Potential candidates for Newton Gearloose's father

[LP]

I just read The Mysterious Stone Ray and I thought "Hey..." to myself.
So this professor guy is an inventor, obsessed with inventing "fumeless cabbage". He's also quite intelligent, just like the other Gearlooses. You'll notice that he's not of the "duck"-species, but rather a "chicken", like Gyro, what with his humanoid legs and his beak. I can't account for the ears, though.


When looking for candidates for Newton's father/Gyro's brother, you need someone who is out of the picture; not living in Duckburg to care for Newton. I don't have access to Newton's introductory-story, so I'm not sure if we're given any reasons for his visits to Gyro. ...I don't even know if he's from Duckburg originally.
Anyways, the professor has been living on an island for at least 7 months when the story starts. We're told that he used to live in Duckburg. This gives Newton a reason to look for another legal guardian. I don't know where the mother is.

From what I can tell, this professor has only appeared thrice - once by Barks, another time by Rosa, and finally an Italian story. He only appears together with Gyro in the Italian one, but I haven't read that one, so I don't know if they interact and say "Hello, non-brother", which would debunk this theory.


There's also the chemist from Dinner Date, who is brought up as the main candidate over on the Scrooge McDuck Wiki. Personally, I would prefer "new characters" to not simply have copied designs of already established characters.

[RobbK1]

The "Chemist" (who is some fowl man) looks very like Gyro. So he would be a good candidate. The inventor with dog ears doesn't look much like Gyro, so, I'd disregard him as a candidate.

[TheMidgetMoose]

What an awesome thread idea! I really hope people find and bring up even more candidates! However, and this is a genuine question and not a sarcastic remark, how do we know that Newton's father needs to be out of the picture? Does he live with Gyro? Was it stated somewhere that his parents aren't around? I've probably only read one Newton story, if even that many, so I really know little about him.

I'd probably see the chemist as a stronger candidate than the professor. The chemist looks so much like Gyro that he's just got to be some sort of relative, right? Unless he's a clone created by a Gearloose invention gone wrong... The professor also looks just a bit older than I would expect Newton's father to be. If we take Rosa's The Invader of Fort Duckburg into account, then a Gyro's brother/Newton's father character would most probably have been born several years after Invader of Fort Duckburg, which takes place around 1902 and depicts Gyro's father, Fulton, as a child/teenager and member of the Junior Woodchucks, at the earliest. If The Mysterious Stone Ray takes place when it was released, then a son of Fulton is unlikely to be any older than 50 during the events of that story. This professor guy certainly could be 50, but he strikes me as being just a bit older. Of course, I can't think of anything preventing The Mysterious Stone Ray from being pushed forward on the timeline a few years, and Gyro's brother/Newton's father could theoretically be a half-brother, the son of Gyro's mother and an anthropomorphic dog or dog mix who was then adopted by his stepfather, Fulton Gearloose, several years later.

[LP]

I find the dog ears in combination with a fowl beak disturbing, but it personally doesn't bother me that he would be related to a non-dog eared fowl man. 
However, I will admit that he may not be a super-strong candidate for Gyro's brother; he's just my personal preference out of these two (I only know of these two candidates at the moment). Generally I don't like when already established characters are retconned into being relatives of other established characters. It just makes the universe feel smaller if everyone is related. For example, I super-hate the suggestion that Gyro and Donald are related. And I'm not fan of Donald and Daisy being cousins either.

The chemist seems to be like an evil twin to Gyro. I haven't read the relevant story in a few years, but I distinctly remember that Gyro is never mentioned once in the story. That annoys me. If there were a story specifically about Gyro copying himself and accidentally making the copy evil, I would most likely be onboard. But the fact that there is no such story (at least, to my knowledge), just leaves us with a chemist who looks like Gyro.

Anyways, as I said earlier, my preference of the stone ray-professor over the twin-chemist mostly stems from my desire of having previously unseen characters be given a unique look. I don't want HDL's father to simply look like an adult version of them; I don't want Shamrock Gander's father to simply be a palette swap of Gladstone, and I don't want Dugan's mother to just be Fethry in a wig.

To answer Moose's comment - I must admit I'm not super-familiar with Newton either. From what few stories I've read with him, I just assumed that he now lives with Gyro, just like HDL lives with Donald. As I said, I don't even know the reason for his first visit! For all I know he could say "Hi uncle Gyro. My father got a job as an evil chemist, so I'll just hang around you for a while."
I thought about the professor's age too. My first thought would be mid-50s - early-60s, but I'd be okay with him being a bit younger and just having aged badly.

