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Howard the Duck #1 (of 4) Posted 22 Oct 2007Writer: Ty Templeton
Reviewed by Adam McGovern |
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For a common game species, Howard the Duck has always been a hard target to hit. Ever since creator Steve Gerber’s brilliant, at-the-time underappreciated run, writers have tried to tame the sarcasm and surrealism of a series whose success depends on it, and assumed the very self-importance in their social-satire jokes that Howard was born to deflate.
“Howard’s jokes don’t work unless no one escapes their sting, including you.” |
The cartoonish humor and smug jabs at “Middle America” in the late-’70s magazine that replaced Gerber’s comics like a pod-person were all beside the point, since Howard’s jokes don’t work unless no one escapes their sting, including him, the writer, and you. Howard is the captive-audience critic of a universe full of costumed freaks (and we, their loyal fans) who think he’s the only oddity.
Two creators have gotten it right when Gerber’s not around; Tom DeFalco for a few pages in J2, when an aging Howard was the heckler at a tournament of Marvel’s past-prime martial artists, and Ty Templeton for one story in Civil War: Choosing Sides, where the Duck Knight provided the sole comic relief in that self-serious event.
Now the time and team that’s right for Howard are at last here in
this welcome mini also by Templeton, with artist Juan Bobillo. The
bottomless cynicism and battered nobility of the wisecracking
waterfowl are gotten just right, and American life has grown
sufficiently absurd that Templeton can record what he sees with little
danger of rising above the fray. Bobillo provides a hilarious,
early-MAD Magazine attention to seedy, slapstick detail, and
the tale of urban warfare, off-brand A.I.M. archfiends, and marital
bickering between an ageless Bev Switzler and an eternally old man-ish
Howard will supply readers of every taste with something they can
truly say they’ve never seen in comics.