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Joe, Jack, William and Averell Dalton, collectively known as The Dalton brothers and better known as The Daltons, are the main antagonists of the Lucky Luke comics franchise and the villain protagonists of the 2009 series The Daltons.
Why They Rock
- They're the most recognizable and well-known Lucky Luke villains in the whole franchise. They appeared in more than 20 Lucky Luke BDs, 4 movies, and 5 TV series (2 of which were direct animated adaptations of some of the original LL comic strips);
- Much like the Cockroaches from Oggy and the Cockroaches, Their wacky and cartoonish designs make up for their resemblance to one other. Not to mention, while in the LL universe, they're often regarded as ugly, their fandom, although rather questionable, finds them rather attractive;
- It's needful to say that the four titular characters from the aforementioned shows could have been inspired by their round big noses and pointy mustaches.
- The countless hilarious gags in which they are involved. They vary from Joe's exaggerated body language during his mini-mental breakdowns caused by Averell's nonsense to the creative, absurd but prone-to-failure plans the quartet scheme in order to break out from prison.
- Their entertaining antics as villains in their own show, The Daltons, are very reminiscent of Pinky and the Brain. As the shortest one of the group is the smartest and most short-tempered compared to the tallest one of the group is the dimwitted comic relief with moments of brilliance.
- At the same time, the quadruplets also share much in common with the titular Ed Edd N Eddy. As they are all a group that prides themselves in their schemes organized by the jerkish, greedy, and cunning schemer while the rest follow the short one's orders and plans, but all of them tend to be incompetent and prone to foiling their schemes because of their comedic traits and have to go to great lengths to achieve their plans.
- Despite looking identical to one another, they do have personality traits that make them stand out, especially the two antipodes of the crew:
- Joe, the shortest and the eldest as well as the most aggressive, ruthless, and determined leader of the quartet. Two of his primary traits are his fiery temper which leads him to insanity, and his craftiness at scheming. Making him the most arrogant yet cunning schemer of the group. Something between Ren Hoek and The Brain as a scheming outlaw.
- Jack, taller than Joe, but shorter than the rest, he's the working boy and Joe's main sidekick, often at the forefront when it comes to helping his brothers escape. In addition, he is the most level-headed and with the most common sense, as he often calls out the flaws in Joe's plans;
- William, taller than Jack but shorter than Averell, the most cultured, often mentions some interesting facts about science or other subjects that come from the books he reads in his leisure. He is often considered the smartest too as, sometimes, he comes up with even better ideas than Joe;
- Averell, the tallest and the youngest. Most notably, he is the kindest yet the most accident-prone, talkative, dimwitted, childish, and the glutton of the crew. He is the definitive idiot and comic relief of the group with moments of possessing talents like being an artist (painter, sculptor, interior decorator, puppeteer, origami crafter), a cook (baker, pastry chef, french fryer...), a gardener, a karate master, and much more.
- Despite their villainous affiliation with crime, they retain a lot of likability and charm because of how goofy and sympathetic they're depicted as such.
- They're bandits, sure, and they have no scruples about robbing the innocent, tricking and using whoever's gullible enough to take their word at something or threaten with violence if they don't get their way... but they're generally fairly laid-back and easy enough to get along with when they're not robbing. The exception is Joe, who can be Faux Affably Evil but is more often just a jerk.
- The Daltons fight and bicker constantly, and especially Joe is constantly smacking around and yelling at Averell. But they always stick together, and if any of the brothers are threatened by an outside force, the other three will back him up.
- They're villains and proud of it, but they even have standards. On rare occasions, they'll do something decent. Averell is particularly prone to this, but even Joe can on occasion show a small bit of decency for his group and in general.
- They even got their own official spin-off series in the early 2010s. While it deviates slightly from the source material, since it does not feature Lucky Luke, with the exception of some minor appearances here and there, the slapstick and the overall zany tone of the show blend extremely well with the main characters.
- One of the best aspects of it is the fact that the creators actually cared about giving the middle brothers, Jack and William, two distinguishable personalities as, so far, the only reason they existed was to act as buffers between Joe and Averell or extras.
- They even have an awesome theme song, as well as a full version of the said song that explains in depth about their motives and personalities as arrogant criminals, very much like Gru from Despicable Me.
Bad Qualities
- First and foremost, they're four of the biggest examples of butt-monkeys as they've ALWAYS been the losers in every single adventure they were seen in and, to put the cherry on top of the cake, they often get hurt at the end, especially Joe. Sure, they're outlaws and they do deserve their comeuppance, but this monotonous bias heavily skewed against them makes you feel sorry for the guys.
- This is evident in the first movie they were seen in, Daisy Town. While is no doubt a decent animated classic, in their last showdown with Lucky Luke, for which they trained hard, they lose miserably only because of Jolly Jumper's ruckus he caused in order to scare them, and after getting captured and negotiating with the Indian tribe in order to get their revenge on the town, they get reported and imprisoned by said tribe because of how valuable their bounties were.
- While likable and sympathetic, Joe can be too much of an abusive jerk, especially towards Averell.
- Sometimes Jack and William get any personalities to work with (especially in the Lucky Luke movies), making it hard to tell how they are sometimes compared to the cunning and wrathful Napoleon that is Joe and the comic-relief idiot that is Averell.
- Because of their obvious resemblance in their dialogues and their actions, the creators of the original series struggled at telling who of the two twins was Jack/William and this kept getting more and more confusing as the series went on. Fortunately in the 2004 movie Les Dalton, it was definitely claimed that Jack was the shorter of the two and William the taller one.
- Wasted potential: Despite earning new personality traits in The Daltons, they've never got to be the main protagonists of a single episode. Sure, for instance in "Dots and stripes" and "Joe Playboy", respectively Jack and William had some major roles in them, but, unlike Joe and Averell, they weren't provided full episodes dedicated to them.
- Averell's stupidity and incompetence as a criminal, tend to hamper the team's progress in their efforts to escape and run free from the law. In fact, in the show his stupidity even rivals Rintindumb, the prison's guard dog.
- His lack of common sense tends to stop him from actually utilizing his many talents in any meaningful way to the group.
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