding their efforts against the zombies. Howard helped Battlestar restrain Blazing Skull from killing Zog.

After Zog revealed the cause of the zombie plague, Battlestar noted that they needed to get Dugan into place as they not only had to destroy the Nazi's transdimensional battleship, Valhalla's Hammer, they needed to find and destroy the death spore flower that started the zombie plague. After Howard explained to Dugan that the zombies had been able to take over the world via alliance with the gods, the Waffen-ZZ arrived.

Howard and the others repelled out of the building, and Howard caught Dugan when an explosion tore through his rope. Nonetheless, Dugan was furious upon seeing his own zombie counterpart and realizing that he was brought in to replace that counterpart.

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #3) - Howard and Dugan were rescued by Libertas, who flew them to the ground, although Dugan had to be stopped from strangling Howard.

The train was subsequently assaulted by the zombie Brunnhilde the Valkyrie -- who dismembered Zog and used a spear to pin Flexo in place -- and the rest of the Valkyrior. After hearing noise on the roof followed by seeing Zog's disembodied head hurled from the front of the train, Howard instructed everyone to focus their fire on the roof. The Valkyrior were eventually destroyed, but Columbia was lost in the struggle.

Howard and the others were then joined by Loki-12591, who admitted to having caused the zombie plague.

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #4) - Still aboard the train, Loki explained to the remaining eight members of the Ducky Dozen (Battlestar, Blazing Skull, Dragoon, Dugan, Eternal Brain, Flexo, Howard, Taxi) and the Suffragists (Libertas, Miss America, Riveter) how he had miscalculated in causing the zombie plague had affected all of the Asgardians. Both Blazing Skull and Libertas vengefully fired blasts at Loki, who casually blocked the blast and continued his tale, noting that he thought he could reverse the plague if he could access the flower that began it.

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #4 - BTS) - As the zombie Asgardians assaulted their train, Loki magically hid the Ducky Dozen and Suffragists in a travel trunk, which went unnoticed by the gods.

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #4) - After the gods departed, the Ducky Dozen and Suffragists exited the trunk (although Loki was nowhere to be found) and made their way to the zombie stronghold where Dugan impersonated his zombie counterpart to gain access to the zombie's trans-dimensional ship. As Howard and the others waited outside, they were unable to prevent Skurge the Executioner from biting and zombifying Dragoon, whom Battlestar then destroyed.

As Dugan had not yet opened the gates, Howard had the Eternal Brain open the locks to let them in.

Once inside, Howard and Battlestar saw the zombified goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjostr, chained to the zombies' weapon. ducky_dozen-mzd5-zombsurround

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #5) - After Dugan arrived, Loki appeared and explained that the goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjostr -- who had been consumed by the zombie Thor, reanimated as zombies, and then consumed zombie Odin to become immensely powerful -- were the power source of the zombies' transdimensional craft.

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #5 - BTS) - As the Red Skull and his troops arrived, Loki transported himself, Miss America, and Dugan away, leaving Blazing Skull and Flexo to be torn apart by the giant goats. They succeeded in launching a weapon to destroy the zombies, although Loki and Miss America were lost in the process.

(Marvel Zombies Destroy! #5) - Before dying, Loki transported Dugan back to his allies, and he warned them of the coming weapon and the need to escape. As they were surrounded by Nazi zombies (or zombie Nazis, not sure which is more appropriate...or worse...), Eternal Brain had the Riveter shatter his brain casing, allowing his brain to expand to giant size, and distracting the zombies as they fed upon it.

Capitalizing on the distraction, Howard led Battlestar, Dugan, Riveter, and Taxi to a commercial-sized refrigerator within which they might escape the coming explosion; though they found the partially consumed form of Captain America within it, they had no time to remove it, and Taxi brought them back to Earth-616.

However, Captain America-12591 then ominously/secretly revived.

Comments: Created by Frank Marraffino and Mirco Pierfederici.

