After yelling at Benicio Del Toro in a movie, Howard the Duck returns to comics with, uh, “Howard the Duck” #1 from Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones. Check out our review to see if this new comic fits the bill? No, no… Find out feather or not you should pond-er buying it? How about if it’s just what the ducktor ordered? Oh dammit, just read our review and beware of spoilers.
Written by Chip Zdarsky
Illustrated by Joe Quinones• HOT off the pages of the … the post-credits scene at the … the end of a … popular movie … HOWARD THE DUCK is back! Join him as he takes on the weird cases that only a talking duck can crack as the Marvel Universe’s resident private investigator!
• Let Sex Criminals’ CHIP ZDARSKY (a writer known mostly as an artist) and JOE QUINONES (an artist known mostly as a lover) guide you through his new world as he takes on THE BLACK CAT and MYSTERIOUS FORCES FROM OUTER SPACE!
• WAUGH!
The year is 2015 and “Sex Criminals” is in the solicitations for a Howard the Duck comic. Someone call Steve Gerber and Matt Fraction’s ghosts because this feels like some sort of victory.
Speaking of “Sex Criminals,” it’s no secret that we (along with roughly everyone) are big fans of Chip Zdarsky’s work, as well as Joe Quinones’s, whose Bill & Ted “Action Comics” cover is still the best singular thing ever produced. They’re two creators with very unique vibes, so it’s no big shock that “Howard the Duck” #1 feels like a natural extension of their previous work. It has all of the irreverent comedy that’s made “Sex Crims” such a runaway success and Quinones excels at telling stories through characters’ faces. Their exhausted, kind of done with everything faces. That said, for all of the quirky bits that exemplify what both creators are all about, “Howard the Duck” #1 at times feels like it skips certain fundamental steps in favor of being the wacky comic that people were predicting it would be since it was first announced.
This issue begins with Howard and a Slott/Allred’s “Silver Surfer” Supporting Female Character™ being held in jail for nothing in particular. The officer mentions neither of them having a public record but no other reason is given for Howard’s unjust imprisonment besides “this detective hates me because I’m a private detective and this is kind of a noir stor,” more or less. As the issue goes on and Howard gets called in to retrieve a stolen bracelet from Black Cat, the story seems willing to cut corners to get to the funny bits like with the ironic training montage scene that has now been in every form of media since at least 2013. And eventually, Howard gets kidnapped by The Collector and meets fellow prisoner Rocket Raccoon, because Guardians of the Galaxy is going to define the direction of half of Marvel’s comics since at least 2017 and half the reason Marvel green lit this book.
All in all, it’s not a bad start for a first issue (we’re introduced to Bitter Private Eye Howard and some semblance of a supporting cast and tone), but the joints feel like they were only mildly glued together. There are strong moments, absolutely, but throughout the issue I felt like I was being consistently reminded I was reading a comic. I’m all for some good Brechtian influence, but the version of the Marvel Universe shown here – including Howard himself – was almost too cartoonish, which sounds a bit redundant for a comic about a cartoon duck.
Let me preface what I’m about to say by making it clear that this is absolutely a matter of taste on my part. I don’t think Howard the Duck works as a character unless the world surrounding him is a hundred percent more silly than Howard himself. That’s the genius of the character. He gets ripped out of his cartoon world and in most stories (like the film that shall not be named) that’s the one joke. He’s a cartoon living in our world except he likes cigars and having sex with Marty McFly’s mom. But in the comics, Howard goes from a cartoon world that was relatively sane to the Marvel Universe which is a place that had “AXIS,” “Original Sin,” “Inhumanity,” and whatever the hell Jonathan Hickman’s talking about all within the span of a calendar year. To quote this comic’s recap page, “He’s not just a duck! He’s a duck who talks! And displays a shocking amount of common sense in a world gone mad!”
Continued belowHoward the Duck is opposite of Deadpool. While Wade Wilson’s infusing a crazy universe with madcap explosions and fourth-wall breakage, Howard the Duck is trying to open a small business and find clients to pay for his feather conditioner. He’s the perfect mirror through which creators can show just how insane the Marvel Universe is. And if he’s as wacky as Spider-Man or The Collector are, or more so, then the character loses some of what makes him make sense.
In this issue, Zdarsky and Quinones go 50/50 with what I mentioned in two separate instances that demonstrate what I mean. When talking to a client, Howard motions to his secretary which is just a pile of newspapers and rags he drew a lady’s face on. Kinda weird, kinda chuckly, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Then, there’s a cut-away regarding his ad that he placed in a movie theater. It’s one of those “Guess That Star” trivia things and one lone audience member keeps throwing names at it. The focus pulls in to reveal Howard’s poor tired face and expletive-filled ad while the same audience member just goes “Never heard of him.” It’s this weird, almost nihilist, sense of humor that, in my opinion, can make or break the character. When Howard the Duck tries to be funny, it’s weird and kind of what we expect, especially in the post-“Hawkeye” age of self-deprecating heroes. When Howard the Duck tries to get Spider-Man to stop flashing his face belt light on him, it’s this strange type of comedy that’s not really present in other Marvel comics.
And for what it’s worth, “Howard the Duck” #1 does have a lot of that unique darkish humor. And, occasional quirky randomness aside, Zdarsky does a solid job of introducing everything we need to know about Howard with the same type off-color humor you’d expect from a guy who looks amazing in a Garfield costume. But, for my money, this book could not exist without Joe Quinones. Not only does he have the smart sense of layout, design, and movement that make for a compelling book but he is straight crushing it on the humor. He takes his time with a lot of the non-verbal humor and, in each panel, seems to find a new way for Howard to look absolutely flustered and fed up.
Final Verdict: 7.8 – I might have been a little nitpicky on some aspects of this book and that’s only because it’s so close to being great. When “Howard the Duck” strays from the type of “funny” books Marvel’s been doing for a while and finds its own voice, it’s one of the funniest comics out today. Hopefully, as the series progresses, we’ll get to see more of that. I would definitely suggest this book to anyone, if only so I can see it become the all conquering machine I know it can be.
PS. Since I’ve already spoiled a bunch of stuff in this review, I want to say that the scene where Spider-Man sees Howard get teleported away and assumes he died, resulting in Spidey falling to his knees, crying, and whimpering “I’m sorry, Uncle Ben” is somehow the funniest scene in comics this week. Or I’m a sociopath. It’s a toin coss.
PPS. Howard the Duck and Rocket Raccoon teaming up makes perfect sense as they’re both cartoon characters trapped in a world that’s too ridiculous for them. I hope they have a fight to decide which creator’s family finally receives proper recognition and compensation from Marvel.
