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Continuing this winter holiday series of Throwback Thursday posts dedicated to Howard the Duck.
Marvel Team-Up #96
“Spider-Man and Howard the Duck”
August, 1980
Credits: Alan Kupperberg, script/letters/colors; Denny O’Neil, editor; James Shooter, editor-in-chief
Howard the Duck appeared in a color comic book for the first time since the original Howard the Duck color comic book #31 came out in 1979. This particular issue came out between the black and white Howard the Duck magazine issues 6 and 7. Story-wise it looks like the events may have taken place before the last story at the end of the magazine issue 5 (when Winda Webster used her psionic powers to transport Howard and Beverly to Duckworld) because Howard is described as still living in Cleveland where he is working as a taxicab driver.
Synopsis: The story begins in New York City where Spider-Man is busy swinging around buildings using his web-slinging skills while avoiding New York’s notorious rush hour traffic.
Howard the Duck is stuck in that rush hour traffic because he was hired to drive a man 500 miles from Cleveland all the way to New York. He briefly sees Spider-Man swinging around buildings but he is more concerned about his current job. His passenger asks him when he’ll reach his ultimate destination.
At that point Howard asks him why did he hire Howard’s cab to make the 12-hour drive to New York City. The passenger responds by saying that he has always taken taxicabs whenever he traveled because it’s the status quo, which he has sworn to uphold at all time. In fact, he started to call himself Status Quo.
Status Quo starts to tell Howard his origin story, which began when he was a happy Cleveland librarian who lived a peacefully ordered life until the youth with their hula hoops and skateboards began to shatter his quiet existence followed by joggers and frisbees. His mind begins to snap when a frisbee that a boy threw his way knocked his hat off of his head and it ultimately landed in a storm drain. He also began to have trouble sleeping at night because his apartment was located right below a disco roller rink.
Finally Status Quo had had enough and decided to declare a war on all fads so that society would revert back to his vision of what the status quo should be. Status Quo began to do after hours research at the library on Madison Avenue media manipulation and subliminal seduction techniques. Using his newfound knowledge he began to attract adherents to his cause of wiping out fads. He is due to speak at the first-ever anti-fad rally in Central Park.
Howard uses his C.B. radio, which Status Quo hates because it’s yet another fad, to contact another cab driver on the best route to Central Park and one of the cabbies helps him on a route. Howard drops off Status Quo in Central Park.
Once Status Quo enters Central Park Howard decides to follow him to see what this rally is all about. He sees Status Quo giving an anti-fad speech rousing his supporters to declare war on all fads. His followers begin to go after joggers who happened to jog by the rally and frisbee throwers who are playing nearby. Then they move on to trashing a nearby discotheque.
Meanwhile Spider-Man has returned to his apartment very exhausted. He initially decides to just watch the news before he falls asleep. At that moment the news is focused on the story about Status Quo’s rally. As the camera pans over the attendees, Spider-Man sees Howard the Duck among them. Spider-Man remembers when they interacted with each other (way back in the first issue of the Howard the Duck color comic book) and he has a feeling that something bad could go wrong so he decides to leave his apartment and head towards the rally.
Spider-Man arrives at the disco just as it’s being trashed and he manages to save a woman and a man from the flying glass. When Spider-Man confronts the protesters, they respond by throwing frisbees rigged with TNT (that they said were given to them by Status Quo as a way of fighting fads with fads). Spider-Man manages to dodge the frisbees only to see the protesters escape using jet-powered skateboards that were also given to them by Status Quo. Ultimately he manages to trap some of them on one city block behind two giant webs that block all traffic from both sides.
At the same time a few of Status Quo’s followers notice that Howard is a talking duck and they think that he is a new fad—midgets dressed in duck suits. They start to go after Howard while he tries to dodge them by running further inside Central Park. The protesters continue to pursue him so he decides to take off all of his clothes and camouflage himself among the other ducks at a pond. After the protesters decide to leave the area, Howard comes out of the pond only to discover that someone had stolen his clothes that he left by the side of the pond. He becomes so angry that he decides to confront Status Quo.
