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Continuing this summer’s series of Throwback Thursday posts dedicated to Howard the Duck.
Howard the Duck Magazine #7
September, 1980
After the last few covers depicted Howard has having white feathers, he has reverted back to having pale yellow feathers again for this cover (which is the only colored thing in an otherwise black and white magazine).
Story 1: You’ll Believe a Woman Can Airbrush!
Credit: Trina Robbins, story and art
Synopsis: It’s a one-page story which showcases Trina Robbins’ ability to draw, ink, and airbrush Howard, Beverly, and various villains from the series (such as the Kidney Lady, Doctor Bong, and the leader of the Sinister SOOFI).
The Bottom Line: It’s obvious that Robbins is talented. But titling it “You’ll Believe a Woman Can Airbrush!” is kind of playing into this stereotype that women can’t do comic books at all and Trina Robbins is the rare exception. This is especially apparent when Beverly says “See, she has a deep compulsion to prove that a woman can draw a duck!”
I realize that this came out in 1980 and it was an era when women were just starting to take jobs other than traditional female jobs (like teacher, nurse, and secretary). With the number of women who have gone into the comic book industry in recent years, I doubt that today there would be a story placing great emphasis on the fact that something was drawn and/or written by a woman.
Story 2: Of Dice and Ducks!
Credits: Bill Mantlo, story; Gene Colan, pencils; Dave Simons, inks
Synopsis: The story begins where the Duckworld story in the last issue left off. Howard and Beverly are sitting in a swamp in the Florida Everglades. Standing behind them is the Man-Thing, a muck monster who cannot speak and who can only sense emotions.
At that point Howard sees the Man-Thing lurking behind Beverly. He tries to quietly warn her but when she turns around and sees the creature, she immediately begins to fear him. That is a dangerous emotion for her to fear because it is said that anyone who experiences fear burns at the Man-Thing’s touch.
Beverly becomes so overwhelmed with fear that she faints, which drastically and suddenly eliminates her fear. Howard tries to come to Beverly’s aid but the Man-Thing picks up Howard and throws him into the swamp, knocking him out cold. The Man-Thing then picks up an unconscious Beverly in his arms and walks away.
Howard wakes up only to find that both Beverly and the Man-Thing are gone. He climbs a tree to get an idea of where they could have gone and he sees a development that’s known as Swamp City. It has a layout that resembles a Monopoly board game. He also sees the Man-Thing carrying Beverly through the town.
Howard arrives at the Paymaster building where the Paymaster (who sort of resembles Rich Uncle Pennybags) welcomes Howard to Swamp City and he gives Howard $200 in Swamp City currency. (Which is just like in the Monopoly game where a player gets $200 every time he or she passes the spot marked “GO!”)
The Paymaster also gives Howard a free car, which resembles the race car playing piece in the Monopoly board game. Howard uses the car to drive around Swamp City in an effort to find the Man-Thing and Beverly. He drives along streets that have the same name as the Monopoly board game (such as Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue). The owner of the Baltic Avenue property stops Howard’s car by shooting one of the tires and he informs Howard that he has to pay rent. When he sees that Howard has $200, the owner takes one of the $100 bills along with Howard’s car, tells Howard that he is now the new owner of Baltic Avenue, and drives away.
Another person who looks just like the Paymaster approaches Howard, informs him that he needs to pay income tax because he owns Baltic Avenue, takes Howard’s last remaining $100 bill, then walks away. Howard nearly gets run over by a train then nearly gets smashed by a pair of giant dice that suddenly fall from the sky.
Howard meets an Asian family who used to own the houses and businesses on Oriental Avenue (get it?) until the bank bought them out and they are forced to move. At that point he sees the Man-Thing carrying Beverly and he begins to pursue them until he runs into Swamp City’s Lottery Authority, who resembles both the Paymaster and the Taxman. He insists that Howard take a Chance card and Howard ends up with a “Go to Jail” card.
At this point a police officer drags Howard to jail. Among his cellmates are Jock Driscoll, the urban architect who designed Swamp City, which was originally built as the City of the Future. He begins to tell Howard about his recent past. It was built in the Florida Everglades because the land was cheap.
The builder of the project was someone known as Monk Keys. One day, while Jock Driscoll’s wife, Anne Darrow Driscoll, and wheelchair-bound daughter, Amy, were visiting Jock at the construction site, Monk Keys attempts to aggressively flirt with Anne and Jock responds by hitting Monk in the face. Monk Keys vows revenge.
Soon afterwards Jock and his family move into their new Swamp City home. A few months later Jock receives a letter in the mail informing him that his home was foreclosed on. He raced to the bank to see what was going on and he bursts into a stockholder’s meeting. He discovered that the original stockholders have been replaced with identical looking men who resemble the Paymaster, Taxman, and Lottery Authority. Monk Keys is the chairman of the board and he has grown more ape-like. He tells Jock that he purchased Jock’s mortgage now wants to be known as Kong Lomerate.
Jock tells Howard that Kong Lomerate has purchased the entire town and has thrown him and other people who couldn’t pay their mortgage into debtor’s prison. Howard looks out the window and sees the Man-Thing carrying Beverly. At that moment he devises a prison break-out plan that is successful.
A newly-freed Howard eventually finds the Man-Thing without Beverly outside of a house. He asks the Man-Thing what he has done with Beverly but the creature doesn’t answer because he is unable to speak. Beverly hears the commotion and runs outside of the nearby house. Once Howard and Beverly are reunited she tells Howard that the Man-Thing took her to this house so she could serve as surrogate mother to a wheelchair-bound girl.
It turns out that the girl is none other than Amy Driscoll. Amy tells Howard that Kong Lomerate took both of her parents away but left her behind because she is in a wheelchair and can’t fight back. An upset Amy begins to pray to God to return her parents. The Man-Thing sensed Amy’s distressed emotions and he eventually realizes that she needs a parent. After searching around he sees Beverly hugging Howard in the swamp following their return to Earth and the Man-Thing feels that she would make a suitable mother for Amy, which was why he took Beverly in the first place.
The lookalike stockholders arrive at the Driscoll house and the Man-Thing attacks them. Howard, Beverly, and Amy takes the opportunity to escape. They arrive at Free Parking where they see a van with the keys still inside. The three of them escape in the van but they are stopped at the railroad tracks by an incoming B & O railroad train. It turns out that Jock Driscoll is driving that train. Howard, Beverly, and Amy board that train and Jock drives it into the bank where the money flies into the air and the locals start to collect the bills as they drop to the ground.
Jock, Howard, Beverly, and Amy run to the nearby Empire Hotel because that is Kong Lomerate’s stronghold. They arrive to find Kong with Anne Darrow Driscoll. Anne doesn’t recognize her own husband and daughter. There is also a giant mountain of consumer products like television sets and microwave ovens in that same room.
At that moment the Man-Thing shows up, which frightens Kong Lomerate. When Amy admits that the Man-Thing probably arrived to help her, Kong Lomerate takes her and tries unsuccessfully to force her to call off the Man-Thing. Kong Lomerate then takes Amy and climbs up the mountain of consumer products with the Man-Thing pursuing him. Kong Lomerate ends up battling the Man-Thing which makes the mountain so unstable that it’s on the verge of collapsing. Beverly convinces Howard to climb up the mountain to rescue Amy because he is relatively light in size and the mountain is unstable. Jock manages to snap Anne out of that trance that Kong Lomerate had her in by slapping her face a few times. Kong Lomerate becomes fearful of the Man-Thing, which leads to the Man-Thing burning him because those who know fear burns at the Man-Thing’s touch. The entire mountain collapses, burying Kong Lomerate alive. The Driscoll family is reunited and the Man-Thing walks back into the swamp of the Florida Everglades.
A few days later Howard and Beverly decides to take the next Greyhound bus out of town. Jock gives Howard and Beverly money as a thank you for their help in reuniting his family. The pair board the bus and pay for the tickets. After riding in the bus for a few miles, the bus throws both Howard and Beverly off then drives away. It turns out that the money they received from Jock was Swamp Currency, which is worthless outside of Swamp City. The story ends with Howard and Beverly walking towards Miami.
The Bottom Line: This story is a well-done satire that mixes the Monopoly game with King Kong while throwing in jibes at Wall Street as well. Naming Jock and Anne after the main characters in the 1933 movie King Kong was pretty funny along with having Kong Lomerate (who previously appeared in the original color comic book series) make a return appearance.
The idea of Kong Lomerate buying mortgages really resonated with me because I still have memories of what happened during the crash of 2008, when Wall Street firms actually sold adjustable-rate mortgages to low-income people who really couldn’t afford them but the firms didn’t care because they wanted to make a short-term profit. Granted this story was printed years before the 2008 economic meltdown but it seemed to predict what actually happened on Wall Street in real life and the repercussions can still be felt to this day as people are stuck in homes with high mortgages that are underwater.
Then there was also mention of Swamp City as being the city of the future. I can remember when Walt Disney originally came up with the idea of an Epcot, it was supposed to be an experimental planned community that would serve as a center for American innovation and urban living. (In fact, Epcot was originally an acronym and it stood for Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow.) After Disney’s death, those experimental community plans were scuttled and Epcot subsequently became a theme park at Walt Disney World in Orlando where all the rides had a cutting-edge futuristic theme.
Story 3: Duck of Many Faces
Credits: Bill Mantlo, story; Marie Severin, Walt Simonson, Marshall Rogers, John Byrne, and Howard Chaykin, art
Synopsis: Bill Mantlo writes the introduction to a series of illustrations of Howard and Beverly as done by the top comic book artists at the time. Howard and Beverly are drawn as characters in a film noir detective movie, encountering a mummy in Egypt, superheroes Duck-Man and Duck-Girl (a parody of Batman and Robin), fighting a giant snail known as Snailian (a parody of the film Alien), and as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
The Bottom Line: I found the black and white art to be very well-done. It was interesting to see the different portrayals of Howard and Beverly by a variety of artists.
Story 4: Street Peeple: Dynamite, Baby!!
Credits: Lynn Graeme, story; Ned Sonntag, art
It’s the second installment of the Street Peeple series, which has absolutely no connection to Howard the Duck or even the Marvel Universe in general.
Synopsis: Three young female street performers share an apartment together in late 1960’s San Francisco. Cheyanne is a tall thin white blond haired woman who’s a flower child. Moonchild is a plump overweight white woman who’s an Earth Mother type. Qwami is an angry black revolutionary who wants to completely tear down the racist, sexist, capitalist system. Currently staying with them in their apartment is Riff, a white hippie man. He is pretending to have amnesia in order to be able to stay in the apartment as long as possible because he has a secret crush on Cheyanne, who doesn’t pay much attention to him. He doesn’t know that Moonchild has a secret crush on him because he is too smitten with Cheyanne to realize this and Moonchild is too intimidated to confess her attraction to Riff. Rounding out the unconventional household is Horsemeat the cat.
It’s Saturday morning and Qwami wakes up in a cheerful mood, which surprises her roommates because she is usually angry. But then she sees Riff eating breakfast and her mood quickly turns sour because she wants him to leave their apartment as soon as possible.
After breakfast Qwami, Cheyanne, and Moonchild head over to the United States Bank so they can perform their juggling act. Riff comes along with them even though he is not a performer. Qwami asks the people watching them to toss out six random items for them to juggle. The audience obliges by tossing out a boot, a feathered hat, a hammer, a frisbee, an apple, and a child’s top. Cheyanne, who is juggling the child’s top, accidentally drops it and it spins away. Riff volunteers to retrieve it because he’s trying to impress his secret crush. When he picks it up, he sees a cryptic message written on it stating “six sticks of dynamite blasting caps, stocking mask, blue van at 1:30 am, Fishbone Alley.” Qwami sees Riff with the top and angrily demands that he gives it to her.
