Howard The Duck is a detective. He got hired by lawyer Jennifer Walter (aka She-Hulk) to track down one of her clients. Said client is a high-rolling rich jerk named Gary Stark (no relation, though he pretends there is) who mysteriously disappeared doing high-roller rich jerk stuff.
Howard recruits his "good friend" Spider-Man's boss (aka Peter Parker, but also secretly Spider-Man) to help them with a sting to figure out where Gary Stark went. This attracts the attention of D.A. Matt Murdock (aka Daredevil, but also secretly Matt Murdock), who has his own reasons for tracking down Gary Stark. And when Gary's trail leads to the Savage Land, they all have to go hitch a ride with Steve Rogers (aka The Senior Citizen Formerly Known As Captain America) so they don't violate the UN rules on traveling to The Savage Land!
See! Totally simple! It isn't until the geeks with the dinosaur-controlling helmets show up that things get complicated...
Guest artist Kevin Maguire is in fine form here. Nobody draws a great facial expression quite like Maguire and he is given ample opportunity to exercise his gifts for physical comedy throughout the issue. The color-art by Joe Quinones and Jordan Gibson bring the verdant wilds of the Savage Land to life perfectly, resulting in some amazing looking backgrounds.
This may not be a Giffen/DeMatteis comic book, but you'd never know it from the script. Chip Zdarksy's script seems to be a love letter to the BWA-HA-HA! days of comics, with all of the established characters played as overblown parodies of themselves and Howard stuck in the middle as the only sane man, er duck! How much you enjoy this issue may depend upon how willing you are to tolerate Spider-Man telling his amazing friends that they suck but I personally found the whole thing hilarious!
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