Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Vol. 2

Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection #2

by Steve Gerber, Mary Skrenes (Writer), Marv Wolfman (Writer)

Howard's greatest enemy, Dr. Bong, has the fuming fowl at his mercy! And Howie's best gal Beverly faces an ultimatum: marry the villain or the duck's goose is cooked! Bing-Bong, the bells are gonna chime! It gets worse still for our feathered friend when he undergoes a monstrous transformation...into Howard the Human! Maybe he and his old pal Man-Thing will find some new hope in an oddly familiar galaxy amid a Star Waaugh! COLLECTING: HOWARD THE DUCK (1976) 17-31, HOWARD THE DUCK MAGAZINE 1

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel

360 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2016

About the author

Steve Gerber graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in communications and took a job in advertising. To keep himself sane, he wrote bizarre short stories such as "Elves Against Hitler," "Conversion in a Terminal Subway," and "...And the Birds Hummed Dirges!" He noticed acquaintance Roy Thomas working at Marvel, and Thomas sent him Marvel's standard writing test, dialoguing Daredevil art. He was soon made a regular on Daredevil and Sub-Mariner, and the newly created Man-Thing, the latter of which pegged him as having a strong personal style--intellectual, introspective, and literary. In one issue, he introduced an anthropomorphic duck into a horror fantasy, because he wanted something weird and incongruous, and Thomas made the character, named for Gerber's childhood friend Howard, fall to his apparent death in the following issue. Fans were outraged, and the character was revived in a new and deeply personal series. Gerber said in interview that the joke of Howard the Duck is that "there is no joke." The series was existential and dealt with the necessities of life, such as finding employment to pay the rent. Such unusual fare for comicbooks also informed his writing on The Defenders. Other works included Morbius, the Lving Vampire, The Son of Satan, Tales of the Zombie, The Living Mummy, Marvel Two-in-One, Guardians of the Galaxy, Shanna the She-Devil, and Crazy Magazine for Marvel, and Mister Miracle, Metal Men, The Phantom Zone , and The Immortal Doctor Fate for DC. Gerber eventually lost a lawsuit for control of Howard the Duck when he was defending artist Gene Colan's claim of delayed paychecks for the series, which was less important to him personally because he had a staff job and Colan did not.

He left comics for animation in the early 1980s, working mainly with Ruby-Spears, creating Thundarr the Barbarian with Alex Toth and Jack Kirby and episodes of The Puppy's Further Adventures, and Marvel Productions, where he was story editor on multiple Marvel series including Dungeons & Dragons, G.I. Joe, and The Transformers. He continued to dabble in comics, mainly for Eclipse, including the graphic novel Stewart the Rat, the two-part horror story "Role Model: Caring, Sharing, and Helping Others," and the seven-issue Destroyer Duck with Jack Kirby, which began as a fundraiser for Gerber's lawsuit.

In the early 1990s, he returned to Marvel with Foolkiller, a ten-issue limited series featuring a new version of a villain he had used in The Man-Thing and Omega the Unknown, who communicated with a previous version of the character through internet bulletin boards. An early internet adopter himself, he wrote two chapters of BBSs for Dummies with Beth Woods Slick, with whom he also wrote the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, "Contagion." During this period, he also wrote The Sensational She-Hulk and Cloak and Dagger for Marvel, Cybernary and WildC.A.T.s for Image, and Sludge and Exiles for the writer-driven Malibu Ultraverse, and Nevada for DC's mature readers Vertigo line.

In 2002, he returned to the Howard the Duck character for Marvel's mature readers MAX line, and for DC created Hard Time with Mary Skrenes, with whom he had co-created the cult hit Omega the Unknown for Marvel. Their ending for Omega the Unknown remains a secret that Skrenes plans to take to the grave if Marvel refuses to publish it. Suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis ("idiopathic" meaning of unknown origin despite having been a heavy smoker much of his life), he was on a waiting list for a double lung transplant. His final work was the Doctor Fate story arc, "More Pain Comics," for DC Comics'

Reviews

[Drew Canole · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to appreciate this more than I did.

Steve Gerber is a writer that has always interested me. It seems like he's one of the first "literary" writers working in the Marvel/DC world. A sorta proto-Alan Moore. Plus you get two greats drawing this with Gene Colan and Val Mayerik taking the bulk of the writing duties. Add a completely unique and captivating character in Howard the Duck - and this should be a slam dunk. A grouchy, cigar-smoking duck, at first glance appears to be a creation of Carl Barks but has more gritty, real-world charm to him.

I think it suffers from lack of an overarching plot to grab on to. It relies a lot on contemporary events for the humour - many of which I'm sure went right over my head.

