Phallus Dei: And Woe Did They Lay Down Their Burdens, For Ye Shalt Know A Duck Named Howard

Man-Thing Part One Man-Thing Part Two Man-Thing Part Three

Adventure Into Fear # 19 & Man-Thing # 1

Written by Steve Gerber

Art by Val Mayerik & Sal Trapani

Published by Marvel Comics, 1973-74

Obviously, things aren't going as planned right now, but before the torches and pitchforks come out...these two issues aren't bad at all. Besides the introduction of Howard The Duck, this is the strongest of Gerber's "Crisis" style stories thus far. It seems pretty obvious what the comparisons are-the opening pages of Fear aren't that far removed from the Multiverse Mash-Ups that DC had started playing with in the early 60's JLA books, and, if you just tweaked the on-frame characters, you'd have something that wouldn't be out of place in 1985's Crisis On Infinite Earths. Although I'm not the best of comics scholars, I'm going to assume that the barbarian hordes here are some kind of Conan stand-ins, and while the GI's they're fighting could have come from any war comic, I'd guess that Gerber had something more specific in mind. (From what Noah and I have read so far, most of these stories include some kind of veiled reference points.) And while some portions of these two issues do falter a bit as they work to move through a somewhat "all-in" approach to plotting, the moments of crazy inspiration are pretty successful. For instance, when a jar of peanut butter becomes a jar of man.You can't fault Gerber's explanation for what's going on either--sure, it's a little cloying that corporate greed and environmental negligence has resulted in a "catastrophe" that might result in the collapse of existence due to what happens when "alternate universes collide"--but honestly, none of those types of dialog have ever worked, regardless of writer. Crisis On Infinite Earths wasn't tense or upsetting because a bunch of random no-name Earths might be destroyed, making it impossible for Superman to date himself, it was tense and upsetting because specific characters that people liked might be destroyed. Nobody cares about the physics of apocalypse, the alternate realities of milkmen, and nobody gives a shit if the fake Batman from Earth-19 dies. But again, around the time that all that overcooked explanation starts to wear--in walks Howard.

He only appears in five panels in Fear. Here's two more of them.

And you know what? I like him already. I don't know why he's there, or what he was supposed to do or mean, or any of that. To be honest, I didn't realize until I went to wikipedia that this is actually his first appearance. But fuck it, he's a smoking duck, he reminds me of Groucho Marx for no explainable reason, and he's...well, he's a smoking duck with a funny hat. Oddly enough, the Conan-stand-in seems to share my feelings, because he likes and respects him immediately as well. Considering that most of Korrek's speeches and actions so far have painted his character as an aggressive jump-first type of character, it makes Howard that much more interesting when you see him tell the barbarian to shut up. Why does Howard get to order around Conan and treat Man-Thing like a retarded golden retriever? Gerber doesn't say. He doesn't need to. Howard gets to do that stuff because he's Howard The Duck.

From here to the end of Man-Thing # 1, which continues right where Fear leaves off, the tempo and crazy stays pretty high. We're introduced to the Overmaster--not the cross-dressing Overmaster from DC, but the Marvel skin-suit wearing Overmaster--a group called the Congress of Realities, which has a remarkable similarity to Alan Moore's "look at all these characters from different stories" feel to it, Jennifer Kale is saved from execution by Daredevil and the Black Widow in a 1.5 panel cameo appearance, Howard the Duck "dies" for no good reason whatsoever, which Korrek takes very seriously, and it all ends with this famous scene:

And we're on some solid ground here, I'd have to say. Everything-and-the-kitchen-sink comics may be pretty popular nowadays, but these two issues are witty, and the overall speed with which Gerber is throwing stuff at the wall is a lot stronger than the snail's pace with which the previous wizards and warlocks stuff went down. I don't find this art particularly special, but it's readable and unobtrusive. Either way, the question of "why is this a cult classic" came up at the end of Noah's last post, and while two issues may not completely answer it, these two are particularly special. Besides predating Crisis On Infinite Earths, this is clearly a comic that sits alongside the work of Brendan McCarthy as being a big inspiration to Grant Morrison, whether he credits it or not. (He totally could, I have no idea.) From what I've heard, there's a far more blatant antecedent on the way. Smooth sailing from here on out? Maybe?

Man-Thing # 2-3

Written by Steve Gerber

Art by Val Mayerik, Sal Trapani & Jack Abel

Published by Marvel Comics, 1974

Or maybe we're not. After all the craziness involved in the previous issues, these two issues drop back into The Stories Of Normal People, and their Interactions With The Swamp Monster. Some guy named Richard Rory runs out of gas, hangs out in the swamp, he meets Man-Thing, Man-Thing saves him from some alligators, a biker gang shows up, Shit Happens, and it's all very predictable until the apperance of some dandy fop named Foolkiller.

I don't really care about that. I want to look at this again, it's from Fear # 11.

You know what's amazing about that panel? Right there, in the middle. Man-Thing, questioning whether or not he has to kill Jennifer and Andy. The way it's presented there is that the question isn't up to Man-Thing--it's completely up to those two. If they are scared, Man-Thing burns them. That's the way he operates. It doesn't have to anything to do with innocence, it doesn't have anything to do with right or wrong, it's a yes/no question. If you're scared, you burn. From what I've read since that panel, that simple premise seems to have been totally abandoned. Instead, Man-Thing keeps entering situations where he sides with the victim. Is that as interesting? I don't think it is. But he keeps being portrayed as some kind of hero, and that makes it necessary for Gerber give him some direct reason for participating in conflicts that don't involve him in any way beyond his physical proximity. Apparently, that has something to do with his empathy, which works like some kind of radio receiver for when people are desperate or pathetic--but it still doesn't fit, and it's nowhere near as interesting as the way he's presented in that middle panel, where he's just some wild animal with a rudimentary code.

