
Steve Gerber graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in communications and took a job in advertising. To keep himself sane, he wrote bizarre short stories such as "Elves Against Hitler," "Conversion in a Terminal Subway," and "...And the Birds Hummed Dirges!" He noticed acquaintance Roy Thomas working at Marvel, and Thomas sent him Marvel's standard writing test, dialoguing Daredevil art. He was soon made a regular on Daredevil and Sub-Mariner, and the newly created Man-Thing, the latter of which pegged him as having a strong personal style—intellectual, introspective, and literary. In one issue, he introduced an anthropomorphic duck into a horror fantasy, because he wanted something weird and incongruous, and Thomas made the character, named for Gerber's childhood friend Howard, fall to his apparent death in the following issue. Fans were outraged, and the character was revived in a new and deeply personal series. Gerber said in interview that the joke of Howard the Duck is that "there is no joke." The series was existential and dealt with the necessities of life, such as finding employment to pay the rent. Such unusual fare for comicbooks also informed his writing on The Defenders. Other works included Morbius, the Lving Vampire, The Son of Satan, Tales of the Zombie, The Living Mummy, Marvel Two-in-One, Guardians of the Galaxy, Shanna the She-Devil, and Crazy Magazine for Marvel, and Mister Miracle, Metal Men, The Phantom Zone , and The Immortal Doctor Fate for DC. Gerber eventually lost a lawsuit for control of Howard the Duck when he was defending artist Gene Colan's claim of delayed paychecks for the series, which was less important to him personally because he had a staff job and Colan did not. He left comics for animation in the early 1980s, working mainly with Ruby-Spears, creating Thundarr the Barbarian with Alex Toth and Jack Kirby and episodes of The Puppy's Further Adventures, and Marvel Productions, where he was story editor on multiple Marvel series including Dungeons & Dragons, G.I. Joe, and The Transformers. He continued to dabble in comics, mainly for Eclipse, including the graphic novel Stewart the Rat, the two-part horror story "Role Model: Caring, Sharing, and Helping Others," and the seven-issue Destroyer Duck with Jack Kirby, which began as a fundraiser for Gerber's lawsuit. In the early 1990s, he returned to Marvel with Foolkiller, a ten-issue limited series featuring a new version of a villain he had used in The Man-Thing and Omega the Unknown, who communicated with a previous version of the character through internet bulletin boards. An early internet adopter himself, he wrote two chapters of BBSs for Dummies with Beth Woods Slick, with whom he also wrote the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, "Contagion." During this period, he also wrote The Sensational She-Hulk and Cloak and Dagger for Marvel, Cybernary and WildC.A.T.s for Image, and Sludge and Exiles for the writer-driven Malibu Ultraverse, and Nevada for DC's mature readers Vertigo line. In 2002, he returned to the Howard the Duck character for Marvel's mature readers MAX line, and for DC created Hard Time with Mary Skrenes, with whom he had co-created the cult hit Omega the Unknown for Marvel. Their ending for Omega the Unknown remains a secret that Skrenes plans to take to the grave if Marvel refuses to publish it. Suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis ("idiopathic" meaning of unknown origin despite having been a heavy smoker much of his life), he was on a waiting list for a double lung transplant. His final work was the Doctor Fate story arc, "More Pain Comics," for DC Comics'
Series
Books

Sub-Mariner #60
2016

Howard el pato
Metamorfosis
2017

Daredevil (1964-1998) #116
1970

Defenders #20
1975

Hard Time
50 to Life
2004

Sensational She-Hulk #14
2017

Sensational She-Hulk #10
2022

Daredevil (1964-1998) #114
1970

Mister Miracle (1971-1978) #25
1978

Defenders #24
2016

Marvel Spotlight (1971-1977) #23
2016

Daredevil (1964-1998) #100
2016

Nevada
1999

Man-Thing #21
2018

Void Indigo
1984

Defenders #21
1975

The Infernal Man-Thing
2012

Daredevil (1964-1998) #117
1970

The Helmet of Fate
2007

Captain America (1968-1996) #225
1978

Iron Man Annual #3
2018

Sub-Mariner #59
2016

Man-Thing #3
2015

Defenders #33
1976

Daredevil (1964-1998) #113
1970

Defenders #31
1972

Man-Thing #12
2016

Man-Thing #4
1974

Sub-Mariner #58
2016

Avengers Vs. Thanos
2013

Marvel Tales
Annihilation #1
2019

Marvel Limited Edition. Vampire Tales
2018

Man-Thing #2
1974

Marvel Firsts The 1990s 1
2016

Daredevil (1964-1998) #107
1973

Man-Thing #17
2016

Defenders #29
1975

Vertigo
Winter's Edge
1998

Incredible Hulk (1962-1999) #158
2016

Howard the Duck MAX
2002

Daredevil (1964-1998) #101
1973

Marvel Two-In-One #2
1973

Defenders #36
1976

Daredevil (1964-1998) #98
2016

Marvel Two-In-One #3
1971

Marvel Two-In-One #7
2016

Daredevil (1964-1998) #112
2017

Essential Marvel Horror, Vol. 1
1979

Daredevil (1964-1998) #99
1973

Hard Time
Sixteen
2013

Defenders #40
2015

Man-Thing #1
2015

Sensational She-Hulk #15
1990

Superman
Last Son of Earth
2000

Marvel Two-In-One #4
1974

Captain America (1968-1996) #223
1978

Iron Man #57
2014

Daredevil (1964-1998) #106
1973

Sub-Mariner #66
1973

Daredevil (1964-1998) #109
2017

Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street
1990

Howard el pato
Atrapado en un mundo que no es el suyo
2016

Marvel Two-In-One #6
1974