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Animal Man by Grant Morrison 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition #1
Animal Man by Grant Morrison Book One 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
Buddy Baker, a.k.a. “the Man with Animal Powers,” is a second-rate superhero, devoted father and animal activist. There isn’t much money in the hero game, and with a wife and kids to support, Buddy soon finds himself torn between trying to make a living through traditional super-heroics and getting more deeply involved in the questionably legal world of animal rights activism. But in today’s world, with real-life issues, who really needs Animal Man’s protection? Is it humankind or the animals? Or is it Buddy himself?
From the Eisner Award-winning and New York Times best-selling writer Grant Morrison comes one of his earliest, now classic, works exploring the nature of reality itself through the lens of a down-on-his-luck family-man superhero. This first of two 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition hardcovers collects Animal Man #1-13, the character’s dimension-spanning creation tale from Secret Origins #39 and an introduction by Grant Morrison.
“Morrison told the story of a kind-hearted, vegetarian hero who loses his family and is pushed to the brink of insanity before confronting his author in the run’s extraordinarily meta finale.” —Rolling Stone
“Grant Morrison overhauled Animal Man in a typically imaginative manner.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Morrison quickly became the hottest writer in the industry.” —Complex Magazine
From the Eisner Award-winning and New York Times best-selling writer Grant Morrison comes one of his earliest, now classic, works exploring the nature of reality itself through the lens of a down-on-his-luck family-man superhero. This first of two 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition hardcovers collects Animal Man #1-13, the character’s dimension-spanning creation tale from Secret Origins #39 and an introduction by Grant Morrison.
“Morrison told the story of a kind-hearted, vegetarian hero who loses his family and is pushed to the brink of insanity before confronting his author in the run’s extraordinarily meta finale.” —Rolling Stone
“Grant Morrison overhauled Animal Man in a typically imaginative manner.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Morrison quickly became the hottest writer in the industry.” —Complex Magazine
370 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 18, 2018
50 people are currently reading
362 people want to read
About the author
Grant Morrison
1,791 books4,564 followersGrant Morrison has been working with DC Comics for twenty five years, after beginning their American comics career with acclaimed runs on ANIMAL MAN and DOOM PATROL. Since then they have written such best-selling series as JLA, BATMAN and New X-Men, as well as such creator-owned works as THE INVISIBLES, SEAGUY, THE FILTH, WE3 and JOE THE BARBARIAN. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning SEVEN SOLDIERS and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN to the reality-shattering epic of FINAL CRISIS, they have also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN AND ROBIN and BATMAN, INCORPORATED and the Man of Steel in The New 52 ACTION COMICS.
In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.
In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
May 15, 2019
Like a lot of the characters that ultimately started the Vertigo line, Animal Man was a little known DC character from the 60's that was revived by an up and coming British writer. Animal Man could take on the abilities of any animal that happened to be nearby. What makes this book unique to me is that Buddy Baker is a family man with a public identity and a screw up. He's considered a joke by the world at large if they even know who he is in the first place. Of course, this being a Grant Morrison book, he injects plenty of strangeness in the stories as well (see, The Coyote Gospel). I do like that Animal Man is grounded in the larger DC universe, which I always considered a failing of the Vertigo line when they moved away from the rest of the DCU. The Invasion stories can feel a bit dated now that that crossover is 30 years old. I think my favorite issue was Morrison's introduction of the Scottish Mirror Master. He was a lot of fun. Chas Truog's and Tom Grummet's art is very solid and indicative of DC's house style of the time. They stick to a lot of 6 panel layouts with a vibrant color palette.
May 29, 2021
When stuntman Buddy Baker came into contact with an alien spacecraft, he became Animal Man, the man with animal powers. Now that he's older with a wife and kids, he's back in the super hero game. Can Animal Man make a go of things this time around?
I've read about half of this book before in single issues and I think I had an Animal Man trade or two back in the day. I nabbed this as part of a sale on Amazon not too long ago. Through the magic of getting older, it was like a whole new reading experience.
