Beagle Boys

The Beagle Boys are a group of cartoon characters created in 1951 by Carl Barks for the Donald Duck universe. They are a family clan of organized criminals who constantly try to rob Scrooge McDuck. Their introduction and first appearance was in "Terror of the Beagle Boys", although in this story they only appear in the last frame and have no lines. They appear again in the next issue in a similar fashion, in The Big Bin on Killmotor Hill. Their next appearance, Only a Poor Old Man, gave them a substantial speaking role and developed them as a collective character.

The Beagle Boys in comics

Barks/Rosa universe

The Beagle Boys were originally created by Carl Barks and made their first appearance in the 10-page story "The Terror of the Beagle Boys" that was first published in November 1951. Although the Beagle Boys are only shown very briefly on the last page of this story, it is implied that Scrooge has known about them for a long time. The Beagle Boys are usually depicted as a gang of about three to ten members or more depending on the story, who are identical in appearance and personality. They wear black bandit masks to hide their identities and on their turtleneck sweaters, most often being orange or red, they have their prison number signs. The Beagle Boys are often characterized to be very crude, boastful, aggravating, greedy, and self-centered – among themselves, however, they are very loyal and have a strong connection of sibling camaraderie. Although, on some occasions, they have shown irritation toward each other, often relating to someone making a mistake or saying something that does not fit in with the consensus, like one Beagle Boy's overly fondness of prunes; a weakness that proves to be the Beagle Boys' downfall in some stories. 176-167's love for prunes makes him the only Beagle Boy with a unique characteristic.
The first story to feature the Beagle Boys in a major role is Only a Poor Old Man, which serves as a template for virtually all future Beagle Boys appearances, and establishes them as a serious threat to Scrooge's fortune. In the same story, they are called "the most awful gang of crooks in the country" by Donald Duck. This most often manifests with them cleverly coming up with various or elaborate schemes to try to break into and steal from Scrooge McDuck's well-secured Money Bin. On occasion they are even shown to have highly intellectual capacities, as they are able to earn academic degrees in various fields. Among individual Beagle Boys, some of these degrees include: cranial encephalography, psychology, chemistry, metallurgy, and electropyrotechnology. These were often seen by the government as attempts at rehabilitation, but in reality, it was a charade by the Beagle Boys to use their newly acquired skills for robberies. They are also experts at trickery, including disguises, and animal training; like using cormorants as aerial bombers, as well as having a large arsenal of various weapons, explosives, or machines. When needed, they have been shown to be able to use force or threats to get what they want. With all things considered, however, the Beagle Boys are often attributed not to be as clever as they think they are, often gullible to tricks and offensives themselves. Also, most of their appearances ends with them getting arrested. They are usually imprisoned in Duckburg prisons or Sing Sing, but they have also been jailed in other prisons as well. The Beagle Boys are however proud of their criminal background; never willing to live their lives in accordance to the law.
The Beagle Boys' main goal for stealing Scrooge McDuck's money is so they can create a paradisiacal life of luxury for themselves. On few occasions when they have managed to steal the money, they are shown to spend it all very wastefully and in excess; like buying extravagant and ostentatious mansions or living on a paradise island near Hawaii. They have also shown proneness for taking over the world when being presented with such an opportunity, like in Carl Barks' story The Mysterious Stone Ray.
The Beagle Boys are most often shown without an established leader, instead acting as a very coherent and homogeneous unit, and only giving orders between each other interchangeably when needed. However, sometimes the Beagle Boys are led by their grandfather, Blackheart Beagle, who has the prison number 186–802. The Blackheart character originates from two characters created by Carl Barks: Blackheart Beagle, a riverboat pirate from The Fantastic River Race, and Grandpa Beagle, who appeared in The Money Well. It was Don Rosa who later combined the character into one in chapters 10 and 11 of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Also, according to Rosa, Blackheart Beagle semi-retired in 1947, following a failed attempt at robbing Scrooge's Money Bin. In The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Scrooge first met The Beagle Boys in his Mississippi riverboat days, circa 1880. Those Beagle Boys included Blackheart Beagle and his three sons.
Scrooge first met the modern third-generation Beagle Boys during Christmas 1947, which was when he first met his three grandnephews, along with his nephew Donald Duck for the second time. Since then, the Beagle Boys have been a constant threat to Scrooge's Money Bin.
The third generation of the Beagle Boys, like their fathers, were never given any personal names by Carl Barks but was instead referred to by their prison numbers, which starts with "176-" and ends on a permutation of the numbers 1, 6, and 7, which allows six different combinations. This tradition was first established in Barks' The Menehune Mystery, while the Beagle Boys in previous stories, and some of them in The Menehune Mystery, instead had their prison numbers as "176-" followed by random digits. However, in a few of his later stories, Barks did not continue this tradition and used random numbers again instead. But subsequent writers and artists by default still mostly uses the 1, 6, and 7 combinations for the Beagle Boys in the modern comic books. The Beagle Boys also have their prison numbers tattooed on their chests. According to Don Rosa's The Beagle Boys vs. The Money Bin, the Beagle Boys have been known by their prison numbers since their childhood, and they do not even know their real names themselves. Their parents do know their real names, but demand a bribe from their sons to let them know. Also according to that story, Blackheart Beagle does not remember his sons' names.
Carl Barks used to include the words "Beagle Boys, Inc." on their shirts under their numbers, which was later deleted in reprints. It can either be assumed that this was a reference to Murder, Inc., a name for organized crime groups in the 1930s and 40s; or that they are a criminal organization very similar to a real business, but neither is certain. In one comic, the Beagle Boys have a worldwide organization known as Beagles International, in which the Beagles have spies in different countries around the world.
In most of Carl Barks stories, the number of Beagle Boys was not exact but instead they were depicted as being ambiguously numerous, with their number of members varying from story to story. However, if one would count all of the different combinations of the Beagle Boys' prison numbers that was used in the comic books by Carl Barks, the Beagle Boys would seem to consist of at least 36 members. In The Menehune Mystery, Scrooge mentions thirty Beagle Boys. Don Rosa, however, constantly uses seven Beagle Boys in his stories, but instead of using a random number Rosa always hides one prison numbers behind something to avoid two Beagle Boys having the same number.
The Beagle Boys usually operate on their own, but collaborated with Magica De Spell in the 1963 Barks story Isle of the Golden Geese, and again in the 1997 Don Rosa story A Little Something Special where they also teamed up with Flintheart Glomgold. In The Status Seeker by Carl Barks, they are shown to be part of a labor union called the "Burglars, Thugs, and Pirates Union", at Local No. 6¹⁄₂.

