Howard the Duck teams up with numerous Marvel heroes for his 50th anniversary

(Image credit: Marvel Comics)

Howard the Duck has been an unlikely cult favorite character since his 1973 debut, and in 2023, Marvel Comics will celebrate Howard's 50th anniversary starting in February with a series of variant covers that team Howard up with different Marvel Comics characters, and even one that mashes him up with cult '70s sci-fi movie series Planet of the Apes.

Along with the variant covers, Marvel will also print two Marvel Masterworks volumes reprinting Howard's classic Steve Gerber written adventures, drawn by artists including co-creator Val Mayerik, Frank Brunner, and Gene Colan.

Here's a gallery of the four Howard the Duck variant covers revealed so far, along with the covers of the two Marvel Masterworks volumes, followed by a list of the titles on which they'll appear and the artists who drew them, organized by release date:

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February 15:

Avengers Forever #14 Planet of the Apes variant cover by David Talaski
Mary Jane & Black Cat #3 by Carlos Gomez

March 1:

Cosmic Ghost Rider #1 by Cory Smith

April 19:

Warlock: Rebirth #1 by Ron Lim

Howard the Duck was the best Marvel Comics character debut of 1973.

I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011. I've also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)