Issue(s): Giant-Size Man-Thing #4 (Howard the Duck story only)
Cover Date: May 75
Title: "Frog death!"
Credits:
Steve Gerber - Writer
Frank Brunner - Penciler
Frank Brunner - Inker

Review/plot:
In this back-up story from a Giant-Size Man-Thing #4, Howard the Duck, still falling through an endless void as seen in his previous appearance...

...eventually lands on earth...

...and helps some children fight off a giant evil frog.

He is subsequently arrested.

Howard's first appearance was too chaotic for me to "get", and i didn't really understand the appeal that caused so many readers to write in demanding a second appearance of what seemed to be a throwaway character (almost literally). This story is a little more enjoyable but still feels like Gerber's early forced wackiness.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - early Howard the Duck appearance.

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Howard The Duck vol. 1

I take it you only have the TPB reprint? The main story, "The Kid's Night Out", is about a fat kid who is bullied and abused and eventually dies a poignant, horrible death. Man-Thing fries the guilty, of course, but it's too little, too late.

That was classic Gerber (as was the ensuing "A Book Burns in Citrusville" in the regular Manny mag); Howard was just a means of relief at this point.

Howard's early appearances in Man-Thing's book were included at excerpts in the Howard trade and they're very weird in isolation.

I'll be adding the full issues as part of my current back issue add.

According to Gerber, Neal Adams was originally supposed to do the art.