This volume contains Animal Man #1-13, plus Secret Origins #39. Grant Morrison does the writing and Chas Truong and Doug Hazelwood handle most of the art, with an assist by Tom Grummett for the Secret Origins issue.
This is an early Grant Morrison work, his first for DC. While Morrison's career in American comics was still in its infancy, all the usual facets of Morrison's style are present: his respect for the past, whacked out ideas, and his willingness to go metatextual at times. It's more accessible than his later work but it's still not a vanilla book.
Animal Man is rebuilt from the ground up in this volume. He's got a wife and kids and is struggling just to be a C-list super hero. Morrison explores the nature of Buddy's powers, as well as the nature of the DC Universe post-Crisis. Morrison digs Bwana Beast out of the dollar bin mothballs and gets some serious mileage out of him. Vixen also gets a co-starring role, though I'm not sure if this is before her membership in the Suicide Squad. There's a lot of humor but not enough to detract from the seriousness of the stories, something that's hard to do.
It's a 1990s book but I still don't want to give too much away. Suffice to say, I've already ordered the next Animal Man anniversary edition.
Animal Man by Grant Morrison 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is a bizarre masterpiece from the mind of a bizarre individual. Five out of five stars.
I've read about half of this book before in single issues and I think I had an Animal Man trade or two back in the day. I nabbed this as part of a sale on Amazon not too long ago. Through the magic of getting older, it was like a whole new reading experience.
This volume contains Animal Man #1-13, plus Secret Origins #39. Grant Morrison does the writing and Chas Truong and Doug Hazelwood handle most of the art, with an assist by Tom Grummett for the Secret Origins issue.
This is an early Grant Morrison work, his first for DC. While Morrison's career in American comics was still in its infancy, all the usual facets of Morrison's style are present: his respect for the past, whacked out ideas, and his willingness to go metatextual at times. It's more accessible than his later work but it's still not a vanilla book.
Animal Man is rebuilt from the ground up in this volume. He's got a wife and kids and is struggling just to be a C-list super hero. Morrison explores the nature of Buddy's powers, as well as the nature of the DC Universe post-Crisis. Morrison digs Bwana Beast out of the dollar bin mothballs and gets some serious mileage out of him. Vixen also gets a co-starring role, though I'm not sure if this is before her membership in the Suicide Squad. There's a lot of humor but not enough to detract from the seriousness of the stories, something that's hard to do.
It's a 1990s book but I still don't want to give too much away. Suffice to say, I've already ordered the next Animal Man anniversary edition.
Animal Man by Grant Morrison 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is a bizarre masterpiece from the mind of a bizarre individual. Five out of five stars.
April 29, 2021
Reading this early work of Morrison is like listening to Led Zeppelin's first album - it's all there, it's unmistakably them, but there is nothing there that clearly shows the heights they're going to reach. It's all "Dazed and Confused" and no "When the Levee Breaks."
It's hard not to be astonished by the sheer audacity of this work - there is one issue which is literally just a re-envisioning of Wiley Coyote as the Christ, eternally condemned to die in suffering again and again by being run over by steamrollers or blown up by giant rockets. When you read that issue, you just can't believe that an editor at D. C. in the 80s said, "Sure, go ahead with that one, that sounds good."
There are some truly astonishing ideas in here, like when Morrison takes the very idea of retconning the title character to launch a new series, and he makes it part of the story, bringing it in as some kind of DMT-inspired paranoid fantasy about how sometimes the details of people's lives change because multidimensional beings are manipulating things in our universe for reasons of their own.
It's easy to draw a straight line between that kind of postmodern psychedelic mysticism and his later, greater series "The Invisibles," but what that latter series has that this one lacks is a confident command of story beats and development. The characters are underdeveloped and lack a human core, and the narrative lurches forward in fits and starts that don't always make good dramatic sense. The first several issues are a complete mess, and it only even begins to find something like a recognizable shape around issue ten.
There are some incredible ideas at play here, and Morrison shows himself to be a brilliant writer with a very unique take on the world of superheroes. He just needed to work on how to tell a human story, and how to get his political ideas across without sounding didactic.
