page 11 of that issue, he created the series' narrative tagline, used in captions: "Whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch!" After issue #19 (Dec. 1973), Man-Thing received a solo title, which ran 22 issues (Jan. 1974 – Oct. 1975), of which issue #1 was originally intended for Adventure into Fear #20. Gerber and Mayerik introduced the original Foolkiller in issue #3 (March 1974). In the final issue, Gerber appeared as a character in the story, claiming he had not been inventing the Man-Thing's adventures but simply reporting on them and that he had decided to move on. With penciler Val Mayerik, Gerber created Howard the Duck as a secondary character in a Man-Thing story in Adventure into Fear #19 and Man-Thing #1 (Dec. 1973 - Jan. 1974). Howard graduated to his own backup feature in Giant-Size Man-Thing #4-5, confronting such bizarre horror-parody characters as Garko the Man-Frog and Bessie the Hellcow, before acquiring his own comic-book title with Howard the Duck #1 (Jan. 1976). Gerber wrote 27 issues of the series, penciled initially by Frank Brunner and shortly afterward by Gene Colan. The series gradually developed a substantial cult following, which Marvel helped to promote by Howard's satiric entry into the 1976 U.S. presidential campaign under the auspices of the All-Night Party. Marvel attempted a spin-off with a short-lived Howard the Duck syndicated comic strip from 1977 to 1978, initially scripted by Gerber and drawn by Colan then Mayerik and finally Alan Kupperberg. Gerber was replaced on the strip in mid-1978, by another comic book writer, Marv Wolfman, creating acrimony. Marvel's then editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter, blamed Gerber's chronic tardiness, saying the creative team was "producing strips within six days of their publication dates," which he said caused several newspapers to drop the strip. Shooter added that while the syndicate threatened to drop the strip if a new writer were not brought in, "Steve can tell you a good number of horror stories – and they're all true – about the trouble we had getting artists." Other comics work Gerber often collaborated with writer Mary Skrenes during this period. Among other Marvel projects, Gerber created Omega the Unknown with Skrenes and artist Jim Mooney, which explored the strange link between a cosmic superhero and a boy, and wrote the first issue of Marvel Comics Super Special featuring the rock band KISS. He created the characters of Starhawk, Aleta Ogord,