Meanwhile at the NBC newsroom at Rockefeller Center, the network learn about Status Quo’s rally and how it turned violent so they decide to send a mobile unit to the area.
Spider-Man confronts a few of Status Quo followers in Central Park when they decide to go after him because they are convinced that he is a fad as well. Spider-Man manages to quickly trap them in his web.
Howard reaches Status Quo, who is standing at the top of Belvedere Castle in the middle of Central Park while enjoying the media converging on him. When Howard confronts him, Status Quo grabs him and attempts to throw him over the top of the castle down to the hard ground below. Spider-Man manages to save Howard and trap Status Quo in a web. At that moment the media arrives to the top of the castle and Status Quo begins to bask in the attention while saying that he intends to use the moment to appeal to the general public to send him enough funds so he can extend his preservation of the status quo over the entire world.
At that point, Howard tells Status Quo that he has now become the very thing that he hates the most—an opportunist who’s media-hyping his way into the national consciousness for his own selfish ends. Status Quo thinks it over for a minute and says that he may have to re-think his ideas. The police decide to put Status Quo under psychiatric observation as they take him away. The crowd who came to hear Status Quo disperses and leave Central Park. Spider-Man picks up Howard and swings over to where the duck has parked his taxicab just in time for Howard to encounter a police officer writing a parking ticket for parking in a horse and buggy zone and also for driving in feathers.
Topical References: This story was obviously published when the C.B. craze of the late-1970s and early-1980s was still very high. The hit song “Convoy” by C.W. McCall was the epitome of the C.B. craze.
There were also mentions of disco music, although the disco craze was starting lose popularity around this time. The only crazes mentioned in this story that people still engage in to this day (especially in warm weather) are frisbees, jogging, and hula hoops.
The Bottom Line: Status Quo is the latest in a line of wacky villains who have made Howard’s life miserable. Had I read this story nine or ten years ago, I would’ve just laugh it off as a pretty silly story just like the ones featuring the Kidney Lady.
But after reading this story in 2019, it definitely hit a raw nerve with me. Even though this story was published in 1980, it just reminds me so much of the rise of Donald Trump and how he has managed to get fanatical followers who are extremely loyal and devoted to him.
I’m old enough to remember when Trump first became famous because of the book The Art of the Deal (which was really written by someone else but Trump’s photo and name were prominently featured as the “author”). He frequently courted press attention by proclaiming himself to be a successful businessman and trotting out his first wife, Ivana, and their three children (Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric) to the general public as a way of proving how he is a billionaire who has it all. Even after he left Ivana for Marla Maples (who became his second wife) around the same time that he filed for his first bankruptcy, he kept on courting the media and the media latched on to him like he was someone special. I find it telling that Trump managed to continue to perpetrate the myth that he is a “successful businessman” despite his multiple bankruptcies and the mainstream media never sought to investigate how “successful” Trump really is until after he decided to run for president.
Trump frequently holds political rallies in various parts of the country, even when it’s not a presidential election year. In fact, it’s unprecedented for a sitting president to hold so many rallies when it’s not an election year. The footage I’ve seen of some of Trump’s rallies have reminded me of the Status Quo rally in this story. Just as Status Quo speaks out against fads in a desire to make America revert to a time when fads didn’t exist, Trump’s slogan of “Make America Great Again” shows that he wants this country to revert back to a time when the Jim Crow laws were in full force, most women didn’t work outside of the home, LGBTQ people faced widespread discrimination, and there was extreme income inequality between the few wealthy people and the rest of the non-wealthy population.