Later in the evening the four of them host a party in their apartment. Riff is depressed that Cheyanne is ignoring him so he decides to meditate near a box that’s loosely covered with a blanket. Riff looks over at the blanket-covered box and notices that it has “Dynamite” written on it. He remembers what he read on that top earlier along with Qwami’s angry reaction to him having the top. He puts two and two together and realizes that Qwami is engaged in a terrorist plot. He confides his suspicions to Moonchild who is reluctant to think that her own roommate is a potential terrorist. He gets Moonchild to come with him to Fishbone Alley around 1 am and they see a blue van parked there.
At that point Riff decides that he must save Qwami from herself so he sneaks over to where the van’s driver is and he tells the driver that the Feds are on to their plot and they are watching the van. The driver immediately gets out of the van and runs away. Riff takes over the driver’s side and puts on the stocking mask that he finds in the front seat.
At that moment Qwami arrives with both Horsemeat and the boxes of dynamite in tow and she boards the back of the van. Riff drives the van away and there are several panels of Qwami, Horsemeat, and the boxes of dynamite being knocked all over the van. (It’s obvious that there are no back seats with seatbelts.) Eventually the van stops at an undisclosed location at dawn and both Qwami and Horsemeat exit the van feeling totally disoriented and dizzy. The two of them manage to reach their apartment where Qwami turns on the TV and learn that the planned terrorist attack at the United States Bank had gone ahead without her. Qwami begins to cry while the proclaiming that the revolution has started without her.
The Bottom Line: I was underwhelmed with the first story in the previous issue and this second story hasn’t done anything to change my mind about Street Peeple. I found it completely unfunny. The several panels where Qwami, Horsemeat, and the dynamite boxes getting knocked around in the back of the moving van were lame.
What’s more, the characters are so one-dimensional that I end up not even caring about them. Why is Qwami so angry all the time? Why has she decided that armed revolutionary struggle is the only cause that she embraces in her life? Did she encounter too many racist incidents in her past? Is she such a devoted follower of radicals like Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X that she has decided that violence is the only way to change the system? Or is it something in the water that she drinks in her San Francisco apartment that’s twisting her brain into making her angry? You won’t know by reading this story. You’re expected to accept that Qwami is just plain angry, which results in making me even care less about the fact that she’s angry.
You also don’t know why Riff has decided to prevent Qwami from becoming a terrorist (and possibly getting caught and sent to prison) even though she is hostile to him. Is it because he is a pacifist who’s opposed to terrorism out of principal? Or is it because he hopes that Cheyanne will be impressed with him as a hero if he prevents her roommate from being a terrorist? There are no answers other than you are expected to accept that Riff simply wants to stop Qwami from being a terrorist.
It just seems like all Street Peeple is doing is just wasting extra pages that could’ve been used for better stories from someone else.
Howard the Duck Magazine #7 is the last issue that is reprinted in the third volume of Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection. There are a few odds and ends in the back of the book, which consist mainly of short Howard the Duck comic strips that were originally published in Crazy magazine (which was Marvel Comics’ answer to other black and white humor magazines that appealed to teens and adults like Mad and Cracked). These strips weren’t much and I didn’t find them all that funny.
So I’ve come to the end of another volume of Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection. Like I wrote a few weeks ago, I was only going to do these reviews on a weekly basis until Labor Day and the holiday weekend begins tomorrow. I’m going to take a break from doing any more reviews for the moment. I promise that I will try not to let another three years go by before I start reviewing Howard the Duck again.
This issue was reprinted in Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 3, which can be purchased online at AbeBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookDepository, eBay, IndieBound, Indigo, and Powell’s.
The Howard the Duck 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 and Marvel 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
Continuing this summer’s series of Throwback Thursday posts dedicated to Howard the Duck.
Howard the Duck Magazine #6
July, 1980
This is the notorious Duckworld issue that Howard the Duck co-creator Steve Gerber reportedly loathed. That’s because he originally envisioned Howard as coming from a planet where a variety of animals talked besides ducks instead of the story that his successor, Bill Mantlo, wrote about an alternate Earth where ducks evolved to become the dominant species instead of humans.
Story 1: The Origin of Howard the Duck
Synopsis: It’s a one-page story about Howard’s early life before he arrived on Earth. It starts with his hatching. From there it mentions that early aptitude tests indicated that he was best suited to be a mortician. Howard rebelled against that idea, opting instead to drift through variety of different jobs, including minstrel, construction worker, and boxer. He was frequently let go from jobs due to his abrasive tongue so he also went through periods of unemployment. It ends with Howard landing in Cleveland after the Cosmic Axis shifted.
The Bottom Line: It’s a pretty concise version of Howard’s life story, which serves as a prelude to the next story.
Story 2: Duckworld
Credits: Bill Mantlo, script; Michael Golden and Bob McLeod, art
Synopsis: The story begins where the end of the previous issue left off—with Howard and Beverly floating through the dimensions of time and space after Winda managed to use her psionic powers to shift the Cosmic Axis.
Howard and Beverly eventually land in a vacant lot. At first Howard concludes that Winda made a mistake until a pair of young ducks show up on their bicycles and they tell the couple that they are in New Stork. At that point Howard is elated because he has finally returned to his home planet Duckworld.
Howard decides to celebrate his return home by going to the local corner store to get a cigar. As the couple walk down the street, Beverly notices that the buildings are about half the size of the ones on Earth and that she would not be able to enter many of them. Howard tried to buy a cigar only to discover that he still has U.S. dollars, which are worthless on Duckworld. The owner allows Howard to take the cigar for free when he freaks out over seeing a large hairless ape like Beverly peering through his store window.
As Howard rejoins Beverly outside, a group of ducks gather around the couple. When they recognize Howard as being someone who’s been touted in the mainstream media as a messiah, the ducks begin to bow down in worship for Howard and a few of them also ask Howard to perform miracles. The ducks soon begin to pile up on top of Howard and Beverly in an effort to love-bomb them. Howard and Beverly manage to crawl out from the bottom of the pile only to have the ducks pursue them. They finally managed to ditch the worshippers in an alley.
Howard is confused by the sudden adulation of him because he wasn’t famous at all when he left his home world five years earlier.
Duckworld is a planet that is just like Earth except ducks have evolved to become the dominant species instead of homo sapiens. There are even personalities, places, and events that parallels Earth, such as New Stork being the Duckworld equivalent of New York. (For simplicity’s sake, I’ll just list the Earth equivalent in parenthesis.)
Howard and Beverly attempt to go to the home where Howard grew up only to discover that it has been turned into a tourist attraction known as the Howard House. There is a huge crowd of Howard worshippers along with a large contingent of police and broadcast reporters. Apparently it is the five-year anniversary of the day that Howard disappeared on live television. There are a group of ducks worshippers waiting patiently outside of the house while doing things like saying the Hare Howard (Hare Krishna) chant.
New Stork Mayor Quack (Mayor Ed Koch) appears at the front of the Howard House along with the Reverend Gander, who’s the head of a religion known as the Witnesses of the Ascension Cult, or Wackies for short. Author Truman Capoultry (Truman Capote) appears with a copy of his bestselling book, Ducking Out!, which deals with Howard’s sudden disappearance. Truman Capoultry reads excerpts from his book, where we learn about Howard’s early life.
Then a movie is shown on an outdoor screen set up by the house, which shows what happened five years earlier. Howard is shown on the campus of Quent State University (Kent State University). At the same time a major protest is going on because President Richard Millnest Duxon (Richard Milhous Nixon) and Vice President Gyro Agnu (Spiro Agnew) are visiting the campus. The National Guard troops decide to open fire on the protesters, killing four of them. Howard is so outraged over what he has seen that he walks over towards the car where Duxon and Gyro are in and starts to confront them. At the moment he is about to jump on Duxon and Gyro while yelling “GET DOWN!,” the Cosmic Axis shifts and Howard suddenly disappears into thin air.
Reverend Gander takes over reminding the worshippers that Howard’s sudden disappearance after yelling “GET DOWN!” was the miracle that abruptly ended Duxon’s rule. He also interprets Howard’s “GET DOWN!” quote as meaning when things get really bad, you just learn to accept them without doing anything to change your current situation.
From his hiding place Howard becomes outraged over how his words are being interpreted. He tells Beverly that when he yelled “GET DOWN!”, he meant for his fellow fowl to get down and fight back against President Duxon. Unfortunately the Cosmic Axis shifted before Howard had the chance to yell “FIGHT BACK!”
Reverend Gander talks about how Howard’s disappearance had led to the fall of Duxon and a power vacuum. He said that Howard wanted the Wackies cult that had come up in the wake of Howard’s disappearance to “get down” to the business of running the world by not only solving their own problems but everyone else’s problems as well.
When Reverend Gander talks about how his Wackies cult is the voice of Howard, Howard emerges from his hiding place and makes his way towards the front of the house. He is immediately overwhelmed by worshippers who are elated that their messiah has returned.
When Howard is allowed to speak for himself, he immediately tells his worshippers to start thinking for themselves, which Reverend Gander and his aides see as an immediate threat to the viability of their Wackie cult due to the fact that they have made well-paying careers out of capitalizing on Howard’s disappearance. Mayor Quack and Truman Capoultry introduce themselves to Howard and Beverly while Reverend Gander and company leave the Howard House. The duck worshippers are shocked when they learn that Beverly is Howard’s lover because she is what the ducks call a hairless ape. Truman Capoultry offers to let Howard and Beverly stay with him.
Two days later Truman, Howard, and Beverly appear on a talk show hosted by Johnny Quackson (Johnny Carson) and his sidekick Mr. McDuck (Ed McMahon). Johnny introduces a few surprise guests—Howard’s parents and two siblings. As the family reunion happens and Howard introduces Beverly to his relatives, Reverend Gander is watching the whole thing unfold on TV while fuming about how the presence of Howard and Beverly are warping Duckworld values.
Another guest appears on the show named Dr. Ludwig Von Cluck (Professor Ludwig Von Drake), who contends that Beverly is not really a talking hairless ape but she is actually a robot. In order to prove his point, Dr. Von Cluck uses this vacuum device that rips Beverly’s clothes off in an effort to show that she’s made of nuts and bolts. Except when Beverly ends up naked, everyone is convinced that she is not a robot. It causes such a commotion in the studio audience that Howard, Beverly, and Truman barely escape from the TV studio.
The three of them wind up in an alley where Howard and Beverly realize that they have no future on Duckworld due to their sudden notoriety. Truman Capoultry recognizes someone who is also in the alley who can help shift the Cosmic Axis so Howard and Beverly can return to Earth. He is Ducktor Strange (Doctor Strange) and he’s known as the Mallard of the Mystic Arts. He is also a wino and the three of them have found him in a drunken stupor.
At that moment Reverend Gander and his crew arrive at the alley accompanied by the Wackies’ wealthy benefactor, Uncle Scrounge MacDrake (Uncle Scrooge McDuck). Reverend Gander’s crew raise their guns and attempt to kill Howard and Beverly in order to save the Wackie cult, which has provided a lucrative career for Reverend Gander and others in the church hierarchy. When a bullet hits Ducktor Strange’s bottle of booze, he becomes so outraged over his loss that he shifts the Cosmic Axis in order to send Howard and Beverly back to Earth. Reverend Gander and the Wackies so are happy over Howard and Beverly’s disappearance that they proclaim it as a second miracle while being satisfied over their cult being preserved. However, Truman Capoultry leaves the area intending to write another book exposing the real story behind Reverend Gander and the Wackies cult.
