The Howard the Duck comic is a metafictional construct based in large part on Albert Camus' the Stranger, meant to function as social satire and genre fiction parody whose scathing political humor actually lead to him getting a thousand of write-in votes in the 1976 presidential election. The movie based on the comic is simply a piece of excrement. 

Just how bad is Howard the Duck? Well, the fact that it was made by George Lucas and still hasn't been released on DVD probably says all that you need to know. 

I can probably be excused for forgetting that Tim Robbins starred in this movie as it does also feature a midget in a duck suit and Lea Thompson sporting some of the biggest 80?s hair this side of Def Leopard. Robbins, for those like me who can?t recall, plays an absent-minded professor who helps to figure out how Howard got from his planet to ours. The plot of the movie, such as it is, involves a "laser spectroscope" that can create a passageway between worlds which teleports Howard here and ultimately leads to the arrival of a Dark Overlord of the Universe who naturally wants to overthrow the world. Howard has to defeat using a pimped-out golf cart. 

The real problem with the movie is that the source material, despite its cleverness, is not suitable for adaptation and certainly not by someone like George Lucas. The comic book played Howard?s presence in our world completely straight, he?s a cigar-smoking, debauching mallard forced to live in a world alongside "hairless apes," as he calls them. The fact that he is always outside of society and can never blend in provides him with an outsider's perspective on our culture. This perspective was what writer Steve Gerber used to pass commentary on 1970's society. George Lucas seemed to be looking to make a film with a new type of Ewok and then filled up the rest of the movie with visual gags based on the fact that the protagonist is a duck such as him reading Playduck and carrying a Mallardcard credit card.   

I doubt that this film could have been made well but instead of making the best of a bad situation this film managed to fall into every trap possible.

This episode is one of those expansion episodes in a series where the showrunners have their eye on keeping the series healthy. The writers lay the groundwork between Dinah and her mother which could be explored later, they set up Reese's and Huntress getting closer, and also Reese's parents (which is a goldmine of pathos and storylines). This is an episode not meant to expand the season-long arc but instead to help propagate a series.

The Howard the Duck comic is a metafictional construct based in large part on Albert Camus' the Stranger, meant to function as social satire and genre fiction parody whose scathing political humor actually lead to him getting a thousand of write-in votes in the 1976 presidential election. The movie based on the comic is simply a piece of excrement. 

Just how bad is Howard the Duck? Well, the fact that it was made by George Lucas and still hasn't been released on DVD probably says all that you need to know. 

I can probably be excused for forgetting that Tim Robbins starred in this movie as it does also feature a midget in a duck suit and Lea Thompson sporting some of the biggest 80?s hair this side of Def Leopard. Robbins, for those like me who can?t recall, plays an absent-minded professor who helps to figure out how Howard got from his planet to ours. The plot of the movie, such as it is, involves a "laser spectroscope" that can create a passageway between worlds which teleports Howard here and ultimately leads to the arrival of a Dark Overlord of the Universe who naturally wants to overthrow the world. Howard has to defeat using a pimped-out golf cart. 

The real problem with the movie is that the source material, despite its cleverness, is not suitable for adaptation and certainly not by someone like George Lucas. The comic book played Howard?s presence in our world completely straight, he?s a cigar-smoking, debauching mallard forced to live in a world alongside "hairless apes," as he calls them. The fact that he is always outside of society and can never blend in provides him with an outsider's perspective on our culture. This perspective was what writer Steve Gerber used to pass commentary on 1970's society. George Lucas seemed to be looking to make a film with a new type of Ewok and then filled up the rest of the movie with visual gags based on the fact that the protagonist is a duck such as him reading Playduck and carrying a Mallardcard credit card.   

I doubt that this film could have been made well but instead of making the best of a bad situation this film managed to fall into every trap possible.

This episode is one of those expansion episodes in a series where the showrunners have their eye on keeping the series healthy. The writers lay the groundwork between Dinah and her mother which could be explored later, they set up Reese's and Huntress getting closer, and also Reese's parents (which is a goldmine of pathos and storylines). This is an episode not meant to expand the season-long arc but instead to help propagate a series.

This episode wraps up the first season nicely bringing back some ideas from the first episode as well as some nice emotional threads. However, some of the Susan/Steve tension does get laid on a little bit thick. Still this episode is quite enjoyable and well worth a watch.

Finally, we get a huge dose of Jeff. Richard Coyle manages to really sell the sweet awkwardness needed to make such a desperate character come off as lovable. But whenever he starts rambling about collecting women?s ears in a bucket or runs through Heathrow shouting out the Hebrew word for a woman?s body part it just makes the audience want to comfort him. Coyle just really sells the vulnerability of Jeff.

This was actually the first episode of the series that I ever saw and I can see now why it hooked me. A hard-man haircut, bivegetarianism and a lesbian spank inferno. What hasn?t this episode got?