Howard The Duck MAX: The Fury #1 for MATURE READERS

Howard The Duck: The Fury Part 1
Written By Erik Dee Fullmer
Edited by Alicen Hutcheson
Howard The Duck created by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik


On the lower Eastside of Manhattan, stands a newly born agency of your not so average Private Investigators. The Ducknight Detective Agency was founded and led by none other than “funny animal” Howard the Duck.

“WAUGH!!! WAUGH! WHY ME?!” quacks Howard. “Don’t they know who the hell they’re dealing with?!”

Spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke, landing on his longtime companion and friend with benefits Beverly Switzler, who was now slowly, falling behind as they continued to walk to Mike’s Deli two blocks away.

Beverly responds while wiping Howard’s slobber from her face with a slight look of disgust.

“Why are you STILL so worked up about it? It’s almost been a year now. Captain America is ALIVE! The war is over. Things are BACK to normal and the Superhuman Registration Act can go fuck itself for all we care! I mean, so they don’t know WHO you are! That’s good, right?”

She stopped walking, but continued her rant.

“Think about it! NO MORE FINES! NO MORE BUREAUCRATIC B.S.! NO MORE JURY DUTY! You caused them so much grief for the past… God knows how many years that they just decided to erase you from their pathetic little memories. That’s a good thing Howard. Believe me!”

Howard stops, looks at her and grins. As if he was hearing this observation of delightful incentives for the first time.

Then, as though these thoughts had never crossed his mind he replies, “Waugh! I’m hungry. Are you hungry? Ever eat at Mike’s Deli before? What do you want to eat? I’m buying.”

“Screw YOU!” Beverly replies jokingly outside of her already frustrated mood. “I’m not that hungry and my agent Phil sent me a script to go over. It could very well be the role I’ve been looking for. I’ll tell all about it when I see you later back at the office. Okay my ducky-poo?”

As she prepares to leave she tells her Duck-Man, “Oh, and Howard? Relax and take a moment to enjoy yourself for once. Please? Love you!”

Howard looks up to wave good-bye, and just like that she was gone.

Two hours later.

Howard is now sitting alone in his usual booth at Mike’s Deli with little more than half of a sandwich left on his plate. It’s not the greatest place for a meal, but it’s conveniently near the agency and it’s never crowded. The ‘C’ rating on the window may play a big part in that.

Hey, he’s a duck from another planet. He has seen what once seemed like a simple world, inhabited by simple-minded hairless apes, and an array of animals of all types. Throw in a whole cluster of super powered humans or as he calls them, super powered talking hairless apes. That's a lot for a waterfowl from Duckworld to deal with. He’s been dealing with this for over 35 years now and just wants a little peace and quiet. So what’s a ‘C’ rated deli got that’s any different from an ‘A’? It’s never crowded when he wants some of that long sought after solitude. And... he can handle a bad sandwich from time to time.

At this moment, the only individuals occupying this lonely space, other than mice and roaches, are Howard who is sitting way over in the back booth, and the owner who is standing across the room behind his register.

“Hey Mike ya’ old sap!” Howard shouts jokingly from where he sits to Mike Pelletier.

Mike is the owner and only cook, who practically lives behind the counter. His one and only waitress, who is also his niece, had to leave early on an emergency shortly before Howard had arrived.

Howard removes a half smoked cigar he’s been dying to smoke, from the right chest pocket of his thrift store-like polyester coat. “Ah ha! A speechless hairless ape, eh? Ya’ gonna come over here and gimme a light or whaaaught?”

Mike just looks up and over in Howards direction with very little to no expression and says nothing. He never really does.

Mike’s Deli has been on its last leg for quite some time now. It’s noticeably written in the many grooves and lines surrounding his eyes and slightly swollen cheeks. Especially evident after his wife, who was also his business partner, left him over a year ago for what some would say was, ‘a better catch.’ She left Mike and the deli with a debt bigger than any broken heart could ever overcome. But life goes on for Mike… and so does the deli, barely.

