The Incompleat Howard - Volume Four!

Howard the Duck - The Complete Collection Volume Four is the focus of this last lingering look at Marvel's most famous fowl. This is a wide-ranging collection of stories from Howard's career as he wraps up his black and white magazine phase and moves into that unenviable position of occasional guest-star. He also jacks out two more issues of his color series though all of the work is pretty much by divergent hands in both the arenas of writing and artwork. 

 

Howard the Duck #8 features one of Howard's most famous adventures, that of "Ducknight Detective". But first there's a story titled "The Grey Panther" by the regular team of Bill Mantlo, Gene Colan and Dave Simons. This yarn finds Howard and Beverly working in an unusual old folks establishment which we learn has nefarious schemes to rob the young of their vitality for the sake of the old, and all of this overseen by a mad doctor who dubs himself "The Grey Panther". Of course Howard and Beverly defeat this plan and escape. After that harrowing escape they visit a sunny Florida beach whee they meet an industrialist named "Spruce Payne" who hires to them help promote his products in the attire of two bogus superheroes -- Duckman and Duck Girl. This photo op gig though gets real when the men hired to play bogus villains Jokester, Puffin, and Quizling turn out to be baddies for real and are working for another villain named The Maller. When Payne goes missing it falls to Duckman and Duck Girl to save the day, which of course they do in a manner of speaking. This story by Mantlo is illustrated by Marshall Rogers who had won great acclaim for his work on a certain "Darknight Detective". This issue wraps up with anothe installment of "Street Peeple". 

In the ninth and final issue of the Howard the Duck black and white series we find our friend Howard and his best girl Beverly in New Orleans, and of course in the comic book world that means voodoo. 

Howard and Beverly become embroiled in a scheme by the third  Black Talon to bring a powerful "Duck Diety" back into this realm. He actually succeeds but thanks to Howard the duck god is less than impressed with Talon's ways and ends up punishing his own worshipper for acts of cannibalism. This story and the next one are by the regular Mantlo, Colan and Simons team. The second Howard story is a really signifcant one and has our devoted couple confronting aspects of themselves in motel mirrors and Beverly comes to the conclusion that she and Howard need to go their separate ways, at least for a time. In a game-changing move the story quietly comes to an end with Howard perhaps realizing at long last how precious their relationship was. Bill Mantlo now left Howard as the regular writer and is replaced on the third story by Steve Skeates who had been writing some offbeat episodes of Howard for Crazy magazine. The story seems to be a send up of The Big Sleep with Howard functioning as a mopey and bickery Philip Marlowe of sorts. He confronts a strange family, which the most strange is a two-headed bloke who turns out to be something else entirely. An article by Steven Grant closes out the issue and reprises Howard's history and implies that he will be returning to the color comic world. 

While all of that is going on Howard does indeed show up again in a color comic, specifically Marvel Team-Up #96 where he is still operating as a taxi driver and ends up in New York City helping Spider-Man defeat yet another deranged goober who celebrates the status quo. In fact he takes that name and wages a war on all fads. Quickly this war becomes a fad in itself and Howard and Spidey have their hands full. This story was written by Paul Kupperberg and drawn by same. 

Howard's next stop is in Bizarre Adventures #34, a color issue of the black and white magazine which features Christmas stories. In this Howard adventure by Steven Grant and Paul Smith the holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life gets turned on its head when an angel in search of his wings tries to show a forlorn and suicidal Howard how his presence has made life better for those he has met. But it seems Howard's friends would've prospered quite nicely without him, in fact probably better. So forlorn the angel himself seeks the balm of the final embrace. 

When Howard the Duck #32 finally showed up on the racks it had been seven years since a color Howard title had been published. What prompted it? The movie coming from Lucasfilm, the folks who brought you Star Wars. (More on that later.) In this story we meet Howard (still wearing pants) when he meets Ceci Ryder, a lovely female trucker. In a story by Steven Grant, Paul Smith and Vinnie (Is-there-a-character-I-have-not-yet-inked?) Colletta the duo head underground to find a culture dedicated to reaping financial benefit from America's beautiful resources. It's led by a were-gopher and the pair a just able to survive and perhaps slow down  the scheme. When it's over Howard's back in Cleveland. 

