Howard the Duck

Howard the Duck is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. Howard the Duck first appeared in Adventure into Fear #19 (cover-dated Dec. 1973) and several subsequent series have chronicled the misadventures of the ill-tempered anthropomorphic animal trapped on a human-dominated Earth. Echoing this, the most common tagline of his comics reads 'Trapped In a World He Never Made!'.

This article is about the character and comic book series. For the film adaptation, see Howard the Duck (film). For the video game, see Howard the Duck (video game).
Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck as depicted on a variant cover of Howard the Duck #1 (November 2015)
Publication information
PublisherMarvel Comics
First appearanceAdventure into Fear #19 (Dec. 1973)
Created bySteve Gerber (writer)
Val Mayerik (artist)
In-story information
Alter egoHoward Duckson
SpeciesDuckworldian
Place of originDuckworld
Team affiliations
  • Circus of Crime
  • Defenders
  • All-Night Party
  • Daydreamers
  • A.R.M.O.R.
  • Fearsome Four
  • Ducky Dozen
PartnershipsMan-Thing
Beverly Switzler
Notable aliasesHoward the Duck
  • Leonard the Duck
  • Howard the Human
  • Iron Duck
  • Agent Duck
  • Cynical Duck
Abilities
  • Master of Quack-Fu
    As Iron Duck:
    Armored suit grants:
    * Superhuman strength and durability
    * Foot-mounted leaping coils
    * Chest-mounted searchlight
    * Flamethrowers in both arms

Howard's adventures are generally social satires, while a few are parodies of genre fiction with a metafictional awareness of the medium. The book is existentialist, and its main joke, according to Gerber, is that there is no joke: "... that life's most serious moments and most incredibly dumb moments are often distinguishable only by a momentary point of view." Gloria Katz, producer of the notorious, ill-fated 1986 film adaptation of the comic, expressed a diametrically opposed opinion of the character, "It's a film about a duck from outer space ... It's not supposed to be an existential experience."

Howard the Duck was portrayed by Ed Gale and voiced by Chip Zien in the critically and commercially unsuccessful 1986 self-titled film. Starting in 2014, the character, voiced by Seth Green, appeared in cameos in several Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films, the Disney XD animated series Guardians of the Galaxy (2015–19) and Ultimate Spider-Man (2016; with Kevin Michael Richardson), and the Disney+ series What If...? (2021–present).

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