It's hard not to be astonished by the sheer audacity of this work - there is one issue which is literally just a re-envisioning of Wiley Coyote as the Christ, eternally condemned to die in suffering again and again by being run over by steamrollers or blown up by giant rockets. When you read that issue, you just can't believe that an editor at D. C. in the 80s said, "Sure, go ahead with that one, that sounds good."
There are some truly astonishing ideas in here, like when Morrison takes the very idea of retconning the title character to launch a new series, and he makes it part of the story, bringing it in as some kind of DMT-inspired paranoid fantasy about how sometimes the details of people's lives change because multidimensional beings are manipulating things in our universe for reasons of their own.
It's easy to draw a straight line between that kind of postmodern psychedelic mysticism and his later, greater series "The Invisibles," but what that latter series has that this one lacks is a confident command of story beats and development. The characters are underdeveloped and lack a human core, and the narrative lurches forward in fits and starts that don't always make good dramatic sense. The first several issues are a complete mess, and it only even begins to find something like a recognizable shape around issue ten.
There are some incredible ideas at play here, and Morrison shows himself to be a brilliant writer with a very unique take on the world of superheroes. He just needed to work on how to tell a human story, and how to get his political ideas across without sounding didactic.
July 25, 2022
Такий супергерой, як Людина-Тварина мені був узагалі незнайомий. А навіть, якщо десь і потрапляв епізодично, то на нього не звертав уваги через його другорядну роль. Та з під хорошого копняка однієї доброї людини на моїй полиці опинився перший делюкс коміксу «Людина-тварина» (1988) від Ґранта Моррісона, який містить у собі тринадцять випусків та був надрукований до 30-ї річниці із початку виходу серії. І який же я щаслий, що це трапилося, бо серія просто дахозривна.
У 1980-ті роки, коли Ґрант Моррісон розпочав співрацю із DC, йому ніхто б і ніколи не дав писати про таких популярних персонажів, як Бетмен, Супермен, Флеш та інших улюбленців тодішньої аудитоії. Адже він був тільки перспективним сценаристом, який бажає заробити своє місце в індустрії. У таких випадках, як тоді, так і тепер, запропонували маловідомого персонажа, який ніяк не вплине на загальні продажі. Зате давали волю та менше редакторського нагляду для експериментів та деконструкції цих героїв. Доля звела автора із мало цікавим супергероєм Людиною-Твариною, який незрозуміло, яким чином узагалі міг подобатися читачам.
Колись у минулому Бадді Бейкер зіткнувся з космічним кораблем інопланетян, після вибуху якого він став людиною із тваринними здібностями. Тепер, коли він подорослішав, у нього є дружина та діти і він намагається стати супергероєм зі списку іменитих, як Супермен чи Бетмен. Моррісон досліджує природу здібностей Бадді, а також природу всесвіту того часу. Розпочинає Ґрант Моррісон дуже просто, Бадді в стильному одязі тих років допомагає сусідці врятувати кішку, яка залізла високо на дерево. І вже там ми розуміємо, що ця людина має якісь певні надздібності, бо він стрибає із великої висоти на землю, приземлюючись, як кішка. Далі ми знайомимося із дружиною, дітьми та сусідами, разом із сімейними проблемами, які присутні в нього. Погане фінансове забезпечення, мала увага до дітей, дружини та велике бажання популярності — ось його основні супутники. Тут багато гумору, але недостатньо, щоб відволікти від серйозності історії, яка із кожним випуском рухається із локальної в більш масштабну.