Howard the Duck #33 sports a handsome Brian Bolland cover which makes me think of Uncle Scrooge. Over six months after the last issue the shine on Howard the Duck is tarnished after the movie doesn't deliver on the sales expected. This story is most interesting though for one reason in that it's the work of Val Mayerik, Howard's other creator and the first time I know of in which he worked on the character with a writer of his own choosing, a friend of his named Christopher Stager. In the story Howard gets rich by winning a contest and Beverly returns but leaves again when his personality is even nastier than it was before when he was mostly broke. A Dr. Clive offers Howard a chance to make more money and get companionship with his scheme to create life in the form of a female talking duck. But it costs Howard all his money and when she turns out to be a big-mouth spendthrift he takes off hooking up with another Walt Disney lookalike to skip out of town. The story is framed with Howard being interviewed on tell-all television show. It's not the greatest story really, though I found Mayerik's artwork quite fine. 

Now skip forward four years to 1990 and Howard shows up again in the hands of Steve Gerber. This time it's as a guest-star in the pages of the offbeat Sensational She-Hulk series (issues #14-17) featuring artwork by Bryan Hitch and Jim Sanders III. She-Hulk looks fantastic, but Howard seems a little off model to me and his pants are gone again. It's wild misadventure with She-Hulk and the former Blonde Phantom along with Howard battling the schemes of Dr. Angst who hasn't been seen since the Howard the Duck Treasury many moons before. He's causing cosmic trouble by bringing to Earth an endless array of mini-universes all trapped in tiny box-like shapes. Howard and She-Hulk end up in one dubbed the Baloneyverse and it gets worse from there. Dr. Angst escaptes jail and seeks out his old partners Tillie the Hun, Sitting Bullseye, The Spanker and The Black Hole. All of them have had a 90's redesign and they battle a She-Hulk who has gone gray and savage before becoming merely gray. The action of this hair-raising yarn is told by a big bald guy dubbed "The Critic" from a sect of the cosmic Watchers. He also gets involved together the heroes with the help of the Golden Age anti-hero The Terror stop Angst's plans. This is mostly a She-Hulk story (as it should be) and Howard is present but not so much signficant. 

When next we meet the Duck he shows up in the back of the venerable reprint comic Marvel Tales co-starring with another animal hero, namely Spider-Ham. Written and drawn by Paul Kupperberg the story is only a few pages long and the characters meet but do little to stop a plot by Duckter Doom. Frankly it left me confused. 

When next we encounter Howard it's now 1996, nearly a quarter century since his unexpected appearance in Adventures in Fear #19. The story is drawn by James Fry and Chris Ivy in that hyperbolic style so commonplace in the 90's and Steve Gerber steps up to write what I assume is his final Howard the Duck yarn. 

A lot has happened since Gerber began writing Howard the Duck stories. At one point he left Marvel and embraced the Direct Sales market with projects like Destroyer Duck, a character and debut comic book created  as part of Gerber's lawsuit to gain some ownership in Howard. It's a convoluted story that and to read about it in detail I recommend checking out this link. 

Anyway in this story from Marvel we have an unofficial crossover with Howard and  Spider-Man and the Circus of Crime with Rich Larsen's Savage Dragon and Destroyer Duck. It's a ramshackle story featuring some of Gerber's more offbeat contributions to the MU such as the notorious Elf-With-A-Gun and the Turnip Lady. KISS even gets a quick cameo of sorts. Sadly it's mostly a stunt with shadowy figures in Spider-Man Team-Up #5 and Savage Dragon/Destroyer Duck #1 meeting but not officially. For more on this check out this link.  

The collection wraps up with a bevy of black and white short stories by Steve Skeates and Pat Broderick done for Crazy Magazine back in the 70's. Frankly they aren't very good and not really in the tone of Howard as far as I can tell. Broderick's art is fine though. Also we get a cover gallery featuring Marvel's adaptation of the ill-fated movie among other things such as Howard's appearance in Marvel Age. 