Howard the Duck starts to ask for a light again, I said, MIKE!!! DO YOU”…KAAA-BLAAAM!... “WAUGH! WAAAUGGGH!” What the-?”

A loud crash of shattered glass flying and hitting the floor erupts through the small diner as if a tiny bomb had blown through it.

Howard’s heart skips a beat… maybe two, and he quickly crouches back in his booth. He then scoots down to get under the table unnoticed.
Three men armed with sawed off shotguns came firing lead through the glass of the deli’s front door.

A stray shot rips into Mike, who is still behind the counter. With one fist clutched to his chest Mike falls to his knees and then, he’s down.

One of the masked shooters shouts at his two partners, “What the FUCK MAN! That wasn’t supposed to happen! Fuck! What now?!”

The shorter more pudgy of the three, who is the one closest to the shattered door, takes a quick glance outside then yells back. “FUCK IT! LET’S GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE! HE’S NOT IN HERE!”

The man who shot through the door, whose stray bullet is the cause of the now unconscious business owner, turns to the others and says, “But what about him?”

He was referring to the deli owner rapidly losing blood and fading away on the floor, just under the cash register.

“What if he’s dead? He looks dead man. What are we going to do? I’m NOT going down for killing the wrong mother fucker! And why the HELL would our target be here eating in the first place? Did you get the right location from our client? I bet he was never here in the first goddamn place!”

Then gunman number two shouts, “COPS!” What a fucking idiot! Who pulled that FUCKING trigger?! Fuck it! LET’S GO!”

All three gunmen flee.

Moments later Howard raises up his feathery head, just above the rim of the table for a peek… and just like that, they were gone.

Howard comes out from under his temporary sanctuary and quickly jumps behind the counter to Mike’s aid.

“Waugh, waauugh! MIKE! MIKE! Can you hear me buddy? It’s ME, your ONLY customer. That’s a DUCK anyway…Oh hell! Your only customer!”

This is followed by a nervous chuckle as blood keeps coming from the half-dollar size hole of this enormous man.

“Stay with me you old coot! Waaaaaugggh!”

He applies what pressure he can on the wound with one hand and somehow able to use the other hand to check the pulse of the man that, just moments earlier was ignoring his request to light his cigar. He feels no pulse.

“Oooookay!” He starts to panic. Now there’s blood everywhere.

“How much is in this hair-less ape?” he thinks to himself.

“THERE! I think I feel something.” He let out a sigh of relief and, “YES!” “C’mon pump and thump away will ya!”

Howard now knows his friend is alive but it still doesn’t look good. He was shot in the chest just below the neckline and though his pulse is back, his loss of blood is still an issue.

“Still unconscious,” Howard thinks. He hears sirens in the distance getting closer.

“Who were these men? And who were they intending to kill. What were their names? They made it obvious in their banter with one another that they weren’t here to rob the place. Why did I freeze? I’ve battled Gods, Demigods and a Giant Man-Frog and WON! What made these guys so special?!” Howard’s mind was racing.

Suddenly, Mike coughs and blood flies from his mouth all over the ducks clothes and not a good look.

Howard barely able to hang on himself pleads, “Damn it Mike! Hang in there. Waaauugh!”

Moments later the police and paramedics arrive. Howard steps away and lets them do their job as he scours the place for some kind of clue as to who these foul -mouthed hairless apes in ski masks were.

“Only a ‘Ducktective’ such as himself can take on a case like this,” he thinks.

Then suddenly from behind, “YOU!... You’re… A DUCK!”

A loud gravelly voice, sounding like someone had swallowed shards of glass, shouts in Howard’s direction.

Enter Detective Loretta Clubberfield onto the scene.

Howard starts to turn around saying, “Yeah, so? What’s it to ya’ and who the hell… are… YOU? You’re a WOMAN?! Wow! Ooookay!” Howard finishes his response, clearly shocked at what he sees.