[Matilda]

Someone knowledgeable about Newton care to comment here about whatever is/isn't said in his first story (or later) about why he's around? I've read a smattering of stories with Newton, but I've never assumed that he lives with Gyro beyond an occasional visit. Certainly in the stories where Newton and HDL are Woodchucking there's no reason to think that Newton doesn't live with his parents.

I hate to give any head-canonical credence to a character who was just a lazy artist's design-clone. That feels different to me than deciding to identify an unnamed and distinctive character as a person we know exists but haven't otherwise seen: the extra female duck in the party scene in The Birthday Booby Trap as Daisy's sister who is AMJ's mother, or the old female duck at Daisy's house in Donald's Love Letters as Daisy's mother. So I lean away from identifying the Gyro-design-clone chemist as Gyro's brother. Not to mention that he would have to be Gyro's identical twin! And I *hate* the "evil twin" trope, except as a joke. I will credit Bob Gregory with the visual for Daisy's sister, but not for Gyro's brother.

I'm OK with the cabbage professor being related to the Gearlooses, ears notwithstanding, but I agree with The Moose that he seems too old to be Newton's father. It is interesting that his design seems to indicate that birdfolk can interbreed with dogfolk...is there any other indication of that in Barks? Generally in the Duck comics, it seems that different bird-species-people can interbreed (owl, seabird, fresh water bird) but that birdfolk and dogfolk do not...though there is the odd instance of the duckperson (the love interest) in Rota's Night of the Saracen who has dognose grandparents. GeoX pointed out this discrepancy. I think we decided she or her parent could have been adopted, though.

Like LP I resist the tendency to decide that central characters who don't have to be are related to each other. I agree that it shrinks the universe. I don't think Gyro and Donald are related, and I definitely don't think Daisy and Donald are cousins. In some countries with a paucity of last names, it's quite common for unrelated persons sharing a last name to get married. I even know one American couple a generation back of whom this was true.

[LP]

The next time I visit my parents, I'll see if my dad has the Swedish publication of Newton's first appearance. There's at least a slim chance.
I agree with Matilda in that I also only tolerate the evil twin-trope as a joke. And the thing is that Gyro would be one of the few characters this could work with, since if there's anyone who would consider copying himself, he's the one. 

I just thought of a thing! There's a difference between a copy and a clone. A copy is simply an exact replica of the original. If Gyro copied himself, the result would be a grown fowl man, with the same memories intact. However, a clone is a new life form that starts out as a fetus, but it shares the same genes as the original. It's probably a bit more complicated than that, but I'm a mere layman. 
You could have a story with Gyro trying to clone himself, but he accidentally copies himself instead, creating the chemist. He tries again, this time properly cloning himself, which results in Newton... Such a story would double as an origin for both Newton and the chemist at the same time. AND it would solve the mystery of who Newton's father is! But does it contribute to this discussion?

...Nope!

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Sept 9, 2020 12:42:01 GMT Matilda said:

So I lean away from identifying the Gyro-design-clone chemist as Gyro's brother. Not to mention that he would have to be Gyro's identical twin! And I *hate* the "evil twin" trope, except as a joke.

I don't necessarily view him as Gyro's twin. He seems slightly stouter than Gyro, his beak is slightly less pointy, his hair is shorter and darker. Nor is he by any reasonable metric "evil" — he's an antagonist in that particular story, but he's not any kind of mad scientist or that sort of thing. 

Indeed, what I like about the idea of the Chemist as Gyro's brother is that he is a perfectly ordinary person — who pursued a scientific career, as one might expect of Gyro's brother and Fulton's son, but did not in fact become any kind of genius inventor, instead working as an ordinary chemist in an ordinary perfume factory.

[crazycatlord]

Sept 9, 2020 12:42:01 GMT Matilda said:

Someone knowledgeable about Newton care to comment here about whatever is/isn't said in his first story (or later) about why he's around? I've read a smattering of stories with Newton, but I've never assumed that he lives with Gyro beyond an occasional visit. Certainly in the stories where Newton and HDL are Woodchucking there's no reason to think that Newton doesn't live with his parents. 

In the Portuguese version of the first story there is not any explanation for the presence of Newton - he simply is there, like if he was a long-established character; in the first square Gyro is complaining that some inventor is copying his ideas, and on the third or fourth square he says that his nephew is also trying to copy is invention (and Newton appears, trying to build some flying machine).

