REVIEW: Howard the Duck MAX Series

Howard the Duck MAX tpb

Writer: Steve Gerber, Art: Phil Winslade, Glenn Fabry.

Marvel, 2001.

This six issue miniseries (collected into a single trade in 2002) was one of the first things to be published under the Marvel MAX imprint, which seems tailored both to writers like Steve Gerber and characters like Howard the Duck. The loosened restraints that come with being a MAX book allowed Gerber to expand beyond the already surreal concepts and plots that he developed in his “normal” Marvel work. It also gave him an opportunity to mix a little venom in his social criticism by allowing an embrace of adult themes, mainly nudity and profanity, since we seem to think graphic violence can deserve a pass these days, because we see it as far less dangerous to show an exploding head then a female’s nipple.

But I digress…

The series begins with Howard and Beverly living in a junkyard shack. Beverly lands a job at a marketing firm that is testing boy bands for their “arousal” factor on a group of gay men. It seems that the boy bands are not just being tested, but grown in cloning vats. When the firm is revealed to be run by Dr. Bong, who hired Beverly because he is still carrying a torch for her, conflict ensues and Howard is knocked into a vat of recombinant DNA protein when he comes to save Beverly.

Continue reading REVIEW: Howard the Duck MAX Series

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Omega vs. OmegaMarvel’s 2007 “Omega the Unknown” series by Jonathan Lethem was a “paraphrasing” of a Steve Gerber series from the ’70s. How do the two stack up? What does Lethem’s version have to say about Gerber’s? Tim and Paul compare and contrast the two Omegas.

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The Essential Howard the Duck vol. 1 collects all of Steve Gerber’s 1970s writing for Marvel’s Code-approved Howard the Duck comic. Tim and Kumar talk about what Gerber got away with in spite of the code, and how HTD differs from most ’70s Marvel books.