And that as they say is that. I'm closing my series of posts with a bit of art by Frank Brunner done for  Gerber's Savage Dragon/Destroyer Duck one-shot which gives the world Leonard the Duck and echoes the delightful cover he made for Howard the Duck #1 so long before. My closing thoughts are really questions. Why is the Howard the Duck movie regarded as being so terrible? I think the answer is that it didn't make a beaucoup of money as anticipated so it must have been bad. It's often ranked as among the worst movies ever made and that's just rubbish. It didn't do well in the marketplace and it has deficiencies but it's not that bad. Also why is Howard the Duck when he appears in later Marvel productions only identified as created by Steve Gerber when Val Mayerik even by Gerber's own admission technically created him. Sure they both deserve credit and since it's just a matter of credit and not profits why doesn't it happen. I'm unclear. All in all Howard the Duck was a wonderful comic with great artwork that caught a moment in the zeitgeist which elevated it. Being part of the Marvel Universe means never having say you're really dead, so I expect Howard will always return. So get down with that!

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The Incompleat Howard - Volume Three!

The third volume of Howard the Duck The Complete Series the focus shifts to the black and white magazine which followed on after the cancellation of the original color series. In these pages it was assumed I guess that the writers and artists could be more frank about the notions and ideas the series explored and about the exact nature of the relationship between Howard and Beverly. It's evident and flatly stated they are lovers and the incongruity of that circumstance becomes a constant of the of the stories going forward. 

Under a cover by Howard co-creator Val Mayerik and Pete Ledger we have two stories. Both are written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Gene Colan. Inking Colan on the first is Klaus Janson and on the second Dave Simons. The first story titled "Animal Indecency" we meet Wally Sidney an ill-disguised variation of Walt Disney who in this incarnation is a clothing store magnate and as such has promulgated a campaign against the nudity of animals in order to sell more clothes. Howard becomes a target and as a consequence is forced to add pants to his permanent wardrobe. The spin that it was Disney which sued about Howard's proposed similarity to Donald Duck is of course the basis for this lampoon. The second story is titled "The Crash of '79" and pits Howard and Beverly once again against Pro Rata the Financial Wizard who lures the duo to a famous Cleveland location with a phantom movie picture production which vanishes when he no longer needs it. Instead Howard and Beverly must battle against a quickened Breakfast Special made up a evil eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, and juice. They battle these creatures of the table but in the end frustrated Pro Rata's attempts to get the cosmic key and so his outstanding debt is called in and him along with it. 

Under a raucous Jack Davis cover we have a story by the regular Mantlo, Colan, and Simons team titled "A Christmas for Carol". The Carol of the story turns out to be a little girl and despite his better judgment Howard attempts to pick up her spirits during the holiday since she is gloomy about the world and her parents who are divorced. Quickly the pair encounter Santa himself and an elf named Sunquist (he's from Florida) and their broken down sleigh. It seems Santa has sold out to OPEC and he's running short of fuel. They get the sleigh going but back at the North Pole a villain named Pinball Lizard has led a work stoppage and general uprising to shut down the  Christmas operations. It turns out that Pinball Lizard himself is a pawn in the plans of a greater villain named Greedy Killerwatt, a mutated human who resembles a lightbulb. Once again of course Howard despite his unheroic nature finds a way to save the day and Christmas and lifts Carol's spirits as well. The mag ends with a text feature by Mantlo titled "Duck Soup" which reprises of the long history of Howard for new readers. 

The fourth issue offers up a parody of Playboy with not only the cover by John Pound but also several features inside (including a double-page pin-up by John Byrne) showing what the magazine might look like on Duckworld. The lead story by Mantlo, Colan and Simons is a send-up of The Maltese Falcon with a giant insect named "Hemlock Shoals" taking Howard on a quick magical trip to NYC in his cab to follow the trail of the cosmic key again which is also being pursued by the villainous Cockroach. After much ballyhoo they universe is saved again and Howard ends up back in Cleveland but going against traffic as usual, but this time literally. The second story titled "The Dreadcliff Cuckoos" by Mantlo again welcomes John Buscema and Klaus Janson on the art chores. The gang (Howard, Beverly, Winda, and Paul) wind a vacation to a remote resort which is pretty spooky all things being equal, but they soon learn it's all a ploy to get access to Winda's psychic powers. It's a who's who of old Howard villains as the Reverand Jun Moon Yuk and the Sinister SOOFI join others to extract the information. The leader seems to be Adolph Hitler himself who at one time in the series seemed to operate a hospital Winda was in, but who is revealed at the end to have been merely Hitler's dentist with delusions of grandeur. This story seemed a clear attempt to tie up some old plot threads. 

