|
|
The time top is an impressive piece of engineering, even for the standards Quackerjack operates by. There have been two of them, one small, functional at best, and fit for only one passenger and another large, comfy, and able to hold a small crowd.
History[]
Quackerjack made his first time top to go to the day the yoyo was invented and thwart its genesis. This version of the time top does what it needs to do, allow time travel, but that's all there is to it. It requires manual input to fulfill its journey by having someone push the handle. Passengers are to stand atop the time top, where there's barely more room than for the one pushing the handle. "Quack of Ages" In contrast, the second version, allows people to travel inside the time top, where a circular couch has been added. It also does not require anyone to push the handle, though that's still a means to activate the vehicle. "Extinct Possibility" Instead, the vehicle runs on electricity and can simply be manipulated with a control panel. Megavolt is at least partially responsible for this improvement, "Time and Punishment" though he's never credited for the invention like Quackerjack is. "Inherit the Wimp" "Extinct Possibility"
The time top only has an equal in the time machine designed and built by Sara Bellum. The time machine was built first and beats the first time top in comfort and functionality, but loses the same competition against the second time top.
Fiction[]
Cartoon[]
Quackerjack, pursued by Darkwing and Launchpad for attempting to blow up the yoyo factory, jumps atop the time top he's prepared in advance. His plan is to go back to 1291 and prevent the invention of the first yoyo instead. The heroes fail to stop him and so have to follow him in SHUSH's time machine. "Quack of Ages" Unsatisfied with the first model, Quackerjack builds a new version with the help of Megavolt, who also takes care of charging the vehicle. Their plan is to travel to the future and partake in its technological advancements. Darkwing fails to make his entrance timely, so Gosalyn attempts to stop them by tying a rope from the top's handle to the bars of a rooftop ladder. The rope does nothing, ripping apart as the top spins its circles in preparation of the jump to the future. Desperate, Gosalyn grabs onto it and inadvertently ends up tied to the top's handle and taken along to the future. Quackerjack and Megavolt don't notice her and leave to explore the future. Gosalyn frees herself and does the same. The two groups independently discover the future is everything but bright due to Darkwing Duck becoming Darkwarrior Duck due to Gosalyn's disappearance in the past. The felonious duo returns to the time top to return to their safer home period, but they arrive just as Darkwarrior's robotic assistants find the vehicle on the rooftop and confiscate it on account of the parking violation it poses. As the owners, Quackerjack and Megavolt are arrested. Gosalyn, meanwhile, gets into contact with Darkwarrior Duck and informs him the time top is to be used for time travel, which is why she disappeared all those years ago. She tries to convince him to let the two crooks go so they can bring her back to the past so he'll never have had to change, but her father does not respond well to that. He has her incarcerated too and starts making plans to use the time top to become an even more efficient crimefighter. His first thought is to arrest people before they even break the law, his second to return to Ancient Babylon when laws were first codified and improve on them, and his third takes him back to the time when the first creatures set foot on land. His daydreams are interrupted by a jailbreak. Darkwarrior sends his robots out first so he can continue figuring out the time top, but he gets in on the action once Megavolt takes them down. The combined forces of the prisoners incapacitate Darkwarrior and the three time travelers make use of it to reach the time top. They reach their home period without another hitch. "Time and Punishment"
Darkwing damages the last spare cross-differential axial binding, so in order to repair the Thunderquack Launchpad checks if the time top they confiscated from Quackerjack has such a component. In the process, he accidentally activates the time top and ends up stuck in Ancient Rome for three years. He makes it to the rank of centurion by the time he finally fixes the time top and returns to the exact moment he left. He's thrilled to see Darkwing and Gosalyn again, but the two can't muster the energy to be sympathetic with Megavolt out causing trouble. Gosalyn is ordered to stay at Darkwing Tower, but as she has to write a piece on an ancestor for English Class, Launchpad's predicament inspires her to go talk with some of them personally. She fetches Webwulf the Barbarian, Sir Quackmire Mallard, and Sheriff Quack Mallardson from the past. Webwulf causes a problem when the time top scares him and he smashes it broken, so the quartet goes after her dad and Launchpad in the hopes the latter can fix the time top. Instead, they find Launchpad petrified by Megavolt's new nervous energy drainer, requiring them and Darkwing to defeat the villain first. They accomplish this and Launchpad can indeed fix the time top. He programs it to drop each of the three ancestors off and then zap back to Darkwing Tower. The ancestors bid their new friends goodbye, grateful for having been taught what place the Mallard bloodline has in history. "Inherit the Wimp" The time top is of use once more on a day that the local museum receives a very unusual specimen for their prehistoric collection: a Darkwing Duck trapped in amber estimated to be seventy million years old. The staff contacts the crimefighter himself to discover what they are dealing with. Darkwing, Launchpad, and Gosalyn take the time top and travel to the specimen's era of origin. There, they discover Duckbillville and a society of technosaurs they first have to help out before they can return. Another surprise catches them offguard right when they want to leave, because the technosaur Dr. Denton has taken out the engine to improve on it. Darkwing points out they can't go home now because the powering component is ruined, to which Denton in confusion replies he thought the handle was the powering component. To demonstrate, he gives it a few pushes and accidentally sends it to its own time with Launchpad and Gosalyn inside but Darkwing outside. Darkwing himself becomes trapped inside tree sap and survives the ages in that state until Launchpad and Gosalyn return from their trip to prehistoric times and free him. "Extinct Possibility"