Destroyer Duck Day!

Steve Gerber was born on tomorrow's date in 1947. Gerber made his fame with his creation of Howard the Duck in the pages of Man-Thing for Marvel. Howard was a sensation in the mid-70's, even putting forth a satirical run for President. (I prefer him to the mope currently malingering in the office.) Gerber famously sued Marvel for some financial considerations for Howard's success when the company attempted to get into the movies. This effort was supported by other professionals, lead among them Jack "King" Kirby who was having his own battles with the House of (Mostly His) Ideas. 

One of the grand comic books of the 80's was the totally in-your-face satire named Destroyer Duck. The comic started out as a method by which like-minded talents (Jack Kirby, Alfredo Alcala, Mark Evanier, Joe Staton, Sergio Aragones, among others) donated their time and talents to produce a story written by Steve Gerber who at that point in time was in a legal dispute with the Marvel machine over the ownership of Howard the Duck.

The debut story is about that struggle directly and hilariously as we meet Duke Duck, an ally of the "Little Guy", a small duck who gets sucked into a distant dimension where he is exploited and killed by Godcorp. Duke ends up going to this other world and kicks Godcorp butt. After this one-shot though it was deemed smart to do more Destroyer Duck stories and Gerber and Kirby and Alcala kicked out four more issues before seven issue series was taken over by Buzz Dixon and Gary Kato. Duke has showed up  a few times since, in the pages of Total Eclipse in the late 80's and the Image one-shot guest-starring with Savage Dragon in the late 90's. Surely there's an audience for these bizarre tales of the "Marauding Mallard of Vengeance".

But that's not all. 


Above is the envelope featuring the great artwork of Jack Kirby and Alfredo Alcala. This holds some dandy artwork. Here's a description from the website The Gerber Curse:

"In 1982, Dave and Deni Sim published a portfolio called "F.O.O.G.", which stood for "Friends Of Old Gerber," to help raise funds for Gerber's legal battle. The project, which was initiated without Gerber's knowledge (he says he hadn't even met Dave and Deni Sim), featured 10 black and white plates (11" x 14") by Bernie Wrightson, Mike Kaluta, Charles Vess, Wendi Pini, Jeff Jones, Barry Smith, Marshall Rogers, Frank Thorne, Gene Colan, and Dave Sim, which came in a Duke "Destroyer" Duck envelope illustrated by Kirby and Alcala."

Below are some scans of that artwork. I am lucky to have one of these portfolios. It's a real bit of comics history. Note that the scans are pretty much as is, and do not expand much when you click on them. Sorry about that.

Dave Sim
Barry Windsor-Smith
Mike Kaluta
Gene Colan
Berni Wrightson
Marshall Rogers
Jeff Jones
Wendy Pini
Charles Vess
Frank Thorne
Hubba Hubba!

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Destroyer Duck - Graphite Edition!

As it did with Captain Victory and Silver Star, Twomorrows Publishing has created a "Graphite Edition" of one of Jack Kirby's oddest 80's comics. In conjunction with Steve Gerber who first created Destroyer Duck, Kirby and Alfredo Alcala produced the pages in the original comic to help Gerber defray his legal expenses. 

He needed the money to continue his lawsuit against Marvel Comics for a piece of Howard the Duck. The lawsuit had been percolating for a time and Gerber was going to have to abandon it for lack of funds until some of his colleagues got together created a "Special Lawsuit Benefit Edition". 

And so, we get one of the grand comic books of the 80's, the totally in-your-face satire named Destroyer Duck. The comic started out as a method by which like-minded talents (Jack Kirby, Alfredo Alcala, Mark Evanier, Joe Staton, Sergio Aragones, among others) donated their time and talents to produce a comic with various features, but headed by Gerber's and Kirby's Destroyer Duck. Goo the Wanderer by Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragones debuted in this little Eclipse comic too.

The debut story is about that struggle directly and hilariously as we meet Duke Duck, an ally of the "Little Guy", a small duck who gets sucked into a distant dimension where he is exploited and killed by Godcorp Ltd., a soulless organization which lives up to its credo of "Grab it all! Own it all! Drain it all!" (Remind you of anyone we know?) Duke ends up going to this other world and kicks some Godcorp butt. 

