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The one thing about going to Walmart is that every now and then I find something that seems strange. A few weeks ago I was in one of the aisles that was full of Easter-related stuff when I found a Jesus doll. Seriously, I found a Jesus doll that a child could play with on sale at Walmart. I thought the idea was hilarious because I still have memories of my ultra-religious Catholic grandmother and I know that she would have frowned at something like this because she strongly believed that religious figures should never be played with by a child. She would not have approved of Jesus being made into a doll for children to play with.
But there it was, a cloth doll that was released by Hallmark and it was known in English as My Friend Jesus and in French as Mon Ami Jésus. (I saw the dual language on the attached tag.) I briefly thought about buying it for the sheer laughs until I saw the $15 price tag. If it had been $5 or $6 I would’ve gotten it but I just wasn’t into paying more for something that will spend about 99 percent of the time sitting on a shelf somewhere gathering dust. I also don’t see myself making any more than one video about this doll. It’s one of those things that have a short-lived novelty value for me.
Instead I shot some photos of the doll then left him on the store shelf. I later created a video slideshow that I uploaded on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
Concluding the reviews of the more adult-oriented Howard the Duck MAX series that came out in 2002. These are also the last two issues that the original Howard the Duck co-creator Steve Gerber wrote before his death in 2008.
Howard the Duck MAX #5
“Gone to Ohio”
July, 2002
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer; Phil Winslade, artist; Chris Chuckry, colors; Richard Starkings and Comicraft, letters; Stuart Moore, editor; Kelly Lamy, associate managing editor; Nanci Dakesian, managing editor; Staff Osborne, consultant and vertical hag; Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief; Bill Jemas, president
Synopsis: Everyone in the Boardinghouse of Mystery gather together in the morning to eat breakfast. Beverly Switzler gets grossed out when Abel offers her cereal that has a human heart in it and his brother Cain offers her coffee in either black or pus. Gonzo journalist Splatter Gomorrah says that he will buy Beverly an Egg McMuffin.
As Howard, Beverly, and Splatter get ready to leave the boardinghouse, Splatter tells them that he and Beverly will appear as a couple on Iprah’s talk show, where she will also have an appearance by her regular guest star, a psychologist known as Dr. Phlip. As explained in the previous issue, Splatter wants to do an expose on Iprah and her media empire.
When the three of them walk out the door, Howard changes from a duck to the rat form he has had throughout this series. Apparently Howard can only maintain his duck form if he stays inside of the boardinghouse.
Meanwhile the two angels from the last issue, the Chairman and Thrasher, arrive at Hell, which resembles the corner of Ninth Avenue and 44th Street in New York City. They are looking for God to give him the news that Deuteronomy is set to arrive on Earth soon. They find God drinking in a bar alongside Jesus Christ and a ghost (who’s apparently represents the Holy Spirit). The Chairman says that there are three of them because God’s Tripolar Disorder is acting up again.
Thrasher approaches the three, who react in unison. When the Thrasher gives God a note from Heaven informing him about Deuteronomy, God reacts by literally exploding, which throws both the Chairman and Thrasher out on the streets. The Chairman says that there is only one alternative left.
The action shifts back to Cleveland where Howard, Beverly are telling Splatter their life story while riding on a bus to the studio where Iprah’s show is taped. Splatter tells them that their recent adventures will make a good story that he intends to write once he’s done with his Iprah expose.
Beverly and Splatter appear as a dysfunctional couple on Iprah’s show. Both Iprah and her guest star, Dr. Phlip, weigh in on Beverly’s problem in an effort to convince her to leave her “boyfriend.” The show then breaks for commercial time.
Deuteronomy arrives at the studio at the same time that the Iprah show resumes from its commercial break. At that moment Deuteronomy takes over Iprah and he begins to speak through her. The possessed Iprah says that everyone is loved because they were born. She announces that her program will never end from now on as she broadcasts her unconditional self-love forever. In the process most of her audience eventually turn into either half-human half-skeletons or full skeletons.
Thrasher and the Chairman are watching the Iprah transmission from Heaven. The Chairman tells Thrasher that since God is currently on an alcoholic bender, there is only one option to stop Iprah. The Chairman sends Thrasher to wake up the Saint of Therapists.