The story ends with Howard and Beverly arriving back on Earth and landing in the Florida Everglades while the Man-Thing is hiding in the background.
Topical References: One of the cops guarding the Howard House can be heard talking into his walkie-talkie blurting the lyrics from David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” song.
The Bottom Line: I found the story to be a totally spot-on parody of the right-wing evangelical Christians. At the time this was written, they were beginning to become dominant in U.S. politics due mainly to organizations like Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and they sided with Ronald Reagan in the 1980 elections. They have remained a dominant force through the decades and, as of this writing, many of them (like Franklin Graham) have proclaimed Donald Trump as a Christian that’s suitable for the evangelical community (which is controversial given the fact that Trump has five children from three different marriages, he’s been recorded bragging about committing sexual assault, and there are allegations that he has not paid his employees and contractors).
And speaking of Donald Trump, it’s pretty ironic that this review of the issue that skewers right wing evangelical Christians went live the same week that Trump proclaimed himself as “The Chosen One” and “The King of Israel” and he even attacked Jews who vote for Democrats.
In addition, many of these evangelicals have become millionaires through writing books and hosting evangelical programs where their viewers give them generous donations. It’s not unusual to hear about a certain televangelist having his own private jet or a large mansion. It definitely mirrors how wealthy Reverend Gander and the other leaders of the Wackies became as a result of capitalizing on Howard’s disappearance.
I’ve often felt that if Jesus ever returned to Earth in the way that Howard returned to Duckworld, the evangelicals would have the same reaction against him that the leadership of the Wackies had against Howard.
I also found it amusing that two of the ducks who caused trouble for Howard were modeled after two Disney characters—Uncle Scrooge McDuck and Professor Ludwig Von Drake. It was almost like they were there as a way of making fun of Disney as a revenge for the company forcing the redesign of Howard the Duck because Disney felt that he resembled Donald Duck too much. Even the cover had a white duck with his back turned wearing a sailor suit a la Donald.
In a way this story is just as sharp a parody as the classic Howard the Duck color comic book #8. However, there are a few glaring flaws that, in my mind, prevents this from being completely in the same league as Howard the Duck #8. First, throughout this story Beverly is constantly half-naked as she’s struggling to cover her private parts with what’s left of her clothes. I can understand her clothes being ripped off when Dr. Ludwig Von Cluck vacuumed her clothes off in an effort to prove that she’s really a robot. But the story began with her clothes being nearly torn off as Howard and Beverly first encounter worshippers who were piling on them in an effort to love-bomb them. No sooner did she get fully dressed for her TV show appearance then she’s stripped half-naked again.
I just found the constant depictions of Beverly being nearly naked to be tiring after a while. I know that the black and white magazine allowed the writers and artists to be more daring than what was allowed in the color comic books when Marvel had to abide by the Comics Code Authority. But just because you have the freedom to do something doesn’t mean that you should. It was almost like Marvel was trying to increase circulation for the magazine by depicting a near-naked woman in order to attract horny adolescent boys and men. Even in the pre-Internet era (when this magazine was originally released) anyone wanting to see naked women could just pick up Playboy or Penthouse and see actual color photographs of naked women instead of mere drawings in an illustrated black and white magazine.
The other glaring flaw that, in my mind, was even more serious than having Beverly half-naked, is doing a satire of the real-life 1970 shootings at Kent State University as Quent State University. Not only did the Quent State Shooting have the National Guard killing four students just like at Kent State in real-life but they even depicted a Duckworld equivalent of the famous Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a teenage runaway girl kneeling over the body of one of the slain students with her arms outstretched while screaming and crying.
To me that crossed the borderline into sheer tastelessness, especially since people died in real life. They could have done a fictional protest at a fictional location and even indicated that some ducks were killed without having to resort to doing a close tie-in with the Kent State shootings.
If I had known someone who had been injured or killed at Kent State University, I’m not sure how I would have reacted had I come across this issue and read about Quent State University. All I know is that it could be triggering to anyone who was there at the time.
Despite those flaws, I found the Duckworld story to be a witty satire that mostly ranks up there with the best of the Howard stories.
Story 3: Street Peeple
Credits: Lynn Graeme, writing; Ned Sonntag, art
Starting with this issue, Marvel introduced a new back-up feature which ran for the rest of the black and white magazine’s original run. As the introduction explains, Street Peeple is a departure from the usual stories that are run on the pages of Marvel Comics in that there are no superheroes or talking animals or robots or anything out of the ordinary. It’s basically a story about average people trying to live their own lives in San Francisco, California in the late 1960s.
Synopsis: Three young women live in late 1960’s San Francisco while trying to make a living as street performers. Cheyanne is a tall thin white woman with long blonde hair who epitomizes a flower child along the lines of someone like Michelle Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas. Moonchild is an overweight white woman who epitomizes an Earth Mother type along the lines of Phillips’ fellow Mama and Papas bandmate, Cass Elliott. Qwami is a short African-American woman who epitomizes the angry black feminist revolutionary along the lines of Angela Davis who’s eager to do her part to shut down the racist capitalist system that has long discriminated against her people. The three of them share an apartment together with a pet cat named Horsemeat.
One day the three of them are out on the streets performing their juggling act with a variety of items, including Horsemeat the cat. Among the viewers is Riff, the epitome of a white male hippie complete with long hair, a beard, and mustache. Riff takes one look at Cheyanne and it’s literally love at first sight. Riff is so smitten with Cheyanne that he gives her everything that he has in his pockets when she passes the hat around. Cheyanne takes the hat and turns her back on Riff once he finishes emptying his pockets without saying anything, which bums him out.
While Horsemeat is being juggled in the air, a man on a motorcycle drives up to the jugglers, catches Horsemeat, and drives away. When Cheyanne yells at the motorcyclist to let go of the cat, Riff decides to go after the motorcyclist to rescue Horsemeat in the hopes of winning Cheyanne’s heart.
Just at the moment when Riff is about to jump on the motorcyclist, a cop hits Riff on the head and knocks him to the ground. Horsemeat jumps off of the motorcycle and right on to Riff.
At that point the three women look at a barely conscious Riff with Horsemeat on top of him while the three of them debate whether to take Riff home with them or not. Moonchild is in favor of taking him back to their apartment because he did rescue Horsemeat from the motorcyclist while Qwami is strongly opposed to that idea and Cheyanne thinks that Riff is a total bore.
When Qwami tries to pick up Horsemeat, she finds that the cat has digged his claws into Riff’s torso and refuses to let go. At this point, the three women decide to carry Riff to their apartment with them since it was the only way that Horsemeat can return home. As they carry Riff home, Moonchild becomes attracted to Riff.
When they return to the apartment, Riff is lying on the couch where he is claiming to have amnesia. Moonchild wants to do everything possible to nurse Riff back to health, especially since she’s attracted to him. Cheyanne says that Riff should go once he regains his memories. Qwami is the most hostile to the idea of Riff even staying in their apartment.
The story ends with Qwami sitting on a box that’s covered with a blanket while saying that the revolution will still happen despite Riff sleeping on the couch in their apartment. A close up of the blanket and box reveals dynamite, which makes this story end in a cliff-hanger.
The Bottom Line: I have to admit that Street Peeple is not only a departure from Howard the Duck but it’s a departure from nearly every other Marvel comic. The drawing style is more reminiscent of the underground comix of the late 1960’s (such as Robert Crumb) than of a typical Marvel comic. While I think it’s great that Marvel attempted to do something a bit different from the usual superhero fare, I found the story to be completely underwhelming with one-dimensional characters that are little more than stereotypes.
It’s obvious that the debut story is setting up for the classic love triangle of a man who has a crush on a woman who doesn’t pay much attention to him while her friend has a crush on the man but he doesn’t notice because he’s too smitten with that other woman. It’s the kind of story I’ve seen many times before in movies, TV shows, novels, etc. and these kind of storylines end up being cliched and trite.
While the Duckworld story had me laughing at times, I couldn’t say the same for Street Peeple. I just didn’t find it funny at all.
This issue was reprinted in Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 3, which can be purchased online at AbeBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookDepository, eBay, IndieBound, Indigo, and Powell’s.
The Howard the Duck 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 and Marvel 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
Continuing this summer’s series of Throwback Thursday posts dedicated to Howard the Duck.
Howard the Duck #23
Star Waaugh
April, 1978
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer/editor; Val Mayerik, artist; I. Watanabe, inker; Janice Cohen, colorist
This issue is the second of a two-part Star Wars parody that was created as a result of a reunion of the original co-creators of Howard the Duck, Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik.
Synopsis: This issue picks up where the last one left off as Bzzk Joh manages to enter the castle through the Waters of Eternity and kidnaps Jennifer Kale while threatening to make her bald if anyone tries to rescue her. Bzzk Joh mentions that he’s the head of the Imperium Imporium, which has been buying up property all over the galaxy in order to build a giant shopping mall that will be the ultimate in crassness.
Bzzk Joh sinks back into the Waters of Eternity with Jennifer Kale as his hostage. As she sinks after Bzzk Joh, she raises a hand out of the water and quickly conducts a spell before she is entirely submerged. Korek attempts to dive into the Waters of Eternity only to have that water turn solid and Korek crashes his body on the hard surface.
Jennifer Kale’s last-minute spell results in the creation of two druid-droids (which are the magical equivalent of robots) known as NAAC-P30 and 2-2-2-2, who is nicknamed Tutu and resembles a trashcan. NAAC-P30 and Tutu were created to serve as guides for Howard, Korrek, and the Man-Thing.
The two druid-droids eventually lead the others to a spaceship known as the Epoch Weasel. The ship flies right up to a giant tractor trailer that’s flying in outer space with the words Imperium Imporium on the side. The tractor trailer attacks by releasing a bunch of various men’s products (such as electric razors and watches) followed by all kinds of housewares (such as blenders and cast iron skillets). The items crash into the Epoch Weasel. The Imperium Imporium also uses psychological warfare in the form of a customer service agent who’s unleashed into space shouting “NO!” repeatedly.
The Epoch Weasel’s engines die so the spaceship lands on a planet known as Boorbanq. They enter the Hollywok Canteen, which is noted for its “Plastic Szechuan Cuisine,” and see that it’s full of Californian men wearing leisure suits. Korrek is sent to hobnob with the people inside because he’s the one person in the group who could blend in the best with these Southern Californians, despite the fact that Korrek is a barbarian from a time period hundreds of years before the 1970’s. Korrek schmoozes among the people initially until he meets with a hamburger-headed man known as Big Mack and Korrek totally loses it by punching Big Mack’s hamburger head while saying “Have a nice day!” The California men start to surround Korrek. Howard tried to defend Korrek by using the Farce, which turns out to be a joke flag gun that shoots out a flag reading “Down With Peacocks!” It leads to the California men suddenly collapsing under the weight of their own pretensions because they couldn’t understand that the Farce is really a joke flag gun.
Meanwhile Bzzk Joh looks over the inventory of the Imperium Imporium and decides that it’s time to approach a bound and gagged Jennifer Kale. He starts to tickle her.
Howard and the others somehow manage to borrow another space cruiser where they find the Death Store—the Imperium Imporium itself. Tutu manages to find an entrance to the Death Store by detecting irregularities in the store’s bookkeeping department. They find Bzzk Joh in the middle of his tickle session with Jennifer Kale. The subsequent battle begins, complete with Bzzk Joh’s people hurling perfume bottles, office supplies, and sporting equipment at Jennifer Kale’s would-be rescuers.
