Howard the Duck (2002) review
GNA contributor Barry Harter remembers the late Steve Gerber with a review of his final Howard the Duck series, collected in trade.
Read on for the full review.
This isn’t your father’s Howard the Duck. This isn’t George Lucas’ Howard the Duck. This is Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck.
The late Steve Gerber.
Better known for his forays into the supernatural with Man-Thing and Son of Satan, Gerber took his skewered view of the world and translated it into script form with Marvel’s stable of artists animating the action in still lifes.
Whether the oddity of the concept or the bullseyes Gerber evoked vicariously through a stogie chomping duck, Howard was his flagship character. In an interview granted prior to the release of Howard’s 2001 mini-series, the author listed Howard’s cannon consisting of his first 27 appearances penned by his creator, his initial two appearances in Giant-Size Man-Thing, the Howard Duck annual and Treasury edition, discounting even the Marvel Team-Up and She-Hulk crossovers Gerber penned himself.
Taken in totality, Howard was a shooting star captured briefly on the canvas of the era he condemned with sarcastic sound bytes and tireless tirades. Elton John sang about a Candle in the Wind. Gerber crafted a short fuse that sputtered and waddled through a landscape littered in the aftermath of the Vietnam conflict and Watergate, as much an enigma as the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.
And, twenty-five years later, still trapped on a world he never made, Howard the Duck - with buxom beauty and roommate Beverly - continues his adventures in the absurd. This time Gerber has taken his fowl-tempered, dimensionally displaced drake and updated him for the new millennium.
Not much has changed for the Cleveland couple currently co-habitating in the middle of a junk yard. No longer a hack, Howard has taken the job as night watchman, er, duck, for the free housing, such as it is. Beverly has moved on from her modeling career to acting. To date, her major role has been in a beer commercial though she’s been cast in a (way) off-Broadway play focusing more on her ample assets rather than talent.
Ringing with echoes of Gerber’s last major storyline before he walked away from Howard in the seventies, Dr. Bong returns, still pining for Beverly. Using his considerable influence and bank account, the villainous self-titled physician of evil has cast his estranged wife in the lead roll at the local playhouse. Still working in the shadows, he employs her at Globally Branded Contet.com which she later learns is a fabricating company designed to create pubescent boy bands as voted on by middle-aged homosexuals in hiding.
Toss in a stray that escapes the protein vats that regenerate raw material used to fashion the pre-fabricated groups, Howard and Beverly’s realization of Bong’s intentions and a dip for the duck in the vats themselves that transform Howard into a walking, talking rat in tie and hat and you’ve got the first issue.
In the next four issues Gerber sacrifices every sacred cow in comicdom while Howard’s autonomously acting atoms keep him morphing from rat to Dr. Suess nightmare to duck and back to rat as the clueless couple find sanctuary in the Boarding House of Mystery.
The story comes to head when Howard uses the holy panatela of the Saint of Therapists to drive Deuteronomy out of Iprah’s body (I kid you not).
The curtain rings down in book six with Howard and God sharing a beer and waxing philosophic on life. The Gospel according to Gerber is all beings, even a suit wearing, cigar smoking duck are created with a free will that should not be influenced by any talk show host, holy book or comic writer.
All in all, Howard’s return was worth the wait - a fitting swan song no one saw coming as Gerber passed on Feb. 10, 2008. Having crossed to the other side, he’s the only one who will know how close he came to the truth, but hopefully Gerber’s having a cool, refreshing beverage with the entity of his beliefs, sharing one last laugh at how it all turned out and maybe - just maybe - plotting one last story with Jack Kirby.
Five out of five stogies for the man who was honest enough to be truthful with his audience while trying to make sense out of the car crash called life.
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