Steve Gerber (IEE): Personality Type Analysis

Stephen Ross Gerber was a Marvel Writer most active during the 1970s. He acquired a reputation for writing some of the weirdest stories that Marvel ever published. He is most remembered for the creation of Howard the Duck and a highly publicized legal battle with Marvel over the ownership of that character.

Gerber’s approach to intuition is the most apparent thing. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate this is simply by listing off things within his Defenders run. There are 4 pages in which an Elf with a Gun is shown killing random people. These people have no connection to the plot of the issues, and are not ever even acknowledged by other characters in the story. The Headman saga is a famously strange story involving a team of villains various issues with their heads swapping minds with the heroes, Hulk adopting Bambi after watching it's mother die, one of the villains swapping their minds into Bambi, all while the hero, Nighthawk’s brain is sitting in a jar after the Headmen had surgically removed it. The fact that this run is generally well regarded shows that the intuition has to be strong. The fact that this resists reduction to Archetypes shows a certain absence of T. For this reason, I1 and T7 are the only reasonable conclusion.

His weakness in relation to sensing is apparent in the reputation that he had acquired for turning in his work either late or at the last minute. When he was writing a Howard the Duck Strip for newspaper, he ran into trouble because while syndicated newspaper strips are supposed to be submitted at least 6 months in advance of publication, he would submit them as late as 2 weeks in advance. His original series Omega the Unknown was cancelled by Marvel in order to give him more time to work on other series. Issue 16 of his Howard the Duck run has the following synopsis: ”With a deadline looming, and instead of presenting readers with a reprint, series writer Steve Gerber submits a written essay on why the continuation of last issue's story is late and talks about moving from New York to Las Vegas, and about his experiences, observations, and criticisms of the comic book industry.” All of this points to significant struggles in relation to S. This is consistent with S5. The relative lack of anything to discuss in relation to F is also consistent with F3.

His approach to ethics is apparent from the characters he wrote and the relationships he had to them. His characters often have strange psychologies that undermine symbolic interpretations. Howard the Duck is a cowardly duck from an alien dimension without traditional heroic traits. His brief four issue Captain America run had Captain America lose his powers after reflecting on his childhood. Gerber was however immediately removed and Captain America would regain his powers in the next issue, thus it is only possible to imagine what Gerber would have done given the chance to expand the story. All of this points to the devaluation of E and L in favor of R. When his Man-Thing series was cancelled, he would write himself into the final issue (#22) as a final farewell to both the characters and the audience. This shows a strong awareness of the audience even if he preferred to deal with it in a relational manner.

His relationship with logic is evident through the saga involving his contention of his own ownership of Howard the Duck. Which started when he was pulled off of the Howard the Duck syndicated newspaper strip due to not finishing panels on time. He then started preparing to sue Marvel claiming that he owned Howard. He was fired from Marvel in the lead up to the lawsuit and thus lost the ongoing Howard series too. He created a character called destroyer duck during this period in order to sell copies to raise money for the lawsuit which was ultimately settled. Later in the 90s, Marvel allowed a crossover between Howard the Duck and Destroyer Duck among other characters in two issues, one published by Marvel and the Other by Image with Gerber writing the Image issue. Gerber snuck in the implication that the real Howard the Duck was brought into Image continuity with the Marvel one being replaced by a clone. Gerber would later get a chance to return to writing Howard. According to Jim Shooter (LIE), Marvel's editor in chief for many years, Marvel would later give him the chance to come back to Marvel and he would write in a scene in which all of the writers who had written Howard since Gerber would be seen beating him up on a bus. Shooter objected to that scene while being OK with the rest of the story. Gerber presumably left it because, as far as I can tell, no Gerber Howard stories were published during this time with volume 2 being ironically written by other writers around this time, thus rendering his pettiness outright counterproductive. He would later be able to write a volume 3 in 2002. All of this shows an inability to accept the fact that Marvel owns Howard the Duck via the contract he signed. This suggests a lack of L fundamental enough to be L4. P6 can be seen in the sheer stubbornness of this whole sequence. None of these actions would ever have been advised by a third party.