Steve Does Comics

Holy Hotpoints, Batman! I've recently managed to install a washing machine in my dread domain without flooding my Kitchen of Mystery!

Such a triumph can only mean one thing.

I have to review a comic that features a washing machine.

But which comic?

Which?

Where in all the world can I find a comic that revolves around such a device?

There can be only one place.

And that's Howard the Duck #21 which is one of only two issues of that mag I ever owned.

You can find my review of the other issue right here but, as for this comic, I got it in one of those polythene-wrapped triple-packs that Marvel experimented with in the 1970s.

What the other two comics that came in that triple-pack were, I don't recall but those packs always seemed to contain comics written by Steve Gerber and/or Steve Englehart, so they may well have been The Defenders, Guardians of the Galaxy or Omega the Unknown.

As for Howard, what happens is this. Having killed a vigilante called Sudd, in the previous issue, Howard and his restaurant-owning boss are fleeing an angry mob.

They escape but Howard's then captured by the head of a cult dedicated to cleaning up the nation's morals and is shoved into a washing machine in an attempt at brainwashing him into being a suicide bomber for Family Values.

Needless to say, against a character as immune to reform as our hero, such actions are futile and Howard is totally unchanged by the experience and lives to be a misanthrope another day.

The first thing that strikes you about the issue is that it's drawn by Carmine Infantino. While I've always liked what little I've seen of Infantino's 1960s work on Adam Strange and Batman, I'm not oblivious to the fact that 1970s and 1980s Infantino has his critics. For some reason, by then his characters had become strangely wide and a visual flatness and angularity had crept into his style, often making it difficult to look at.

But to be fair to him, in this issue, his artwork softened and given greater visual depth by Klaus Janson's inking, it's possible to appreciate his composition and story-telling skills and to be reminded of the genuine - and at times sophisticated - talent that lay behind those oddly wide figures and angular flatness.

On the writing front, Steve Gerber gives us what we expect from Steve Gerber. The thing that strikes you is that the satire works best when he's not being overly humorous, and it's hard not to feel the comic would have worked better had Howard's wise-cracking been completely expunged from the strip and the whole thing played far straighter.

In total, it's a startlingly thin tale. Basically, Howard and his boss run down an alleyway, go back to Howard's home, have a chat and then Howard is grabbed and put in a washing machine.

This is actually a good thing, as it allows the story time to breathe and the tale becomes dominated by Howard's getting-to-know-you chat with his boss, during which nothing of any import is actually said. This might sound like a bad thing but I've always had a liking for stories where nothing much happens.

But there is one thing that's always baffled me about the tale.

And that's the identity of the villainess of the piece.

We're never shown her face but her and Howard's comments at the finale are seemingly meant to refer to a real-life person with whom we're already familiar.

Sadly, not being American, I don't have a clue who that woman is. I assume she's some sort of US equivalent to Britain's Mary Whitehouse but have no idea if this is so.

So if you happen to know who she's meant to be, feel free to reveal that dread fact in the comments box below - and, at last, a near-forty year old mystery will be solved for me.

In the recent past, I've done posts devoted to such things as Batman comics I've owned, Superman comics I've owned, horror comics I've owned and Fantastic Four comics I've owned. But, hold onto your hats, dear World because I'm not through yet.

Here's where I launch an exciting new feature; where I post comics-that-I-can't-be-bothered-to-categorise that I've owned.

Can the internet take such a strain?

Only the next few minutes will tell.


It always seemed an odd thing for me that Jack Kirby was writing and drawing a comic based on 2001. Clearly, his love of grand concepts and visual spectacle made him a good fit for the title but the glacial sterility of the film seemed massively at odds with Kirby's action-packed instincts.

Was the comic any good?

I can't really remember. But I know, from my Googlings, that it did inspire some great splash pages from him, at the very least.

I don't like to be critical of a new hero but you know you're in trouble when, by your fourth issue, you're reduced to fighting Stilt Man, a foe whose devastating super power is having extendable legs.

This cover's by Jack Kirby. At the time, I never noticed. For some reason, I was convinced that all 1970s non-Kirby mags that had Kirbyesque covers were sporting frontispieces drawn by Rich Buckler doing his Kirby thing. Oh what a fool I was.

This one came in one of those sealed triple-packs Marvel were so keen on for a while. I'm not sure what the other two comics were that came with it. Possibly an issue of The Defenders and something else.

