The Essential Howard the Duck

    (Marvel, 2002)
™ and © 1975-1978, 2002 Marvel Entertainment Group

Marvel’s Essential Howard the Duck arrived in a timely fashion. As his new MAX series is generating interest, this volume enables new readers to familiarize themselves with Howard’s background and rich inventory of oddball characters.

Howard the Duck was one of the most innovative comics of the 1970s. This volume reprints the first 27 issues of Howard’s series, plus his early appearances, his Annual, and his Treasury Edition. Since the series only ran 33 issues, in order to do a second volume, Marvel would have to include his magazine series and possibly his (shudder) movie adaptation.

Steve Gerber, Howard’s creator, wrote cutting-edge stories that caught readers’ attention, and with good reason. There are send-ups of Marvel mainstays of the ’70s (Conan, Shang-Chi, Son of Satan), as well as commentary on then-current events (Rev. Joon Moon Yuc and his Yuccies, Howard’s 1976 bid for the presidency). This volume reprints the very first comic-book appearance of the rock group Kiss (in #12-13), as well as the infamous “Deadline Doom” issue (#16—look for a prototype of Gerber’s later Vertigo creation, Nevada). Howard also has a rogues’ gallery of the oddest of the lame and the lamest of the odd.

While Marvel’s Essentials series is great as far as page-per-buck is concerned, far outweighing a Marvel Masterworks or DC Archives volume, it does not provide the visual and tactile enjoyment of those higher-end series. It is thick and floppy on cheaper paper. While it may be the only way to get certain series into readers’ hands, it has the look and feel of a telephone directory.

Also, Marvel should number the pages, so that readers can easily find their favorite chapters (and so that reviewers don’t have to count them).

— Jack Abramowitz
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