Methotrexate….

Correction Appended

Steve Gerber, who created Howard the Duck, the dour, dyspeptic, utterly disagreeable and therefore wildly popular comic-book hero of the 1970s, died on Sunday in Las Vegas. He was 60 and lived in Las Vegas.

The cause was complications of pulmonary fibrosis, said Mark Evanier, a friend.

Published by Marvel Comics, “Howard the Duck” attracted a cult following that endures to this day. Mr. Gerber conceived the character and wrote the first 27 issues; they were illustrated by various artists, notably Frank Brunner and Gene Colan.

Mr. Gerber was also known for suing Marvel in the late ’70s over creative control of Howard. The suit was among the first cases to bring the issue of creators’ rights to wide public attention.

His other work includes the comic-book series “Omega the Unknown,” which he created for Marvel with Mary Skrenes. (The series was revived last year, written by the novelist Jonathan Lethem.) He also created the animated series “Thundarr the Barbarian,” broadcast on ABC in the early 1980s.

If most comic books are subversive, “Howard the Duck” was especially so, because what it subverted was the very idea of the comic-book hero. Howard was not a nice duck. He had no special powers, nor was he brave. But then again, poor Howard was, in the words of the comic’s famous tag line, “TRAPPED IN A WORLD HE NEVER MADE!”

That world was Cleveland.

With the publication of “Howard the Duck” No. 1 in 1976, Howard has fallen to Earth from his home planet, a place where all higher life forms have evolved, quite sensibly, from ducks. He fetches up in Ohio, where many things bewilder him and almost everything annoys him. (Howard had begun making guest appearances in 1973 in the Marvel comic “Adventure Into Fear,” written by Mr. Gerber.)

Howard smokes cigars and battles deeply bad individuals, among them Bessie the Hellcow and Phelch the Space Turnip. He soon teams up with the stunning Beverly. The fact that she is Homo sapiens and he is Anas domesticus was apparently no impediment to their sharing a bed.

The series also satirized the American political scene, with characters transparently modeled on Anita Bryant and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. In a much-publicized plot development, Howard ran for president on the All-Night Party ticket in 1976. He lost to Jimmy Carter.

In 1986 “Howard the Duck” was released as a live-action feature film, produced by George Lucas. It was widely considered a critical and box-office debacle.

Stephen Ross Gerber was born in St. Louis on Sept. 20, 1947. In 1969, he earned a bachelor’s degree in communication from Saint Louis University. He worked briefly as an advertising copywriter in St. Louis before joining Marvel as an associate editor in the early 1970s.

In the late ’70s Marvel fired Mr. Gerber. Shortly afterward, he sued the company for ownership of Howard; the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, with Marvel retaining the rights to the character.

Marvel stopped publishing the original series in 1979. Howard reappeared from time to time afterward in Marvel publications, sometimes written by Mr. Gerber, but usually by others.

Mr. Gerber was separated from his wife, Margo Macleod. He is also survived by his mother, Bernice Gerber; three siblings, Jon, Michael and Lisa Bedell; and a daughter, Samantha Voll.

Over the years Howard’s appearance remained largely unchanged except for one thing. He originally wore a jacket, fedora and little else. Disney threatened legal action. At issue was Howard’s alleged resemblance to another well-known duck, who famously wore no pants. In the end, Marvel endowed Howard with trousers.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 1, 2008
An obituary on Feb. 14 about Steve Gerber, the creator of the comic-book character Howard the Duck, misspelled the surname of a survivor. The survivor, Mr. Gerber’s sister, is Lisa Bedell, not Bidell.

She was something of a icon of my world awareness. She showed me that the world was not a perfect place, that merely for the colour of her skin, she was considered to be a second-class citizen. This, to a girl who had always rooted for the Indians more than the cowboys, had accepted aliens as a matter of course, longed to encounter one, and whose life ambition [at 9 years old...] was to pilot a spaceship, was a hell of a shock and an unacceptable one at that. Eartha also showed me that no matter how disadvantaged your beginnings, you can reject the reality tthat others impose on you, and build yourself a different reality. Of course, there were [and are] other iconic people of colour, but Eartha was the one who opened my eyes. A hatred of discrimination of any kind has stayed with me all my life.

These days, I'm an overweight white woman who somehow waltzed past middle-age and into OAP staus without really noticing it, and today I will celebrate Eartha's life, raising a glass in her name, and that of IDIC.