Other comics

From 1964 to 1979 the Beagle Boys had their own comic book title, The Beagle Boys, published by Gold Key Comics, which continued from 1979 to 1980 under the name The Beagle Boys Versus Uncle Scrooge.
In all comics, the individual Beagle Boys are referred to by their prison numbers as per Barks's convention. In addition to Barks's and Rosa's claim that the Beagle Boys do not know their names, the Beagle Boys-centric comic Being Donald Duck by Olaf Moriarty Solstrand adds that the Beagle Boys do not know their mother's name either, only her number. The Beagle Boys' prison numbers are indicated on the tags seen on the chests of their distinctive orange or red turtleneck sweaters. The original depictions by Barks in American comics most often showed the Beagle Boys with orange sweaters. European comics recolored these same Barks drawings to show Beagle Boys in red sweaters. Subsequent European comic depictions of the Beagle Boys by artists other than Barks also showed them in red sweaters, as did the DuckTales cartoons.
In later years, especially in Europe, they appear in the comics as a trio, alongside cousins and other relatives of various talents as spin-off characters. Most notably are the Beagle Brats, the Beagle Boys' three preteen nephews created by Tony Strobl and Steve Steere in That Motherly Feeling. They mirror criminal versions of Scrooge's three nephews and have the prison numbers 1, 2, and 3. Another prominent relative is Intellectual-176, the Beagle Boys' cousin who acts as the brains of the Beagle clan. He wears a mortar-board cap and glasses over his black bandit mask and has the prison number "I-176". I-176 was created by Pete Alvarado and first appeared in The Crown Jewel Job.
The Beagle Boys generally live in a small tumbledown hide-out in Duckburg; in 1970s American-produced stories, their pet cat Ratty often lived there as well. In the Italian stories, they live in a travel trailer and are sometimes accompanied by their pet dachshund, Ottoperotto, who shares their criminal mindset, but is often overcome with Ottoperotto's constant, voracious appetite.
Sometimes they team up with other villains such as Magica De Spell, Black Pete, Mad Madam Mim, or hire out their services to Flintheart Glomgold, John D. Rockerduck, and Jolly Ollie Eiderduck. During these occasions, they continue to operate out of their own interests rather than their employers'.
Many other authors use a character purely based on The Money Well version as the Beagle Boys' grandfather. In particular, Italian authors use a "Grandpa Beagle" who differs from Blackheart in being much skinnier and constantly smoking a pipe. Unlike his grandsons, he is highly intelligent and appears as their cunning and capable leader, hatching devious plans. The Italian version of Grandpa Beagle has the word "GRAZIA" where his prison number should be. When his stories are translated for the US, "GRAZIA" is replaced with "186–802", his prison number in Western stories.
Sometimes the Beagle Boys antagonize Super Goof, Mickey Mouse, or some other characters from Walt Disney's comic books.