This book collects the second half of his run which includes the final few issues where he got booted from the title. The book obviously suffers because of it.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.6 stars

[Alex Sarll]

Collecting the latter half of the original run, and for a book so thoroughly of its mid-seventies era, this is horribly prescient. Howard's nemesis Dr Bong is revealed as a former purveyor of fake news, as convinced as any online incel that women owe him a date. Censorious suicide bombers attack gigs. There's even an unfunny, incoherent pastiche of the original Star Wars, decades before The Force Awakens. But overall, it's a more downbeat affair than the first volume - it's not like the series didn't already have frequent encounters with weirdoes and crazy homeless people, but they're no longer being played for laughs so much as straight expressions of dark times. Villains forcing the female lead into marriage is hardly a new trope either, even then - but few protagonists would accept it with the same resignation as Howard, while Beverly seems for a time less to be plotting escape than merely annoyed at being neglected by her new spouse. And then we get enough of the comic post-Gerber, and an issue of the monochrome magazine into which it morphed, to understand why it sank without him - there are occasional great ideas from Mantlo et al (the Bong quintuplets!) but for the most part it becomes a mere tribute act. Worse, where Howard had been a sort of low-rent feathered Socrates, questioning everything, at times (especially in the one-page strips) he's reduced to a mere grumpy old man - the rabid anti-Communist version reads more like the sort of character with whom he'd previously tangled than Howard himself.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The one thing that always remains true for Howard the Duck is expect the unexpected and all you’ll always end up with the weird, the wacky and the surreal. This volume is filled with such utter nonsensical nonsense that it’s impossible to believe this series was ever actually published and not only that, but that it was such a best seller that it’s star made it into a big screen adaptation before … well … every other character at Marvel (except Conan the Barbarian, but that’s another story). In these pages, from what I’m calling: Howard the Duck: Act One, you’ll find the miscreant menaces of Doctor Bong, Sudd (the scrubbing bubble that walks like a man), the Sinister Soofi, Bzzk’Joh in a parody of Star Wars (yes, “May the Farce Be With You”), Jackpot the One-Armed Bandit, the Kidney Lady, the diabolical Mister Chicken and even the return of Pro Rata. All this and a guest-appearance by the Macabre Man-Thing. Sheesh! This volume even includes the infamous Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime in an astonishing 3-issue arc that will leave you wishing you’d never heard of Skudge, Pennsylvania (or Cleveland, Ohio for that matter). Waaugh!

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 2nd compendium runs through the color comic versions of HOWARD and includes the 1st issue of a black & white magazine version that followed the end of the monthly comic. Most of the run involves Howard's encounters with villain Dr. Bong who kidnaps and marries the duck's soulmate the lovely Beverly Switzler. There are other creatures, villains, and new friends met through these issues including a criminal circus troupe, a mad scientist chicken farmer, a Star Wars parody and the further search for Howard to find meaning in his fowl life on Earth and finding a job. (Also, Howard briefly is changed into a human by Dr. Bong) - A truly weird comic book that mocked superhero comics, included cleve wordplay, and proved through Howard's experiences and philosophy that most things go wrong.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Howard the Duck’s Second Complete version was wacky like the first one was, but it’s wackiness is starting to get stale. His battle with Doctor Bong was okay, but just okay, and its climax was underwhelming. His battle with the Ringmaster was compelling but short. The minor battles with SUDD and SOOFI were clever but, again, minor. The Star Wars tie in was silly and while it was clever at times it felt like it fell flat. The most ominous sign of Howard’s impending decline is the exit of Steve Gerber as writer, the comic’s conversion from color to black and white, and the beginning of a relationship between Howard and Beverly. All in all it’s still great, but not as much.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Losing Gerber's voice hurt the series in the end, that's not to say the Mantlo stories are bad. It's just Gerber was a very unique writer for comics in the 1970's, I don't think Howard the Duck storiea have ever really recovered from it. These are fun though, worth a read for the Star Wars parody alone.

[pun dog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Howard the Duck is literally me

[Dutch Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The final few Gerber-less issues were subpar, but everything else is first rate.
4.5 stars rounded up to 5 for the Sinister S.O.O.F.I.

[Greg Kerestan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first collected volume of Howard the Duck was a peerless collection of sci-fi satire. This second volume, while still very good, is unable to come close to the genre-bending wildness of the first half of the initial comic's run. There's a little too much direct topical humor here; the "Star Wars" parody is nowhere near as good as "Spaceballs," and SOOFI's censorship terrorism hasn't aged particularly well either. Nonetheless, when Howard is allowed to just be his anti-establishment philosophical self, the series can still shine, even as it transitions from color to black and white in the final issues presented here.

[Lucy Batson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe this was mind-bending stuff in the 70s, but the corny humor and dated topi al references have aged this like milk

[Mhorg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent

While the art is at times spectacular, the stories are a little dated today. Gerbers puns are quite funny, Howard remains his grating self, and his supporting cast are interesting, but this comic shows its age.

[Bob Wolniak · Rating 3 out of 5]

The list of Howard's villains is weird stuff, though I could've done with less Dr. Bong and more Mr. Chicken. Iron Duck was the highlight. I liked the Star Waaaugh! Knock off too, as well as the black and white stuff, since it was a bit more mature and took more pages to tell the story.

[Kamil Henri · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10