Destroyer Duck Graphite Edition

THE MANSLAYING MALLARD’S MISSION OF VENGEANCE, REPRODUCED FROM KIRBY’S PURE PENCIL ART!

TwoMorrows Publishing

10407 Bedfordtown Drive

Raleigh, NC 27614

919-449-0344

www.twomorrows.com

ISBN 978-1-60549-117-2

First printing, February 2023

Printed in China

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Shaun Clancy

Jean Depelley

Devon Davidoski

Buzz Dixon

Mark Evanier

David Folkman

Samantha Gerber

Glen Gold

Lisa Kirby

Steve Leialoha

Manny Maris

Harris Miller

MSU Libraries

Dean Mullaney

Stuart Ng

Tom Orzechowski

Alan Pinion

David Schwartz

Mike Thibodeaux

Bill Wray

For more details on Steve Gerber’s legal battle, see: http://rsmwriter.blogspot. com/2016/04/all-quackedup-steve-gerber-marvel.html

And from the text page of Destroyer Duck #1, here’s Steve Gerber’s own 1982 list of thank-yous.

Destroyer Duck: Graphite Edition

Re-presenting Destroyer Duck #1–5 in pencil form

Edited & designed by John Morrow

Title page image: Envelope for the 1982 F.O.O.G. (Friends of Ol’ Gerber) Portfolio

Editorial package © 2023

TwoMorrows Publishing, the Estate of Steve Gerber, and the Rosalind Kirby Trust. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication, except for limited review use, may be reproduced in any manner without express permission.

Foreword © John Morrow. Introduction © Mark Evanier. Afterword © Buzz Dixon.

Destroyer Duck and all related characters TM & © the Estate of Steve Gerber & the Rosalind Kirby Trust.

FOREWORD

I left the original lettering intact.

Although this is a “Graphite Edition,” I strongly felt it was important to show Steve Gerber’s typed synopsis for issue #1, so you can see exactly what Kirby had to pencil from, and how he interpreted it (and added in his own sensibilities). The series was a true collaboration, as you’ll discover here. Want other examples of Steve’s plots, synopses, scripts, and notes? I’ve compiled a free digital PDF download for readers of this book. Get it at: www.twomorrows.com/ media/Gerber.pdf, you lucky duck!

There are at least a couple of thencurrent events that you’ll need to be aware of to fully grasp Steve Gerber’s satire. Just after Destroyer Duck #1 debuted, artist John Byrne wrote an editorial for Comics Scene #2 (March 1982), proudly proclaiming himself a “company man”, saying “I’m a cog in the machine which is Marvel Comics”, and saying creators should be content

Stephen Ross Gerber [right] was born in St. Louis in 1947, grew up there, and fell in love with comic books there. In 1972, he began writing them for Marvel and moved to New York. I vaguely knew his name from the world of fanzines, but our paths did not coincide, and we did not meet until a few years later when he moved to Southern California and rented an apartment in Burbank, a few blocks from the NBC Studios. But I did read some of the comics he wrote and I found them generally clever and refreshing. He came up with new characters and with fresh takes on old characters. Some of the recently-hired writers at Marvel around that time seemed to have as their goal, making their comics as indistinguishable as possible from classic Lee-and-Kirby, Lee-and-Ditko or Lee-and-Anyone-Else. That Gerber guy wrote like that Gerber guy. There was always some clever twist, some human element that took his super-hero and monster stories to another level. At least, I thought so. I think it was in 1976 that I spent a week or so poaching alternately in the Marvel offices and the DC Comics offices in New York... just hanging around, meeting and talking to people. A few people at each office knew me, and the ones who didn’t just seemed to assume I was some new hire who belonged there. One person in the Production Department at Marvel kept giving me little tasks to do like pasting up a text page or proofreading a story. I did not say, “I’m sorry, but I don’t work here.” I went ahead and pasted up the text page or proofread the story.

There was a gent then working for Marvel in roughly the same capacity that I was assumed to be working in. There’s no point in giving his name. Few, if any of you would recognize it. But he didn’t like Steve Gerber, in part for the same reason I liked Gerber’s work: Because it didn’t read like sixties’ Lee-and-Somebody work. That, to me, was a plus. That, to this staffer, was blasphemy. (And the other reason why he didn’t like Gerber’s work was, I suspect, why a lot of people in comics don’t like what others in comics do: Because they covet the job. This guy resented that he was pasting-up text pages and proofreading while Steve was writing The Defenders and Man-Thing and other comics.)