The media coverage of Status Quo is also reminiscent of how the media have covered Donald Trump ever since he decided to run for president. There were times when I saw certain reporters being way more deferential to Trump than to the other candidates mainly because he was a celebrity businessman who was also the host of a hit reality show. The media had given more airtime to Donald Trump than to any other candidate who rain in the 2016 presidential election. Donald Trump had gone after the few reporters who have said anything critical about him on Twitter (such as Megyn Kelly) and there were times when he refused to interview with any reporters who questioned him. As a result, the mainstream media was way more deferential towards Trump because they feared that Trump would deny them access to him if they were too critical of him.
Just as people these days compare Trump to Hitler (with good reason—his administration have thrown innocent immigrant children in cages), Spider-Man mentions that Status Quo seems to have a way of attracting followers that’s reminiscent of Hitler. During the 2016 election Donald Trump bragged that he could kill a man on Fifth Avenue in New York City and his followers wouldn’t care. Unfortunately he seems to be right because Trump has been accused of all kinds of crimes (such as threatening Ukraine with a complete withholding of previously earmarked U.S. government funds unless they come up with damaging information about one of his opponents currently running for president, Joe Biden, and Biden’s son, Hunter) and he still seems to be able to get people to come to his political rallies professing their undying loyalty to him.
It’s incredibly telling that Trump has his strongest support among far right-wing evangelical Christians even though Trump himself has five children from three different marriages, has cheated on all of his wives with other women, has been accused of rape and sexual assault by several different women, and has even been recorded bragging about how he grabs a woman by the pussy.
Donald Trump is so addicted to constant attention—both positive and negative—that he seems to say or do anything to make sure that people constantly talk about him. Just taking a look at his latest Twitter tweets says it all about how much he basks in all of that attention. While Howard managed to get through to Status Quo at the end to get him to see that he has become a media creature that’s little better than the fads that he is protesting against, Trump lacks any kind of insight about his actions. It’s useless for anyone to have a heart-to-heart talk with him to get him to see how his actions are having an adverse affect on the country because he just doesn’t care. For him it’s all about the world paying attention to him. In that aspect, he has the mentality of a dog or a toddler, although that statement is an insult to dogs and toddlers because both have more redeeming qualities than Trump.
Bizarre Adventures #34
“Howard the Duck’s Christmas”
February, 1983
Credits: Steven Grant and Paul Smith
Even though the final issue of the black and white Howard the Duck magazine mentioned that Howard would soon return to his own color comic book series, this story was the only new Howard story that was published between the end of the black and white magazine’s run in 1981 and 1986 (when the Howard the Duck movie was released). This one is a Christmas story that is a parody of the classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life. This is the second Howard the Duck Christmas story (with the previous one being “A Christmas for Carol,” which was published in the black and white magazine).
Synopsis: A despondent Howard is in San Francisco where he is at the Golden Gate Bridge on Christmas Eve. For reasons that are not fully explained, he decides to commit suicide so he jumps off of the bridge. At that point he is grabbed at the jumping off point and put back on the bridge by a mysterious figure who has white hair and is dressed all in white.
This figure, who resembles a young clean-shaven version of Colonel Sanders of KFC fame, tells Howard that he is an angel who has been sent to convince Howard not to commit suicide. If the angel succeeds, he will earn his wings.
The angel takes Howard and travels through alternative timelines in an effort to show him what the lives of his friends would’ve been like had he never been born.
First they visit Paul Same, who is in prison because Howard wasn’t there to prevent Paul from killing an art critic. Paul is shown painting a canvas in his prison cell when he gets a visit from his lawyer. The lawyer tells Paul that, ever since the trial, his paintings have been selling out and the prices for them are going through the roof. He also tells Paul that the book and movie rights have been sold for $10 million dollars and the governor is talking about giving him a pardon.
The angel realizes that showing Paul’s fate to Howard was a big mistake so he decides to show what happened to Arthur Winslow, a would-be writer and Beverly’s friend who briefly became the Space Turnip. The angel takes Howard to a scene in Hollywood where Arthur Winslow is sharing a hot tub with three sexy women and a bald overweight producer whom Arthur is pitching ideas for a possible storyline for a popular TV series. The producer is so enamored with Arthur’s ideas that he greenlights everything Arthur has pitched while telling Arthur that they are the best ideas he has come up with since he wrote the pilot for the popular Husky & Starch TV show.
