(electronic music)
- [Joel] Hello and welcome, everyone,
to an all new installment of Super Suits,
the internet comic book show
where we take a closer look
at some of the most famous lawsuits
in the history of super heroes and comic books.
Hey, did you all see that new
Guardians of the Galaxy teaser?
Of course you did.
You know, it got me thinking about the last movie,
and in particular, the hilarious stinger
with Seth Green as Howard the Duck,
and because the newest Howard comic
reached its end just recently,
I figured now was the time to give
the duck the center stage
he's always deserved.
You see, whether you knew it or not,
Howard the Duck has always been a lightning rod
for controversy and the occasional piece of litigation.
Even from the very beginning,
this foulmouthed fowl who seemed to always be
on the edge of an existential breakdown
was ruffling people's feathers.
Eh, geez, Joel, try and cram a couple more
bird puns in there, why don't ya?
You see, around the time the character was first created,
the Disney Corporation took some seriously umbrage
with how much Howard looked like
their much more kid friendly Donald Duck.
This never did actually go to trial or anything,
but Marvel, fearing a possible lawsuit
from the Mouse House,
changed Howard's overall design
and made him put on some pants
to help differentiate him from Donald
and all those other pants-less ducks
we have out there in fiction.
You can understand why this particular story
becomes kind of hilarious in hindsight
when we stop and consider that the Disney Corporation
now is the owner of Marvel comics.
Speaking of Howard the Duck facts
and because this is an election year,
at least for my neighbors to the south.
I personally hail from the frozen land
of Canada, in case you didn't know,
but Howard the Duck actually ran for president once.
It's true.
During his initial run,
creator Steve Gerber,
who we will be covering a lot in this video,
had a story wherein Howard became the nominee
for the, get this, All-Night Party.
Marvel took the joke so far,
they even printed up some campaign buttons,
which, geez, you gotta figure are huge
collectors items right now.
The great legacy here is that the fictional duck
actually did manage by all accounts
to get some actual write-in nominations.
But hey, the name of the show is Super Suits, isn't it?
And I'm here to talk about an actual lawsuit, right,
not just bombard you with interesting facts.
You gotta understand,
there really was a moment in time there
where characters like Howard the Duck
were really quite popular.
Not only did he succeed after spinning out
of the pages of Giant-Sized Man-Thing.
(laughing) Yeah, you heard that right,
Giant-Sized Man-Thing.
Gerber, as we'll discover, was quite the puckish rogue,
which is a nice way of saying he was something
of a proto-troll,
but there really was a moment there in the '70s
in American comics when Howard was riding high.
He had a comic strip.
Comic strips, for our younger fans out there,
were short comics that you got in the paper.
A paper is that thing that people used to read
for news, you know, before the internet?
Where was I again?
Man, I keep getting sidetracked this episode.
Oh, yeah, Howard, he was doing really good,
and Marvel planned a whole multimedia blitz character,
including toys and other such merchandise
as well as that one very, very awful movie
of which we will not speak.
Too bad things had turned sour
between the company and Howard's creator, Steve Gerber,
who for the record, was a real old school comic creator,
the likes of which you just don't really see anymore.
In 1978, Gerber left Marvel over their plans
for his creations,
and by all account, it was a total mess.
But Gerber would just not stay quiet
about the whole thing.
He vowed to take Marvel to court
over creator's rights,
and you gotta keep in mind
that at this point in comic book history,
this was huge.
No creator sued the major companies like this.
In fact, Gerber took his crusade a step further
by teaming up with comic legend Jack Kirby
to create a new character,
Duke the Destroyer Duck for the sole purposes
of raising money for his legal fight with Marvel.
FYI, in the story of the book,
Duke was trying to save his friend,
another duck who was being held hostage
by an evil corporation.
Wow, what a massive pair of cojones on this guy,
am I right?
Duke is actually a huge interesting story
in and of itself,
and, oh, would you look at that?
Scott made a video on this very topic.
How convenient, be sure to go watch it,
but only after this.
Eventually Marvel would attempt to placate Gerber
and get him back on their side.
He agreed to some of their licensing terms,
which allowed them to make their '86 movie,
and dammit, I thought we weren't gonna speak about this.
But when it came time to write the character again,
he would only agree to do so
if he was allowed to erase and mock
any new Howard canon he objected to.
Gerber wouldn't get his way,
but in the '90s,
he quietly resurrected his version of Howard the Duck
for his own run on She Hulk.
In 2001, Gerber would once again return to Marvel
to pen some Howard the Duck stories
for the more adult oriented Marvel Max line,
although if you watched that Scott video,
you would know that that Howard
was actually a clone.
In fact, this story even goes a little bit deeper.
You see, Gerber wanted to redesign Howard
for his new Max run,
but he couldn't because of the whole Disney thing
from earlier on.
Gerber responded to these restraints
in classic Gerber fashion,
by which I mean, he viciously mocked it
by having Howard dress up as different animals
throughout that entire run,
the first of which, might I add, was a mouse.
Steve Gerber would sadly pass away in 2008,
which means he never got to see
his character on the big screen for the second time.
He would, however, leave behind him
one trailblazing legacy
and one whopper of a super suit.
So there you have it,
the story of a little duck
who caused some very big trouble for a lot of people,
and with that, there's the sound of the gavel,
which means my time is almost through,
but before I go,
for more educational superhero videos,
but sure to subscribe to Scott and NerdSync.
And if you wanna see more of my work,
by all means, check me out over on the Cape Joel channel.
I'm almost to 10K in subs,
so, you know, if you see a sub button,
just like, you know, anywhere on screen,
you should probably hit it.