Loretta is a large manly woman. Especially noticeable as she stands next to the duck’s 2’ 7” frame. She appears to be in her late 50’s, yet shows no signs of wear or tear. She’s a tough gal. A real hard ass, so to speak. She’s been with the NYPD for 27 years and was made detective a little over 10 years ago. In that time she’s seen everything from men crawling up buildings, to men surfing on ice bridges, as well as the horrific violence of planes turned into bombs on September 11th of 2001. Her only son had died that day.

“So toots, any idea what happened here?” Howard asks.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she responds. “I’m sorry. I’ve seen a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across a talking duck that looks like he escaped from Disneyland. What’s your name? Donald?” She asks with slight sarcasm as she tries not to laugh out loud.

“HA HA you are soooo damn funny. You-” and before Howard can finish his snappy come-back he is distracted.

“WE’RE LOSING HIM!” Shouts one of the EMT’s trying to revive Mike.

Then just as if it couldn’t go any worse today, the diner goes completely silent and a lone voice echoes from behind the counter, “That’s it. We’re out of options,” the other paramedic adds.

“We’re calling it. We lost him.”

Suddenly Howard and that snappy come-back he never got to finish quickly morphs into a question and asks, “Now who are you and why are you here, Mrs.…?”

“Detective, mind you!” She lashes out. “Detective Clubberfield. I’m the detective that was assigned to the scene that looks like it just went from attempted murder to homicide. My kinda’ dish!”

Mike’s covered body is carted on out by the EMTs and past both of them still in their introductory phase.

She continues in that oil-baked voice, “So (ahem!) Mr. Duck is it? What happened here?”

“Howard the Duck, MIND YOU! Waaaugh! And I’m a ….oh never mind!”

“What happened here?” he continues answering her question with the same question. “Well I was enjoying a pleasant lunch, and about to light up a good ol’ stogie---”

Loretta cuts in, “You do know smoking in a public place is---” then is interrupted by Howard.

“I KNOW, prohibited. But Mike and I were cool like that,” as his frustration starts to grow “DAMN IT! Do you want to know what happened or are you all a sudden a beat cop now?”

He continues, “Anyway, these three idiots all masked up come blasting in the joint with shotguns and I’m way in the back in my booth but they… they don’t see me, ya’ know? Then a stray bullet hits my man Mike, and they got freaked out saying they got the wrong guy. That they may have been led to the wrong place where their intended target was supposed to be and then before I could break out my signature moves and whoop ‘em up with some Quack-Fu.”

“Quack-FU?” Clubberfield asks interrupting, once again.

“YES! Quack-Fu toots. Get a clue!”

“So before it was about to go down that way and me save the day, they were gone. Just like that. Gone! GONE! GONE! All I could think to do was to save poor Mike. He’s a good old fool who’s had it rough since I’ve known him and I didn’t want to see him go down this way. Poor Mike. If only I would’ve intervened.”

As Mrs. Clubberfield tries to take in everything Howard has told her and as she’s writing she hears, ‘oops! I did it again… I played with your heart---” It’s the Brittany Spears song on Howard’s ring-tone. His ringer of course is turned up to the max. Underneath Howard’s feathery cheeks a slight redness is seen and in embarrassment he looks around acting as if he doesn’t have a clue as to where it’s coming from.

She says, “Are you going to answer that?”

“Answer wha’… waaaaugh’… oh… heh, heh, heh… yeah. Well, excuse me for a moment. I gotta (ahem) take this call.”

“Hello Beverly! I see you were messing with my phone again. You know how much I HATE when you mess with my ph--”

She responds cutting him off in mid sentence, “Well, hello to you too hon. Jeesh! Anyway, I was calling because I heard all of the sirens wailing towards your way and was wondering if you knew what was going on? AND you’ve been gone for almost three hours. THREE HOURS? C’MON! You went for lunch now it’s time for dinner and NOW I’m hungry! When are you…?” Howard then cuts in.