Howard tells the angel that he’s striking out on showing Howard a life where he was never born. The angel begs Howard to give him one more chance and Howard says that he’ll agree only on the condition that the angel will return Howard to the Golden Gate Bridge in his own timeline if this third effort fails. The angel agrees to that condition.
The angel takes Howard to the New York City docks where his longtime companion, Beverly Switzler, is working as a prostitute. She is talking with one of her johns, a sailor named Jimmy whom she has also fallen in love with. Jimmy hugs a tearful Beverly and tells her that he would marry her if only things were different. She tells him that she will always be there for him from midnight until 3 a.m.
At that point a car drives up and a man comes out. The man is Jimmy’s father and he tells Jimmy that he and his mother have been worried sick about him ever since he ran away from home. Jimmy and his father embrace as they reconcile their relationship and Jimmy decides to return home. At that point Beverly recognizes Jimmy’s father from a photograph published in the newspaper as the baby food billionaire. Jimmy then asks Beverly to marry him.
The angel honors his promise and takes Howard back to the Golden Gate Bridge in his own timeline. At that point the angel becomes despondent over never getting his wings because he really botched up in showing Howard how his friends’ lives would’ve been affected had he never been born. The angel attempts to jump off the bridge himself. Howard talks the angel out of jumping while saying that the urge he felt to take his own life had passed and he has now lost interest in jumping off of the bridge. Howard lights a cigar and offers to buy the angel a drink at a local bar that is still opened on Christmas Eve.
At that point the church bells start tolling and, as the scene is shown further and further away from Howard and the angel, the angel tells Howard that every time a church bell tolls, an angel gets his wings. The last scene is a faraway scene showing the Golden Gate Bridge but it implies that the angel had managed to get his wings after all.
The Bottom Line: It’s a pretty amusing parody of It’s a Wonderful Life that I found funny. While it lacks the sweet emotion of the previous Howard the Duck Christmas story (“A Christmas for Carol,” which was printed in the old black and white magazine), I found it enjoyable nonetheless.
These issues were reprinted in Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 4, which can be purchased online at AbeBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BookDepository, eBay, IndieBound, Indigo, and Powell’s.
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 1 (1973-1977)
The Early Stories
Howard the Duck #1-3
Howard the Duck #4-5
Howard the Duck #6
Howard the Duck #7 andMarvel Treasury Edition #12: Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck #8
Howard the Duck #9-11
Howard the Duck #12-14
Howard the Duck King Size Annual #1 and Howard the Duck #15
Howard the Duck #16
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 2 (1977-1979)
Howard the Duck #17-19
Howard the Duck #20-22
Howard the Duck #23-25
Howard the Duck #26-28
Howard the Duck #29-31
Howard the Duck Magazine #1
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 3 (1979-1980)
Howard the Duck Magazine #2
Howard the Duck Magazine #3
Howard the Duck Magazine #4
Howard the Duck Magazine #5
Howard the Duck Magazine #6
Howard the Duck Magazine #7
Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Volume 4 (1980-1996)
Howard the Duck Magazine #8
Howard the Duck Magazine #9
Marvel Team-Up #98 and Bizarre Adventures #34
Howard the Duck #32-33
Sensational She-Hulk #14-17
Marvel Tales#237 and Spider-Man Team-Up #5
Howard the Duck MAX (2002)
Howard the Duck MAX #1-2
Howard the Duck MAX #3-4
Howard the Duck MAX #5-6
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This year is the fifth anniversary of this blog. For the first year I was unsure about how many photos I could actually upload because of the free WordPress.com blogging account has a space limit. So I kept photo uploads limited to just my arts and crafts along with any photographs that I actually exhibited in a show. Over time I learned such things as graphic optimization so I was able to upload more photos that way than I thought I could. So for the rest of the year I’m going to devote Throwback Thursday to photos from previous blog entries (along with links to the original posts) that I should’ve uploaded five years earlier but I didn’t.
