Of all the comic book characters featured in the MCU, Howard the Duck’s one fans never expected to see. The suit-wearing, wisecracking bird was the star of his own movie in the 1980s, but seeing as it’s widely remembered as one of the worst films ever made, it was a surprise when he turned up in the post-credits scene of Guardians of the Galaxy. His subsequent second cameo in GotG Vol. 2 then set him up as a recurring character in the franchise.
Now, we’re learning that we could’ve been granted a third Howard cameo in Avengers: Infinity War as well. While speaking to FANDOM, co-director Anthony Russo revealed that Seth Green’s character was to show up in “a really good scene”… alongside Community star Ken Jeong.
“Howard the Duck was in one draft of the script. Howard the Duck actually had a really good scene… we were going to cameo with [The Hangover and Community star] Ken Jeong, with Howard the Duck. That was a much-beloved scene by us but it just didn’t end up fitting at all.”
Joe Russo went on to tease some details about this strange-sounding sequence, revealing that it would’ve come about when Star-Lord needs to pump Howard for info.
“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.”
Though it’s clear the Russos were fond of this scene, Anthony explained that cutting out the fat was a key part of making Infinity War and he doesn’t regret leaving out this deleted footage.
“So there were lots of ideas and iterations that were on the floor for this one but I think we would end up in the correct place. It’s all a process. Sometimes you are actually just writing a bible to the universe of what that movie is and have to pare it down to what the actual narrative is.”
While he might not’ve made it into Marvel’s biggest team-up movie yet, there’s every chance we may see more from Howard in the future of the MCU. The Russos previously revealed that he was lucky enough to be part of the half of the universe that survived Thanos’ snap at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. As such, odds are on him returning for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, if that ever gets going, that is.