From the moment I chanced to mention to him that I liked Gerber’s writing, he began telling me that Steve Gerber was crazy... and he didn’t mean “crazy” like in “Two wild and crazy guys.” He didn’t mean nice-crazy. He meant “crazy” the way someone is crazy if they get a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 semi-

automatic rifle, go up in a tower, and start picking off innocent strangers. That kind of crazy.

Having no evidence to the contrary, I guess I believed the guy. I had never met Steve Gerber and I considered myself lucky.

Flash forward a year or three. After every Comic-Con International (which had a different name back then) in San Diego, there’d be an after-party on Sunday evening at the home of MAD cartoonist Sergio Aragonés in Los Angeles. This was a different home than the one he now lives in and he’s now in a different city and he has a different wife. But those were great parties... so great that people who were there in San Diego and otherwise had no reason to go to Los Angeles would drive the many bumper-tobumper hours through Sunday evening traffic on the 5 just to be at Sergio’s for a few hours.

At one of those parties, I found myself happily sitting by the pool, eating Numero Uno pizza and talking with a very smart guy whose name I somehow didn’t catch. He knew who I was but if he’d introduced himself, I’d missed it... and this may have happened to you. You’re talking to someone for so long and having such a good time, you’d be embarrassed to say, “Excuse me, but who are you?”

Finally though, he mentioned something about writing “The Duck” and I knew he didn’t mean Donald or Daffy. He seemed to be talking about Howard the Duck, the suddenly-successful character Steve Gerber had created in one comic with artist Val Mayerik and continued in the Howard the Duck comic book with Frank Brunner and then other artists. At the time, that duck had only been written by Steve Gerber, so I thought, “This couldn’t be him, could it?” I soon realized it was... and he was not crazy. In fact, he turned out to be one of the sanest people I’ve met in 50+ years in the comic book industry. He died in 2008, but still holds that title with me.

That evening at Casa Aragonés, Steve had recently moved to Southern California. He was just

settling down in his newly-rented apartment and he mentioned something about needing to go find sheets and bedding for a queen-sized bed. As it happened, I had just upgraded my queen-sized bed to what they call a California King and I had a pile of linens and blankets for which I now had no use. When the party was winding down, Steve followed my car to where I was living and I gave him what I had. We wound up sitting in my living room, talking until 4:00 AM and becoming the best of buddies.

Moral of the story so far: Don’t believe everything that somebody tells you about somebody else. Especially if it’s derogatory. There will be other morals before we get to the end of this, but I’ll let you figure them out.

Not long after that, Steve got into some immense deadline hassles with Marvel over books on which he was writer-editor. All his titles were running late -- some almost fatally so -- and not all of that was his fault. But some of it was. At the same time, he was bickering with Marvel over Howard. Steve had the temerity to suggest that he should own, if not the character itself, then perhaps some percentage of the revenue it was already generating, with more to come. Just a few years later, that would not be an outrageous position for a creator or co-creator to take but at the time, it was like young Oliver Twist asking the proprietors of the orphanage, “Please, sir... may I have some more?” In the book of the same name, Oliver was struck for asking that, thrown in solitary confinement, and there was talk of hanging him.

It wasn’t quite that bad for Steve.

Soon, he was dismissed for lateness... but he was convinced that would not have happened had he not raised the ownership question. And he was also convinced he needed to sue over custody of that duck.

I introduced him to my attorney, Henry W. Holmes... famed in song and story. I’d been introduced to Henry by the noted author, Mr. Harlan Ellison. Harlan was (of course) a fine writer and often a litigious one, and when Harlan prevailed in one of his legal skirmishes, he did not keep the outcome confidential. He wrote eloquently and triumphantly about it... which means he wrote about Henry. I found H.W.H. to be not only a great lawyer, but a great friend... with a genuine love of creative people and a defender of their rights. His client list included many famous names, almost all of whom paid him way more money than Steve ever did... or for that matter, I ever did. That didn’t matter with Henry; not if he liked you, not if he felt you’d been cheated or wronged and he could put things right.

Henry studied Steve’s situation

and decided that there was an injustice there and a solid, winnable case that might right that wrong. But he did caution Steve that taking on Marvel Comics would not be cheap... and I suspect even Henry, wise as he was, may have underestimated how “not cheap” it would be.

