I'm going to guess that just about every internet outlet attached to comics is going to have something to say about Steve Gerber's passing today, if they haven't said their pieces already. And I'm not surprised, as Gerber was one of the most unique voices in comics writing.
Of course, his greatest creation is
Howard the Duck, one of those comic characters, like Plastic Man, like Charlie Brown, that has never been handled as well as when it was in the hands of its creator. Indeed, Howard was Gerber's four color avatar, and other writers attempting to give Howard life just plain did not fit. Alas, that title's legacy of satire, parody, and just plain strangeness has been muted by the long shadow cast by the
Howard the Duck movie, but slowly people are again recognizing the greatness of this series, and what was lost when the creator and his creation were kept apart.
Howard sprang forth from Gerber's other major Marvel work,
Man-Thing, which at first glance appeared to be a more straightforward horror title, but still had its moments of satire and offbeat humor. In fact, through most of Gerber's work, there's a feeling of Gerber taking things about as seriously as they needed to be...he can turn on the horror or the drama when he needs to, but just as quickly he can hit you with a scene that has a feeling of "can you
believe this? I'm writing it, and
I can barely believe it" -- but doing it in such a way that you didn't feel like the characters or situation were being mocked.
Speaking of "turning on the horror" -- just a few short months after I started this website, I posted a
brief appreciation of one of my favorite comics, Gerber's terrifying
Phantom Zone mini-series. I followed up on that post with a more detailed overview in
my guest writer gig at The Horror Blog a couple of years back. So, please, I invite you to check out those posts for more about Mr. Gerber.
So, Steve Gerber.
He gave us Howard the Duck.
He gave us the
Howard the Duck album issue, an illustrated text piece with Gerber's ponderings on his life and work and the universe...
...Where he also gave us a Las Vegas showgirl and her pet ostrich fighting a lampshade, which many years later became the Vertigo mini-series
Nevada.
He gave us
Doctor Bong. Dude, seriously,
he gave us Doctor Bong. Who else could have? Who else would
dare?
He gave us the
Man-Thing series (and most of the preceding Man-Thing run in
Fear), picking up from Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway's introduction of the character to take it into bizarre and frightening, and simply weird, directions.
He gave us
"Kid's Night Out" from
Giant-Size Man-Thing #4, easily one of the greatest and most affecting comic books ever published.
And yes, since someone's gonna bring it up, I suppose he sorta gave us
Giant-Size Man-Thing, too. I'm pretty sure he claimed at some point that wasn't an
intentional double-entendre, and it's not like he created Marvel's "Giant-Size" line. Still lots of good readin' in those GS-MTs, though.
He gave us
Omega the Unknown, a coming-of-age story disguised as a superhero comic.
He gave us
Sludge, yet another take on the Man-Thing/Swamp Thing/man-become-monster genre, and still managed to keep it fresh and entertaining.
He gave us
Wundarr, a parody of Superman who eventually became, sort of, Marvel Jesus.
He gave us
Stewart the Rat, which
could have been just an attempt at getting lightning to strike twice with another Howard-esque avatar for Gerber, which...well, okay, it was, but still managed to stand on its own.
He gave us
Destroyer Duck, one of the most unsubtle, but still very funny and pointed, comic books I've ever read.
He gave us the
Mandrill. Hey, I
like the Mandrill.
He gave us a new and interesting take on Dr. Fate in
Countdown to Mystery, still being published even now.
He gave us much, much more than I'm mentioning here, and I'm sad to realize that we'll see no more. But we can all still appreciate the work he left behind.
Thanks, Steve.
Just a couple of follow-ups from the weekend:
First, on Sunday I just happened to be restocking the Batman graphic novels, and I took the opportunity to flip through a copy of
Batman: The Cult to see if the monster truck
shown here did indeed resemble
The Cult's Batmobile.
And yes, the two do appear similar, though the comic book version's tires are quite a bit larger.
That, my friends, is the kind of research you've come to depend upon here at Progressiveruin.com.
Second, I'm not intending any real criticism of Aqualad's redesign in
Teen Titans Year One with
this post. I didn't really have an opinion, one way or the other, aside from "hmmm, guess they changed his look, here." The Innsmouth connection just came up at work, it made us laugh, and that's good enough for website content, my friends.
Though, I suppose, this creepy look could be used to help underscore his outcast status, given his origins (rejected from Atlantis society due to his purple eyes...yes
really). The more overt physical differences not only separate him from his people, but from the folks of the surface world as well, giving the character that extra touch of tragedy.
Or whatever. Doesn't matter, since we're not likely to see this character design again past the end of this series.
I'm not really reading this
Year One series, though I kinda flip through it when it shows up at the shop. What bothers me more than Aqualad's fishy makeover is the internet chatting, the cell phone (there was a cell phone, wasn't there? I think so), and stuff like that. I see it and I think briefly "the Teen Titans first appeared in the '50s, they didn't have internet or cell phones then!" I realize of course with the sliding timelines, assuming the current DC universe is in 2008 (or 2009, I have no idea how "One Year Later' futzed things up), then
Teen Titans Year One takes place...oh, around 1999, 2000, or thereabouts, I guess.
That probably isn't the sort of thing I should be thinking about. That way madness lies.
In other news:
- Hey, you all remember that Batman/Hellboy/Starman two-issue series from a few years back? I had a request for it on Sunday, and I don't think it's ever been reprinted. Someone pointed out this fact on the Dark Horse message boards, and apparently the official answer is "it'll happen eventually" (as of early '07).
Of course, two issues would make for an awfully thin paperback (though I believe they did one for the two-issue Ghost/Hellboy mini). What would be welcome is a trade reprinting all the crossover one-shots/minis (like with Painkiller Jane and Savage Dragon and the Goon), but given the number of rights-holders involved it may not be financially feasible. Still would be nice, though.
- Dr. K writes about the troublesome portrayal of the Blackhawks' pal Chop Chop. Now, a long time ago, we had some old Blackhawks with the Chop Chop back-up stories, and flipping through them...well, Dr. K states that the back-ups "kicked up the caricature" of Chop Chop, which is almost understating it. My memory of those stories is that Chop Chop was barely even recognizable as human...it was one of the most offensive things I'd ever seen.
Dr. K also brings up the slow redressing of this problem, coming to a head in one of my favorite metatextual gags to ever appear in comics. I'll let Dr. K tell you what that was, and you'll know when you get to it because you'll see the word "metatextual" again.
Anyway, Dr. K gives a nice, brief overview of the character's history and its evolution into something a bit less politically incorrect, so go ahead and give it a read.
- Coming from Hollywood: Superhero Movie, a parody film in the style of Epic Movie. Check the link and tell me that guy in the green suit doesn't look a little like Ambush Bug, if you squint a bit. (WARNING: page may generate a noise-making pop-up.)