Thrasher arrives at a graveyard in London where he arrives at the proper grave and revives the person who is buried there. The Saint of Therapists turns out to be Sigmund Freud who’s holding a cigar. He tells Thrasher that he can take on Iprah with his cigar.
Meanwhile Iprah is floating in the air in her studio where she talks about how people must honor themselves. Howard, who’s one of the few audience members who inexplicably didn’t become a skeleton, emerges from the audience and approaches Iprah, who begins to talk about how everyone has a spiritual path who become what they believe. When she asks Howard what he believes, Howard says that deep down he believes that people are no good.
Iprah then becomes enraged while accusing Howard of committing negativity. When Howard continues to tell Iprah that he feels that people are good for nothing, Iprah decides to literally throw the book at Howard by tossing copies of books that Iprah had previously discussed on her show as part of Iprah’s Book Club right at Howard.
Iprah then tosses a book at Howard called The Book of Me which she calls the most important book. When Howard picks it up and looks at the pages he notices that they are all blank. Iprah says that it’s a book that Howard can use for journaling. She tosses a pen at him and tells him to write down his most important feelings. Howard then writes a statement where he says that his hostility towards other sentient beings stems from the willful stupidity, wanton self-centeredness, and rampant incivility of other sentient beings. Iprah says that she has never encountered such gross insensitivity outside of Texas and she tells Howard that she will compassionately resolve their differences by killing him with zapping lightning bolts at him.
At that point Sigmund Freud shows up to confront Iprah and Deuteronomy. When Sigmund Freud says that Deuteronomy is the result of a failed experiment conceived by the Archangel Gabriel to replace God, Deuteronomy (working through Iprah) proceeds to zap Freud with enough lightning bolts to kill him again (after all, Freud was already dead and he was simply revived by Thrasher). Freud dropped his cigar while he was being zapped away. Howard grabs Freud’s cigar and points the lit end directly at Iprah. Lightning bolts emerge from that cigar and zaps directly at her heart, which results in her aorta being severed and Deuteronomy being driven out of Iprah’s body.
Beverly and Splatter were hiding near the stage while all this was going on with Beverly looking on in horror and Splatter writing his notes for his Iprah expose. Once Iprah is gone, Beverly and Splatter join Howard, who looks at that cigar while thinking about taking a puff off of it. Beverly and Splatter try to tell Howard to put the cigar down but Howard decides to put it to his mouth and take a puff. At that point Howard turns into a large pile of ash.
The Bottom Line: I felt that this issue was the funniest of this series with its hilarious parody of both Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Phil. Steve Gerber was usually at his best when he poked fun at current events—whether it was politics or pop culture or religion—and he totally nailed it when he parodied Oprah and Dr. Phil.
This issue evoked the time when Oprah still had her weekday talk show. A few years before this comic book was published, Oprah was sued by a group of Texas cattlemen for libel after she devoted an episode of her show to mad cow disease. She hired Dr. Phil, who then worked as a legal consultant, to help her with that lawsuit. Oprah ultimately won that lawsuit and was so full of gratitude towards Dr. Phil for his help that she invited him to appear as a weekly guest on her show, where he became known as a relationship and life strategy expert. This particular issue was a parody of that time when Dr. Phil was Oprah’s regular guest on her show.
Steve Gerber didn’t just make fun of Oprah and Dr. Phil, he also made fun of the New Age movement in general with hilarious results. Even though Oprah has since discontinued her talk show and Dr. Phil now has his own talk show, the jokes are still just as relevant and funny today as they were back in 2002 (when this issue was originally published).
It was also hilarious when Sigmund Freud confronted Iprah while the latter mentioned his history of misogyny and his smoking habits (both of which are historically true).
In the years since Oprah Winfrey’s talk show has gone off the air but she is still a major celebrity with her own magazine and cable channel. Dr. Phil has his own talk show, which has come under fire over the years for his brand of providing therapy to troubled people in front of a live studio audience. One of his most notorious guests was a troubled 14-year-old girl named Danielle Peskowitz Bregoli who, at one point, snapped at the audience by saying “Catch me outside, how bow dah?”
