Howard the Duck #17 (1977)

When we last left Howard and Beverly they were confronted by Dr. Bong, who had invited them to come to his castle. Howard refuses, however, as he walks away Dr. Bong clangs his bell immobilizing Howard and has his legion of mutates to take Howard to a room in the castle while he shows Beverly around. When Beverly asks how Dr. Bong can afford such an expensive set up, a castle with high tech gadgets, Dr. Bong tells her it's merely props and that nothing is functional. He then shows her the nerve center of his castle: A room with a single office setup and a typewriter. Meanwhile, Howard wakes up to find himself locked in a room in Dr. Bong's castle. He also comes across a book that turns out to be Beverly's old diary. Howard is interrupted by the entrance of Fifi, one of Dr. Bong's creations that is a female humanoid duck, come to bring him a meal. Meanwhile, back aboard the S.S. Damned, the stones suddenly vanish and all the damage (And death) caused by the strange rockfall disappear, turning out to be a clever illusion. When Dr. Bong appears and demands they leave, lest they suffer a worse fate, Winda and Paul try to appeal to the captain to help them rescue their friends Beverly and Howard. The captain refuses and sets course back for the states, Winda and Paul then watch as Dr. Bong's island suddenly disappears. Back in Dr. Bong's castle, the Doctor tells Beverly about his life: How he, Lester Verde, was picked on as a boy. One day, his mother encouraged him to write down silly names of the kids who picked on him, telling him that the pen is mightier than the sword. It was advice he took to heart, and soon became a brilliant writer who could manipulate the words he wrote to pretty much tell the truth but in the most devastating and damning way. When his writing style was criticized in his university writing class, he wrote an article that got his teacher fired on allegations he was a drug user. This is where, in his art class, he first met Beverly who was modeling for the class. When Lester tried to ask her out, Beverly rejected him. When Lester saw that she had a boyfriend, he used his influence to end their relationship by telling his parents that she wasn't Jewish, Lester would later be pulled out of school and eventually die in a winter car accident trying to see Beverly. Getting a job writing headlines for various tabloids, Lester would eventually be assigned a job as a rock critic, but to give his work some edge he eventually got involved with the rock band Mildren Horowitz and His Band, and got personally involved with their brutal and vile stage acts. During one such act, a prop guillotine ended up cutting off Lester's hand. As Bong continues his story, upstairs Howard is told by Fifi that Bong intends to experiment on Howard as well in order to turn him into a creature similar to the ones that live with Dr. Bong. Not wanting to be experimented on, Howard bolts out of the room and crashes in on Bong and Beverly, but Howard is quickly subdued by Bong's creatures and taken to his lab for experimentation. Bong gives Beverly an ultimatum: Become his wife, or Howard dies.