Так у чому полягають збідності Бадді Бейкера? Насправді вони досить дивні та цікаві водночас. Перебуваючи в безпосередній близькості до тварин він має здатність позичати чи, краще сказати, абсорбувати їхні здібності (наприклад, політ птаха чи пропорційну силу мурахи). Використовуючи цю здатність, Бадді Баркер починає боротися зі злочинністю та стає Людиною-Твариною. Відразу можна побачити, чому цей персонаж був другорядним і його ніколи не сприймали серйозно. Адже покластися у відповідальний момент на супергероя, який буде без суперсили через те, що навколо немає ніяких тварин дуже важко. І Ґрант Моррісон, звісно, слідує цьому аспекту, особливо в перших випусках. Це відображається в діалогах, захопленням Бадді супергероями на обкладинці журналу чи навіть помилковим проханням підлітка підписати його блокнот, бо він вважав, що Бадді є Акваменом. Та найбільш показною була сцена, коли Супермен випадковим чином побачив Людину-Тварину на даху однієї багатоповерхівки і він спустився до нього, щоби перекинутися кількома словами. Під час цієї короткої бесіди було зрозуміло, що Людина-Тварина є непотрібним супергероєм. Також сцена намальована Часом Труоґом підтверджувала це, адже Бадді у своєму костюмі на всіх кадрах був зображений на другому плані. Навіть плащ Супермена закривав Бадді у одному з кадрів. Автор використовує цей давній наратив і з кожним новим випуском позбувається його, виводячи цього персонажа із небуття минулого до кращого майбутнього.
Ґрант Моррісон узагалі не боявся експериментувати із сюжетом, гумором, жорстокістю та інколи досить дикими моментами. Для прикладу, Людина-Тварина абсорбувала якості коника-стрибунця, щоби відбити сильним ударом ногами атаку мутанта-щура. Чи здібності хробака до регенерації, щоб виростити собі нову руку. Воно направду виглядає дуже круто і влучно під час тих сцен у коміксі.
Також Моррісон вміло використовував ефект четвертої стіни, де один сюжет взагалі виглядав більш, ніж незвично. Мова йде про п’ятий випуск «Євангеліє від Койота», де в центрі уваги був койот Крафті, який попросив Бога, тобто творця коміксу, забрати його з анімаційного світу (вибачте за це, просто малюнок виглядає, як світ «Веселих мелодій»), де він постійно робив шкоду іншим героям і водночас отримував відразу карму назад. Він уже більше не міг виконувати призначену долю лиходія та навіть готовий понести будь-яке покарання задля миру і спокою в цьому світі. Творець (пан Моррісон) переніс його у світ Людини-Тварини, де його доля стала дуже страшною. Він постійно гинув через випадковість чи полювання на нього, щоб знищити його. Ці сцени сильно жахають. Але Карфті постійно повертався назад до життя, щоб знову пройти шлях від народження до смерті за кілька кадрів у коміксі. Тут Моррісон показав, що персонажі можуть знати про творців, які відповідальні за їхню стежку життя. Гарний випуск, хоча й вибивається поміж інших. Кожен сюжет чимось дивує та зачаровує, що не може не тішити.
«Людина-Тварина» — це рання робота Ґранта Моррісона та його перша робота для DC. І, хоча кар’єра Моррісона в американській коміксній індустрії була ще в зародковому стані, але навіть тоді він зумів поламати звичне сприйняття коміксів у той час і дав зрозуміти, що із будь-якими персонажами можна працювати. Навіть із такими невідомими, як Людина-Тварина. Одним словом — це було дивовижно! Читайте цю серію. А мене чекає далі другий делюкс.
У 1980-ті роки, коли Ґрант Моррісон розпочав співрацю із DC, йому ніхто б і ніколи не дав писати про таких популярних персонажів, як Бетмен, Супермен, Флеш та інших улюбленців тодішньої аудитоії. Адже він був тільки перспективним сценаристом, який бажає заробити своє місце в індустрії. У таких випадках, як тоді, так і тепер, запропонували маловідомого персонажа, який ніяк не вплине на загальні продажі. Зате давали волю та менше редакторського нагляду для експериментів та деконструкції цих героїв. Доля звела автора із мало цікавим супергероєм Людиною-Твариною, який незрозуміло, яким чином узагалі міг подобатися читачам.