Howard and the Man-Thing catch up with Bzzk Joh, who unleashes his two secret weapons—the Dearth Vapors—who turn out to be a wholesome-looking duo with bright smiling teeth who resemble Donny and Marie Osmond. When they start to smile, their teeth shoots out saccharine, which covers the Man-Thing and Howard. The Man-Thing becomes so angry that he bursts out of his saccharine covering, lays his hands off the Dearth Vapors, and melts the pair.
Howard finally uses the Farce on Bzzk Joh. The flag message, which reads “You Have No Sense of Humor,” is enough to neutralize Bzzk Joh as he starts to break down and cry. Howard frees Jennifer Kale.
Everyone races back to the space cruiser because Tutu had activated every item in the store’s toy department and the Death Store is on the verge of exploding. As the space cruiser flies away, the Death Store explodes, presumably killing Bzzk Joh and everyone else who was on board.
Topical 1970’s Reference: Like its predecessor, this issue is also a parody of Star Wars. At the time only the first movie had been released with simply the Star Wars title but it has since been renamed Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. The biggest irony is that years after this issue was released Disney would buy both Marvel and the Star Wars franchise so they now co-exist under the same corporation.
NAAC-P30 begins to pilot the Epoch Weasel by pressing the button marked “Bat Out of Hell,” which also happens to be the title of Meat Loaf’s first album that was released in 1977 and it became one of the best-selling albums in the history of recorded music. Here’s a vintage video of Meat Loaf performing the title track from Bat Out of Hell.
The planet Boorbanq is modeled after Burbank in California, which is frequently billed as the Media Capital of the World. The clientele is modeled after the stereotypical 1970’s leisure suit-wearing Southern California men. One customer, Big Mack, is a hilarious riff on Mayor McCheese from those McDonald’s ads.
The two Dearth Vapors resemble Donny and Marie Osmond, who had their own hit music variety show, Donny & Marie. While I was doing some online research while I was writing this, I came across this clip from an episode of the Donny & Marie show that is a Star Wars musical parody.
Bzzk Joh, an infamous real estate developer with his frequent tendency towards being a loudmouthed braggart brings to mind another infamous real estate developer with an equal tendency towards being a loudmouthed braggart who is currently running for President of the United States as I’m typing this in 2016—Donald Trump. Even though Trump wouldn’t become famous on the national stage for another few years (with the publication of his first book, The Art of the Deal, in 1987), he became a local celebrity in New York City after he moved to Manhattan in 1971 while getting involved in larger construction projects that used attractive architectural design to win public recognition. What’s more Donald Trump started to court the New York media in the 1970’s by using his two publicists named John Barron and John Miller. Recently it was revealed that the real identities of the two publicists named John were none other than Donald Trump himself. Since Marvel is based in New York City, it’s not that big of a stretch to think that it’s possible that Bzzk Joh was modeled after The Donald.
As for Bzzk Joh’s Imperium Imporium, it wouldn’t be a big surprise if it was based on Walmart. At that time Walmart founder Sam Walton had been aggressively expanding his stores into rural areas of the U.S. by both buying up regional discount chains like Mohr-Value and buying land to build his stores, which grew increasingly bigger.
The Bottom Line: The second part of the Star Wars parody is even funnier than the first part as this issue not only skewers that movie but also every single aspect of 1970’s pop culture. The only time the jokes fell flat was when it came to naming one of the druid-droids. The shorter druid-droid’s name, 2-2-2-2, is a hilarious take on R2-D2 along with its nickname, Tutu. As for the C-3PO parody, it’s obvious that NAAC-P30’s name is patterned after the NAACP. That one falls flat because there’s really no logical reason why the NAACP (which is the oldest civil rights organization in the U.S. and it stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) would have anything to do with science fiction other than an opportunity to riff on the acronym. Fortunately that’s the only joke that’s pretty off because the rest of the issue is funny as hell. Even if younger readers don’t get the reference to Donny and Marie Osmond, they’ll still laugh at all of the Star Wars references. It’s sheer genius to parody Star Wars’ famous Canteen scene as the Hollywok Canteen that’s located on the planet Boorbanq with the stereotypical 1970’s Southern California men dressed in leisure suits (you couldn’t get more stereotypical 1970’s than men’s leisure suits) standing in for the aliens from the original Star Wars Canteen scene. This is yet another memorable high point of the original 1970’s comic book series.
Howard the Duck #24
Where Do You Go—What Do You Do—The Night After You Save The Universe?
May, 1978
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer/editor; Gene Colan, artist; Tom Palmer, inker; Joe Rosen, letterer; Janice Cohen, colorist
Synopsis: The spaceship that Howard rides in after Bzzk Joh and his Imperium Imporium were both destroyed in the last issue lands on top of the apartment building where Howard is currently staying at 2 a.m. Howard bids farewell to his comrades from the last two issues before the spaceship heads back into outer space.
Howard arrives at the apartment that once belonged to his former boss (and Beverly’s uncle) Lee Switzler and he looks at the calendar. He sees that the ship S.S. Damned is due to dock in New York City many hours later. That’s the same ship that he was on with Beverly, Paul, and Winda until Doctor Bong abducted both Howard and Beverly. Howard begins to look forward to being reunited with Paul and Winda. (Beverly was forced to marry Doctor Bong and stay at the compound in the Himalayas in order to spare Howard’s life.)
Howard goes to bed and tries to get some sleep. He soon has a nightmare involving Doctor Bong and the Kidney Lady that’s so intense that he wakes up.
Howard goes to the kitchen to see if he can find a post-midnight snack and the only thing he could find was a box of slightly chewy potato chips. He takes the chips and goes to back to the bedroom where he turns on the TV set. He ends up turning on a Western where a cowboy shoots another cowboy named Howard.
Howard turns off the TV and ditches the potato chips. He decides to go outside and take a walk.
He begins to recount the experiences he’s gone through since Beverly and Winda were abducted by a magic carpet in Howard the Duck King Size Annual #1. Howard trips over a drunken man who’s laying in the middle of the sidewalk. The drunk mistakes Howard for a woman named Marie (who’s probably either his wife or girlfriend) and grabs hold of one of Howard’s legs. A group of would-be robbers talk openly about how easy it would be to go after Howard and the drunk. Howard decides to free his leg from the drunk’s grasp by burning the drunk’s hand with his cigar. The drunk emits a scream that’s so awful that the would-be robbers run away. The drunk hangs on to Howard’s leg for a little bit longer until Howard decides to just slide his foot through the man’s grasp and manages to free himself.
As Howard walks away from his encounter with the drunk he accidentally walks into a woman carrying a bunch of bags, which results in the woman spilling the bags’ contents all over the sidewalk.Howard apologizes to the woman but the woman responds by spitting in his face.
Howard walks by a phone booth, where a payphone starts to ring. Howard answers the phone only to find that it’s an obscene phone call.
Howard walks past a woman at a bus stop. He hears that same woman scream so he races back to the bus stop. It turns out that the woman was being attacked but she managed to throw her attacker to the ground. The woman tells Howard that the attacker is her husband and they’ve been playing some kind of a kinky game for the past two weeks where the woman waits outside late at night, her husband tries to attack her, and she fights back by knocking him to the ground.
Howard walks into a donut shop that’s open all night only to find it deserted. He hears mumbling from behind the counter, where he discovers a donut shop clerk whose hands and feet are tied up with a donut stuffed in his mouth. Howard frees him and the donut shop clerk tells Howard about how a dissatisfied customer had demanded his money back because he claimed that he broke a tooth biting into a donut he purchased at that shop. When the clerk refused, the customer punches the clerk, ties him up, puts the donut in his mouth, and empties the cash register before walking out of the shop. Howard offers to call the police but the donut shop clerk refuses because he says that the customer only took a couple of dollars because it had been a slow night. The grateful clerk offers Howard a free donut and a cup of coffee. Howard turns down the donut but drinks the free coffee. Howard talks with the clerk until it’s close to the time where the S.S. Damned is due to dock.
Howard rushes to Pier 43 just in time to see Paul and Winda disembark from the ship. Once Howard greets them, he falls asleep in Winda’s arms. As the couple walk away with a sleeping Howard they remark that Howard’s fortune is going to change when he wakes up (while providing a cliffhanger for the next issue).
Topical 1970’s Reference: Howard walking past a payphone, which is definitely a throwback to an era before most people carried around their own cell phones. I used to frequently see payphones everywhere but now I can’t even tell you when I’ve last seen a payphone anywhere. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve even seen a payphone, let alone a phone booth.
The Bottom Line: This is one of the more surreal issues (yet nowhere near as surreal as issue 16) as Howard, who’s fresh from his recent adventure in outer space, walks around the streets of New York City in the middle of the night due to insomnia. While Howard encounters ordinary people with no superpower or magical ability of any kind, they are still in situations that are either bizarre, dysfunctional, or both. This issue is an okay issue in that it’s entertaining seeing Howard encounter New Yorkers of all types in the middle of the night but it lacks the wicked satire of the two previous issues (which was a two-part Star Wars parody) or the classic “Howard for President” story arc (as depicted in Howard the Duck #7, Marvel Treasury Edition #12: Howard the Duck, and Howard the Duck #8). It is a pretty interesting glimpse of what a Marvel character does during his downtime between dealing with super villains or strange situations, which is pretty rare in comic books. (I don’t recall ever seeing a story on what Spider-Man or Wolverine do when they have the day off from fighting super villains.)
Howard the Duck #25
Getting Smooth!
June, 1978
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer/editor; Gene Colan, artist; Klaus Janson, inker; I. Watanabe, letterer; Jan Cohen, colorist
Synopsis: The story begins in the Boys’ Department at Macy’s where Howard is trying on various outfits while Paul and Winda look on. Once Howard decides on a new suit, Paul pulls out a wad of cash and pays for the suit on the spot. Howard chides Paul for flashing cash because he’s concerned that it will make him into a mugging victim. Paul then buys a box of expensive cigars with cash and gives Howard one of them.
Paul hails a taxi where the three of them ride to a luxury hotel. During the drive, Paul recounts his time on the S.S. Damned after Howard and Beverly were abducted by Doctor Bong. Paul spent much of his time drawing in his sketchbook. One day Paul decided to draw a woman who turned out to be a wealthy socialite and heiress named Iris Raritan. Paul offered to give Iris his sketch but she insisted on buying it instead. She told Paul that she wasn’t the only affluent passenger on that ship and that there were others willing to pay for his sketches. Paul started getting more sketching commissions on that ship due to Iris’ connections.
The three enter the hotel lobby only to have an employee point at Howard and say that the hotel does not allow pets. When Howard verbally protests, the employee drops the subject and leads the three to the room where Iris is holding a special reception. Iris introduces the three to a circus owner and ringmaster named Mr. Thraller, who plans on having his circus perform at Iris’ Friday evening party. Iris also tells the three that they are invited to the party as well.
Meanwhile Beverly makes her first appearance in this comic book since issue #18. Not surprisingly she’s unhappy about her forced marriage to Doctor Bong and it doesn’t help that Doctor Bong has been more involved with working in his laboratory than spending any time with his bride. It’s implied that since Doctor Bong has won Beverly from Howard, she has become just another possession that he can neglect in favor of more recent interests and pursuits. Beverly finally becomes fed up with being the neglected wife so she barges over to Doctor Bon’s laboratory and demands that he removes his bell mask so the two of them can, in her words, “play house.” The scene ends with the couple kissing while Doctor Bong’s mutant minions watch and clap.