“Look toots, there was a shooting here”

“OH MY GOD HOWIE! ARE YOU..?”

“Yes! YES! I’m okay. But you know Mike? The owner? Well… he’s dead. He got shot and I couldn’t save him. Look, I’ll tell you more when I get there but I think this may be it. We may have our first REAL case here!”

All of a sudden, on the other side of the line he hears a loud bang.

“Bev? You there? What was that noise? Did you fall?”

He’s not getting a response but can hear her breathe heavily as if she’s moving scurrying around for some place to go. More shuffling noises to follow, then she responds back to Howard.

“Oh my god babe,” she’s whispering now and her voice is shaking.

“What?” Howard asks quietly, yet nervously and starts walking towards a more secluded area.

Still whispering she continues, “There are some men here! They have guns! They just busted down the front door. They didn’t see me. I ran from our bedroom that leads into our conference room.”

Howard’s voice grows more and more tense as he quietly exclaims, “Beverly! How many? What do they look like?”

Still in the conference room, Beverly slowly cracks the door open a tiny bit to take a peek. She’s looking to the front of the office where the men came in from outside. She sees them looking under the front desk. Tossing it and the chairs aside and searching every place that looks like one could hide. They enter the bathroom, just to the left of the front desk as they knock over the water cooler next to it.

Holding her breath she tries hard not to make a sound. Then she relays to Howard, “There are three of them. They’re looking for something or someone. They have ski masks on. I can’t see their faces whatsoever.”

“Alright,” Howard says with a slight crack in his voice. “From what you’ve told me I’m certain those are the same guys that came here, shot the place up, and killed Mike. Beverly! Listen to me. You need to hide the best way you can. They’re after someone from the looks of it, and for all we know, they may be after me! They’re in OUR place of business for Christ’s sake! We just opened. We’re not THAT popular yet…. I think.”

“Bev! Are you still with me?”

She answers, “I’m here. Oh Howard I’m scared. Please get here fast!”

“Okay! Okay! Waugh! But first until I’m able to get to you, I need you to stay calm and quiet.”

“Are you still there?” he asks.

Then suddenly another crashing noise on Beverly’s end of the line and he hears her, the woman he loves more than anything, let out a bloodcurdling scream that makes the feathers on his head puff out.

She screams out and the sound of the phone dropping, he hears, “Noooooo! PLEASE! NO! DON’T KILL ME! WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

Sounds of struggling is followed by more screams. He hears what sounded like a gun go off and for the first time ever on his cheap prepaid cell phone, usually with bad reception, he hears all of this madness as loud and as clear as never before. He freezes for an hour-like second. Everything’s in slow motion now. Images of her in his head are fading in and out.

Howard screams out,” BEVERLY!!! NO! WHAT’S GOING ON!?! BEVERLY? BEVERLY!!! TALK TO ME!!!”

The phone on the other end, still silent and obviously not in her hands. What feels like the size of a basket ball starts to take form in his stomach and he can feel it slowly making its way up his esophagus for an exit. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” He rants to himself trying not to alert Detective ‘smart ass.’

Howard then dashes out through the gaping hole of the deli’s front door, flaying shards of glass all over detective Clubberfield as she leans back for him to pass her by. Feather’s flying. He had completely forgotten she or anyone else was even there. He’s so welled up with anxiety, confusion, fear, and enough adrenalin to run to Cleveland and back.

All he can think of is getting to his Beverly as quickly and as human-duckly possible to save her from what horrors she is going through right now. Is she even alive? He thinks to himself as he runs uphill.

"Will he get to her too late like he did with Mike back at the eatery?" Another question he asks himself.

Again his mind is racing. He is racing. Though the agency to which this all took place is only two large blocks away, right now it feels like a million miles to this human-like duck with the funny webbed feet. He is fast though. Faster than a normal duck and can probably outrun most men. But today at this moment he feels like it feels when you are running from a monster in a bad dream. Running in slow motion and feeling like you’re going nowhere. Howard dreams about monsters all the time.