Колись у минулому Бадді Бейкер зіткнувся з космічним кораблем інопланетян, після вибуху якого він став людиною із тваринними здібностями. Тепер, коли він подорослішав, у нього є дружина та діти і він намагається стати супергероєм зі списку іменитих, як Супермен чи Бетмен. Моррісон досліджує природу здібностей Бадді, а також природу всесвіту того часу. Розпочинає Ґрант Моррісон дуже просто, Бадді в стильному одязі тих років допомагає сусідці врятувати кішку, яка залізла високо на дерево. І вже там ми розуміємо, що ця людина має якісь певні надздібності, бо він стрибає із великої висоти на землю, приземлюючись, як кішка. Далі ми знайомимося із дружиною, дітьми та сусідами, разом із сімейними проблемами, які присутні в нього. Погане фінансове забезпечення, мала увага до дітей, дружини та велике бажання популярності — ось його основні супутники. Тут багато гумору, але недостатньо, щоб відволікти від серйозності історії, яка із кожним випуском рухається із локальної в більш масштабну.
Так у чому полягають збідності Бадді Бейкера? Насправді вони досить дивні та цікаві водночас. Перебуваючи в безпосередній близькості до тварин він має здатність позичати чи, краще сказати, абсорбувати їхні здібності (наприклад, політ птаха чи пропорційну силу мурахи). Використовуючи цю здатність, Бадді Баркер починає боротися зі злочинністю та стає Людиною-Твариною. Відразу можна побачити, чому цей персонаж був другорядним і його ніколи не сприймали серйозно. Адже покластися у відповідальний момент на супергероя, який буде без суперсили через те, що навколо немає ніяких тварин дуже важко. І Ґрант Моррісон, звісно, слідує цьому аспекту, особливо в перших випусках. Це відображається в діалогах, захопленням Бадді супергероями на обкладинці журналу чи навіть помилковим проханням підлітка підписати його блокнот, бо він вважав, що Бадді є Акваменом. Та найбільш показною була сцена, коли Супермен випадковим чином побачив Людину-Тварину на даху однієї багатоповерхівки і він спустився до нього, щоби перекинутися кількома словами. Під час цієї короткої бесіди було зрозуміло, що Людина-Тварина є непотрібним супергероєм. Також сцена намальована Часом Труоґом підтверджувала це, адже Бадді у своєму костюмі на всіх кадрах був зображений на другому плані. Навіть плащ Супермена закривав Бадді у одному з кадрів. Автор використовує цей давній наратив і з кожним новим випуском позбувається його, виводячи цього персонажа із небуття минулого до кращого майбутнього.
Ґрант Моррісон узагалі не боявся експериментувати із сюжетом, гумором, жорстокістю та інколи досить дикими моментами. Для прикладу, Людина-Тварина абсорбувала якості коника-стрибунця, щоби відбити сильним ударом ногами атаку мутанта-щура. Чи здібності хробака до регенерації, щоб виростити собі нову руку. Воно направду виглядає дуже круто і влучно під час тих сцен у коміксі.
Також Моррісон вміло використовував ефект четвертої стіни, де один сюжет взагалі виглядав більш, ніж незвично. Мова йде про п’ятий випуск «Євангеліє від Койота», де в центрі уваги був койот Крафті, який попросив Бога, тобто творця коміксу, забрати його з анімаційного світу (вибачте за це, просто малюнок виглядає, як світ «Веселих мелодій»), де він постійно робив шкоду іншим героям і водночас отримував відразу карму назад. Він уже більше не міг виконувати призначену долю лиходія та навіть готовий понести будь-яке покарання задля миру і спокою в цьому світі. Творець (пан Моррісон) переніс його у світ Людини-Тварини, де його доля стала дуже страшною. Він постійно гинув через випадковість чи полювання на нього, щоб знищити його. Ці сцени сильно жахають. Але Карфті постійно повертався назад до життя, щоб знову пройти шлях від народження до смерті за кілька кадрів у коміксі. Тут Моррісон показав, що персонажі можуть знати про творців, які відповідальні за їхню стежку життя. Гарний випуск, хоча й вибивається поміж інших. Кожен сюжет чимось дивує та зачаровує, що не може не тішити.
