"Trapped In A World He Never Made!" - What did that ever mean?

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A pal online pointed out this tagline, not only prominent on the covers of Howard The Duck (the overground/ underground comics phenom of its time, released late in 1975), but also, paraphrased and referenced and out-right quoted in other Marvel stories, captions, titles, and cover copy- like, Doctor Strange #2.

"Trapped In A World He Never Made."
I can't say for certain Steve Gerber came up with the idea to use this on the cover, though it was certainly his plan to do so. He had increasing editorial control of the newly-established, popular comic series, co-created with Val Mayerick. It just might've been a play on life in New York City then, a comment on earning a living and trying to stay sane in America, or maybe just, this is the challenge of publishing anything witty and original within the strictures of the mid-Seventies comics industry.
You could say the phrase was inspired by A.E. Housman's Last poems XII 'the laws of God, the laws of man'

"I, a stranger and afraid
in a World I never made."

I do have a friend to ask who was around and may know.

I got the impression they were riffing off Existentialism, which was making its way into hip American circles gradually after France was liberated.

That central conceit - Howard's ongoing plight, the story engine- feels like exactly where the Duck lines up with Joe Schmuck. Not one of these institutions to which the world seems beholden was established by me, when I was born here, and I didn't make the customs I find wherever I go.

He's as weird for being so anxiously self-aware in how he witnesses events, as he is for being a talking duck who gets around so ably, isn't he? So why then does he grow to care intensely about anything, amidst this chaos? He can't help butting into injustice, try as he might to start no crusades. He's compelled.

He's "trapped in a world he never made!"

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