************
Three days ago…

Stepping off the plane at J.F.K. International Airport is a man that appears to be in his early twenties and just arrived here from the Florida Everglades.

As he enters the terminal, he is greeted by two men dressed in expensive looking suits and dark sunglasses. One would think ‘Men in Black’ but they’re not. They’re holding up a sign and bobbing it up and down, trying to be seen through the mass of passengers surrounding their guest.

Even from a far you can see the poor grammar on a handwritten sign that reads ‘BeNjAmaN.sALliS.’

The young man makes his way towards the two men holding the sign.

Moving through the thick array of passengers that also crowd his view and are slightly smothering him he shouts, “Over here! Are you looking for Benjaman Sallis? If so, that’s me. Over here! Hellooo! Just hang tight. I’ll come to you.”

Moments later, and after many rude looks he was finally able to push his way closer.

Now face to face with the two men, he extends a hand forward to shake one of their hands and says, “Whew! What a crowd, right? Well here I am. Dr. Benjamin Sallis. Now what?”

Then, in his best alien impression he jokes, “TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER,” followed by a small chuckle.

They don’t shake his hand. They don’t even crack a smile, and they don’t say a word. They just turn around and one man makes a gesture for the young man to follow. They enter the sea of people… and disappear.

Today

Howard arrives at the front steps of the Ducknight Detective Agency. It’s an old, red bricked two-story, four-unit building on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan. It was abandoned due to the large number of crack heads and prostitutes that once occupied it. Of course, Howard’s legal status being in the sham that it is made it impossible to buy the place for business.

His long time lawyer Jennifer Walters is good at what she does. REAL good. She was able to finagle here and finagle there like a “good” lawyer can. Combined with the money Beverly earned as an actress and model over the past ten years, Howard was able to close the deal and open up shop.

Why a detective agency?

It was all her idea. It was right before the Civil War of Super humans had ended, and Beverly thought it’d be a good idea for Howard to quit driving a cab. All it did was brought him headaches. So, she encouraged him to do something different. Like become a ducktective.

Wouldn’t that cause even more discomfort and grief he thought at first? They both have lived such adventurous lives. At times Howard had been thrust into situations that should have killed them both, but they survived it all. They were damn good at it. So he agreed and The Ducknight Detective Agency was born.

Other than a few missing cats and a guinea pig they haven’t had any real cases. That’s all about to change.

He struggles to catch his breath, silently cursing his bad smoking habit after running only two blocks. He quickly moves up the front stairs and into the stairwell within the building.

They’re on the second floor. “More stairs,” he thinks.

Finally, he arrives to their apartment turned agency and enters where there once stood a door.

A frozen terror, like never before wells up and throughout his tiny feathery frame. The place is wrecked.

He calls out, “Beverly! Beverly! Are you here? Can you hear me?”

No answer. He makes his way past the broken chairs and dislocated front desk. It’s not a large area. The other bedroom they have turned into what they decided to call the ‘conference room’ is just a few feet away.

As he walks towards the last place he heard her voice, his nerves worsen.

He enters through, again where there once stood a door. He freezes at the horrific sight.

It’s the three men, still masked, lying on the floor and as dead as can be with twisted and torn bodies. The same three men that destroyed the deli a little more than an hour ago and the same three men he heard over the phone bust in and assault Beverly.

What makes the scene even odder? She’s not even here but her phone is. It’s crushed to pieces on the floor next to where the three men lay.

As he moves closer to their bodies he notices a green swampy gunk-like substance on the floor leading to the lifeless hairless apes. It’s on the walls and on the men. It’s a substance that is familiar to him, but due to his anxiety he can’t quite place where he has seen this stuff before.

Howard looks at the one window him and Bev never open because of it being broken. It’s open now. The glass all over the floor tells him that it wasn’t opened in the traditional way you open a window. That same swampy substance covers the sill and floor. Then it hits him.