I used to work as an emergency technician at a veterinary clinic, which is an overly long way of saying "night nurse", and part of what I did was work with rescue dogs. The reason we'd get them instead of the Humane Society was because they were rescue dogs that came out of illegal fight clubs or hardcore abuse situations, the kind of animals that needed professional rehabilitation if they were going to end up adopted. (That's the kind of program rich people pay for instead of helping homeless people.) You'd have to work with these dogs--most of which were abnormally aggressive, due to their always-horrific background--and you'd have to be really fucking careful all the time. Wear protective gear, follow protocol, accept that they were never going to be remotely trustworthy--because if they ever did become "good" dogs, that meant they'd get passed onto places staffed by 15 year olds. You only dealt with animals that were basically feral. One of them...I thought I got along really good with, and I'd worked with her for almost six months. And then one night when she was getting returned to the little room she slept in, the lightbulb shorted out and she tried to rip my throat out. I'm trying to keep her teeth away, and she gets my hand in her mouth, and bang--it was like stomping on ketchup packets. The bones just popped in her mouth, there's blood everywhere, and the only reason the thing still works correctly is because I got away the best I could. And yeah, I was pretty upset. My hand's shattered, two of my fingernails stayed in her mouth, and the nerves in my thumb don't work anymore.

But it wasn't her fault. It was mine. I knew what she was, and I fucked up and paid the price for it. And that's what Man-Thing started off as being, and what he occasionally still is, in this series. A feral monster that has no conscience or moral code, no connection to man or animal, and a brutally simple equation with which to live his life by. 

Problems? Fear? Kill it. 

In that middle panel, or in the portions of these issues where he kills any animal that gets in his way, he's a pretty exciting character to read about. He's not stopping to play with the plants the way Alan Moore's Swamp Thing does, he's not petting little girls on the head, he's not making quips, he's not trying to save anybody--he's just trying to maintain a weird, self-centered peace, where nobody bothers him. It's those moments that make or break these non-crazy-peanut butter Conan stories. Those moments when Gerber just embraces what he initially created, which was a character who didn't struggle at all with being a monster, the way the Hulk or the Thing so often do. And yet, as we're getting deeper and deeper into this series, the more I'm finding that aspect of the character being left behind, and what's provided in place of that simplicity is something that doesn't particularly interest me at all. I hope that changes. The wild animal, the dangerous monster--that's a tension builder I want to keep up with, a character whose actions are far more fascinating because of the unsettling notion that he's a monster who has one solution, and he has no responsibility for what that solution entails. When the Man-Thing's weird, fucked up code of conduct is the primary mover for these stories--like the pages where he savagely kills his way through the alligators that surround Richard at the beginning of this story, or when he does the same in the later issue's splash page sequence--these comics have a touch of greatness to them, generic art notwithstanding. But when those same moments are stained with a pointless "save some assholes" motive, it undercuts the story, and it makes this particular character into a super-hero that it doesn't seem capable of becoming. To put it bluntly? He makes for an iconic monster.

He's a terrible Hawkman.

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[Kenny Cather]

Howard the Duck was by far the best thing to come out of Man Thing. His series is odd - some of the humor still holds today and some of the social and political observations still hold today, too - but largely, the comic was the ultimate experience in a Mary Sue running around. It got so blatant that at one point, I think an issue turned into an essay from Gerber saying something along the lines of - Look, Howard is just a mouth piece for me. I'm the one talking to you. It was unintentional metafiction. I dunno, I haven't read the series in a few years, but I feel like if I go back and read it again, the whole series will be full of unintentional innovation.

Anyway, all this is to say Howard the Duck is a fascinating series for all sorts of reasons. It would be interesting to see you do an examination of it.

[Kenny Cather]

I went off on a tangent there. Anyway, what I was going to get around to is your observation of Man Thing at the end - that's what happens to Howard, too. I think it's why Man Thing never interested me - well, that and if I feel like reading about a plant monster, I'll just go and read the one written by the world's greatest living author.

And your observation that Man Thing was an inspiration to Morrison? I've always thought so, too. You're the first person I've come across who arrived at the same conclusion. Wait until you get to Howard the Duck, and then you'll see it even more.

[TimCallahan]

Morrison has mentioned being influenced by Gerber, yes.

AN: In comics who has had the most influence upon your writing?

GM: John Broome, Jack Kirby, Len Wein, Steve Gerber, Don McGregor, Jim Starlin, Chris Claremont, Brendan McCarthy.

From: http://tinyurl.com/mgcvr8

[Tucker Stone]

Oh, that's a good interview too. Thanks Tim, hadn't ever read that one.

[NoahB]

Jeez, does Grant Morrison always sound that pompous in interviews?

[Phil]

Tucker, is the Foolkiller character in this story at all like the one in the Marvel MAX mini-series?

[Tucker Stone]

Phil: Only in the slightest. As far as I can tell, the only connection is the name and the constant repetition of phrases like "I must kill the fools". This one wears a v-neck spandex outfit, one of those old French hats and shoots people with a weapon that fires pure energy. He's not like the Punisher--he kills plenty of innocent people. He also doesn't survive this series. I'm guessing that the MAX Foolkiller is more based on a later version of the character. This one is more humor/crazy/weird. Noah will probably deal with him when he posts on sunday--his story continues throughout the next issue.