Donald Duck/Awesome

Did ya think the most failure-prone guy in the entire Disney universe can't showcase awesomeness? Think again.

---

Carl Barks' Comics

• A 1940s Donald Duck comic featured Donald and his nephews raising a sunken ship they're trapped in with the air from ping pong balls. Not impressed? Well, in 1964, a ship full of sheep coming into Kuwait sank, and everyone was worried about the decomposing sheep contaminating the drinking water. One man, wisely not mentioning where he got the idea, suggested using ping pong balls. It worked!
• Commanding a boat powered by sharks (The Magic ^[dead link] Hourglass ^[dead link] )

Don Rosa's Comics

• Donald uses the Holy Grail to knock a villain unconscious in "A Letter From Home."
  • Let's give this some thought. To render the week's Big Bad unconscious via a blow to the head, that's spectacular in itself. Yet, Donald didn't use just any weapon. He was armed with the Holy Grail. Did you read that? Here it comes again just in case: DONALD DUCK USED -THE- HOLY GRAIL to knock a villain senseless, smashing it against his head with such strength that he BROKE IT. It may as well be the most sacrilegious, blasphemous, yet epically AWESOME KO ever featured on Disney Comics.
• Little Donald giving 1930 Scrooge at his most Jerkass a much needed kick in the rear. (The Empire Builder From Calisota)
• Telling off both Magica and Scrooge at the end of The Treasury of Croesus, forever showing that while he may never be as rich or as powerful as either of them, he may just be the happier one.
  • Magica's dumbfounded expression and Scrooge's quivering, cane-breaking fury are just icing. Of course, this was perfectly in character for the Donald of the day (who was a hard-smoking, hard-drinking, sea-shanty-singing, Angrish-sputtering sailor followed by a trio of Junior Woodchuck nephews for whom this was a chance to show off more knowledge of history.)
• His near-Heroic Sacrifice in The Black Knight Glorps Again: The plan to get the Omnisolve-covered Black Knight trapped in a diamond room succeeds. Unfortunately, Donald gets trapped with him, whom he threatens to kill if they don't release him. Just as Scrooge and the boys agree, Donald tells them not to open the door, no matter what, and struggles with the Knight until they both pass out from the Omnisolve dissolving the air in the room! Wow! Now that was smart, selfless, and brave.
• The climax of The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros. The story's villain (a native chief turned greedy by civilization) escapes in a canoe, leaving Donald, José and Panchito in the lost city of Ophir, with no way to get out thanks to the river being infested with piranhas and the city's location on a high plateau. Things are looking grim, to the point where his friends lament this as the end of the Three Caballeros. As everything seems hopeless and their future looks doomed, Donald recalls the insults and mistreatment that Scrooge, Gladstone, and Daisy gave him earlier in that week, accusing him of being completely worthless and incapable of doing anything without screwing it up... all with his nephews seeing everything, feeling so very sorry for him. Donald finally snaps, grabs a vine, swings into the chief's canoe, and proceeds to give him the beating of his life.
  • Donald's act of bravado inspires Panchito and José decide to join his friend. Just then, they notice a gigantic anaconda (which had previously attempted to eat Donald) swimming toward the canoe. Panchito ties the snake's tail to a nearby bridge, while Jose subdues it with only his umbrella. After the chief falls off an Inevitable Waterfall, Panchito ties up the Anaconda by its neck and he, along with Donald and José, ride out of the ruins on it like a bucking bronco.
    • There's still a tribe of Indians they gotta deal with. It ends up not being necessary to do so, but their will to face them with their bare hands is still admirable.

"A whole tribe of Indians against Three Caballeros...We have them grossly outnumbered."

• Donald single-handedly assists Scrooge outwitting Beagle Boys in Inception-like adventure of "Dreams of a Lifetime"
• In The Quest for Kalevala, Scrooge and Donald meet face to face with Death himself, and what does Donald do? Laughs into his face! It's one-upped in the epilogue included in the Finnish hardcover edition, where Donald literally kicks Death's ass so hard that his skull flies off (This actually being payback from earlier, where Death threw them out of his realm for causing general havoc, and ended up literally kicking Donald out. This whole thing Makes Sense in Context. Don Rosa seemingly makes a lot of weird shit work in Disney comics.).

Others' Comics

• Future Donald does pretty awesome in the alternate future of Lars Jensen's story "Whatever Happened to Scrooge McDuck", specifically by managing to bankrupt Flintheart Glomgold and John Rockerduck with fines by converting the part of Scrooge's empire he inherited (after Scrooge's mysterious disappearance) into a charity organization dedicated to stopping illegal and unfair deals and reporting them to the proper authorities.
• C'mon, Donald is the kind of person who will use chainsaw against a mountain and carve it into an effigy of Napoleon, in a single night, just so that people will talk about him. This at least deserves a mention.
• In a Italian story,after Uncle Scrooge goes missing,Donald and his nephews travel to an island to retrive him.Said island is inhabitated by big,strong duck(like two times as tall and three times ad large as Donald).When they get in an ambush,one of them captures Donald...until he sees another trying to do the same to his nephews.He goes full uncle wolf,beating the crap out of him and sending him crying away.They need a whole squad to subdue him.

Classic Disney Shorts

• In "Bellboy Donald", the duck spends an entire short being forced to keep his temper under control by his boss with the threat of unemployment if he lashes at one more customer, with Pete's malicious son constantly exploiting this and placing Donald in all sorts of humiliating situations. Finally, after being pushed too far, he drags Pete Jr kicking and screaming over to the hotel reception and inquires whether he has been fired yet, which the manager immediately confirms, at which point Donald happily gives the brat a much needed spanking, complete with an Evil Laugh. Even in this day and age, his revenge is immensely satisfying.
• "Lighthouse Keeping" has what has to be the most Crazy Awesome Donald has done. When trying to throw a pelican out of the lighthouse, it pulls the old "make you throw yourself over" trick. Donald falls, but as the Pelican smugly dusts his hands/wings off we don't hear a splash. Instead, Donald rides A WAVE BACK ONTO THE RAIL standing still, with a Badass Arm-Fold and Death Glare on his face. He doesn't move for a second before dusting his own hands off. This sends the pelican running back inside.
  • It's three minutes in.

House of Mouse

• In "Donald's Pumbaa Prank", Donald rescues Pumbaa when Pete's stuffed him in the club's vent and is feeding him stinkbugs. Then, when it looks like Pumbaa's about to let loose a big fart and everyone has to evacuate, Donald bravely rushes out of the house with Pumbaa and takes the blow for everyone.
• "Everybody Loves Mickey" has a scene where Mortimer is doing an open-mic performance that consists of him saying nasty things about Mickey. Donald, who up to this point had been resentful of the apparent notion that everyone liked Mickey more than him, steps up on stage, tells the big rat "You can't talk about Mickey Mouse that way!", and then throws him off the stage. Needless to say, he pretty much deserved the applause he got for that.