39 Years Later, Marvel's First-Ever Movie Is Still One Of The Weirdest Parts of The Franchise's Entire History

By Ollie Bradley

Published Feb 2, 2025

Followed

Thread 11

Custom image by Ollie Bradley

While the Marvel sidesteps all things bizarre in the MCU. It does, after all, adapt some wild concepts from Marvel Comics - from Asgardian aliens to the Quantum Realm. This is what makes the MCU so magical, as it straddles the line between the sublime and the ridiculous, delivering genuinely touching and grounded stories while remaining comic-accurate.

It isn't as if the MCU is without its missteps, of course. Yet even terrifying version of Red Skull in the process), it didn't hold a candle to its Marvel movie predecessor starring a character infinitely more obscure than Cap.

Howard The Duck Being Marvel's First Feature Film Only Gets Weirder With Time

Howard The Duck Was Marvel's First Live-Action Movie Produced By Lucasfilm

Howard the Duck was released in 1986 as Marvel's first-ever feature film. Its protagonist, the titular Howard the Duck, is one of Marvel Comics' most bizarre characters whose role was to deliver satirical takes on real-world events in his misadventures as an anthropomorphic duck navigating a human world. Despite his relative obscurity today, he was a hit among comic book fans of the late 1970s for his more adult-oriented satire. This would lead to the development of a Howard the Duck movie, though the character had significantly declined in popularity by 1986.

Howard the Duck has a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than Madame Web, with 13% and 11%, respectively.

Unlike the MCU movies of today, Howard the Duck departed quite substantially from the source material. Instead of being a generally ill-tempered antihero, Howard is portrayed as a much more amenable character. Additionally, instead of being used as a vehicle for satire, the filmmakers (which included Star Wars' George Lucas as producer) decided to lean into the funnier, more absurd side of the anthropomorphic duck navigating Earth. Unfortunately, the movie bombed and was critically lambasted - even earning four Razzies and being nominated for seven. 39 years later, the existence of this movie remains particularly bewildering.

The MCU's Movie Empire Makes Marvel's First Movie Choice Look Even More Bizarre

There Aren't Many People Who Know About Howard The Duck

Of course, it's hard to reconcile the overall quality of Howard the Duck with the standards of the MCU today. While the MCU has started to push the boat out with its concepts, using such tools as the multiverse to venture into weird and wonderful territory like Werewolf by Night and Marvel Zombies, it is only able to do so confidently off the back of the success of the MCU's back catalog. To think that Marvel Studios' record-breaking franchise began with a movie as bizarre and unsuccessful as Howard the Duck is pretty mind-blowing.

10 Marvel Characters We Still Can't Believe The MCU Introduced

From crazy crossovers to obscure comic characters and astonishing original villains, the MCU has gotten away with introducing some unbelievable faces.

Posts 6

Now, Howard the Duck has started to return in a far more most bizarre episodes of What If...? ever made, it remains unlikely that Howard the Duck will contribute to the MCU in a more meaningful capacity - and past experience dictates that perhaps this is for the best.