“Man-Thing,” Howard bursts out.

Then he thinks, “The Man-Thing… Was he here? This IS his body funk. I know it. He and I go back. Way back. But how can this be?” he continues to ponder.

They’re friends. They’ve been on many adventures together and Howard can’t think of any reason Man-Thing would want to hurt him or Beverly.

“Did Man-Thing kill these men while trying to help her? If so, why would he take her? Why not wait for me to get here. And he couldn’t have possibly fit through that window. Yet this stuff… this green gunk is everywhere.” Howard thinks to himself. Confused he leaves the room.

He needs some air. He needs a moment to figure out what to do next. As he leaves, he notices the green slime-like stuff is all over the front area where he first came in. He was so distraught when he got here, he didn’t even notice it.

He decides to go check out the bathroom. As he enters the small 10’x 10’ area the first thing he notices, other than it being clean and no green stuff, is a letter on counter of the sink. It’s folded once over. As he picks up the note to read it, he has a quick thought that it may be from Beverly. Then quickly squashes that thought and remembers what just happened.

He unfolds it. It’s been typed in red ink and it reads:

We Have the Love of Your Life
We Are Going to Kill the Love of Your Life
We Will Not Stop the Killing of Everyone
Close to You
We Will Destroy Everything and Everyone until
We Finally Destroy You

The Fury

“The Fury?” Howard says out loud.

He is clueless as to who The Fury is.

What have they done to his girl? What do they want with him? Why was The Man-Thing here? Question after question race through his mind, making him feel dizzy.

All of a sudden he feels a rush of coldness come over his entire body and then he starts to sway.

He faints.

To be continued…

Nice! I almost forgot Howard was a duck halfway through the story, which I think you need to suspend the disbelief. Man-Thing and Howard have always been two of my favorite neglected Marvel alumni. I love a good hard-boiled mystery and can't wait to see where this is going.

Cool! ThanX Paul. That means a lot coming from a talent such as yourself. Yeah I did focus on his human-like qualities a little more to where I almost forgot who I was writing about,lol. Same here as far as being one of my favorite underrated characters a long with The Man-Thing. After going back and reading early issues of HtD, I see alot of stuff that I can work with to keep it traditional with the original concept but at the same time make it somewhat new to new readers unfamiliar with the 70's version. Yeah, and more in part two will be uncovered as to what or whom The Fury is and how Man-Thing fits into all of this and if Beverly is even still alive.

I've always liked HtD, but this takes it to another level! I really like how you haven't given to much away about what/who The Fury is and the involvement of Man-Thing makes me wonder if he hasn't gone to the dark side. Can't wait for the next issue!

ThanX so much Craig! Working on #2 now and so far Man-Thing has......wait someones at the door. Guess you'll have to wait.lol

Erik as somebody who grew up with both the original series in the 70's, you nailed the voices for Howard and Beverly perfectly while making it modern. Awesome awesome job dude

ThanX Eric. Yeah I feel I got them pretty well despite that I wasn't all to familiar with them and only went by what research I could find on Howard. I kind of jumped the giun a little being axious to get started on this story. I always liked what he stood for in comics but never read him much, but always wondered what it would be like to put a character like that in a setting like this and try and make it work. Then about half way through the story I got my Essential HtD in the mail and I was suprised that I wasn't too far off with his personality and the relationship he has with Beverly some of the other crazy stuff. Then I got Ty Templeton's 'Media Duckling' and that also wasn't too far off from mine as well. It definitely get's better in part two as now I have a more solid direction to go with. I want to have your Spider-Man show up for a bit somewhere in 2 or maybe 3. I just haven't found where to plug him in yet. It would kind of a tribute to when Spidey showed up in his 1st issue in '75. ThanX for reading it and the great feed back. We're all kickin' ass on this little idea Craig had one day and turned into what it is today.