Beyond Howard, Battlestar, and Dugan, the other nine members of the Ducky Dozen either were from or based on characters who appeared during the first year of Timely Comics. However, some of the characters who were supposed to be the originals had significantly different histories than had previously been documented (Eternal Brain, for example), so some or all of them may have been alternate reality counterparts. Given the involvement of A.R.M.O.R., that's really the straightforward and obvious explanation.

Taxi Taylor was the daughter of Jim "Taxi" Taylor, so that's all good...
I don't think there is anything contradicting Dragoon from being a member of Reality-616's Dragon-Men or Gur from being a member of Reality-616's Lion People
Breeze Barton: per Kevin Garcia: "He makes references to early 21st century pop culture, which doesn't fit with the post-apocalyptic 1990s we know he visited, but there's nothing to 100% rule out if being him."

We'll have to wait for Breeze Barton to reappear or for some story to confirm or refute, one way or the other.

Blazing Skull seems somewhat out of character, but there does not seem to be anything definitive to rule him out from being his -616.

Nonetheless, my gut tells me he is an alternate reality counterpart.

We'll have to wait for Blazing Skull to reappear or for some story to confirm or refute, one way or the other.

The Ducky Dozen's Dynaman is really powerful, much more like Dynamic Man...
Eternal Brain's origin is markedly different than the Eternal Brain of the Ducky Dozen. See that profile for discussion.
The Ducky Dozen's Flexo looked like a man wearing armor as opposed to a robot, although he did seem more robotic in nature, rebuilding himself from injuries. He didn't do any real twisting or stretching, as was characteristic of classic Flexo.
Red Raven was sexist and largely sub-heroic...per Kevin Garcia, "He acts like he never met a female warrior despite his experiences with the Liberty Legion and his own daughter."

Most convincingly, Red Raven has more recently shown up alive in New Invaders#8-9.

At some point, I'll likely work on either adding sub-profiles or full profiles for Breeze, Blazing Skull, Dynaman, Flexo, and Red Raven.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Ducky Dozen have no known connections to:

DEADLY DOZEN (Ralph "Hoss" Cossgrove, Timothy "Dum-Dum" Dugan, Roland "Ace" Hamilton, Jake Jensen, Jay Littlebear, Laurie Livingston, Dino Manelli, Jack "Mad-Dog" Martin, Michael "Bullseye" Miller, Percival "Pinky" Pinkerton, Donald Sample, Howard Shigeta, Emory "Snake-Eye" Simpson, Larry "Hillbilly" Wagner, "Doc" Watson) - World War II troop, group of convicts, volunteered for combat duty in exchange for pardons, organized into a unit by "Happy" Sam Sawyer, all but Kelly killed during war, Laurie was crippled, Kelly resigned from army--Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos#98
DUCKY WUCKY - rubber duck used by US President to talk with Pitiful One--X-Statix Presents: Dead Girl#3
other "Ducky" or "Dozen" characters, etc.

images: (without ads)
Marvel Zombies Destroy! #1, pg. 9, panel 4 (Battlestar, Dugan, Howard the Duck);
       pg. 10 (other 9 members);
    #2, story pg. 1 (7 of remaining 10 firing on zombie Invaders);
    #5, pg. 14, panel 1 (surrounded by zombies)

Appearances:
Marvel Zombies Destroy! #1-2 (July, 2012) - Frank Marraffino (writer), Mirco Pierfederici (artist), Jake Thomas (editor), Mark Paniccia (senior editor)
Marvel Zombies Destroy! #3 (August, 2012) - Peter David (writer), Al Barrionuevo (penciler), Rick Magyar (inker), Jake Thomas (editor), Mark Paniccia (senior editor)
Marvel Zombies Destroy! #4 (August, 2012) - Peter David (writer), Mirco Pierfederici (artist), Jake Thomas (editor), Mark Paniccia (senior editor)
Marvel Zombies Destroy! #5 (September, 2012) - Peter David (writer), Mirco Pierfederici (artist), Jake Thomas (editor), Mark Paniccia (senior editor)

First posted: 01/05/2020
Last updated: 01/05/2020

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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