The story picks up in New York City a few days later as Howard, Paul and Winda are in the apartment that was once rented by Beverly’s uncle, Lee, but Howard is allowed to stay in it until the end of the month because Lee had already paid the rent. Lee calls Howard from Cleveland and tells him that he has just lined up a new business opportunity and he wants to take Howard in as a partner. Howard accepts the offer and hangs up the phone. Paul, Winda, and Howard take a taxi to Iris Raritan’s Long Island mansion where her party is being held. When the trio arrive, Iris formally introduces Paul to her other guests as her latest discovery while introducing the other two as Paul’s companions. The wealthy guests are suddenly shocked at seeing a well-dressed duck.
While Iris is showing Paul around to the other guests, Winda and Howard attempt to schmooze the other guests only to have these guests look down on them. One guest made a snarky remark about Winda’s lisp and how she finds Howard’s presence to be distasteful because she thinks he’s a midget in a duck costume. Winda snarks back at that guest.
Mr. Thraller’s circus begin its performance inside of Iris’ mansion while introducing Cannonball, Princess Python, The Clown, and The Great Gabonnos. The circus performers do their initial routines then Mr. Thraller tells the guests to look his way while he hypnotizes them. As the guests are hypnotized, the circus performers start to steal the guests’ valuables including money, wallets, and jewelry.
Mr. Thraller decides to take a hypnotized Howard by the hand and lead him to the circus truck where the circus kidnaps the duck. As the truck heads towards Pennsylvania, all of the guests at Iris’ party eventually regain consciousness and they realized that they had been robbed. Howard regains consciousness inside of a trunk in the circus truck where he bangs on the lid until Mr. Thraller opens the lid. He tells Howard that the duck is now part of the circus and if he refuses to go along with his new situation, he will tell the authorities that Howard was an accessory to the robbery at Iris Raritan’s party and he will end up in prison with the rest of the Circus of Crime.
Topical 1970’s Reference: Howard’s frequent warnings to Paul that he could become a mugging victim for showing off wads of cash was a reference to the really bad crime problem that New York City had back in the 1970’s.
The Bottom Line: I cringed when I saw Beverly demanding some quality time from Doctor Bong, especially since she didn’t willingly marry him out of love. (She only married him because he threatened to kill Howard if she refused.) If I had been forced into a marriage like that, trying to beg my husband for attention would be the last thing I’d do. In fact, I would be way more bitter at him for forcing me into such a horrible situation. It’s possible that the writer Steve Gerber was trying to either demonstrate Stockholm Syndrome or have Beverly simply try to make the best out of a bad situation. If either scenario is the case, it’s such a vague and poorly written scene. It just left me with an unfavorable impression of Beverly as someone who is weak enough to seek affection from her own kidnapper who forced her to marry him instead of being an independent woman with enough of a mind of her own to try to think of ways of escaping from that castle in the Himalayas.
The rest of the issue is pretty interesting. There’s the classism strewn throughout that party scene from Winda facing the wealthy snobby woman who looked down on her for her lisp to Iris parading Paul around like he was her latest possession. There’s the excessive throwing around of money where Iris was able to actually hire a circus to give a private performance at her party. And then there is the circus itself, which is really run by a gang of thieves who use the circus as a cover so the ringmaster can hypnotize his audience while the rest of the circus performers rob the audience of their valuables. The idea of a Circus of Crime is pretty unique and very funny.
These issues were reprinted in Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 2, which can be purchased onine at AbeBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookDepository, Half.com, IndieBound, Indigo, Powell’s.
The Howard the Duck 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 and Marvel 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
Continuing this summer’s series of Throwback Thursdays dedicated to Howard the Duck.
Howard the Duck #20
Scrubba-Dub Death!
January, 1978
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer/editor; Gene Colan, artist; Klaus Janson, inker; J. Costanza, letterer; Jan Cohen, colorist
Synopsis: Doctor Bong confronts Howard in the bathroom shower of an apartment belonging to a woman named Amy (where Howard spent the previous night). Doctor Bong becomes so enraged when Howard asks him why isn’t he with Beverly, his new bride, that he tries to smash Howard with his steel clapper hand. Howard jumps out of the way just in time for Doctor Bong’s steel clapper hand to hit the floor with such a force that the floor caves in and they end up in the apartment below.
Doctor Bong and Howard had interrupted an all-night poker game and one of the players becomes angry because he was on the verge of winning this particular poker hand. This player begins to beat up Doctor Bong and Howard takes advantage of that moment to sneak out of that apartment and eventually make his way outside. Doctor Bong manages to overpower that player who started to fight him and he decides to leave the apartment and make all of the poker players freeze in their tracks for 90 days at the same time by hitting himself on the head with his steel clapper hand.
Howard is in a nearby alley when hears that particular “BONG!” noise and realizes that Doctor Bong is pursuing him. Howard finds a lead pipe lying on the ground. He gets up on a trash can and waits for Doctor Bong to come after him. When Doctor Bong shows up, Howard hits him on the head with that lead pipe and he makes Doctor Bong disappear.
Howard then begins to remember recent past events (which is also a way that a reader who didn’t follow the story from the previous issues can catch up) while explaining that Howard’s one-night stand with Amy as a human activated his adrenal glands that manage to reverse the effects of being in the Evolvo-Chamber so he is a duck once again. Howard soon realizes that he is naked (since Doctor Bong had started this latest battle while Howard was in the shower) and he has no money. Howard steals a t-shirt off of a clothes line that says “Foxy Lady,” which solves one of his problems.
As for the money problem, Howard passes a restaurant with a sign that says “Dishwasher Wanted.” Figuring that he has nothing else to lose he sees the restaurant’s owner, who finds the idea of a male talking duck wearing a Foxy Lady t-shirt to be so hysterical that he hires Howard on the spot while thinking about advertising his restaurant as saying that the dishes have been untouched by human hands.
Howard’s new boss introduces him to the outgoing dishwasher, Sudd, who is on his last day at his current job. As Sudd starts to show Howard how to do his job he tells Howard that the reason why he’s leaving is because he has accepted a new job as executive vice president of an organization called SOOFI, which is an acronym for Save Our Offspring From Indecency. Sudd says that SOOFI tracks down any books, records, or movies that are considered to be indecent by a leader known as the Supreme SOOFI and burns them.
Finally Sudd shows Howard how to clean the microwave oven with an oven cleaner. In the process Sudd accidentally leaves the oven cleaner in the microwave as he closes the door and starts the microwave process. The oven cleaner can soon explodes, throwing the microwave oven door open and covering Sudd in a mixture of oven cleaner and radiation—turning Sudd into a raging giant bubble creature who’s obsessed with cleaning everything.
When the restaurant owner enters the kitchen to see what the commotion is about, Sudd escapes and starts his cleaning rampage in the restaurant while attacking a customer for reading a Playboy-like magazine called Playperson. Howard and his new boss try to stop the bubble creature by throwing a bucket of water on him but the creature grows bigger because the oven cleaner is a concentrate that is activated by water.
The bubble creature leaves the restaurant to continue his cleaning rampage. Howard finds another can of the oven cleaner and discovers that the can has a printed antidote recipe that includes vinegar, lemon juice, milk, and egg whites. Howard and his new boss quickly whip up a large batch of that stuff then try to track down Sudd.
The bubble creature makes his way to 8th Avenue, which Howard describes as the Filth Capital of the Universe. The bubble creature attacks criminals and scrubs the city streets clean at the same time. Howard and his boss throw the antidote on the creature, which dissolves him entirely. The locals come out but they weren’t there to hail Howard and his boss as heroes. In fact they are angry because the bubble creature had been actually doing something about the crime and the filthy streets—issues that the local authorities had long ignored. A mob starts to form against Howard and his boss.
Topical 1970’s Reference: Howard mentions The Gong Show, which was a very popular game show back in the 1970’s where contestants of varying dubious talents perform on stage while celebrity judges decide whether they would be allowed to complete their performance or bang a gong behind them, which abruptly ends the performance.
There’s a reference to 8th Avenue as being the Filth Capital of the Universe. 8th Avenue is one of the borders of Times Square which, at that time, had a reputation for having a lot of porn houses, drug abuse, prostitution, and being a very crime-infested place. There was a time when tourists would not dare to go into Times Square. I remember when I took a class trip to New York City back in 1979 and our chaperones told us point-blank that we were forbidden from going anywhere near Times Square. Even since Disney decided to renovate the New Amsterdam Theater, which kickstarted a renaissance that drove out most of the porn movie theaters, Times Square has definitely improved as a place for tourists. If you want to get an idea of what Times Square was like before Disney came along, check out the movies Midnight Cowboy or Taxi Driver, which were both shot on location in Times Square back in the 1970’s.
The Bottom Line: This is a pretty hysterical issue from Doctor Bong confronting Howard while he’s in the shower to a new short-lived character that’s a man mutated from an oven cleaning product who could either be a hero or villain depending on one’s point of view. It’s also pretty funny when the locals turn on Howard and his new boss after they defeat Sudd because he was actually cleaning up the city streets of filth and crime and they ruined it.
Howard the Duck #21
If You Knew SOOFI…!
February, 1978
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer/editor; Carmine Infantino, special guest artist; Klaus Janson, inker; I. Watanabe, letterer; Glynis Wein, colorist
Synopsis: This story begins where the last issue left off as Howard and his boss literally run for their lives from a mob of local citizens who were outraged over the fact that they had destroyed the bubble monster who had cleaned up the streets and crime in their neighborhood. They run into an alley where, with the help of a street person, they are able to evade the mob once and for all.
The bubble monster was previously a human male named Sudd who was slated to start his new job as executive vice president of an organization named SOOFI, which stands for Save Our Offspring From Indecency. The members of SOOFI wear white outfits with round orange heads (resembling the orange fruit) featuring smiley faces. SOOFI calls a meeting where the leader announces Sudd’s death. After the members recite the SOOFI pledge (which includes lines like “We are the SOOFI, sworn to die so that our children yet unborn may live in antiseptic peace!”) the SOOFI leader vows that there will be revenge against those responsible for Sudd’s death.
Meanwhile Howard and his boss are in the boss’ apartment. The boss suddenly decides to move back to his native Cleveland because he realizes that the restaurant business isn’t for him. Howard suddenly realizes that he doesn’t know the boss’ name (mainly because he had been working for that boss for less than 12 hours) and he asks. The boss reveals his name to be Beverly Switzler—the same name as Howard’s one-time female companion who is now the wife of Doctor Bong. It turns out that his parents wanted a daughter named Beverly Switzler and when he was born they decided to give him that name anyway. The female Beverly Switzler is his niece who was named after him. The male Beverly uses Lee as a nickname, which is just as well because it would’ve been confusing having two characters named Beverly Switzler.
Lee invites Howard to come with him back to Cleveland but Howard turns him down because he wants to wait for Paul and Winda to arrive on the ship S.S. Damned when it docks in New York City. Lee allows Howard to use his apartment since the rent is paid up until the end of the month.
Members of SOOFI begin to bomb places like porn movie theaters, adult book stores, and rock concerts. The SOOFI leader arrives in the apartment where Howard is currently staying and proceeds to spray a solution known as Formula 410 in Howard’s face to knock him out so he could be kidnapped. When Howard wakes up he sees that someone had put pants and shoes on him, which totally outrages him because he had gone around bottomless for much of his life.
The head of SOOFI appears and tells Howard all about the Blanditron, an invention that the SOOFI head claims God wanted. The SOOFI head says that Howard’s new look will provide youth appeal among potential new recruits to the SOOFI movement. However the SOOFI leader has decreed that Howard needs to be put through the Blanditron first so he’ll be blanderized enough to fit in with SOOFI’s strict conformity.