In mid-June, 2010 my then-husband and I went to New York City to visit his father and step-mother. That trip was momentous because soon after I went there, I wrote this rant called I Don’t Love New York Anymore. I had an epiphany on that trip because I saw so many chain stores in Manhattan that it was unreal. I still have memories of an earlier time when there were more locally owned businesses than chain stores and these local businesses offered a more diverse array of items for sale.
Here are just a few of my photos from that weekend trip, which led me to write that rant.
I remembered I roamed the streets of New York City mostly by myself because my in-laws were busy with observing the Sabbath (my ex’s step-mother is an Orthodox Jew and his father converted to her faith shortly before they were married) while my then-husband was busy with watching the World Cup soccer matches.
Day 1 (June 13, 2010) I walked along the city streets while I took these photos.
I ran into the annual Puerto Rican parade where I saw people waving Puerto Rican flags while floats were driving along the streets.
I shot a short video that featured just a small portion of that parade.
The parade was pretty crowded so I decided to head over to the nearest subway stop and take the next subway train to Greenwich Village. I found that the nearest stop was Rockefeller Center. I ended up at Radio City Music Hall, where workers were in the process of preparing for the Tony Awards that would be broadcast on CBS that very evening.
Here’s a shot of Rockefeller Center from a upward angle.
I made a brief stop at the MSNBC.com Cafe inside Rockefeller Center before I went into the subway station.
I took a couple of shots of some interesting wall etchings on my way to the subway station.
Once I reached Greenwich Village, I found this statue of Mahatma Gandhi.
Here are a few more photos of the Village.
On June 14, 2010, I began the second day of my solo wandering through New York City by making a trip to Dylan’s Candy Bar, a place that’s best described as a candy store on steroids.
Then I took some photos of what I saw on the streets of New York City.
I visited FAO Schwartz when it was still located on Fifth Avenue. (Sadly that store closed its doors for good just a few months ago.) I took photos of this life-sized statue of Chewbacca made from Legos and this line of environmentally friendly stuffed animals that were sold exclusively at FAO Schwartz.
I made a return visit to Rockefeller Center where I took some more external photos.
At that time there were signs in one of the empty storefronts announcing the opening of a new Lego store located right in the heart of Rockefeller Center. (I would actually visit that store on a subsequent trip to New York City the following year.)
The last few photos were taken at the MSNBC.com Cafe that’s located right inside the NBC Store in Rockefeller Center. That cafe had some pretty funky decor.
I remember that the NBC Store sold bobblehead dolls of its biggest stars—Jim Cramer of CNBC’s Mad Money, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC’s Countdown With Keith Olbermann, and Jay Leno of NBC’s The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. Of those three bobblehead dolls that were on sale back in 2010, Jim Cramer is the only one whose show is still on the air at CNBC. Keith Olbermann’s show has long since been cancelled on MSNBC while Jay Leno has retired from his show and has since been replaced by Jimmy Fallon.
If you’re looking for unique reasonably-priced one-of-a-kind art that doesn’t take up a lot of space in your home, I have this piece currently on sale in my Etsy shop.
This art is very small so it’s perfect for people with limited display space. It’s also the ideal gift for people who are into skulls. For more information about this piece, read the post I originally wrote on October 22, 2010. You can order this skull art right here.
NBC’s ratings for its pathetic Olympics coverage is lower than it was at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. There are plenty of reasons, as well documented on the Twitter feed #NBCFail. Even NBC’s attempts of trying to explain aspects of the host country is pretty inept. If you only watch NBC’s primetime broadcast, you would get an image of a place of saunas, vodka, and Matryoshka dolls.