«Людина-Тварина» — це рання робота Ґранта Моррісона та його перша робота для DC. І, хоча кар’єра Моррісона в американській коміксній індустрії була ще в зародковому стані, але навіть тоді він зумів поламати звичне сприйняття коміксів у той час і дав зрозуміти, що із будь-якими персонажами можна працювати. Навіть із такими невідомими, як Людина-Тварина. Одним словом — це було дивовижно! Читайте цю серію. А мене чекає далі другий делюкс.
January 23, 2024
Grant Morrison es el jefe de jefes en cuánto a tomar personajes del cómic nivel C/D para contar historias entrañables que rayan en el surrealismo y el avant garde. Lo ha hecho Tom King, Peter Milligan o Gerard Way, por poner algunos ejemplos, pero Morrison lo lleva a otro nivel. Animal Man es una maravilla en muchas capas: la narrativa no lineal que siempre sorprende (y nunca confunde), los personajes extravagantes, la vida hogareña de un superhéroe que sólo quiere ser reconocido, las portadas de Bolland, los villanos kitsch…
Pero si sólo tienes 30 minutos, lee el #5. Para qué pongo algo aquí al respecto, es mejor llegar en blanco a leer una de las historias cortas más importantes del cómic ochentero. Y si no está de acuerdo, nos vemos en las faldas del Kilimanjaro para darnos en la madre.
Pero si sólo tienes 30 minutos, lee el #5. Para qué pongo algo aquí al respecto, es mejor llegar en blanco a leer una de las historias cortas más importantes del cómic ochentero. Y si no está de acuerdo, nos vemos en las faldas del Kilimanjaro para darnos en la madre.
June 19, 2019
Over all one of Morrison’s better books. The first four issues were the best, but they were all good.
January 22, 2021
Animal Man by Grant Morrison 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Book 1
Buddy Baker is a family man who has the ability to gain the powers of an animal close to him for 30 minutes. He wants to become a full-time superhero, so with the help of his wife he starts testing the limits of his powers and with the help of a friend he gets on TV to get some publicity. In the first story arc (issues 1-4) Animal Man meets B'Wana Beast and he sees who awfully animals are treated in scientific labs. Also, his wife almost gets raped, but she's saved thanks to her neighbor. The story really gets surprisingly dark, very fast. The next issue that follows is the infamous "The Coyote Gospel" and it's one of the best issues I've ever read. This issue alone could be analysed in over 20 pages. The story follows Crafty, a coyote which is an analogue for Wile E. Coyote. Crafty used to live in an animation world which was filled with meaningless violence, but he made a deal with God and he went to the real world. As a punishment for his rebellion tho, while he has to live in the real world, with the power to regenerate himself after getting hurt, his world will live with no violence at all. Crafty is being hunted by a guy who accidentally hit him in the road one year ago and since then has had the worst of luck (many people close to him died etc). This guy believes that Crafty is the devil and he does whatever he can to kill him. While he does that, Animal Man, who has left his home after a fight with his wife due to the fact that he wants them to start being vegetarians, passes by and sees Crafty, who gives him a letter saying his whole story, but he's unable to read it because it doesn't make sense. The guy finally shoots Crafty with a silver bullet and he dies, while the hypothetical camera moves to a panoramic shot and we see that the page is being drawn. I won't give you a very detailed synopsis of what happens in the rest of the volume, but I'll present to you what I consider to be the most important parts. Animal Man gets into the JLE, but he has some problems with his powers after the explosion of a gene bomb. A female superhero comes to him for help and they both get kidnapped by aliens. I don't want to spoil what happens next, but I can say that it's very sci-fi in a very meta way.