(Kirby with Neal Adams embellishment.)

After this one-shot though it was deemed smart to do more Destroyer Duck stories and Gerber and Kirby and Alcala kicked out four more issues before seven issue series was taken over by Buzz Dixon and Gary Kato. Duke has showed up a few times since, in the pages of Total Eclipse in the late 80's and the Image one-shot guest-starring with Savage Dragon in the late 90's. Surely there's an audience for these bizarre tales of the "Marauding Mallard of Vengeance".

 (Frank Miller)

Destroyer Duck is far from prime Kirby comics, but even his worst have charm. Tomorrow, something different. 

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Mister Miracle - The Show Must Go On!

Of all the Fourth World books, Mister Miracle proved to be the most successful. It lasted until its eighteenth issue during its original run but to do that it refocused and paid little attention to its Fourth World roots until the very last. Mister Miracle is Scott Free and he was adept at getting out of traps -- traps of his own invention and traps such as Apokolips the deadly land ruled by Darkseid. His keeper was a hag named Granny Goodness and his mentor was a mysterious Fagin-sort named Himon. He came to Earth and sought a hiding place and found it behind the mask of Theodore Brown the original Mister Miracle who died and passed his stage identity onto this new wunderkind. With the name came Oberon, a loyal assistant who was more powerful than his short stature suggested, and eventually he gained a wife in Barda, "Big Barda" she was called who was gentler, and more loving than her towering stature suggested. He fought the agents of Darkseid such as Virmin Vundabarr, Doctor Bedlam, and Kano the Assassin. And despite these dangers, a time Scott was happy, maybe even free. But all good things come to an end.

When the New Gods returned it was true for most all of them, but it wasn't really true for Mister Miracle because thanks to The Brave and the Bold and the exquisite location known to fans as the "Haneyverse" he was a fixture in its pages. 

Bob Haney and Jim Aparo tapped Mister Miracle three times to assist Batman with his inquiries, before his cancellation, during his hiatus and just after his return. In those stories, self-contained wonders, the grand spectacle of the Fourth World was little mentioned and Mister Miracle was mostly what he seemed to be for the public an escape artist without peer. 

He appeared in the 1st Issue Special which announced the "Return of the New Gods". He was with his wife Barda in New Genesis when the new threat from Darkseid was revealed. But he played little part in that story and that issue is not in this collection. 

Steve Englehart and his partner from Detective Comics Marshall Rogers kick off the new Mister Miracle series with a two-part tale that sees Barda kidnapped by the forces of Apokolips and Scott donning his garb to rescue her from their base on the Moon. In the course of his battle against Granny Goodness and her forces Scott struggles with his identity as a "New God". He is forced to put away the technology of the Mother Box which is infused in his costume and instead finds that aspects of the Mother Box's powers have developed innately in him.

Scott and Oberon head to Apokolips to ultimately rescue Barda. But it is a ferocious Mister Miracle we see who seems intent on proving himself capable of using his own skills and wits to defeat Darkseid's forces. He also wishes to initiate a revolt in the downtrodden denizens of Apokolips by presenting himself as some sort of savior. Englehart seems intent on making Scott Free into an even more direct doppleganger of Christ.

But something must go wrong as it's not Englehart who writes the twenty-second issue, but his alter-ego "John Harkness" whose name appears when Englehart is not happy with the story he's been forced by editorial or circumstances to tell. (Englehart says that he'd told DC he'd only be on the book briefly before heading to Europe, but I'm curious about the "Harkness" credit if that's the case.) Nonetheless, despite his aspirations Mister Miracle does confront Darkseid and his cast off as mostly ineffectual, though there is a notion that his presence has stirred something in the populace.

Darkseid sent Scott spiraling into limbo and Steve Gerber arrives in tandem with artist Michael Golden to find Scott in a spiritual conflict orchestrated by an androgonous being named Ethos.

So Scott rejects Apokolips of course but now he rejects also New Genesis, attempting to find a new way and rejecting the duality which had always resulted in conflict before. He claims he's no longer a "New God" but a "human", whatever that means.