To be honest, there’s way more about Russian culture than what NBC has shown so far. There are the numerous legends and fairy tales. If you do a quick Google search you would learn that there is more arts and crafts than just Matryoshka dolls.
And then there is the animation. I never knew that the old Soviet Union was such an innovation in animation that could rival Japanese anime and Disney animation. Here’s an example below. It’s a 1980’s animation short called Wings, Legs, and Tails that has English subtitles.
The Winter Olympics have gone through its first week. I’m still poking around on YouTube for some Russian and Soviet themed videos. What I’ve found there are way more interesting than NBC’s attempt of introducing Americans to Russian culture. (I’ve seen the lame profiles on Moscow, Siberia, and drinking vodka.) It’s too bad because I’ve found all sorts of interesting things on Russian culture. On example is this clip featuring four stop-motion animated shorts featuring a creature who looks like a cross between a bear and a monkey named Cheburashka and his best friend, a crocodile named Gena. Cheburashka is totally cute and the animation is really charming.
I’m currently watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Sochi Olympics on NBC as I’m typing this entry. The ceremonies began with a little girl reciting the Cyrillic alphabet along with the Russian word each letter stood for. (Like “A” is for apple, etc.) In the midst of showing such Russian words and names as “Sputnik”, “Nabokov”, and “Dostoevsky”, there was a drawing of a hedgehog with the English translation showing as “Hedgehog in the Fog.” That picture immediately brought back memories of my pet hedgehog, Spike, who passed away back in September after living with me for over a year-and-a-half.
For the heck of it I looked up “Hedgehog in the Fog” and found this Wikipedia entry. “Hedgehog in the Fog” was the title of a 1975 Soviet Russian animated short film. I also found the animation on YouTube, which is in Russian with English subtitles. The animation is totally charming and it stands on its own against the best of Disney animation and Japanese anime.
While I managed to make it through Hurricane Sandy okay with no major drama, unfortunately others weren’t as lucky. People living in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey are dealing with destroyed homes, flooded homes, and power outages. Right now these people need your help.
On November 2 there will be a telethon airing on NBC, featuring performances by Bruce Springsteen and Christina Aguilera, whose proceeds will benefit the American Red Cross. On November 5 ABC will conduct a Day of Giving across all of its shows. If you’re not able to watch television on any of those dates, there are other ways that you can help the victims by following the links below.
Charity Navigator’s page on ethical charities (which is valuable to help weed out the scammers who are now out in full force raising money when little to none of the funds raised will really go to the people impacted by Hurricane Sandy).
The Nation’s page on How to Help the Victims of Hurricane Sandy.
Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund
If you want to do more than just give money and you have the time to volunteer directly, Occupy Wall Street has started an Occupy Sandy program which, according to this Slate.com article, has even outperformed the American Red Cross in certain situations.
Skull Art 7
Mixed-media (acrylic paint, computer graphics, and Shrinky Dinks plastic on canvas)
2.5 inches x 2.5 inches
6 cm x 6 cm
Skull Art 8
Mixed-media (acrylic paint, computer graphics, and Shrinky Dinks plastic on canvas)
2.5 inches x 2.5 inches
6 cm x 6 cm
Here are two more of the art pieces that will be on display at this upcoming art show in the near future. They are based on Mexican-style skulls that are displayed at the annual Mexican holiday Day of the Dead. With these two, I attempted a sly modern take on the skulls. Skull Art 7 features the most notorious line from the 1980’s film Wall Street in both Spanish ("La Avaricia es Buena") and English ("Greed is Good") and a bunch of logos from health insurance companies, Wall Street firms, and large banks. Skull Art 8 features logos from such well-known companies like ESPN, NBC, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Nike, CBS, ABC, Pepsi, Apple Computer, Starbucks, CNN, McDonald’s, Fox News, Twitter, and Google.
Each canvas was painted in a solid color in acrylic paint. I printed each skull out on special Shrinky Dinks plastic that was made for ink jet printers then baked it in an oven until it was small enough to fit on the canvas.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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