Spend a day with Howard, a private investigator and the only human living in city full of animals. But not, like, criminals and lowlifes. We're talking elephants, apes, ducks and kitty cats. Catching a case, grinding a few gears, dodging some bullets and almost getting killed by an anthropomorchic monstrosity. It's just another Monday for Howard the Human brought to you by Skottie Young (ROCKET RACCOON) and Jim Mahfood (MIAMI VICE REMIX).
Rated T+
While not officially a What If? book, Howard the Human #1 rides the same route as the rest of the Secret Wars titles by presenting readers with a wacky, one-off story. Sure, it may not amount to a series or a spin-off in the long run, but we should just enjoy it while it's here and bask in it's infinite fun-ness. Read Full Review
A pretty nice comic all around. Not a place to find a bunch of laugh-out-loud one-liners, but it's a fun premise in a quirky world, aided by a hyper-kinetic and totally exaggerated Mahfood-y art style. It's rare we get a stand-alone story that works so well, although the story itself doesn't have much do say beyond the gimmick of the title. Since it's a done-in-one, it's a pleasant enough snack with a healthy dollop of noir. Read Full Review
Honestly, the world is a better place for having this one-shot in it. Read Full Review
Young brings it all together nicely at the end, making a light but tight done-in-one that uses the backdrop of "Secret Wars" as an excuse to construct a story that likely never would have come to be otherwise. "Howard the Human" #1 is a strongly assembled comic that serves up all kinds of craziness but doesn't forget storytelling basics. Read Full Review
It's a fun twist to a familiar structure, and one writer Skottie Young plays up well with a series of in-gags and visual cues. Read Full Review
A comical take on a Raymond Chandler-esque plot - where Toomes is a literal vulture, the feline femme fatale is Black Cat, and Kingpin is a gorilla - it's a bit like reading Blacksad under the influence of heavy hallucinogens. Read Full Review
However, that's pretty much it for the book. A noir story features animal characters instead of humans. A joke here and there to remind us this is Howard the Human that's trapped in the anthropomorphic world, but not much else to push it forward. Don't get me wrong, this is still a great issue, but it can work just fine without the “Howard is a human” gimmick. The story ends on a great point too, so please be a one-shot please. Read Full Review
Howard The Human #1 is a stylish and witty book, but there's just no denying that the main draw of the character has been eradicated by its concept. Despite these misgivings, Mahfood and Stewart's wild, energetic artwork work with Young's tightly plotted script to make this a book worth a glance. Still, there's a reason he's supposed to be a duck. Read Full Review
I... have mixed feelings. Jim Mahfood is awful as always, but sometimes I even liked his art here... The story itself is entertaining and short enough to not be boring, but it indeed has nothing to do with Howard The Duck. Well... I guess you might want to try this book if you can bare with the awful artwork, it's funny a bit.
Clearly a play on Howard the Duck, but when it comes down to it, this really has little to do with Howard the Duck; as a human, he is just some private investigator who doesn't endure the difficulties of being a duck and doesn't even feel like a fish out of water because everyone else is a different animal. Now, if everyone else were a duck, it might be more analogous, but I digress. The plot is semi-interesting, this comic's main flaw is that it's simply not funny, so why bother? The artwork is very stylized and works okay, but it's not great. This certainly doesn't compare to the Zdarsky's level of Howardness, and it seems to be a simple one-off story, so you won't miss out on anything by skipping this one.
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