The main story of the comic told of Louis "Duke" Duck, a resident of a typical anthropomorphic comic-book world, who had witnessed his best friend, identified only as "The Little Guy" or "TLG", vanish into thin air before his eyes.

Some years later, TLG reappeared only to die at Duke's feet—but not before telling the tale of how he was exploited and destroyed by a thoughtless conglomeration, "Godcorp."

[5] Subsequent Destroyer Duck tales would reveal that the Little Guy who died at Duke's feet was in fact a clone, and the original was still held captive by Godcorp; eventually, Gerber (by that point on better terms with Marvel, the lawsuit having long since been settled) revealed that The Little Guy's real name was actually "Leonard" - a new duck character that, for all intents and purposes, was identical in every way (except in name and character ownership) to Howard.

Issue #1 of the original Destroyer Duck series, labeled the "Special Lawsuit Benefit Edition", is notable for containing the first appearance of Sergio Aragonés’s Groo the Wanderer and also featuring additional stories by Mark Evanier, Dan Spiegle, Shary Flenniken, Martin Pasko, and Joe Staton.

[6] The rest of the series contained the back-up feature The Starling, written by Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, with art by Val Mayerik.