A few hours later that phrase became a meme and clips featuring her saying that phrase soon went viral on the Internet. In the aftermath she became a rap star under the name Bhad Bhabie and she has actually had a few hit rap songs. Here’s the video for her latest rap song, “That’s What I Said.”
Just last month Dr. Phil became controversial when he appeared on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show decrying the various states issuing lockdowns in an effort to flatten the curve of the Coronavirus pandemic. He compared people dying from COVID-19 to people drowning in swimming pools, people dying from smoking cigarettes, and car crash fatalities saying that “we don’t shut the country down” for the latter three.
Howard the Duck MAX #6
“Creator’s Rights”
August, 2002
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer; Phil Winslade, artist; Chris Chuckry, colors; Richard Starkings and Comicraft, letters; Stuart Moore, editor; Kelly Lamy, associate managing editor; Nanci Dakesian, managing editor; Staff Osborne, consultant and vertical hag; Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief; Bill Jemas, president
Synopsis: After smoking that cigar that turned his physical body into ash, Howard’s spirit (which is still in his rat form) arrives at Hell, which resembles the corner of 9th Avenue and 44th Street in New York City. Howard meets the cherub named Thrasher, who tells him that Howard isn’t exactly dead, he’s currently caught in what is known as an Existential Suspension Loop.
Thrasher accompanies Howard to the bar where God is drinking alongside Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. God accompanies Howard to a side booth where he tells Howard that he appreciates how Howard dealt with Deuteronomy. God buys Howard a scotch on the rocks and invites Howard to ask him any questions.
Howard asks God about which of the various holy books (such as the Bible and the Koran) he actually wrote and God said that he wrote none of them. God also tells Howard that religion is purely a mortal invention. God admits that he gets angry when people perpetrate acts of bigotry and hatred in his name and he generally gets along better with unbelievers.
God admits that while he built the various universes, he’s not really the creator. Instead he’s really the supplier. God said that what he built was a contract job that was done on behalf of a collective work known as existence that’s a corporation where various leaders come and go.
God escorts Howard out of the bar where he tells Howard that there is a lot more than the Judeo-Christian version of Heaven and Hell.
When God tells Howard that he can also take any form that he wants permanently, Howard reverts back to his original duck form. He even gets God to give him a lit cigar that he can smoke.
As Howard and God boarded a monorail to ride across Hell and the rest of the Existential Suspension Loop, God tells Howard about how he had to get a committee to green light what he had made as the supplier. The monorail rides past God’t previous projects that he calls an ornamental universe because it depicts what looks like a moon featuring a giant daisy planted next to what looks like a streetlight with a face as the face vomits water on the giant daisy.
God admits to Howard that the universe that he inhabits is a major tourist destination. God likens superior beings visiting the universe for relaxation to a human owning an ant farm.
God tells Howard that he can’t look to a higher being to find a purpose in life. Howard has to find his own little bit of grace.
God tells Howard that time and space can be reconfigurable due to the Existential Suspension Loop that they are currently in. This means that Howard can travel to any place at any time. When Howard asks God about changing his past to where Howard never fell through the cosmic axis and he remains on his original home planet, God shows Howard an alternate reality based on what would’ve happened if Howard had never left his planet. The Howard in this alternate reality is shown living a very dreary middle class existence where he works at a job in order to pay off a debt he owes his uncle. His live-in girlfriend is depicted as being pushy and bossy towards Howard. On top of it, the couple have custody of Howard’s junkie sister’s four ducklings who are all dressed in urban hip hop clothes.
After seeing that alternate reality, Howard decides that he would be better off with Beverly in Cleveland. God brings up a giant tube chute known as the Trans-Planar Conduit and sends Howard through it. Howard lands inside of Iprah’s studio, which is now empty, and he notices that he is still in his duck form.
Howard walks outside of the studio, where it is now nighttime. He comes across a homeless man on the steps leading to the studio. The homeless man says someone had given him a package for him to give to Howard when he sees him. Howard takes the package and opens it up. It is a snow globe depicting that ornamental universe that Howard had passed by with God and it shows the same scene of a giant daisy on a moon being watered by a streetlight with a face that vomits the water on that flower.