And as the case proceeded, there came a day when Steve’s legal bills were reaching unexpected heights. He began talking about a growing need to abandon the fight... and not because he feared he would lose. That, he knew from Day One, was always possible. He began considering abandoning the cause because he could not afford to stay in the fight long enough to win. In the American legal system, it is not an uncommon situation when someone with shallow pockets goes mano-a-mano with someone who has deep ones. Even one particular court decision in Gerber’s favor -- the judge sanctioning Marvel for stalling tactics and ordering them to pay Steve some money -- did not whittle down his bill enough.

He was making good money with his writing at the time. I was then running the comic book division for Hanna-Barbera Studios, preparing material that Marvel was publishing in a series of comics featuring H-B characters... and on a grander scale, preparing material for overseas publication only. Steve came in as my assistant and I gave him numerous writing assignments on the foreign books and one on the H-B books published by Marvel. It was credited to “Reg Everbest,” which was Steve’s name, neatly-anagrammed. We did that because a Marvel staffer, who I guess considered it treason to sue the company that paid him, was reportedly going around, announcing to everyone that Steve Gerber’s work would never ever again appear in any Marvel publication. Well, it did that month. (And his writing appeared in other Marvel books years later with the letters of his name in the proper sequence. That was after the suit was -- SPOILER ALERT! -- settled.)

I also introduced Steve to Joe Ruby, co-founder with Ken Spears of the Ruby-Spears Animation firm, and Steve began writing for them. He started with a script for the Plastic Man cartoon series on ABC’s Saturday morning schedule. Joe liked it and Steve soon went on staff there and was an enormous asset, especially by launching a series called Thundarr the Barbarian. Most of the design work on that show was done by a man named Jack Kirby [left, in 1980]

But even with that work and income, Steve was not earning enough money. His case may not have been a losing battle, but making payments on the bill was, and he was seriously into debt to

DESTROYER DUCK!

Manslaying mallard on A mission of Vengeance!

IT’S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD ...IN ITS HAND!

{q u a a a a g h } we had it ALL, pal--dinah an’ me--!

twoBedroom house with built-ins-projection tV-two cars, a boat, an’ a R.V.--! then, faster’n spit dries on a hot skillet, she’s Gone--with some Hippie-dip duck with no shoes an’ a guitar--!

You’re the philosopher, pal--tell me where I blew it!

OTHERS aMong the Crowd at Ginger’s, howeVer, are Far More VoCal and deCidedly less SYMPATHETIC...!

AWWWWW! tragedy strikes my beloVed foreman! da big tough duck got his tail burnt by a tart!

it’s about Time somebody rubBed his Beak in his own Bullchips!

Aaah-SHADDUP, Benny! I Got Problems!

WHY--?!

at least youse ain’t broadcastin’ em!

I mean, I been dumped Before-for Nicer guys, richer guys, handsomer guys-but not for a wimp!!

ya know how this creep took dinah away? he Made these sappy Collages outta pictures o’ sunsets and petunias--

--an’ mailed ’em to ’er like love letters-ta show how blasted sensitive he was!!

Can I Help it if I ain’t Sensitive?!?

{sigh} probably not, duke. some of us just aren’t given to big displays of emotion...!

now if you got that joke, let’s 86 dinah and disCuss your situation-quietly.

someone ought to nail that large duck’s yap shut!

FerGit it, babe. time’s a-wastin’. I got a room reserVed--

--and ida expects me home by nine.

And so the nightly ritual of flirtation, frustration, assignation, and libation slouches onward--toward its next ineVitable disruption...!

maybe you got a point, pal. I been thinkin’ about chuckin’ the construction work--findin’ somethin’ more appealin’--!

the bank can haVe all that crap me an’ dinah bought! the Payments wuz breakinG’ my back anyway!

SPLOOSH

--an’ the world laughs at ya!

youse ducks are born whiners, y’know dat?

My mudder usedta haVe a sayin’--!

Laugh an’ the world laughs with ya!

Cry--

Get wise, short stufF! nobody cares about youse an’ yer runaway bird!

hell... nobody really giVes much of a damn about nothin’!

Haw!! youse ducks--yer no better’n the rest of us stifFs! youse don’t count fer spit! relax! haVe some grins! dat’s how it works! dem dat counts get rich! dem dat don’t-Party!!

ya got all the answers-an’ they’re all the same: yer goin’ nowhere, so nobody else can, either!

Hey!! GimMe dat--

that’s real clever, benny.

DESTROYER DUCK!

Manslaying mallard on A mission of Vengeance!

MOMMIE NOISES! MOMMIE NOISES!

It is the mistaken opinion of Duke “Destroyer” Duck that his mission to the world of pink primates has been acComplished.