So the SOOFI leader puts Howard in the Blanditron, which resembles a washing machine, and switches the machine on. After Howard goes through all of the Blanditron’s cycles, the SOOFI leader opens the machine door only to have Howard punch the leader in the face. The orange mask cracks and Howard implies that the leader is none other than Anita Bryant (who is shown only from the back of the head).
Howard walks out of the SOOFI headquarters and he subsequently ditches the pants and shoes so he could go bottomless once again.
Topical 1970’s Reference: The 1970s was the decade when the right wing evangelical Christians started to make headway into protesting the relaxed standards (especially regarding sexuality) of the era. Groups like the Moral Majority and the American Family Association got their start in the 1970’s and it’s obvious that SOOFI was modeled after them. After being considered on the fringe for many years, these groups started to ally with the Republican Party and their power started to gradually increase until these groups started to elect favored politicians to power. This has resulted in such things as severe limits placed on abortion in many states and the so-called bathroom bills that have recently been passed in North Carolina and Mississippi where transgender people who haven’t had the full genitalia surgery are required to go to the public restroom of their birth gender rather than the gender that they identify with.
Howard briefly being forced to wear pants by SOOFI is a parody of a real-life dispute between Disney and Marvel over Disney’s complaint that Howard looked too much like Donald Duck. Disney demanded that Marvel make some alterations to Howard (including adding pants) or else it would sue Marvel. Ironically Disney would buy Marvel years later so Donald Duck and Howard the Duck not only currently co-exist under the same parent company but Disney even allowed Marvel to revive the Howard the Duck comic book series in 2015—a few years after the Disney/Marvel merger was complete.
The substance that the SOOFI leader uses on Howard, Formula 410, is a parody of the all-purpose cleaning product Formula 409.
The smiling faces on the SOOFI masks resemble the smiley faces that were a craze for a few years back in the 1970’s. The faces were initially on buttons and they came in yellow, pink, or orange. In time they were printed on other products like t-shirts and and greeting cards.
The end of that issue implied that the real-life celebrity Anita Bryant was the SOOFI leader. Anita Bryant was initially a beauty pageant contestant who became Miss Oklahoma in 1958 then switched to singing where she went on to have a few hits in the late 1950’s-early 1960’s. I remember her best when she did a series of ads in the 1970’s for the Florida Citrus Commission where she touted the wonders of Florida orange juice and how Florida oranges were superior to oranges grown in other places (such as California and Arizona). Here is one such ad complete with her signature song whose lyrics included “Come to the Florida sunshine tree/Pour your double healthy glass of energy/Orange juice with natural Vitamin C/From the Florida Sunshine Tree.”
Here’s another ad that has Anita Bryant enlisting the help of Orange Bird to convince people to drink Florida orange juice along with the announcement that one can find Orange Bird at Walt Disney World.
Here is a 1972 ad where Anita Bryant and the Orange Bird are joined by Bryant’s real-life twins in promoting the value of orange juice.
I especially remember Anita Bryant and the Orange Bird together because my parents once gave me the 45 r.p.m. record single of Bryant singing “The Orange Bird Song,” which I can now relive thanks to YouTube.
Anita Bryant’s career began to decline soon after Miami-Dade County in Florida passed a gay rights ordinance in 1977 that forbid discrimination in housing, jobs, loans, and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation. Bryant and her then-husband, Bob Green, became so outraged over the idea of gays having the same civil rights as heterosexuals that they led an effort to repeal that law. In addition Anita Bryant began to claim that gays will come for people’s children because that’s the only way they can recruit new people to their ranks since they can’t have children themselves. While Anita Bryant’s campaign was successful in getting that law repealed, it turned out to be a pyrrhic victory for her personal and professional life in the long run. Bryant’s anti-gay efforts led to a nationwide boycott of anything made from Florida oranges and Anita Bryant soon lost her gig as the cheerful face of Florida orange juice. Bryant’s marriage to Bob Green would end in divorce just a few years later.
Since that time she has pretty much withdrawn from the public spotlight and rarely gives interviews these days. The last I’ve heard anything from her was when her ex-husband died a few years ago.
The Bottom Line: This issue is a pretty hilariously spot-on parody of those self-righteous people who seek to impose their own sense of morality on others to the point where they’ll even kill others (thus disregarding one of the Bible’s Ten Commandments that say “Thou shalt not kill”). The only downside is the dated ending referencing Anita Bryant in that people of a certain age will find it hilarious but younger generations reading this story won’t immediately get the joke without doing some online research.
Howard the Duck #22
May the Farce Be With You!
March, 1978
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer/editor; Val Mayerik, artist; William Wray, inker; John Costanza, letterer; Janice Cohen, colorist
This issue is not only the first of a two-part Star Wars parody but it’s also a reunion of the original co-creators of Howard the Duck, Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik.
Synopsis: Howard is sitting on the rooftop of the apartment building where his onetime boss, Lee Switzler, used to live and where Howard is currently staying until the rent runs out at the end of the month. Suddenly a strange creature that has giant ape arms and legs yet its body resembles a container of salt climbs up to the same rooftop. This creature manages to tackle Howard to the ground where it seasons the duck literally with salt until Howard’s body is totally covered. The creature then jumps from the rooftop to the street below where its lifeless salt container body breaks open and salt spills into the street.
A giant fly then flies to the rooftop and proceeds to attack Howard, who fends the fly off by hitting it with a guitar he finds on the roof. Howard feels a sense of dread that is reminiscent of what happened the day the cosmic axis shifted, which took Howard from his original home planet to Earth. Suddenly the Man-Thing and Dakimh the Enchanter appear. The wizard grabs Howard and the three of them suddenly disappear from the rooftop.
Howard, Dakimh, and the Man-Thing are at the Land Between Night and Day where Korrek the Barbarian and Jennifer Kale are waiting. The fivesome from Adventure Into Fear #19 and The Man-Thing #1 (the two-part sword and sorcery story which introduced Howard the Duck) are reunited. Everyone is overjoyed that Howard didn’t die like they thought he did when he seemed to fell to his death in The Man-Thing #1. Since the last time the five of them were together Dakimh had apparently died because he now exists only as a ghost. The only one who isn’t thrilled with this reunion is Howard because he is annoyed over being taken on an adventure that he would rather not go on.
The five of them enter a castle where they come upon the Waters of Eternity. As they gaze into the Waters of Eternity, Dakimh tells a story about a distant planet called Megrim, which is ruled by its immortal queen, Sombra. Whenever the queen feels the need to reproduce every one or two millenniums, Sombra will abuduct the most savage warriors from their home planets and bring them to Megrim so they can battle each other until only one is left standing. The last warrior then mates with Sombra, which kills that warrior but impregnates Sombra. (It’s similar to how Queen Bees reproduce except there’s more violence involved.) Sombra’s past children have tended more towards spiritual anesthesia and less towards violence and they can be stopped by a powerful force dedicated to joy.
This millennium Sombra’s most recent warrior battle that helps her choose a mate ended in disaster because the winning warrior survived the tournament because he was so insane that he continued fighting even though he had been hacked and slashed within an inch of his life. He was very eager to mate with Sombra after his victory so he ended up being another dead warrior during sex while Sombra became pregnant with his child and she gave birth to a son named Bzzk Joh, who is just as crazy as his late father while he has his mother’s depressive tendencies. Dakimh instructs Howard, Jennifer, the Man-Thing, and Korek that they must stop him by using the binding energy of the universe known as the Farce. Dakimh gives Howard a weapon that will unleash the Farce when the time comes and the wizard instructs the others to follow Howard’s lead.
Dakimh then disappears because, as a deceased person, his soul must periodically return to Therea, the Plane of Spirits, or his soul will die. Howard is very reluctant to be a leader while the others, especially Korek, have a hard time accepting the duck in that role.
Howard decides to go to the top of the castle to contemplate things against a night sky. Man-Thing joins him and Howard starts to consider the swamp muck creature to be a victim of circumstance as much as he is.
Howard starts to feel hungry so he and the Man-Thing walked around the castle until they find the kitchen. Howard opens the refrigerator expecting to find something to eat only to unleash a giant living pickle who starts to attack Howard. The Man-Thing defeats the giant pickle as the stench of burned cucumber and vinegar wafts over the entire kitchen.
Howard and the Man-Thing then hear a scream coming from downstairs. The pair race to the Waters of Eternity where a geyser had suddenly gone up with Bzzk Joh sitting at the top. He has just kidnapped Jennifer Kale and he threatens to make her bald if anyone tries to rescue her.
Topical 1970’s References: At the beginning Howard mentions playing the opening chord of The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” as he swats that giant fly with a guitar. Even though that song was released ten years earlier, I remember the local radio stations would play it on a somewhat regular basis alongside newer hits by the likes of Peter Frampton and Donna Summer. (This was back before the rise of Classic Rock radio where older hits by The Beatles tend to be relegated to that format instead of playing their music alongside newer acts. It’s a shame in a way because I think it was pretty cool being exposed to older music while listening to the latest hits.)
There are also references to Star Wars (since it is a parody of that film) beginning with the story’s title. At the time only the first Star Wars movie had been released which was simply titled Star Wars but in the years since its release the title has been altered to Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. The biggest irony is that years later Disney would purchase both Marvel and the Star Wars franchise so they are both now co-existing in the same corporation.
The Bottom Line: This story, featuring the original foursome from Adventure Into Fear #19 and Man-Thing #1, is far funnier than when the foursome last got together. It’s obvious the satiric influence of Howard the Duck has rubbed off because even the dead serious Dakimh showed flashes of humor. It is amusing that Dakimh not only appoints Howard as a leader responsible for something as powerful as the Farce, a position that Howard does not want, but also sends the duck on a quest that Howard wants no part of.
I also got a laugh out of Bzzk Joh threatening to turn his hostage Jennifer Kale bald should anyone attempt to rescue her. That’s an interesting threat to say the least!
It shows promise and it makes the reader eager for the second half of this story that was published in the following issue.
These issues were reprinted in Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 2, which can be purchased onine at AbeBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookDepository, Half.com, IndieBound, Indigo, Powell’s.
The Howard the Duck 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 and Marvel 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
Two years ago I spent the summer dedicating Throwback Thursdays to reviewing a series of books that American Girl (yes, it’s the doll company that originally became successful for putting out dolls that reflected a certain period in U.S. history with the accompanying series of books that explains the era that the doll represents) put out about the historical aspects of the 1970’s as seen through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl named Julie Albright. I had lived through that era so I basically read those books (which are aimed at girls between the ages of 8-12) and compared the 1970’s as depicted in those books with my own actual experiences of them. I started reading and re-reading those books earlier that year, took notes as I read them, and wrote a series of rough drafts. By the time Memorial Day came around I started uploading my reviews and I kept at it until I reached the last of those books in early September.
I pretty much had fun working on them. A major hiccup came when, at the same time that I was uploading those reviews, American Girl decided to do a major revamp of its historical line by renaming that line BeForever, which I personally think is the worst name for a product line ever but that’s another story altogether. As part of that revamping, American Girl decided to consolidate each historical character’s eight book Central Series book into two volumes while removing the illustrations plus adding an extra third volume. They also decided to get rid of the Best Friends line which meant that the doll representing Julie’s best friend, Ivy Ling, was being discontinued around the same time as I uploaded my review of the accompanying Best Friend Book, Good Luck, Ivy! Ultimately I decided to leave the eight-book review as is (while adding a disclaimer that the review pertains to an earlier edition of the book that was published before the BeForeer revamp in 2014) while not bothering with reviewing the two volume consolidation (since I had already reviewed the books in their earlier forms), and adding an extra review of the BeForever third volume (which is basically a Choose Your Own Adventure style book) since that was the only book released as part of the BeForever revamp that I could consider as new.