The next issue of Howard the Duck gives us another of Marvel's 70's hit characters -- The Prince of Darkness Dracula. Howard had already famously battled the Hellcow, one of Dracula's lesser offspring, but this time it's Howard himself who gets the bite and becomes something of a sympathetic vampire (as opposed to a real one) in a story titled "The Tomb of Drakula" by Mantlo, Michael Golden and Bob McLeod. Under an experimental cover by Larry Fredericks, it is needless to say after much vampiric action Howard comes to his senses, more or less. In the story "Captain Ameicana" Howard loses cabbie gig when his cab is demolished and seeking work offers up his skills as a babysitter of sorts to a family which prides itself on its dedication if not deification of mythic American norms. This platoon of two parents and two and a half kids (one is slow) threaten Howard when he tries to bring a bit of sanity to the natural order of  the American Dream. This story by the regular team of Mantlo, Colan and Simons had the "Good Housekeeping" seal of approval. At the end though Winda tells Howard she can send him home and he hops at the chance and Beverly goes with him. The magazine closes with an "Interview with The Duck by Lynn Graeme" (the editor) and "A Fond Look At Fowl Friend" which highlights the characters from Howard stories past. 

Howard at long last returns to his old paddling ponds in a story dubbed simply "Duckworld". Written by Bill Manto, this one marks the return of Michael Golden and Bob McLeod on the art. (Lynn Graeme admits in the next issue that she had over-burdened regular artist Gene Colan and that's why we get this nifty fill-in.) But they are more than up to the task and we find on Duckworld, a world proportioned to Howard-size a land teeming with  ducks of all kinds, but many if not most of them inspired by one single mythic figure -- the ascended Howard the Duck. It turns out that Howard's disappearance, coming at a media-covered event similar in many grim details to the Kent University shootings, had created the basis for a whole new relgion of sorts built around the phrase "Get Down!" But it had been used by those in power to cause folks to relinquish their free will and so Howard is both stunned and appalled that anyone has taken his life as some model to guide life as it should be lived. He makes his feelings known and causes the downfall of the very religion he unintentionally had triggered. At his side throughout his time on Duckworld is Beverly, who is a statuesque "hairless ape" and in a state of undress for much of the story. She finds that being the only human being in a world of ducks is much more alienating that she expected and her empathy for Howard is only increased and they realize that no matter where they are they don't fit in but have each other. With that goal in mind Howard digs up the local "Sorcerer Supreme" and has him magic them back to Earth, leaving Duckworld a less controlled but more independent land. The mag rounds out with a new feature called "Street Peeple" which as far as I can tell does factor into the Howard story at all. John Pound executes one of his best covers for the series. 

After Duckworld Beverly and Howard the Duck find themselves back in that old Okefenokee Swamp where his misadventures on Earth had started so long ago. Showing up quickly enough is the Man-Thing who grabs up Beverly and takes away. In a story titled "Of Dice and Ducks" by Mantlo, Colan and Simons (the regular crew) Howard pursues his kidnapped flame and finds in the middle of the swamp a town with a familiar and highly geometric layout. As he searches for Beverly, Howard is given an obligatory $200 and speeds along the streets in a race car finding himself lost in low rent areas, crisscrossed by railroads, and with a jail keen to catch up folks of all kinds. There are nifty little men who offer chances and opportunities but Howard must break a few rules and dodge some giant dice which repeatedly get in his way as makes way to Beverly across Oriental Ave to the ultimate goal of Boardwalk. There he finds a gorilla by the name of "Monk Kee" who runs the local "Kong Glomerate" after catching for himself the lovely Ann Darrow. Howard chases the baddie up a tower of consumer goods where ultimately the head of "Kong Glomerate" falls to his death and where Howard proclaims that "Booty killed the beast." Rewarded with money which is no good outside of the small town he and Beverly hit the road headed north for more adventures we can only hope. The magazine is rounded out with some tasty full-page pinups of Howard by Marie Severin, Howie Chaykin, John Byrne, Walt Simonson and Marshall Rogers. The "Street Peeple" make their second appearance as well. To my eye this cover for issue seven is the best of John Pound's covers for the series. 

This volume also begins to reprint some of Howard's appearances in Crazy, Marvel's MAD-like humor magazine of the 70's. We have stories by Michael Weiss and Roger Stern with art by Vincente Alacazar and Pat Broderick. One page appears to cobbled together with art from other sources by Colan and Frank Brunner. 

