Marvel has a lot of unusual characters in its ever-growing library, but Howard the Duck is among the weirdest. Introduced to the comics in 1973, the anthropomorphic waterfowl is best known for leading his own live action movie in 1986, which is generally considered to be all kinds of terrible. However, Howard earned a little cinematic redemption when he cameoed in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy (voiced by Seth Green), and he briefly returned again for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 three years later. As it turns out, there were also plans for Howard the Duck to also pop in for Avengers: Infinity War, as Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord, would have sought him out for help. Infinity War co-director Joe Russo explained the idea as follows:
Yeah, it was [Peter] Quill trying to track down some information from Howard the Duck on some outlier planet and interrupting him during a poker game.
From what little we've seen of Howard the Duck so far in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, seeing him in a poker game sounds about right. Not only that, but this Howard moment would have also included The Hangover star Ken Jeong, who previously worked with the Russo brothers on Community and would presumably have been playing one of the other players at the space poker table. In the end, though, as Anthony Russo told Fandom, this "much beloved scene" was tossed out of one of the Avengers: Infinity War script drafts because it "didn't end up fitting at all." That was the same thing that happened with a planned appearance from Cosmo the space dog, another unusual Marvel character who previously cameoed in Guardians of the Galaxy.
When we first met Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy, he was imprisoned in The Collector's collection on Knowhere, but he was freed from captivity when the Power Stone blew up the museum, though he decided to stick around and enjoy a drink in the rubble. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Howard was seen on Contraxia at the same bar where Yondu and his Ravagers clan were hanging out. Whether or not Howard reappears in the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 or another movie remains to be seen, though Lea Thompson mentioned a few months back that she was visiting Marvel to pitch a new Howard the Duck movie. In any case, now that we know that Howard could have shown up in Avengers: Infinity War, I'm concerned about whether or not the wise-cracking bird survived the Thanos snap.
Avengers: Infinity War is now available on Digital HD, and you can pick up your Blu-ray and DVD copies starting tomorrow, August 14. The MCU has wrapped up 2018 on the theatrical side of things, but it will pick back up next year when Captain Marvel is released on March 8, 2019, followed by Avengers 4 on May 3 and Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5.
