After his team-ups with Man-Thing and some early solo adventures in Cleveland in Giant-Size Man-Thing, Steve Gerber got the go-ahead for an ongoing series for Howard the Duck.
Gerber continually gets Howard mixed-up in adventures that are somehow both bizarre and mundane. In the first two issues, a sorcerer tries to gain control of the universe, but really he's more of an accountant trying to balance - or perhaps cook - the universe's ledger to grant him that power. That adventures is also where Howard makes his friend real friend among the hairless apes, in the form of Beverly Switzler, who was there for what she thought was a modeling gig but turned out to be a human sacrifice.
From there, even as Howard and Beverly try to find some way to handle stuff like paying bills or finding some measure of satisfaction in life, he keeps running afoul of a mentally ill woman who accuses him of wanting to steal her kidneys. When Howard finally hits his boiling point and they get in a fight, it ends in court where she appears as an entirely reasonable and ordinary woman who was brutally attacked by this crazy duck. Later on it's Dr. Bong, who is really just a yellow journalist who made a career off writing headlines that weren't technically lies, but were phrased so people would take them in the worst, most salacious manner. He's also had a fixation on Beverly and resents Howard because of it.
Instead of a bell over his head, he oughta be wearing a fedora.
Howard's in a world he never knew, but one where he can recognize many of the things he (or Gerber) think are wrong with it. But he can't seem to grasp it well enough to avoid nearly constant pitfalls. Or maybe he just has too many principles to let things slide. Gene Colan, who takes over as the regular series artist with issue 4 and remains on the book up through issue 31 (minus a couple of fill-ins and a two part reunion of Gerber and artist Val Mayerick), is a good fit. With the swirling shadows and slightly distorted expressions, there's a nightmarish quality to the world Howard inhabits. It's a big, dark, crazy world full of things that try to harm a duck just wanting to get by with sanity intact.
Somewhere around the time Howard is anointed a third-party presidential candidate, I start to feel like I'm watching a slow-motion picture of Gerber having a mental breakdown. Howard grows steadily more frustrated and irritated and cynical until finally, when confronted with a nutty Canadian that ruined his campaign (now wearing a beaver-themed exo-armor), Howard simply walks away. He can't take any more, and he sort of drifts for the next year of the book. He gets sucked into things, or things happen to him, and Howard just reacts, survives, and keeps shuffling along.
It's during this stretch where Klaus Janson takes over as Colan's regular inker from Steve Leialoha. Personally, I think the book looks better with Leialoha. Janson's inks solidify the characters and the world too much, the shadows recede. Given Howard in this stretch really seems beaten, just going through the motions with his head down, content to forget about Beverly, to simply hope Dr. Bong will be content with his victory and leave a poor duck in peace, it feels the world ought to be more terrifying. Howard's surrendered, he's vulnerable.
But I guess you could argue that by not fighting the madness he's broken some of its terror on him. He doesn't care any longer, so why should it bother him? Your mileage will vary.
Bill Mantlo's actually the one who writes Howard's eventual big showdown with Dr. Bong, concluding in issue 31, which is where the collections I have ends. The way I understand it, Gerber had fallen out with Marvel by then, and he didn't write the book again, although he did use Howard during his stint on Sensational She-Hulk (which I think I prefer to Byrne's, honestly).
Howard was I think persona non grata in Marvel for a long time, or smply didn't fit with the '90s, Image-ized Marvel. I guess after Keith Giffen, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning brought Rocket Raccoon back out of mothballs (and ignored Peter David apparently turning Rocket into a trophy, which, good call), Marvel figured, what the heck, why not the angry talking duck that hangs out with Man-Thing? Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones gave Howard an ongoing series as a private detective in the mid-2010s, though I only read the parts where he interacted with Gwenpool or Squirrel Girl. My impression is, rather than use Howard to comment on our society like Gerber did, Zdarsky commented on the world the superheroes inhabited.
2 comments:
I think there was some potential trouble with Disney, either Disney blocked Howard, or Marvel thought they would. I remember Howard coming back in the 2000s, but as some sort of rodent, but maybe that was a joke about the Disney thing, because if they would sue over a duck surely they'd sue over a mouse.
Anyway, not a problem now that Disney owns everything and Howard is in the highest grossing film of all time.
I always about rights issue stuff as a possible explanation. But like you said, it's not a problem any longer with Disney owning Marvel. Once again, monopolization is the solution to all problems.
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