Ned Packer-president of Godcorp, LTD. and murderer of duke’s best friend, the little guy is dead.

Holmes, the little guy’s attorney, has filed suit against GodCorp, alleginG eVerythinG from monopolistic trade practices to vivisection of sapient life-forMs.

So duke builds a new Nega-Space Transport for his journey home--unaware that death (or its duly-appointed agent) has drawn a bead on his feathered skull!

what’s the matter, toots-punCturinG little tykes get boring?

no challenge stabBinG an inFant in its crib??

{ UNNGH } a barbecue fork?!? then, you’re-Medea!!!

Holy Macaroni! it’s a Duck, Ma! just like at Disney World! MomMie will punish you for beinG so rude and nasty!

Woweewow!! she sCreams just like you, mom!!

Cindy! don’t you dare talk to MomMie that way!

don’t you dare talk to Mommie that way!!!

hi, donald!

Hi!!

the name’s Duke, honey-and stand back!

I got dangerous business with that cheap facsimile of maternal instinct!

Gerber’s description, and Kirby’s interpretation, for the cover of Destroyer Duck #3.

DESTROYER DUCK!

Manslaying mallard on A mission of Vengeance!

These were inflicted by the twin-pronGed, toxin-coated barBecue fork of Medea Souvlakis, head of Godcorp’s enForCement ConCepts, ltd. subsidiary.

Now, howeVer, duke is... elsewhere.

Granite walls exClude all light. the anCient air is fetid, unBreathable. Cobwebs clinG to his face and beak.

He is sufFocatinG.

And the guardians of this place--a horn-headed jackal and a falcon with the Visage of Medea--bleat and cackle their approVal.

Above are just a few samples of Steve Gerber’s detailed panel breakdowns and script, for page one of Destroyer Duck #4 [at right]. To supplement this book, you can download a PDF file of other Gerber plot synopses, panel breakdowns, and scripts from Destroyer Duck at: www.twomorrows.com/media/Gerber.pdf

Jack Kirby began drawing this final panel for page 1 of Destroyer Duck #4, but decided to depict a different angle, and redrew it.

“why mope around like an ol’ wet mop? [ you can haVe fun that’ll neVer stop! | spread niceness around in a big fat glop! and you’ll haVe a friendship with | icing on top!

“in the whole wide world, you can neVer flop, [ whereVer you go, whereVer you stop! just sMile as sweet as a lollipop, [ and you’ll find friendship with icing on top! |

“people are the same from bottom to top, rich man, poor man, president, cop! [ they all need loVe--lots ’n lots! so giVe ’em friendship with icing on top! ” [

“why, Vanilla CupCake, that was a swell sonG!”

“Golly wogs, Mr. president! thank you so very much! I love you!”

“ah they’re watChinG us coast-to-coast, sweetheart!”

“MR. Packer, thank you for the opportunity to meet this little lady.”

“on behalF of Godcorp, thank you, Mr. president-for allowinG Vanilla CupCaketm to take her message of friendship to strife-torn Hoqoom.”

“well, GodCorp and Vanilla CupCake are what this nation stands for, Mr. packer. I hope you’ll comMunicate that to the people of the Middle east.”

“G’bye, Mr. president! here comes our helicopter! Cupcake Keen!”

As Mead packer and his charMinG, Vulnerable licensing bonanza depart for dulles airport and their flight to hoqoom...

SPINELESS WONDERS

WONDERS

four other GodCorp

Duke! Brad! shatter their kneecaps, shoot ofF their hands, immobilize them--!!

But

if you say so, lady-but there not exactly pleadin’ for mercy…!

stop squirMin’, worM! look me in the eye! die like a man!

C-couldn’t I just

that’s a cliche´, CogBurn---but then, what can you expect from a walking redundancy?

Die like a DESSERT, Cogburn--

WOW…!

...unless all you’re planninG to leaVe behind is ashes!

The series’ real-life denouement comes into focus in this 1983 Gerber letter.

DESTROYER DUCK!

Feathered fury in the heat of holocaust!!

“SHATTERER OF WORLDS!”

the windup...the pitch... the yaw...!

FearFul for the child’s life, her sister, Cherries Jubilee, has Vowed to rescue her-with the aid of Brad White, Pablo Parongus... and Duke “Destroyer” Duck.

what if GodCorp didn’t murder the little guy? what if that’s only what they wanted me to think?

What if he’s still-- ALIVE?!?

it doesn’t make sense, duke. why...?