This was amazing! The series is exceptionally well written by Grant Morrison. All the main characters are very interesting and unique and so are the supporting characters. Thanks to the fact that Buddy Baker is married with children, the supporting characters are very different than in most superhero comics. For example, very important supporting characters are the neighbors of the family. It's certainly an unconventional superhero comic for many reasons, the main one being (for me) that it doesn't really have a lot of action. It certainly has action, but it's way less that you'd expect in a superhero comic. Personally I think that's a good thing, become it gives the comic an opportunity to focus on more important stuff. The comic tackles many issues, like meaningless violence in cartoons, the pollution of the air in the cities, animal cruelty, bad treatment of animals in scientific labs and animal rights in general. Generally, the comic focuses a lot on nature and the way we destroy it. Grant Morrison also uses this comic to criticise some of the trade marks of superhero comics, like skin tight costumes that look ridiculous, unnecessary fights between superheroes, weird powers coming from meteorites and stuff like that, constant use of words like "Uh" and "Whuh", superheroes having unimportant motives for being superheroes, superheroes having a meaningless secret identity, not telling people close to them about their powers and finally, unnecessary violence. Other than that, I really like how he presents superheroes as superstars. That's something that he likes to do and he was actually doing it even before Animal Man, in the comics that he was writing back when he was in England. Furthermore, the comic also has very well written narration, great use of humor, it gets surprisingly dark and it breaks the 4th wall in a very meta way (breaking the 4th wall is meta by itself, but Morrison does it in an even more meta way than most writers would).
The artwork in the comic is truly great. It's sort of similar to the style of the period, but it's better than in most comics that came out around the same time. The artists that work of the book are great at panel to panel storytelling, at expressive faces and at making people look different from each other. All three of these are essentials for comic book artwork, so it's not a surprise that the artists working on a big company like DC are good at them, but they also have a great style and they are great at drawing animals, which is something very important for a comic with the title "Animal Man".
Overall, I absolutely loved the first volume of this series. There were one or two issues that weren't as good as the others, but there were also some issues that I'd put amongst the greatest that I've ever read.
Buddy Baker is a family man who has the ability to gain the powers of an animal close to him for 30 minutes. He wants to become a full-time superhero, so with the help of his wife he starts testing the limits of his powers and with the help of a friend he gets on TV to get some publicity. In the first story arc (issues 1-4) Animal Man meets B'Wana Beast and he sees who awfully animals are treated in scientific labs. Also, his wife almost gets raped, but she's saved thanks to her neighbor. The story really gets surprisingly dark, very fast. The next issue that follows is the infamous "The Coyote Gospel" and it's one of the best issues I've ever read. This issue alone could be analysed in over 20 pages. The story follows Crafty, a coyote which is an analogue for Wile E. Coyote. Crafty used to live in an animation world which was filled with meaningless violence, but he made a deal with God and he went to the real world. As a punishment for his rebellion tho, while he has to live in the real world, with the power to regenerate himself after getting hurt, his world will live with no violence at all. Crafty is being hunted by a guy who accidentally hit him in the road one year ago and since then has had the worst of luck (many people close to him died etc). This guy believes that Crafty is the devil and he does whatever he can to kill him. While he does that, Animal Man, who has left his home after a fight with his wife due to the fact that he wants them to start being vegetarians, passes by and sees Crafty, who gives him a letter saying his whole story, but he's unable to read it because it doesn't make sense. The guy finally shoots Crafty with a silver bullet and he dies, while the hypothetical camera moves to a panoramic shot and we see that the page is being drawn. I won't give you a very detailed synopsis of what happens in the rest of the volume, but I'll present to you what I consider to be the most important parts. Animal Man gets into the JLE, but he has some problems with his powers after the explosion of a gene bomb. A female superhero comes to him for help and they both get kidnapped by aliens. I don't want to spoil what happens next, but I can say that it's very sci-fi in a very meta way.