So I basically burned out on doing those reviews. I initially didn’t get much response for my effort but in the two years since I’ve noticed that there’s a spike in people reading that series whenever American Girl is about to release a new doll. I noticed this last year when American Girl was about to release its latest BeForever doll, Maryellen (who is supposed to represent the 1950’s) and I saw a spike in people reading my reviews of the Julie books.
So now I’m going to change gears a bit. Last summer I didn’t do anything special for Throwback Thursday because I needed a break after working on the Julie books. I’ve pretty much recovered from what I did two years ago so this year I’m going to once again devote each Thursday between now and Labor Day to doing a set of reviews of another series of books that were set in the 1970’s but these are as different from the Julie books as night and day. Here’s a brief background.
From the late 1960’s until the mid-to-late 1970’s there was the rise in alternative comic books known as comix. These comix took on topics that Marvel and DC wouldn’t touch (mainly because these two had voluntarily followed the guidelines set out by the Comics Code Authority, which is a fascinating topic that falls far outside the scope of this blog post series). The comix made fun of politics, religion, social mores while including not only sexual innuendo but also sex acts themselves. At times these comix had plots that were very surreal. One of the most famous comix is R. Crumb’s Fritz the Cat, which would be turned into an X-rated animated film. (I finally saw that film a few years back when I purchased the DVD as a gift for my then-husband, who told me he saw the movie years before we even met. I found the movie boring while my husband didn’t like seeing the movie again years later as much as he said he did the first time around. After my husband left I ended up selling the DVD to a used DVD store.)
In the 1970’s there was a comic book series titled Howard the Duck that also had surreal plots and made fun of politics, famous people, and social mores. The character was frequently described as “Trapped in a world he never made” and the comic book was clearly aimed at teens and adults. The most surprising thing about Howard the Duck is that it wasn’t an underground comix. In fact this series was released by Marvel Comics and it was actually distributed in mainstream places like pharmacies, grocery stores, bookstores, and newsstands. What’s even more surprising is that this series not only lasted throughout the 1970’s but it led to a major motion picture that was directed by George Lucas. Last year Howard the Duck was given a reboot for the 21st century and it’s currently a thriving comic book series. The major difference between Howard the Duck and Fritz the Cat is that the former had no sexually explicit scenes or scenes depicting drug use because that comic book still had to meet the standards set out by the Comics Code Authority that pretty much banned such topics. Yet that series managed to thrive and gain a cult following despite those restrictions.
As for me I was into really goofy humor between the ages of 10-14. First there were Wacky Packages, which I collected for a couple of years, which were baseball card-sized stickers that satirized various consumer products. (One example is the real life cleaning product Ajax, which billed itself as “The Blue Dot Cleanser.” Wacky Packages satirized that product as Ajerx The Blue Blot Cleanser which was guaranteed to leave blue blots everywhere you cleaned.) I moved on to Mad magazine which I loved to read each month. (There was also Cracked magazine, which I occasionally read but I personally preferred Mad because I thought the humor was way better in that magazine.) I used to giggle over the satire that was aimed at public figures, consumer products, television shows, and movies. Mad used to satirize R-rated movies like The Exorcist, which I loved because I wasn’t allowed to watch those movies at the time so I was able to get the gist of those films through Mad.
One day I accompanied my mother on an errand at a local pharmacy. I was perusing the newsstand when I found a color comic book titled Howard the Duck. The title made it sound like a kid’s book but then I saw the front cover and it looked way more sophisticated than the usual kiddie comic books I saw featuring Archie, Mickey Mouse, Little Lulu, Ritchie Rich, or Bugs Bunny. I thumbed through it and I saw a reference to the Rev. Joon Moon Yuc and his Yuccies, which was obviously a satire of the then-controversial Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church (where his followers were derided as “Moonies”) and I was hooked. I purchased the issue with my allowance money, took it home, and enjoyed it immensely.
I felt that Howard the Duck was just as hilarious as Mad magazine. Except Mad was a black and white magazine and nearly all of the kids in my neighborhood and school read it on a regular basis. As for comic books, there was the attitude among the kids my age that they were for little kids only. While I liked the Howard the Duck issue I bought, I didn’t announce that I liked it to the other kids because I was afraid of being teased for liking “baby stuff.” It wasn’t just paranoid fear either because it was during this same time I had trouble with this really crazy psycho bully that I finally wrote a post about over a year ago where I not only scanned what she wrote in my yearbook (which she swiped after I gave it to a classmate whom I wanted to sign and she pretty much confessed that she was a bully and she liked it—unfortunately this happened a day or two before the school year ended and we were both scheduled to transfer from middle school to high school in the fall so there was nothing the teachers could do to punish her) but also her yearbook photo, her name (or at least the name she was using at the time), and the name of the middle school we both attended.
This issue was the kind of issue that I didn’t forget because it was unique. Despite that, I didn’t buy many more issues of that comic book because I didn’t want to give the kids another reason why they should tease me. I just kept that one issue of Howard the Duck I purchased on the down low. (I think I may have purchased one or two other issues but I don’t remember for sure.) Eventually my mother got rid of it during one of her periodic purges of excess clutter. Years later I got married to a man who was into collecting Marvel comics. When he took me to a local comic book shop (which has since closed) where he got the latest issue of his favorite comic book (The X-Men), I saw back issues of Howard the Duck on sale located in boxes on the bottom level of the store. I managed to convince him to buy them and he really loved them, especially since the series took place in Cleveland. (He spent his undergraduate years at Oberlin College, which is located about 30 miles south of Cleveland.) I also enjoying reading those back issues since I missed most of them the first time around. Over time we bought as many of the back issues that we could afford to buy but we didn’t have a complete collection. (The earlier Howard the Duck issues were especially hard to find and the few copies available were very expensive.)
When it was announced that a Howard the Duck movie directed by George Lucas was going to be released, my husband and I were excited. At that time George Lucas had just completed the third movie in the original Star Wars trilogy and he had also worked on the Indiana Jones movies with Steven Spielberg. We were definitely looking forward to seeing that movie only to find it a major disappointment. That movie had jettisoned much of the political and social satire that made the original comic book series so memorable. (The only scene I remember that even remotely harkened back to the comic book was the one where Howard and his friends went out to eat at a place that was billed as a “Cajun Sushi” restaurant.) Instead that movie was filled with boring car chases. To say that my husband and I were let down by that movie is an understatement. Other people felt the same way because that movie was a major box office bomb.
My husband and I eventually stopped collecting comic books when the prices of new issues shot up to $1.50 plus we were busy with other things in our lives (such as jobs and being involved with various church and community activities). I eventually forgot about Howard the Duck. When my marriage broke up my husband took the bulk of the comic book collection that he felt was valuable including all those old Howard the Duck issues while leaving me with the dregs that had no value on the secondary comic book market. (I ended up turning those dregs into comic book coasters that I sold at various craft shows but that’s another story.)
I was first reminded of Howard the Duck in 2014 when I saw the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. I decided to stick around and watch the closing credits after the movie ended because I knew that in recent years there has been a trend in animation and super hero movie to include something special at the tail end after all the credits were finished scrolling. I saw this scene that took place at the Collector’s compound after he was defeated and his place was wrecked by the aforementioned Guardians of the Galaxy. After showing the Collector’s face, the camera turned to none other than Howard the Duck.
I have to admit that it was such a surprising blast from the past but then I promptly put the entire end scene out of my mind for a few months.
But then last year I happened to be in Annapolis when I decided to check out Third Eye Comics on the spur of the moment since I was in the area anyway. I saw a rack in the middle of the store that featured copies of Howard the Duck #1. I saw that Marvel had issue a reboot of Howard the Duck. I was initially shocked because I never thought that Howard the Duck would ever make any kind of comeback after George Lucas trashed that character. But there it was being displayed in front of my eyes. I decided to buy it for old times sake and I read it. I found myself enjoying it and I’ve been buying it each month since. (Howard the Duck is the only monthly Marvel comic book series that I give a damn about buying these days. That’s because each comic book issue costs $3.99 and it would be so easy to drop over $200 a month trying to keep up on the latest doings of the X-Men, Rocket Raccoon, Spider-Man, etc.)
At that point I found myself wishing that I still had the old 1970’s issues that my ex-husband took custody of. But then something cool happened to me last summer. I attended a Bingo event in Annapolis that was put on by my support group for people who are separated or divorced. I ended up winning $75. Flushed with cash I decided to go to Third Eye Comics since I was in the area anyway while deciding that I could afford to make an impulse buy on something just once. I ended up finding a copy of Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection Volume 1 which included not only the original 1970’s Howard the Duck issues 1-16 (along with Marvel Treasury Edition #12: Howard the Duck and Howard the Duck King-Size Annual #1) but also the original comic books where the character first appeared. I read it all the way through while laughing my head off at times. Two months ago I saw Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection Volume 2, which I also bought. Thanks to those two volumes I now have reprints of the entire original 1970’s color comic book series (which fans sometimes call the Gerber Classics after the series’ original writer and Howard the Duck co-creator Steve Gerber) along with the comic books where Howard made his first appearances prior to getting his own comic book series, the first issue of the black and white Howard the Duck magazine (which replaced the color comic book series), and various Howard the Duck comic strips that were published in Crazy magazine (which was Marvel’s now-defunct black and white humor magazine that attempted to compete with Mad and Cracked but it never gained as much attention as the other two).
So I decided to come up with an idea where I would do reviews of these original 1970’s comic book series in the same vein as my reviews of the Julie books. Even though both dealt with the 1970’s there are differences between the two. The Julie books were published between 2007-2014 so the 1970’s were viewed through a nostalgic haze where the tough parts of that era (such as gas shortages and inflation) were completely ignored or glossed over. In contrast the Howard the Duck comic books were published in the 1970’s so that era was treated as current events to be satirized head-on so the content regarding the 1970’s are far more edgy and raw than the more distant look back at the 1970’s. On top of that, the Julie books are aimed at girls between the ages of 8-12 so there are certain events that weren’t even covered at all (such as Rev. Moon or Anita Bryant’s notorious anti-gay rights campaign) while Howard the Duck was aimed at teens and adults so the comic book had no problem with tacking issues that American Girl would never touch with a 20-foot pole.
For those of you who have short attention spans I know that this post is TL;DR but I wanted to lay the basic groundwork on why I even wanted to devote Throwback Thursdays to Howard the Duck this summer. At last here is the first of the reviews where I focus on Howard the Duck’s first appearances in other comic books before he got his own series.
Adventure Into Fear #19
December, 1973
The Enchanter’s Apprentice!
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer; Val Mayerik, artist; Sal Trapani, inker; Art Simek, letterer; Stan G., colorist; Roy Thomas, editor
This is the comic book issue that is notable for having the first-ever appearance of Howard the Duck. The story itself is one of those sword and sorcery epics that’s a far cry from the later Howard the Duck comic books. The story begins with a strange creature known as the Man-Thing, who lives in a swamp in the Florida Everglades. He doesn’t understand human communication nor can he communicate himself. He is an empathic creature in that he can detect emotions from others. His swamp is suddenly overrun with all kinds of people and machines from other eras including an army of barbarians from Europe’s Dark Age and an Army platoon from World War II.