Now, en route, the maraudinG mallard realizes there may be eVen more at stake...

it could’Ve been a genetic replication-like a Cogburn-that bled to death on my floor!

Kirby’s note at top right refers to his suggestion for a new subtitle -- so we’ve replaced the usual “Manslaying Mallard...” line with Jack’s.

Maybe the little guy told ’em about me--so they cut up a clone--and sent it back--!

Maybe they figured I’d be useful. and they lured you here, huh? what for?

to snufF Ned Packer, the president of their company? to get them in dutCh with the Justice Department?

I can belieVe alMost anything about GodCorp duke, but--

listen, sister, I usedta be a cop. and I’m seein’ these corporate types aren’t so damn different from your typical street punk.

they’re only out for themselves they can’t see beyond the ends of their beaks

--and they’Ve always got an angle!

But, duke, the risks--!

--but you still haVen’t learned to think like they do!

suppose packer was after the chairManship --and Sidney Upwind wanted him outta the way?

Minimal, a few middleleVel heads roll, and eVen if a guy like upwind gets canned--

--you can bet he’s got a golden parachute written into his contract.

or say there was a takeover bid they were tryin’ to squelCh? a conVenient government probe would send inVestors running!

My professional comics career started with Jack Kirby. It’s been downhill ever since.

I kid, I kid; I’ve worked with some truly great talents and phenomenal names in my time and am proud of my association with them.

But when you start off at the top of the mountain, the king of the hill, the literal king of comics, well… it changes your perspective.

As a freelancer in 1980, I wrote some segments for the Ruby-Spears show Heathcliff And Dingbat and Joe Ruby -- in a lapse of judgment I’m sure he regretted for years to come -- offered me a staff writer position.

I was already ensconced and working on Mighty Man And Yukk segments for The Plastic Man Comedy/ Adventure Show when Joe made another, much smarter hire: Steve Gerber.

doing groundbreaking work in a particular genre or medium, who isn’t recognized by mainstream audiences, but immediately gets the attention of every serious practitioner in that field.

Quintessential literal example? Sun Ra, the jazz great always too far out for corporate minds to grasp, but the pathfinder who showed dozens of later -- and ironically, more successful -- jazz musicians new techniques and styles to explore.

Those musicians took their lessons from Sun Ra and reinterpreted them in new ways more palatable to mainstream audiences.

Steve was the Sun Ra of comics.

DESTROYER DUCK GRAPHITE EDITION

I remember being delighted and excited when Joe told us Steve would be coming onboard. I’d been a longtime fan of Howard The Duck found myself enjoying many comics he wrote for Marvel (Iron Man #56 is a work of art, a thing of beauty, and a joy forever).

I knew Steve by reputation, of course. Everybody in the professional sci-fi/comics community at that time knew and followed Howard The Duck.

There’s an expression I frequently use: “The jazz musician’s jazz musician.” By this I mean someone

Exactly how we were introduced at Ruby-Spears fades in memory, but I do remember telling Steve how happy I was to be working with him. “If you need anyone to show you anything, feel free to ask,” I said. “I’ll be happy to help.”

Steve looked askance at me. “Are you saying

In the 1980s, writer STEVE GERBER was embroiled in a lawsuit against MARVEL COMICS over ownership of his creation HOWARD THE DUCK. To raise funds for legal fees, Gerber asked JACK KIRBY to contribute to a benefit comic titled DESTROYER DUCK. Without hesitation, Kirby (who was in his own dispute with Marvel at the time) donated his services for the first issue, and the duo took aim at their former employer in an outrageous five-issue run. With biting satire and guns blazing, Duke “Destroyer” Duck battled the thinly veiled Godcorp (whose infamous credo was “Grab it all! Own it all! Drain it all!”), its evil leader Ned Packer and the (literally) spineless Booster Cogburn, Medea (a parody of Daredevil’s Elektra), and more! Now, all five Gerber/Kirby issues are collected—but relettered and reproduced from JACK’S UNBRIDLED, UNINKED PENCIL ART! Also included are select examples of ALFREDO ALCALA’s unique inking style over Kirby on the original issues, Gerber’s script pages, an historical Introduction by MARK EVANIER (co-editor of the original 1980s issues), and an Afterword by BUZZ DIXON (who continued the series after Gerber)! Discover all the hidden jabs you missed when DESTROYER DUCK was first published, and experience page after page of Kirby’s raw pencil art!

(144-page COLOR HARDCOVER) $31.95 • (Digital Edition) $13.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-117-2 https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_97&products_id=1708

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