Here are some of the pin-ups featured in this issue and others. 

The key to these stories is the relationship between Howard and Beverly. The antics created by Mantlo and rendered by Colan and others are wild and raucous and funny but at the core is the true caring between the two protagonists. They not only need each other at times, but want each other. Gerber put the two together, but I have to say that Mantlo really makes the romance between these two have some pop and zing and some reality. Where it will end we'll find out next time. 

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The Incompleat Howard - Volume Two!

In this second volume of The Complete Howard the Duck the rest of the original color run is captured along with the first of Howard's black and white magazine. In these issues the energy which catapulted the fowl to fame is beginning to sputter. There are still amazing moments but Steve Gerber appears (at least from this distance) to be running a little low on inspiration.  There are several writers who give Gerber a break now and again as the series rumbles along and Gene Colan's artwork supported by Klaus Janson's embellishments is remarkable though too requiring some interruptions, some planned some not. 

In the first of the stories here we at long last find out more about the mysterious and exceedingly powerful Dr. Bong, an enemy who can freeze his opponents in place with a the strike of his capacious bell-covered head.  Dr. Bong is a former corrupt journalist who used the power of the press to destroy reputations and game wealth and power.  His present goal is Beverly Switzler, a woman he has been fascinated with since he first saw her as a live model in their college days. Now as an nigh all-powerful and thoroughly unscrupulous megalomaniac he simply kidnaps her. 

Dr. Bong's specialty is genetics and to that end he has created a small army of critters called "Neez" which is also what they say to the exclusion of anything else. In a weird attempt to give Howard what he imagines the duck wants, Bong puts him into a machine and alters his genetics to transform Howard into a "hairless ape". Howard is not amused. 

Escaping Dr. Bong's lair (which shifts locations from the ocean to the mountains) Howard and an evolved duck named Fifi fly to NYC. The crash landing kills the unfortunate Fifi and puts Howard into a situation in which he must now cope with the world on its own terms sans his peculiar nature. But who he is and what eventually proves too powerful and he once again transforms into a duck. For her part Beverly to save Howard's life consents to marry the mad Dr. Bong. 

Now Howard minus his lovely Beverly must find a way to live and so he gets a job and just so happens to land one with a dude named "Beverly Switzler". Turns out this generous businessman is Beverly's uncle and namesake. Howard hires on as a dishwasher and works alongside a chap named Sudd who also is a dedicated member of SOOFI. (Save Our Offspring From Indecency). But Sudd's desire for cleanliness in all things overcomes him when a microwave accident transforms him into a monster comprised of cleansing bubbles. 

Howard survives Sudd only to have to confront SOOFI itself in the next issue drawn by Carmine Infantino. This organization which uses death and mayhem to clean up America in all its circumstances turns out to be headed by an infamous fiture who readers of the era might well recognize as a spokeswoman for Florida citrus concerns.

 

Howard then finds himself drawn back to his roots when he is shanghaied the sorceress Jennifer Kale, Korrek the Barbarian and the enigmatic Man-Thing. The trio need the brave Howard to battle against some dope named "Bzzk'Joh" (Berserker) who wants to conquer the universe or something like that. This issue and the next are deftly drawn by Howard's co-creator Val Mayerik. 

This Star Wars parody yarn comes to a conclusion in the very next issue which features a cover that makes it impossible not to notice the source material. It's a fun romp of a story but it is somewhat off the tone of quasi-seriousness which had become necessary for many of the best Howard stories. This is a lark of a story without any sense of consequences, fun but ultimately meaningless and now it just occurs to me perhaps that was Gerber's intent. 

Howard is back on Earth and up to his old tricks of trying to scratch out a living among us hairless apes in the next issue. He is having some trouble along the way as he tries to get to the docks to meet Wendy Wester and Paul Same who are arriving at long last aboard the ship Howard and Beverly had been kidnapped from many issues before. 

Paul Same had been a starving artist but aboard the ship he met Iris Raritan who took a shine to him and his work and became his patron. This new connection throws Howad and his friends into a wild fracas when they attend a party of Raritan's and find the Circus of Crime. 