In the last issue of the run Scott and Barda and Oberon are once again on Earth and entertainers, but find themselves battling Granny Goodness once again, this time with her new charge a young woman who knows only pain and becomes something powerful as a result. The series skids to a halt, the next issue still on the drawing boards, the cover finished as the legendary "DC Implosion" takes its toll.

This collection closes out with Mister Miracle's appearance in DC Comics Presents, in  conflict with Superman to see which of them is a more worthy hero for Metropolis. Frankly Scott's personality seems way off in this story capably drawn by Rich Buckler and written by Steve Englehart. I'm much surprised as Scott presented here by Englehart is a very angry man indeed, and I can only wonder if it's a bit of a projection. 

I'm not sure about Mister Miracle this time out. Despite some handsome artwork, Englehart seems desperately to want to divorce the character from the beginning from his mythic context, to transform him into a man who is far needier than the confident fellow Kirby created. I guess he wanted to knock him down to build him up, but it doesn't always make sense. Mister Miracle and Big Barda and Oberon will return to help the other New Gods in their struggle with Darkseid in the pages of the Justice League of America, but that would be a story for another day. 

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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Tomorrow's Avengers - Part One!

Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow's Avengers collects the late Silver and Bronze Age saga of the Guardians of the Galaxy. The Guardians debut in Marvel Super-Heroes #18, dated January 1969, at the time a combination book with offered reprints and served as a "showcase" for possible future series. (I discussed this seminal comic a few days and now let me do so again. 

The debut story is by writer and co-creator Arnold Drake and exquisite artwork by fellow co-creator Gene "The Dean" Colan and Mike Esposito (under his "Mikey Demeo" disguise),  and relates the 31st Century future in which the Earth has colonized the solar system and beyond thanks to "Harkovian Physics" (move over Einstein), and finds a motley gang of aliens and hybrid humans joined to battle the deadly Badoon, a warlike lizard race from space.

Major Vance Astro is a 20th Century man sent into deep space to Alpha Centuari in 1988 only to find his long journey and the 1000 years it took unnecessary when he finally arrived at a fully settled colony on a planet in deep space. After realizing he is trapped inside his life-preserving copper foil suit, he joins up with Jovian militiaman Charlie-27 and Pluvian scientist the crystalline Martinex along with Yondu, a finned alien native from the Alpha Centauri system.

This unlikely gang of four battle the Brotherhood of the  Badoon in 3007 A.D. for one brief shining issue then disappear into the comic book mists.

They reappear many years later in the 1974 pages of Marvel-Two-In-One and enlist the time-traveling Ben Grimm and Captain America to help them in their ongoing future war with the deadly Badoon. These stories were written by Steve Gerber and drawn with precision by Sal Buscema.

That battle continues in the 20th Century in the pages of Giant-Size Defenders #5 with vibrant Don Heck artwork . Some of the Guardians are now sporting ginchy new costumes designed by Dave Cockrum.

Then the saga shifts back to the future in four issues of The Defenders regular comic again written by the  Gerber-Buscema team. The Badoon are ultimately defeated and the Guardians meet a new member, the enigmatic Starhawk.

These Defenders issues were a try-out of sorts for the space team of the future and it worked, with the Guardians next showing up in their very own comic under the official title of Marvel Presents. With scribe Steve Gerber and artist Al Milgrom in control, the Guardians at long last would find their way forward.

The team adds yet another member when Nikki, a firebrand from Venus hooks up with the Guardians. I'm of two minds about the addition of Nikki and Starhawk because I always felt that the original core group of four, Astro aside, were not developed sufficiently before these additions. Nonetheless the team pressed on.

One curious issue of Marvel Presents was a fill-in which featured some of Silver Surfer #2, the 1968 comic which actually debuted the Badoon battling the "Sentinel of the Spaceways" a few months before they show up in the future to conquer our solar system.

The run in Marvel Presents ended after a cool dozen issues and after this brisk but potent outing the Guardians were once again an itinerant team. More tomorrow in Part Two. 

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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