Howard The Duck Creator Dies At Age 60
Somewhere, a notoriously loud-mouthed duck has been struck speechless. Steve Gerber, one of the most influential creators and writers in comic books, died Feb. 10 in a Las Vegas hospital. Gerber had been suffering from pulmonary fibrosis. A friend of Gerber’s confirmed the sad news on Steve’s blog today. Gerber will be best remembered as the creator of Howard The Duck, a character quite unlike any that came before or after.Gerber’s greatest strength was satire and his signature character often thumbed his beak at traditions of the sci-fi and horror genres. Howard’s tag line “Trapped in a World He Never Made” poked fun at 1950s-style promo lines. The line could have just as well described Gerber, as his greatest creation would become the source of much of his stress. Marvel Comics removed Gerber from the book among creative and ownership issues in 1978 and he became a test case for the many similar situations that would follow.
Marvel canceled Howard’s book in 1979, causing an uproar among its dedicated cult following. One fan was even reported to have sent duck bones to the Marvel offices with a note branding them murderers for “killing” Howard. The duck never completely went away, even starring in a movie that became a box office bomb of epic proportions. But it too developed a cult following.
Gerber didn’t have much taste for traditional comic archetypes, choosing to work with characters like Shanna the She-Devil and Man-Thing. After leaving Marvel he worked at DC Comics and during slow times in the 1980s moved into writing for TV. He wrote the Star Trek:The Next Generation episode Contagion and created the cartoon hero Thundarr the Barbarian. Thundarr introduced Gerber’s work to a generation of kids that might not have gotten Howard’s biting humor.
This show, set on a post-apocalyptic Earth in a time of “savagery, super-science and sorcery,” also attained cult classic status. Thundarr was a sort of spawn of Luke Skywalker and Conan the Barbarian. In the wake of the genre-defining financial success of Star Wars, the ABC network would only greenlight the show if elements ripped straight from George Lucas’ work were used. Thundarr mowed the down the bad guys with his “Sun Sword,” a completely obvious ripoff of the lightsaber. It even powered up from a metal hilt that generated the energy beam forming the sword. He was assisted by the Chewbacca-like Ookla the Mok, a huge hairy beast whose speech was only intelligible to his close friends.
Despite ABC’s mandate to pilfer heavily from Lucas, Thundarr carved out a unique niche all his own. Gerber used his extensive network of comic connections to make sure the show transcended the low-functioning goals of the ABC execs financing it. Famed artist Jack Kirby contributed to the show’s design while some of it was the work of Space Ghost creator Alex Toth. The wizard Gemini bears more than a passing resemblance to one of Kirby’s greatest creations, the villain Darkseid.
Thundarr has influenced several writers, creators and actors. Thundarr regularly makes appearances on shows like Robot Chicken or Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law that parody cartoons or sci-fi.
Gerber kept writing almost up until his death. A Feb. 4 blog post tells his fans he was up past midnight writing a Dr. Fate story. DC Comics has not yet announced plans for the story.
An author’s legacy comes from the characters he breathes life into. Through that measure, Steve Gerber will live with comic and sci-fi fans forever.
Tags: ABC, DC Comics, Dr. Fate, Howard The Duck, Marvel Comics, Thundarr the BarbarianRelated Stories
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