The Bottom Line: That issue was a not-too-subtle parody of Steve Gerber’s lawsuit against Marvel Comics over the legal ownership of Howard the Duck. It was one of the first creator’s rights lawsuits against a comic book company. Ultimately Gerber and Marvel settled the lawsuit with admitting that Howard the Duck was a work for hire and Marvel Comics had legal ownership of that character. Reading between the lines, you can tell that Steve Gerber still had an ax to grind against Marvel regarding Howard the Duck. It definitely took some balls to get Marvel Comics to publish a story that had God admit that his creation of the universe was done as a work for hire for a collective group that’s some kind of a cosmic corporation.
The discussions between God and Howard on the universe and related subject matters reminds me so much of the numerous discussion groups I had attended at my Unitarian Universalist congregation over the years where we actually discussed spirituality-related topics such as the creation of the universe and how there are so many different creation stories among different religious traditions. The only thing is that these discussions ran a bit too long for my taste.
Then there was that interesting alternate reality twist that basically copied It’s a Wonderful Life that showed what if Howard had never left his original home planet. There was only one panel showing the alternate Howard’s dreary middle class existence. I wished that one panel could’ve been expanded a little bit more just to show how bad his job was or what his home life was like with his girlfriend and four nephews. I personally would’ve preferred to see more of this and less of the existential conversation scenes between Howard and God.
While this issue definitely touched on subject matters that one would usually not find in a comic book (such as God and the afterlife), I found it less funny than the previous issue. Yet in a way this issue is poignant because it was the last Howard the Duck issue that Steve Gerber wrote before his death in 2008. When I first read it I thought he wrote this story after he had already been diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis that took his life but his Wikipedia page states that he wasn’t diagnosed until 2007 and this issue came out in 2002. Gerber was around 54 when this issue was published so, like plenty of middle aged people, he might have been thinking about his mortality and he decided to write something related to the afterlife for this final issue.
Despite a few hilarious moments here and there, I found this whole series was a bit of a letdown. The fifth issue, with its wicked parodies of Oprah and Dr. Phil, was the closest this series came to the hilarious brilliance of the 1970s comic book series. The big problem is that Steve Gerber chose to do send-ups of comic book series like House of Mystery that may have had drawn an audience in the comic book fandom but the average person whose comic book knowledge may be limited to the big screen Hollywood adaptations would not have heard of it. Unless you know the original source material, you may not even get the intended humor. The reason why Howard the Duck MAX #5 was the best issue is that he had gone back to poking fun at pop culture figures just like he did back in the 1970s.
That’s it for the Steve Gerber-penned Howard the Duck comic books. If you’re interested in reading Steve Gerber’s other writings, the best way to start is by visiting his blog. Gerber started his blog in 2005 and he posted regularly until just six days before his death in 2008. (Since that time a close friend of Gerber’s named Mark Evanier has taken over the blog—starting with announcing his death—and it only gets occasionally updated for things like posthumous awards and similar post-death news regarding Steve Gerber.)
Steve Gerber had also written a variety of other comic books and he even wrote for various TV shows as well. If you’re interested in any of them, I would recommend beginning with the list of his writings on his Wikipedia page then start hunting for them on either Amazon or eBay.
Howard the Duck would continue to be revived periodically after Gerber’s illness and death. I have all of the more recent issues and I originally intended to just keep on putting up new reviews each Thursday until I hit the last issue sometime in early September. But now I’m going to have to take a short break from doing more reviews at the moment. I’m currently doing self-training for my day job at the Census Bureau and I have to get that done by June 1, 2020. Plus I also need to do some additional decluttering of my home and there are some other creative projects that I need to start work on soon. I’ll try to squeeze in writing reviews when I can but it’s unlikely that I will upload any new reviews next week or even the week after.
These issues were reprinted in Howard the Duck MAX graphic novel, which is now out of print but used copies can be found at Amazon and eBay.
Next in this series.
