Sunday Splash Page #206

 

"Comics from a New York City Jail Cell" in Giant-Size Man-Thing #5, by Steve Gerber (writer), Frank Brunner (penciler), Tom Palmer (inker), Glynis Wein (colorist), Annette Kawecki (letterer)

The single most joked about title for a comic series in history, and likely not be the last we see of Howard the Duck this year. I own two issues of this, and probably just parts of each. The comics pick up where Howard's previous appearance left off, with him falling through some inter-dimensional space after mistiming his jumps on a bunch of floating rock platforms. If this came out ten years later he would no doubt have enough experience from playing his world's equivalent of Mario Bros. to avoid making that mistake.

He ends up back on the world of talking hairless apes where he encountered Man-Thing, but in Cleveland rather than the Everglades. So a reeking swamp either way. That would be Howard's home for at least the first part of his ongoing series, which starts up about six months later.

Gerber doesn't get started on Howard's supporting cast at this point, as the duck is still just trying to adjust to his unfortunate circumstances. Howard does demonstrate more of a heroic streak than even he might expect, trying to protect a couple of kids that help him out from someone who turns himself into a giant talking frog. Later on, he tries to pursue a career in law enforcement by capturing what turns out to be a vampire cow, but gets no traction because the cops, who accept he's somehow a talking duck, just walk away when they see him the next time.

The vampire cow seems like an example of the sort of absurdity Gerber would use more of during the ongoing series. You could probably add the fate of Garko to that. He tried to make himself into a power, and ended up squashed under the wheel of a car.

When he was pondering the fact that the only use of power is to gain more power, and then use that power to be rid of enemies, so why waste time conquering the world, I expected Gerber to have him chuck his "potion". because what's the point of power for power's sake? Then it would change some unsuspecting schlub Howard would have to contend with. Instead, Garko decided he should take the potion and get right to the "killing people" portion of his plan. Maybe if he'd shown up later Gerber would have gone the other way.