The Ringmaster sees show-biz potential in Howard and kidnaps him yet again to become a performer. Of course Howard doesn't find his new role to his liking and fights back. His friends try to find him and when they do with the assistance of Raritan, Paul and Wendy are critically injured. 

Guilt over the injuries to his friends and the general unrelenting stress of his daily life lead Howard to have nightmares in which he fights back. he wakes to find the male Beverly Switzler and Raritan by his side and they make a plan for Raritan and Howard to confront the Circus of Crime. Against the odds they do just that. 

Gerber is assisted on the writing in the next issue by Mark Skrenes and once again Carmine Infantino steps up to draw the story. This is a file story as the presence of Beverly indicates. Together the two old comrades fight against several antagonists (an elderly femme fatale, a myopic bus driver, and a overly zealous military man) who all tell of their encounters with the duck and his girlfriend to a psychiatrist who labels them all mad until he himself catches a glimpse of Howard and must be carried out in a straitjacket. 

The next issue is again a fill-in with Mark Evanier supplying the plot and Will Meugniot doing the art. It's a send-up of the Jerry Lewis Telethon which once made an annual splash and some money for Muscular Distrophy. A down-on-his-luck comedian sees Howard and and in him an affliciton which will draw in the cash. Needless to say it's a fracas in Las Vegas when Howard comes to understand he's part of a scam. 

The original storyline and artist are back in the next issue which finally finds us checking on Winda and Paul who are still hospitalized. Doctor Bong returns and gives Howard an ultimatum. He is jealous of Beverly's continuing regard for Howard despite her becoming his wife. And he gives Howard only a few hours before he comes to kill him once and for all. Beverly's uncle now owns a garage and gets his mechanic, a delusional bloke named Claude Starkowski who claims to be the brains behind much of Stark Industries greatest breakthroughs, to build a suit of armor for Howard to fight Bong. 

In the final regular issue of the original color comic run Dr. Bong and Howard face off with Howard's armor saving him but not really giving him an upper hand. When it looks as if  Bong will at long last kill Howard, the lovely Beverly steps in and presents Dr. Bong with a bowl full of genetically engineered Bong quintuplets. She threatens Bong with bad publicity for abandoning his progeny (his own weapon of choice) if he doesn't spare Howard. In a fit after having been betrayed by Beverly he relents and sends both Beverly and Howard back to Cleveland and the bedsides of Paul and Winda. Beverly's uncle greets them with affection and the curtain comes down for the time being. 

When Howard the Duck returns to the comic racks later in the years 1979 it is without the guiding hand of his co-creator Steve Gerber who had been fired by Marvel for missing deadlines. (More on Gerber's dismissal next week.) Instead we find the underrated Bill Mantlo helming the scripting chores. The saga picks up where we left off in a story drawn by Michael Golden. Howard and the two Beverly Switzlers are driving back to Cleveland when they suffer a flat tire. With no spare, they seek shelter and unfortunately find it on the farm of the murderous Mr. Chicken and his henchman Skidoo. He wants to dominate the poultry market with his genetically superior birds and sees something in Howard to help that process. Beverly he just tries to kill. To be honest the motivations in this story confused me, but Howard and Bev do survive and rejoin the other Beverly in the repaired car. 

Back in Cleveland at last they find that Bev's uncle has bought a taxi firm and Howard needs a hack license to work for him. After some grumbling this is accomplished and on the streets he and Beverly find fares and trouble when the Cleveland marathon breaks out and a notable runner named Cleft Chin appears to have been drugged or something and so for reasons that never make sense Howard and Beverly decide to drag him into their cab and help him win. The enemy who is causing this trouble is an outrageous fellow called Jackpot the One-Armed Bandit who can belch out coins at the drop of his one single arm. They prevail. 

Then in the third story Howard runs up against the Kidney Lady again as well as some other creep dubbed the Brooklyn Dodger who is just as weirdly offended Howard. This pair capture Howard and Beverly and attempt to use magic to quicken to life a couch which will swallow them up. But they beat down the villains of course and then Winda an Paul appear, the latter having finally recovered. The gang finally together take advantage of an offer by a movie producer Digitalis and we can only guess how that will work out. While some of the character motivations feel off, nevertheless Howard and Beverly are back together and clearly so. And now with the status quo has at long last reset, we await the next issue where the Pro-Rata, who has been lurking in the shadows, plans to strike. 

More next week. 

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