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 1 (1973-1977)
The Early Stories
Howard the Duck #1-3
Howard the Duck #4-5
Howard the Duck #6
Howard the Duck #7 andMarvel Treasury Edition #12: Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck #8
Howard the Duck #9-11
Howard the Duck #12-14
Howard the Duck King Size Annual #1 and Howard the Duck #15
Howard the Duck #16
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 2 (1977-1979)
Howard the Duck #17-19
Howard the Duck #20-22
Howard the Duck #23-25
Howard the Duck #26-28
Howard the Duck #29-31
Howard the Duck Magazine #1
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 3 (1979-1980)
Howard the Duck Magazine #2
Howard the Duck Magazine #3
Howard the Duck Magazine #4
Howard the Duck Magazine #5
Howard the Duck Magazine #6
Howard the Duck Magazine #7
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 4 (1980-1996)
Howard the Duck Magazine #8
Howard the Duck Magazine #9
Marvel Team-Up #98 and Bizarre Adventures #34
Howard the Duck #32-33
Sensational She-Hulk #14-17
Marvel Tales#237 and Spider-Man Team-Up #5
Howard the Duck MAX (2002)
Howard the Duck MAX #1-2
Howard the Duck MAX #3-4
Howard the Duck MAX #5-6
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I decided to attend a Christmas bazaar that was held at a local Catholic church known as St. Hugh of Grenoble Church in Greenbelt, Maryland. I’ve been by that building numerous times but I recently noticed something I hadn’t noticed before: A giant crucifix. That crucifix is surrounded by tree leaves in their total autumn splendor.
Here’s a shot of the church basement where the bazaar was held. There was a Christmas-themed setup on the stage.
When I walked outside again I noticed the fall leaves on the ground, which provided a variety of colors.
This has been a weekend of really famous people dying. Today I learned that famed Broadway playwright Neil Simon passed away at 91. I grew up watching The Odd Couple on television. Last Sunday I happened to catch a couple of repeats of The Odd Couple on MeTV and I found that I enjoyed them even more now than when I was a kid. That series hadn’t aged very much since its original run.
But even Simon’s death has been overshadowed by another death that was announced last night. I happened to be at a birthday party for a friend and her teenage daughter. (They have their birthdays two days apart—one on August 28 and the other on August 30.) Right at the moment when the lit birthday cake was being carried out, I got a notification on my smartphone that Senator John McCain passed away.
He had been battling a brain tumor for some time and the day before his family announced that he had decided to discontinue all further medical treatments so his death wasn’t a big surprise. Today I’ve been seeing all kinds of tributes to the Vietnam War veteran/Senator/2008 presidential candidate along with some personal memories and opinions. Here’s my contribution.
I remember when my then-husband read McCain’s memoir, Faith of My Fathers, and he spoke of how much of a hero the Senator was during the Vietnam War. The one thing I learned about John McCain was that during the Vietnam War he was held captive as a prisoner of war in the notorious Hanoi Hilton where he was tortured. At one point he was offered the chance to be released because he was the son and grandson of Navy admirals. McCain refused the offer because he felt that the other men who were captured before him should be released first. He stayed longer in that Hanoi Hilton than he could’ve because he was determined to stick to his principals.
I didn’t agree with John McCain on his political positions very often but at least he was consistent in his opposition to torture due to what he went through in the Hanoi Hilton. That was why I found it so appalling when President Donald Trump ridiculed Senator McCain for being a POW and he even had the gall to mock Senator McCain’s disabilities that he received as a result of being an inmate at the Hanoi Hilton. It’s galling when you consider that Trump himself received a deferment from the Vietnam War on the grounds that he had bone spurs in his feet. (If you ever see footage of him walking, you’d have to agree that he seems to walk pretty well for someone with bone spurs in his feet.)
Last October I took part in Inktober, where every day that month I made one new ink drawing then uploaded it online. For the first day of Inktober I decided to poke fun at Trump’s horrible insults towards Senator McCain. Since the first day of October fell on a Sunday, I decided to include Jesus in this drawing. Here is the drawing that I did last October. Enjoy!
When Donald Trump kicks the bucket, I’m going to be far less respectful towards him than I am now towards Senator McCain because Trump is such a malignant narcissistic asshole who is trying to change this country for the worse while seeming to suck up to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. At least no one has ever accused John McCain of treason, unlike Donald Trump. Rest in Peace, John McCain, and Fuck You, Donald Trump!
Not too long ago I happened to be at a Megamart, which is located in an area of Adelphi, Maryland that’s dominated by Latino immigrants. I saw these religious statues at the front of the store that I couldn’t resist photographing.
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Sagittarius Dolly 
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