[That Duckfan]

Sept 9, 2020 13:28:57 GMT LP said:

The next time I visit my parents, I'll see if my dad has the Swedish publication of Newton's first appearance. There's at least a slim chance.
I agree with Matilda in that I also only tolerate the evil twin-trope as a joke. And the thing is that Gyro would be one of the few characters this could work with, since if there's anyone who would consider copying himself, he's the one. 

I just thought of a thing! There's a difference between a copy and a clone. A copy is simply an exact replica of the original. If Gyro copied himself, the result would be a grown fowl man, with the same memories intact. However, a clone is a new life form that starts out as a fetus, but it shares the same genes as the original. It's probably a bit more complicated than that, but I'm a mere layman. 
You could have a story with Gyro trying to clone himself, but he accidentally copies himself instead, creating the chemist. He tries again, this time properly cloning himself, which results in Newton... Such a story would double as an origin for both Newton and the chemist at the same time. AND it would solve the mystery of who Newton's father is! But does it contribute to this discussion?

...Nope!

Newton is not Cubert Farnsworth!

[farmspirit]

Sept 8, 2020 20:58:25 GMT LP said:

He only appears together with Gyro in the Italian one, but I haven't read that one, so I don't know if they interact and say "Hello, non-brother", which would debunk this theory.

I have the Topolino where this story appears, so I read it and can confirm that the inventor looks like the cabbage-scientist.
He appears in 6 panels and talks 4 times. Three times he is showing his translator chair, and the last he is dancing and yelling "Yu-uuuh! What beat!".
He don't interact with Gyro, but the both of them don't do anything to make me think they are more than colleagues inventors.
Fun fact: in three of the six panels in which he appears, he is shown with a woman, winking, dancing and giving her a five.
The woman is blonde in the first and second panel, and brunette in the third. In the last she also wear earrings, glasses and a different dressing than before. Is possible that the third is another woman, but I think is more plausible that it's just an error of the artist.

[LP]

I recently read The Tenderfoot Trap and The Persistent Postman, and remembered this thread, so here goes.


This Gyro-like prospector appears in the background. However, he prefers to pose for pictures rather than do the actual prospecting.


Then there's this guy. Mr. Birdmind.

He lives upside-down on a mountain where he studies eagles. Even though the colorist painted him pink, I'd say he's definitely the same species as Gyro. He might actually be my favorite option for Newton's father... There's just one problem... His last name is Birdmind, rather than Gearloose. So, has it been super-established whether Newton's surname definitely is Gearloose? Because otherwise, he could just as easily be the son of a sister of Gyro. Either way, I'll keep an eye out for any female chicken-people too.

[Matilda]

I always assumed that Mr. Birdmind lived alone in that house, situated to facilitate his eagle-watching. Are you really imagining that he has a wife and young son living in that upside-down house with him? That would be one accommodating wife, is all I have to say. And how would the son get to school?

I love Mr. Birdmind and have thought that he might be a good friend for Gyro, whenever they might have occasion to meet. But a family man? I imagine that he enjoys his solitude, the rareness of his interaction with other people. A happy introvert, socializing primarily with the eagles.

[LP]

Apr 8, 2021 0:25:01 GMT Matilda said:

I always assumed that Mr. Birdmind lived alone in that house, situated to facilitate his eagle-watching. Are you really imagining that he has a wife and young son living in that upside-down house with him? That would be one accommodating wife, is all I have to say. And how would the son get to school?

I love Mr. Birdmind and have thought that he might be a good friend for Gyro, whenever they might have occasion to meet. But a family man? I imagine that he enjoys his solitude, the rareness of his interaction with other people. A happy introvert, socializing primarily with the eagles.

I imagine that if he were Newton's father, he and the mother would have separated and the move to that house would happen after that. I too have a hard time seeing anyone go along with living in an upside-down house. As you say, the motive behind the location and orientation of that house appears to be to facilitate eagle-watching.

In this scenario, Newton would primarily live with his mother. Separated parents would explain why Newton visits his uncle so often, especially if the father lives upside-down in the mountains.

[LP]

Yo, I'm doing one of these again. In House of Haunts, this professor is handing out diplomas to the Beagle Boys at the Studious Hours Prison.

He appears to be the same species as Gyro, and his outfit and professor-title makes him a fitting candidate for Newton's father and role model. We don't know much more about him than that. He seems to be an optimistic guy, as he seemingly believes that his education has turned the Beagle Boys into law-abiding citizens who are willing to get honest jobs. Alas, he is mistaken.