As for this comic, I have vague memories that it involved a Mary Whitehouse type character, trying to clean up the nation. If you're a reader who's unfamiliar with Mary Whitehouse, consider yourself very lucky.

I only had two issues of Nova - this being one of them - but encountered most of his adventures in the pages of Marvel UK's Rampage and Star Wars comics. I sort of enjoyed it when it was drawn by Sal Buscema but, like a lot of others, found it more of a challenge to read when Carmine Infantino took over.

More importantly, I seem to remember having one of my school exercise books wrapped in the cover taken from a spare copy of this issue.

DC's greatest villains get together to cause mischief.

At the time, I knew little of most of DC's villains. It did seem an interesting concept though and I always wanted to get my hands on the second issue; although I assume that, being villains, they never got very far in their dreams of victory.

I have absolutely no memory of the contents of this comic. The truth is I always preferred DC's mystery and horror mags, as Marvel just seemed to use their own equivalent mags to reprint old Lee and Kirby horror tales, which were never really my cup of tea.

I recall really liking this one, though don't recall what actually happened in it. I suspect that a large part of my enjoyment of this mag came from having read DC's unhealthy-looking 1970s take on the character and finding Marvel's more robust version far more in line with my tastes.

Plus, how could you not love that Gil Kane cover?

The thing I remember most about this one is the nipples.

Yes, Reader, it's true; Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241 was the first super-hero comic in which I ever encountered characters whose nipples protruded through their costumes. This may not sound like a big deal but, at the time, I was much impressed by such anatomical accuracy.

Other than that, the story was quite fun, with a distinctly retro vibe to the artwork - as the floating brain with eyeballs and tentacles might suggest.

There was also a Timber Wolf back-up tale that left you in no doubt he'd been remodelled to be more like Wolverine than ever before.

Thanks to George Lucas, we all know Howard the Duck was a new breed of hero. We also know he was box office poison, his movie instantly becoming one of the most notorious flops in cinema history.

How could it not?

How could a live action movie ever hope to capture the feel of the most cartoony of comic strips?

Still, we can hardly hold that against the comic that inspired it. So, what to make of the mag itself?

As a kid, I only had two issues of Howard the Duck, and this, Howard the Duck #22, is the second of those. Reading it now, as an adult, I'm not totally sure what to make of it. It's a comedy title that's humorous but isn't actually ever funny - although it does have one or two amusing moments, not least Howard's soliloquy on a castle's battlements while the Man-Thing makes unlikely gestures behind him. On top of that, it's a tale where the stakes are high but the drama low. It's also by Steve Gerber which means that, although it's never quite as clever as it thinks it is, it has a randomness and a determination to avoid the conventional, which means you can't help warming to it even if you're not totally sure whether it's actually any good or not.

So, what's the story? Well, in this tale, our anti-hero's lounging around on the roof when he's attacked by a giant salt shaker with a gorilla's arms and legs. Next thing he knows he's being whisked off to another dimension by the ghost of Dakimh the Enchanter, to be reunited with the Man-Thing, Korrek the Barbarian and Jennifer Kale. I have to admit that, Man-Thing aside, I don't actually know who any of these characters are but it seems there's a depressive-but-mad villain called Bzzk 'Joh on the loose and only the combined joyousness of Howard, Man-Thing, Korrek and Jennifer can stop him. Clearly this is the equivalent of drafting in the Carry On gang for their karate skills.

Needless to say, by the end of the issue, Bzzk 'Joh has shown up and is threatening a whole heap of non-threatening trouble for our cast. The story's thin and some of the jokes, including the title, are terrible but Howard the Duck's personality is what carries it through. Never impressed with anything, never sold on anything; like Donald and Daffy, our feathered friend complains his way through everything that happens to him. Praise should go to Val Mayerik who draws the tale beautifully and manages to bring a level of personality to a duck that can only be admired.

Circumstances dictated that I never got to see the second part of this tale.

Do I feel a need to track it down and read it?

No.

Did I enjoy re-reading this issue?

Yes.

Would I read another issue of Howard the Duck if it was placed in front of me?

Yes I would.

Would I save up my money to buy The Essential Howard the Duck?

No I wouldn't.

Would I be happy to take it if it were offered me for free?

Yes I would.

Granted, it's hardly an unequivocal declaration of enthusiasm but, knowing Howard the Duck, I don't suppose an unequivocal declaration of enthusiasm is a thing he could ever respect.