Why Marvel's Most Maligned Movie Star Deserves A Reboot (SPOILERS)

7 August 2014 | 12:46 pm | Mitch Knox

SPOILERS, OH GOD SO MANY SPOILERS

Marvel Comics' latest in its line of cinematic adaptations, Guardians Of The Galaxy, hits Australian movie screens today, and early reports have so far expressed exactly what we expected they would: universal hailing of the film as likely the best time you'll have at the movies this year.

There's something incredibly heartwarming at the core of the Guardians story, in its stylishly told tale of an assorted band of loveable misfits who never really quite fit in anywhere else finding comfort and community with each other to grow into a semi-capable, relatively altruistic force for good, who dance well and love a good explosion.

Yeaaaa, boiii. It is time to blow. shit. up.

But this story isn't about the Guardians. Well, not exactly. See, after the fucked-up five indirectly explode the hell out of the Easter egg-laden collection of The... Collector (Benicio Del Toro) and the film proceeds to its conclusion (you know, like movies are wont to do), the credits roll, and the bane of cinema attendants everywhere begins — the "Marvel Movie Post-Credits Scene That Everyone Knows Is A Thing By N--Oh My God Are You Really Leaving Midway Through The Credits Come On Guy Have You Never Seen A Marvel Movie Before?" sequence.

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And in that moment, voiced by none other than Seth Green, we see and hear a character who, logically, has no place in one of the most popular movies of the year — or any year, ever, for that matter — Howard the Duck.

Some of you are asking, "Who?"

The rest of you are saying, "Oh. Oh, god, no."

Hear me out, though. That trailer up there is not representative of Howard The Duck, the comic. It's barely representative of Howard The Duck, the film, despite the truly always uncomfortable hot-and-heavy interaction between a four-foot-high walking duck puppet and Back To The Future's Lea Thompson — who, wow, way to just straight-up build an entire career on movies in which she explores mortifying sexual situations.

Oh shit, yeah, she was in Jaws 3D, too. She didn't try to bone any siblings or children or animals in that film as far as I recall but regardless it's a pretty prophetic movie for her to have starred in, right, Marty?

Heh. I amuse myself.

Aaaanyway.

As I was saying, despite all that discomfort over the duckman-on-woman sex stuff (and the presence of Ferris Bueller's Day Off alumnus and renowned child-botherer Jeffrey Jones), that trailer actually seems like maybe it could amount to be a good movie. It was helmed by a freshly post-Star Wars George Lucas. It (OK, uncomfortably) starred Marty McFly's hot mother. And its source material was excellent.

Here's the thing about Howard the Duck, his comic, and his truly awful, awful film, though: in the funny pages, on which he first appeared in December 1973 between the covers of Adventure Into Fear #19, he was portrayed as kind of a less Cuckoo's Nest-esque Donald Duck, all feisty and angry at nothing in particular, aside from probably the fact he lived on Earth, which we all know to be one of life's worst possible experiences.

Pic: Wikipedia

His creators, writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik, intended Howard's adventures to go beyond the norm of your standard Silver-Age superhero fare, and challenged narrative and genre traditions with their satirical, frequently metafictional stories, occasionally venturing into outright parody for shits, and maybe some giggles.

But, above all, Howard The Duck was an existentialist book. I'm not going to get all deep and meaningful on you about existentialism, because I know precisely two things about it: 1. Existentialism On Prom Night is a very good song if you are or have ever been into ultra-mopey post-Taking Back Sunday John Nolan and his work with Straylight Run, and 2. Howard The Duck was a subscriber to the theory.

You can read all about the philosophy behind it on Wikipedia, if you must, but I find this quote from Gerber himself, which may or may not also have come from Wikipedia (and before you ask about that panel image... yes), encapsulates the book's central ideal best — "that life's most serious moments and most incredibly dumb moments are often distinguishable only by a momentary point of view."

Enter, in the movie's pre-production stages leading to its 1986 release, screenwriter Gloria Katz. Gloria looked at all of that, bellowed out a mighty "FUCK IT" and decided outright that it was a movie "about a duck from outer space … It's not supposed to be an existential experience".

Who in Satan's playground does Gloria Katz think she is, to waltz into a production bearing the responsibility of translating Gerber and Mayerik's creation to the big screen, look at the work they had done for the previous thirteen years, and take a massive crap all over it? I'll tell you who: the screenwriter of the just-slightly-less-god-awful Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom. Hey. Wait.

Urgh, that makes this SO MUCH WORSE.

So, because of that total indifference to the source material — a trend that kind of reigned in the '80s, as you'd know if you've ever seen Dolph Lundgren's The Punisher, which was also eye-stabbingly bad, for those playing at home — instead of a self-aware anthropomorphic duck who gets transplanted from his home planet, lands in Cleveland and embarks on a journey of hilarious self-discovery that has no joke other than itself, we got that first part, with the transplantation to Cleveland, and then a bunch of puppet-fucking and Principal Ed Rooney.

Screw the Fantastic Four; give Howard another shot. He deserves that much, at least, after all his good name has been through.