If you've watched the MCU movies, you may have seen a cameo by a talking duck on an alien world. Yes, that's Howard the Duck, whose last cinematic outing was in one of the biggest flops of all time, his self-titled 1986 film, which was somehow produced by George Lucas. You may have also seen Howard in Marvel comics in the last 20 years, appearing in the final battle in "Siege," fighting zombies with Machine Man, or working as a noir detective.
While all of these appearances are to differing degrees okay at times, none of them explain the cultural phenomenon of Howard when he first appeared in the 1970s, because none of them are quite right. Yes, Howard is a funny character. But he's not funny like Donald or Daffy Duck. He's not funny because he's a born loser or because of slapstick humor. He's funny because people are funny. The core of Howard's character is spelled out right in the tagline at the top of his first issue, he's "Trapped in a world he never made!" Howard is a sane duck in an insane world.
Why a duck?
Okay, he's a duck because ducks are funny. Daffy and Donald, bills and flat feet, a waddling walk, even the word is funny. On the classic tv show "You Bet Your Life," a duck with a cigar made to look like Groucho was a sight gag in every episode. Ducks are funny. So that's why he's Howard the Duck and not Howard the Ball Python or Howard the Elk. Those things would be totally different.
Who is this duck anyway?
Howard is a normal everyday duck living on an Earth in an alternate reality made up of anthropomorphic animals, primarily ducks. In "Adventures into Fear" 19, his first appearance, he is pulled out of his reality and put into ours where he meets the Man-Thing, and the two battle a demon. Howard is stuck in our reality from that point on, encountering the Man-Thing again, before appearing in his own title, where he gets a girlfriend, Bev Switzer, and the two of them try to live a life as normal as life can be when one of you is a duck.
That's essentially the premise. Howard would like to get back to Duckworld, but that would mean leaving Bev, or bringing her with him to a world where she would be as much of a misfit as he is in our world full of "hairless apes." Along the way Howard encounters everyday people doing stupid or crazy things, like a lady who keeps one of her kidneys in a jar (something writer/co-creator Steve Gerber actually encountered) and he reacts to what he sees, showing that there are far madder things in our world than a talking duck who smokes cigars.
Because it's the Marvel Universe he also encounters supernatural and superhuman creatures that he comes into conflict with because at his core, while he's cranky, Howard is a duck of principles, and he'll stand up for what's right on any world. This enables him to have adventures that mirror or are a parody of several popular Marvel characters. Howard builds a suit of armor resembling a fire hydrant to become Iron Duck. He becomes Master of the Mystic Arts when Dr. Strange is injured. He joins the Defenders. And he becomes a Master of Quack Fu.
Howard the character became so popular that there were thousands of write-in votes for him for President in 1976, when the two main candidates were sitting president Gerald Ford and challenger Jimmy Carter. Given those options, a fictional humanoid duck might have been a better choice. He also was spun-off into a daily newspaper strip, also initially written by Gerber, who was promoted to both writer and Editor of the book. When the challenge of doing all of these things at once was too burdensome, Gerber left the book, Howard was relaunched as a black and white magazine, and the great period of Howard came to an end.
Destroyer Duck
In 1980, Steve Gerber found out that Marvel was planning to license Howard the Duck along with other Marvel characters, for toys, movies, or whatever they could, as Marvel had done since the 60s. Gerber sued in a landmark case, claiming Howard was his sole creation and they didn't have the right to do anything with him without his permission.
Gerber was not alone in this effort. To help fund the lawsuit against the comics giant, Gerber was helped by none other than comics legend Jack Kirby, who created the Marvel Universe with Stan Lee. Even before Stan, Kirby co-created Captain America with writer Joe Simon back when Marvel was still Timely Comics. It would be impossible to find someone with a better comics pedigree to have on your side, and Kirby had grievances of his own with Marvel. So the two of them teamed up to produce "Destroyer Duck" for the relatively new Eclipse Comics. Destroyer Duck was basically a duck version of the Punisher, who takes on corporate criminals. In his first outing, Destroyer essentially attacks a group that is a thinly veiled reference to Marvel and their many lawyers. It's funny, and must have been very cathartic for Gerber and Kirby.
In the end, the lawsuit was settled and Gerber had to acknowledge that he was a contracted employee for Marvel and as such anything he created while in their employ belonged to them. He may have still been satisfied that in the years since he left, there were no successful Howard books. People just weren't entertained by anything involving Howard that wasn't written by him.
Full-color dumpster fire
The formula seems good on paper: Take a popular comic book character and develop him in a film; make his love interest/co-star Lea Thompson, one of the breakout stars from the smash hit film "Back to the Future;" and have George Lucas, who had been making movie gold with "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" the executive producer.
Except none of it really worked. The effects were good. Lea Thompson did a fine job acting. But the movie is a crap fest, one of the biggest flops in history. What was proposed as an animated film became a live-action film starring a duck who to this day bears an uncanny resemblance to Sean Astin despite Sean Astin not resembling a duck at all. Steve Gerber had nothing to do with the film, and the tone of the film is nothing like the comics. There is no existential or absurdist humor, which is the problem. As the screenwriter/producer Gloria Katz said, "It's about a duck from outer space." That can be funny, but people wanted to see Howard the Duck.
Back to the edge
Towards the end of Howard's original series in the 70s, Disney contacting Marvel and asked that Howard be redesigned so as to have less resemblance to Donald Duck. While they're both white ducks with typically blue shirts who wear hats, their hats and shirts are different styles, but Disney found the resemblance too close for their comfort. So Marvel agreed to put Howard in pants.
Fast forward 24 years to 2001, when Marvel created the Marvel Max imprint to draw in creators who might not otherwise work for Marvel, or who had left due to creative disputes. Marvel Max brought in Brian Azzarello of "100 Bullets" fame to work on "Cage," and Garth "Preacher" Ennis to reboot the Punisher. Steve Gerber was asked to come back to work on Howard the Duck, but he was doubtful. He had returned in the 90s to write a special team-up with Spider-Man and Howard and came away feeling betrayed when he found out Marvel was also featuring Howard in other books at the same time, and the other appearances were not very good. So when he was asked to do the new series, what he proposed was the most edgy, offensive series he could imagine, expecting Marvel couldn't possibly agree to it. But they did. They agreed to everything he proposed, including an immediate "F.U." to Disney right on the cover. Yes, part of the plot was that Howard was going to morph uncontrollably into other animals, starting with a mouse.
As with other Marvel Max series, the Howard series ramped up sex, violence, and language, starting immediately with his transformation into a mouse, which happens when Howard is in the shower with Bev. Later in the series, 90s comics such as "Witchblade" were spoofed, and by the end, to address the popularity of comics such as "Sandman" and "Preacher," Howard ends up in Hell. With Marvel now being owned by Disney, none of that would work today. But it was the last time Howard was really Howard.
Canard castration
Since then Howard has shown up here and there, but he's not the same. He looks different. He acts different. He even talks differently. He's not the same angry duck he used to be. He's sometimes an action hero or an anti-hero. A common man doing a job that needs to be done and he's the only duck there to do the job. These are good things, but they're bland in comparison to the real deal. And that's okay. You can still buy trade editions and back issues any time and see what the buzz was about.
About the Creator
Gene Lass
Gene Lass is a professional writer, writing and editing numerous books of non-fiction, poetry, and fiction. Several have been Top 100 Amazon Best Sellers. His short story, “Fence Sitter” was nominated for Best of the Net 2020.
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