Duck Amuck
February 15, 2008 by The Fortress Keeper
It’s been awhile since the Keeper participated in a Friday Night Fight (we’ve had this nagging crick in our back, you see … ), but as a tribute to Steve Gerber your humble host is compelled to once again call upon a champion …
… namely, that foul-tempered, er, fowl: DESTROYER DUCK!
For those of you unfamiliar with DD’s back story, he was the star of an anthology comic created to raise money for Steve Gerber’s legal battle against Marvel over ownership of Howard The Duck.
The main story was a collaboration between Gerber and Jack Kirby - no stranger himself to Marvel’s compassionate treatment of creators - and concerned Destroyer Duck’s search for a friend (i.e. Howard) who was kidnapped and exploited by the evil Godcorp (you know who).
Gerber and Kirby worked on the series for five issues, which savagely lampooned American corporate culture and just about anything else that stood in its way.
And if you’re wondering, Fortress Fan, what this has to do with Friday Night Fights, well never let it be said that a duck drawn by the King couldn’t kick @$$ …
Convinced?
The Destroyer Duck strip ran for two further issues without Gerber and Kirby, but without the guidance of both creators it wasn’t much to speak of. As a side note, Sergio Aragones’ legendary Groo The Wanderer debuted in the first issue!
History in the making!! And, as everybody in the blogoverse knows, nobody loves history more than the mighty Bahlactus …
[...] Fortress of Fortitude ain’t no fake, and real nuckas [...]
Gerber and Erik Larsen did a sequel to the book, featuring Destroyer in the Image ‘verse. He teams up with Dragon and the two sort of rescue Howard and his girl from Marvel. The two are apparantly living in the witness protection program in Buffalo…
I tried to find my copy to post to scans_daily when I heard about Gerber’s death, but I think I sadly may have given it away…
Lurker -
You’re right. I had forgotten about that special … probably because I didn’t like it too much. The book was a bit too “Image-y” for me at that time.
However, I thought Leonard The Duck was hilarious. Too bad Superman’s creators didn’t come up with something similar …
Wow. I remember reading Destroyer duck as a kid, but had no idea there was all of that subtext!
I want to find any book with Leonard the Duck or Destroyer Duck in it.