Overview
The main story of the comic told of Louis "Duke" Duck, a resident of a typical anthropomorphic comic-book world, who had witnessed his best friend, identified only as "The Little Guy" or "TLG", vanish into thin air before his eyes. Some years later, TLG reappeared only to die at Duke's feet—but not before telling the tale of how he was exploited and destroyed by a thoughtless conglomeration, "Godcorp." Swearing revenge, Duke vowed to take down Godcorp no matter what the cost. [5]
Subsequent Destroyer Duck tales would reveal that the Little Guy who died at Duke's feet was in fact a clone, and the original was still held captive by Godcorp; eventually, Gerber (by that point on better terms with Marvel, the lawsuit having long since been settled) revealed that The Little Guy's real name was actually "Leonard" - a new duck character that, for all intents and purposes, was identical in every way (except in name and character ownership) to Howard.
The stories introduced sentient scented dolls and Wobblina Strangelegs, who nearly got her own one-shot. After five issues, Gerber gave up writing the title, but remained its editor. Buzz Dixon wrote the last two issues, about a STD-infected parody of Gilligan’s Island . Frank Miller drew the cover of the final issue. The seven issues of the comic were published very sporadically.
Issue #1 of the original Destroyer Duck series, labeled the "Special Lawsuit Benefit Edition", is notable for containing the first appearance of Sergio Aragonés’s Groo the Wanderer and also featuring additional stories by Mark Evanier, Dan Spiegle, Shary Flenniken, Martin Pasko, and Joe Staton. [6] The rest of the series contained the back-up feature The Starling, written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, with art by Val Mayerik.
In 1994, while Gerber was working at Image for Top Cow Studio on Codename: Strykeforce , Gerber planned for issue #14 to include Destroyer Duck. At the last minute, Marc Silvestri declined, forcing Gerber and his editor, David Wohl, to revise the story. Destroyer Duck does not appear as such in the story, but Gerber introduces Specimen Q, a mysterious character imprisoned in his armor who is Destroyer Duck, as readers will learn in the Savage Dragon/Destroyer Duck one-shot in 1996.
Jack Kirby was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He grew up in New York City and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and editorial cartoons. He entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before ultimately settling on Jack Kirby. In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics. During the 1940s, Kirby regularly teamed with Simon, creating numerous characters for that company and for National Comics Publications, later to become DC Comics.
Howard the Duck is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. Howard the Duck first appeared in Adventure into Fear #19 and several subsequent series have chronicled the misadventures of the ill-tempered anthropomorphic animal trapped on a human-dominated Earth. Echoing this, the most common tagline of his comics reads 'Trapped In a World He Never Made!'
Amazing Adventures is the name of several anthology comic book series, all but one published by Marvel Comics.
Stephen Ross Gerber was an American comic book writer best known for co-creating the satiric Marvel Comics character Howard the Duck and a character-defining run on Man-Thing, one of their monster properties. Other notable works include Omega the Unknown,Marvel Spotlight: "Son of Satan", The Defenders,Marvel Presents: "Guardians of the Galaxy", Daredevil and Foolkiller. Gerber was known for including lengthy text pages in the midst of comic book stories, such as in his graphic novel, Stewart the Rat. Gerber was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2010.
Gold Key Comics was originally an imprint of American company Western Publishing, created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated this way from 1962 to 1984. In 2021, comics creator and hacker Robert Willis obtained the trademark.
Harvey Comics was an American comic book publisher, founded in New York City by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out the small publisher Brookwood Publications. His brothers, Robert B. and Leon Harvey, joined shortly after. The company soon got into licensed characters, which by the 1950s, became the bulk of their output. The artist Warren Kremer is closely associated with the publisher.
Fighting American is a superhero created in 1954 by the writer-artist team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Published by the Crestwood Publications imprint Prize Comics, it was, contrary to standard industry practices of the time, creator-owned. Harvey Comics published one additional issue in 1966. One final inventoried tale was published in 1989, in a Marvel Comics hardcover collection of all the Fighting American stories.
Adventure into Fear is an American horror comic book series published by Marvel Comics from cover dates November 1970 through December 1975, for 31 issues. This is its trademarked cover title for all but its first nine issues, though the series is copyrighted in its postal indicia as simply Fear.
Captain Marvel Adventures was a long running comic book anthology series by Fawcett Comics, starring Captain Marvel during the Golden Age of Comic Books.
Carl Burgos was an American comic book and advertising artist best known for creating the original Human Torch in Marvel Comics #1, during the period historians and fans call the Golden Age of comic books.
Michael G. Ploog is an American storyboard and comic book artist, and a visual designer for films.
Captain Victory is a comic book originally created, written and drawn by Jack Kirby. It was first published by American comic book publisher Pacific Comics in 1981. Kirby agreed to create a comic for the fledgling publisher because Pacific promised him full creative control, and ownership of the characters.
Creator ownership in comics is an arrangement in which the comic book creator retains full ownership of the material, regardless of whether the work is self-published or published by a corporate publisher.
Crestwood Publications, also known as Feature Publications, was a magazine publisher that also published comic books from the 1940s through the 1960s. Its title Prize Comics contained what is considered the first ongoing horror comic-book feature, Dick Briefer's "Frankenstein". Crestwood is best known for its Prize Group imprint, published in the late 1940s to mid-1950s through packagers Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, who created such historically prominent titles as the horror comic Black Magic, the creator-owned superhero satire Fighting American, and the first romance comic title, Young Romance.
Robert Bernstein, sometimes credited as R. Berns, was an American comic book writer, playwright and concert impresario, notable as the founder of the Island Concert Hall recital series which ran for 15 years on Long Island.
Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal are fictional, talking animal comic-book characters created by cartoonist Al Jaffee for Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books.
Novelty Press was an American Golden Age comic-book publisher that operated from 1940 to 1949. It was the comic book imprint of Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of The Saturday Evening Post. Among Novelty's best-known and longest-running titles were the companion titles Blue Bolt and Target Comics.
Buzz Dixon is an American writer of comic books, film, and cartoons. He has written comics for multiple companies, including Eclipse Comics, Marvel Comics, and a Buck Rogers adaptation for TSR, Inc.
The Destroyer is the name of three fictional superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. One of the earliest creations of major comics-industry figure Stan Lee, the original incarnation first appeared in the 1940s during what historians and fans call the Golden Age of comic books.
"Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." was a feature in the comics anthology Strange Tales which began in 1965 and lasted until 1968. It introduced the fictional spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. into the Marvel Comics world and reintroduced the character of Nick Fury as an older character from his concurrently-running series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, which was a series set during World War II. The feature replaced the previously running Human Torch feature in the book and ran alongside the Doctor Strange feature. After the feature ended, a comic book series was published which has had several volumes as well as a comic strip. The feature was originally created by the duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby who also created the original Sgt. Fury series but it was later taken over by artist and writer Jim Steranko. The feature was often censored by the Comics Code Authority due to Jim Steranko's provocative art; this art helped change the landscape of comics which Steranko continued with in the 1968 ongoing series. Much of Nick Fury's supporting cast originated in the feature and many of the devices used by these characters were often used in other comics published by Marvel.