Meanwhile a young woman named Jennifer Kale starts having nightmares where she meets up with the Man-Thing in his Florida swamp that’s overrun with all kinds of people and machines from other eras. Eventually a sorcerer known as Dakimh the Enchanter shows up and he tells her that her nightmares stem from the fact that the Nexus of the Cosmic Axis (also known as the Nexus of All Realities), which is located in Man-Thing’s swamp, has been disrupted so people and creatures from all kinds of alternate realities are converging on one another in such a way that all of the realities are in danger of colliding with one another and life, as we know it, will perish. So Jennifer and Dakimh go off to the Nexus of the Cosmic Axis to see if they can fix the source of that disruption. The story ends in a cliffhanger.
Howard the Duck makes his first appearance towards the end of the story. He is among those who arrived in the Man-Thing’s Florida swamp home from an alternate reality due to the disruption in the Nexus of the Cosmic Axis/the Nexus of All Realities. He sports bright yellow feathers, a blue jacket, and a fedora hat while smoking a cigar.
He brings a little light comic relief into what is otherwise a basic sword and sorcery story that’s okay to read but it’s really nothing special. (The only other memorable scene is the one where a barbarian warrior known as Korrek emerges in Jennifer’s home from a jar of peanut butter, which is a pretty wacky scene.) But, as the old saying goes, you have to start somewhere and this is where Howard the Duck started.
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection Volume 1 includes an interview that the duck’s co-creator, Steve Gerber, gave to FOOM magazine where he said that the duck was originally created as a joke. He wanted to come up with a sight gag to rival a previous scene in Adventure Into Fear #19 where Korrek the Barbarian manages to emerge from a jar of peanut butter and he came up with a talking anthropomorphic duck emerging from bushes in the Man-Thing’s swamp home. He instructed artist Val Mayerick to come up with a sarcastic duck that had to be different from Donald Duck. He admitted that Mayerick added the cigar as a special touch, one that made Howard stand out from Donald. (Steve Gerber and Val Mayerick are generally credited as co-creators of Howard the Duck.) After he wrote Howard he realized that he had a special character that had a lot more potential than just being a throwaway guest character. He claimed that his bosses ordered him to get rid of Howard because they felt that Howard’s sarcastic humor was out of place in a comic book series that had been a serious drama that’s centered around the Man-Thing.
The Man-Thing #1
January, 1974
Battle for the Palace of the Gods!
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer; Val Mayerik, artist; Sal Trapani, inker; John Costanza, letterer; Dave Hunt, colorist; Roy Thomas, editor
After the 19th issue of Adventure Into Fear was published, the people at Marvel decided to re-name the series after the Man-Thing (since he was a regular in that comic book series) and start the issue numbering all over again with number 1. Yet the story picks up where Adventure Into Fear #19 left off.
Howard the Duck, Korrek the Barbarian, and the Man-Thing are attacked by a bunch of demons in the Man-Thing’s swamp homeland. Dakimh the Enchanter managed to use his magic to make those demons disappear. Then he brings the three of them to his castle while using his magic to also summon Jennifer Kale to his castle. Dakimh then tells the four of them that they have to set the Cosmic Axis right again so the order of the various eras and realities can be restored. In order to reach the Cosmic Axis Dakimh takes them to a place that’s beyond all realities where they initially begin climbing a set of stairs, which soon turns into a twisting ribbon which, in turn, leads to a series of stepping stones. Howard the Duck slips on one of the stepping stones and he falls to what looks like his apparent doom.
With Howard presumed dead, the remaining four move on to the Cosmic Axis where they end up arriving at this land where the gods live and defending the gods’ home against the enemies using sword and sorcery. To make a long story short, the enemies are defeated, Dakimh returns Korrek the Barbarian to his own time and place and he returns the Man-Thing back to his swamp home. Jennifer Kale opts to remain by Dakimh’s side because she finds out that she has the potential to become a powerful sorceress in her own right and Dakimh can provide the proper lessons so she can reach her full potential. At various times throughout the story the characters expressed concern over what happened to Howard but they concluded that he was dead and there was nothing else they could do other than to focus on defeating the demons who were messing with the Cosmic Axis and trying to attack the gods.
There is a cute gag at the end that plays off the fact that the word “dog” is “god” spelled backwards but, otherwise, it is basically a sword and sorcery story that’s a far cry from the later Howard the Duck comic books.
Giant-Size Man-Thing #4
May, 1975
Frog Death!
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer; Frank Brunner, artist and colorist; Tom Orz, lettering; Carl Barks, spiritual guide
Howard the Duck was originally created to be a one-shot guest character who would make his appearance towards the end of Adventure Into Fear #19 and be given a more prominent role in The Man-Thing #1 until he was depicted as falling to his death. But then something happened—readers actually enthusiastically responded to the duck while writing protest letters to Marvel for killing Howard. The response was so big that Marvel began to reconsider the idea of Howard the Duck being dead and gone. Fortunately Howard’s dead body wasn’t shown at all—only his fall into an abyss was depicted. So it was no big deal to say that Howard the Duck didn’t really die in that fall and keep him around for a while longer.
Marvel decided to give Howard his own story as a back-up feature in the fourth issue of Giant-Size Man-Thing (which sounds more like the title of a gay porn movie than a Marvel comic book). Howard is also given his first makeover—albeit a minor one. His bright yellow feathers from the original two-part sword and sorcery story were toned down to the pale yellow feathers he would sport for the rest of the original 1970’s color comic book run.
This is also the story where, for the first time, Howard issues his signature “WAUGH!” sound (which he makes whenever he is frustrated). It soon becomes Howard’s catchphrase.
The story starts off after Howard slips off one of the stepping stones in the place that’s beyond all realities. He can be seen tumbling through the void that’s between worlds and realities while the narration implied that Howard has been stuck falling in this cosmic limbo for months. Eventually he lands on what he thinks is his home planet until he sees two young human boys and he realizes that he had not only returned to the planet of the humans (whom he would refer to as “hairless apes” throughout the series) but he had landed in Cleveland. (Of course this story was written back when Cleveland was thought of as a declining industrial city long before the world-famous Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened there.)
Howard asks the boys to take him to the nearest cigar store where he encounters a very unfriendly store clerk. The boys tell him that it’s because the adults have gotten anxious ever since a man known only as Garko moved in the area and he has become notorious for sitting on his windowsill holding a jar full of an unknown liquid while openly talking about how he wants to conquer the world. After Howard and the boys walk past Garko sitting on his windowsill, Garko drinks the liquid from that jar that he has been holding in his lap for a long time. He immediately grows several feet taller while turning into a giant frog.
Garko catches up with Howard and the boys where he proclaims himself as Garko the Man-Frog (it’s obvious that part of the name is a parody of the Man-Thing) and he intends to kill them. Howard tells the boys to run and call the police while he distracts Garko the Man-Frog. Howard finds a board in a nearby alley where he uses it to beat Garko so savagely that Garko’s size shrinks down until he’s the size of an average frog. Garko becomes a full-fledged frog who can only croak and can’t speak like a human. Garko hops away at the precise time when the police arrives. The police naturally think that Howard is the strange maniac whom the kids called about so they arrest him and load him in a police car so they can take him to the police station. In a totally hilarious twist, the police car that Howard is riding in ends up running over Garko (while the frog was hopping across the street) so he becomes squished dead in the street and now there’s no evidence that Garko the Man-Frog had ever existed.
I have to admit that the short Garko story is more hilarious and enjoyable than the two-part sword and sorcery epic where Howard the Duck made his first appearance. That twist at the end reminds me of so many endings of different Twilight Zone episodes that were full of irony. (Such as the famous episode where a bookworm wearing thick glasses had a hard time with finding time to indulge his love of reading books. He managed to be the only survivor in his area of a nuclear blast. He found a library full of books and he expresses happiness that, at last, he now has all the time in the world to read. But then he breaks his glasses, which he needs to read the books so, once again, he couldn’t indulge his love of reading books.) It’s a very short story but I found it enjoyable nonetheless.The story also sets the tone for future Howard the Duck stories as Howard frequently encounters the strangest assortment of villains anywhere in the comic book world.
Giant-Size Man-Thing #5
August, 1975
Hellcow!
Credits: Steve Gerber, writer; Frank Brunner, artist; Tom Palmer, inker; Annette Kawecki, letterer; Glynis Wein, colorist; Len Wein, editor
Once again Howard the Duck has his own story as a back-up feature to the further adventures of the Man-Thing. Howard’s story starts where his previous back-up feature in Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 leaves off: With him sitting in jail since he was arrested after the police assumed that he was the inhuman maniac when the real thing, Garko the Man-Frog, accidentally met his demise under the wheels of a police car. The police commissioner meets Howard in his cell because his officers, who feel that Howard is really a midget in a duck suit, were unable to find a way of removing the presumed “duck suit.” So the police commissioner does a thorough strip search of Howard and finds out, to his horror, that Howard is really a talking duck so he immediately boots the duck from jail.
So Howard’s one problem (being in jail) is solved only for a new problem to emerge: How is he going to find work in a strange planet so he could afford to get an apartment and purchase food? Soon Howard finds a newspaper that has a story about a farmer who was murdered under mysterious circumstances. Howard then comes up with this scheme: He would solve the murder, turn the murderer in to the police who, in turn, would give Howard a job with the police force. Not long after Howard starts searching for the murderer he comes face-to-face with the killer known as the Hellcow, who is literally a vampire cow. Yes, that’s right, a vampire cow whose original mortal cow name was Bessie (there was a brief backstory that had her originally living on a farm in Switzerland until a desperately hungry vampire who couldn’t find human blood to drink decided to go after cow blood instead) and who wears a cape that can convert into bat wings so Hellcow can fly away at a moment’s notice. Yes, that’s right, a flying vampire bat cow (or a flying vampire cow bat).
The climatic battle takes place in an auto repair shop where Howard is able to stun Hellcow by showing her the cross-shaped lug wrench (since vampires have traditionally been depicted as fearing crosses in general) while finding a hammer and wooden stake. The Hellcow tries to attack Howard but she lands in a pile of steel-belted radial tires where her vampire fangs are stuck in one of the tires. Howard drives the stake through Hellcow’s heart just in time for the police to arrive. However when the police gets inside of the auto repair shop they see that Hellcow’s dead body had reverted back to her original cow form and the same officers who previously arrested Howard encounter him again. They decide that they want nothing to do with this strange scene so they split, leaving Howard still penniless, jobless, and homeless.
Howard’s tangle with the Hellcow is the best of the early stories. Hellcow’s appearance sets the stage for the subsequent Howard the Duck comic book series as the duck frequently faces off against the most ludicrous villains who have ever appeared in the Marvel Universe.
The Bottom Line: Looking at all of the stories that came before the comic book series it’s clear that the topical satire and frequent 1970’s pop culture references aren’t present in any of them. The two-part story that introduced Howard the Duck is basically a typical sword and sorcery epic that fans of that genre would appreciate. For non-fans only the scenes featuring Korrek the Barbarian emerging out of the jar of peanut butter and the scenes featuring Howard the Duck are the most interesting parts. Without those scenes, there’s really nothing about that two-part story that would interest non-fans. But the later two horror parodies “Frog Death!” and “Hellcow!” are pretty funny to read, especially the latter story. I highly recommend those two stories because they set the satiric tone for the entire series.
These issues were reprinted in Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 1, which can be purchased online at AbeBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookDepository, Google Play, Half.com, IndieBound, Indigo, Powell’s.
The Howard the Duck Series
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 1 (1977-1979)
The Early Stories
Howard the Duck #1-3
Howard the Duck #4-5
Howard the Duck #6
Howard the Duck #7 and Marvel 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
Sagittarius Dolly 
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