Audiences across the globe got a big surprise at the end of Guardians Of The Galaxy, Marvel's latest comic book summer blockbuster. Namely, the post-credits sequence featuring Howard The Duck, a faintly obscure member of their canon who most people have never heard of. Which was maybe not a big deal, considering most people had never heard of the eponymous team that headlined the film, too. Still, Howard was perhaps not as obscure as the Guardians themselves, owing to his previous on screen appearance - in a film so bad that we don't think Universal even bothered re-releasing it to capitalise on the recent trend for comic book movies. Oh, and it was produced by George Lucas. In 1986 it had been almost half a century since Marvel had seen one of their comics adapted for the big screen and, honestly, we're not sure why they chose Howard to break that dry spell. Steve Gerber's character, on paper, was a wild, surreal and subversive character that poked fun at societal mores in comics and beyond; on screen, he was a terrifying-looking puppet who bedded both feathered and human women (including an unfortunately cast Lea Thompson). The whole thing was Lucas's idea, too, since he was a big fan of the comics. It's also him who hired the directors and screenwriters - pals from film school - and his decision to make the film in live action, rather than the original plan to animate it, just one of the things that made Howard The Duck such a turkey. And people still let him make movies after this? Apparently...
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