This was amazing! The series is exceptionally well written by Grant Morrison. All the main characters are very interesting and unique and so are the supporting characters. Thanks to the fact that Buddy Baker is married with children, the supporting characters are very different than in most superhero comics. For example, very important supporting characters are the neighbors of the family. It's certainly an unconventional superhero comic for many reasons, the main one being (for me) that it doesn't really have a lot of action. It certainly has action, but it's way less that you'd expect in a superhero comic. Personally I think that's a good thing, become it gives the comic an opportunity to focus on more important stuff. The comic tackles many issues, like meaningless violence in cartoons, the pollution of the air in the cities, animal cruelty, bad treatment of animals in scientific labs and animal rights in general. Generally, the comic focuses a lot on nature and the way we destroy it. Grant Morrison also uses this comic to criticise some of the trade marks of superhero comics, like skin tight costumes that look ridiculous, unnecessary fights between superheroes, weird powers coming from meteorites and stuff like that, constant use of words like "Uh" and "Whuh", superheroes having unimportant motives for being superheroes, superheroes having a meaningless secret identity, not telling people close to them about their powers and finally, unnecessary violence. Other than that, I really like how he presents superheroes as superstars. That's something that he likes to do and he was actually doing it even before Animal Man, in the comics that he was writing back when he was in England. Furthermore, the comic also has very well written narration, great use of humor, it gets surprisingly dark and it breaks the 4th wall in a very meta way (breaking the 4th wall is meta by itself, but Morrison does it in an even more meta way than most writers would).
The artwork in the comic is truly great. It's sort of similar to the style of the period, but it's better than in most comics that came out around the same time. The artists that work of the book are great at panel to panel storytelling, at expressive faces and at making people look different from each other. All three of these are essentials for comic book artwork, so it's not a surprise that the artists working on a big company like DC are good at them, but they also have a great style and they are great at drawing animals, which is something very important for a comic with the title "Animal Man".
Overall, I absolutely loved the first volume of this series. There were one or two issues that weren't as good as the others, but there were also some issues that I'd put amongst the greatest that I've ever read.
February 9, 2019
No one is interested in a fanboy review, so I usually just rate.
Fantastic.
Fantastic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 9, 2023
This was pretty great!
Basically Buddy is just a dad/husband trying to be a superhero and provide the best he could be. If you don't know who animal man is he has the power to absorb the abilities of animals around him and use them as a weapon or to save someone. But when he goes on his hunt to be a hero he's face either another who can control animals. Leading to a brutal confrontation. We have various one shots after, one particular one that stands out about the road runner coyote like character who gets killed in panel and it's breaking the 4th wall but mostly as a way to show violence and why it's needed to invoke reaction in stories. It's actually kind of touching and really well done.
The rest of the stories are solid, not as strong as those first 5 issues but still good. Animal man being a hero for the animals and trying to protect them makes 100% sense and really works well for his character growth. I also enjoyed his time with the JLA and getting all the benefits of them. The origin story of how he got his powers and why is a little iffy though.
Overall this is before Morrison smoked a bunch of crack and made stories almost impossible to understand unless you yourself lit up or sniffed, but either way this is well worth the read. A 4 out of 5.
Basically Buddy is just a dad/husband trying to be a superhero and provide the best he could be. If you don't know who animal man is he has the power to absorb the abilities of animals around him and use them as a weapon or to save someone. But when he goes on his hunt to be a hero he's face either another who can control animals. Leading to a brutal confrontation. We have various one shots after, one particular one that stands out about the road runner coyote like character who gets killed in panel and it's breaking the 4th wall but mostly as a way to show violence and why it's needed to invoke reaction in stories. It's actually kind of touching and really well done.
The rest of the stories are solid, not as strong as those first 5 issues but still good. Animal man being a hero for the animals and trying to protect them makes 100% sense and really works well for his character growth. I also enjoyed his time with the JLA and getting all the benefits of them. The origin story of how he got his powers and why is a little iffy though.
Overall this is before Morrison smoked a bunch of crack and made stories almost impossible to understand unless you yourself lit up or sniffed, but either way this is well worth the read. A 4 out of 5.
June 26, 2022
An all-timer.
January 25, 2019
You can find my review on my blog by clicking here.
DC Comics is filled with heroes that have either proven to the world their trustworthiness or their uselessness. In the face of grave danger, some vanquish evil with their mere reputation while others struggle to be relevant to the eye of the enemy. It, however, remains that they are all heroes, one way or another. Whether it is through their actions or through their words, they all showcase a hefty amount of unrecalled wisdom that promotes the adoption of a grounded and open-minded vision of the world. One hero who has only been known as the laughing stock of the DC Universe is Animal Man. Initially created by writer Dave Wood and artist Carmine Infantino, this hero barely ever managed to stay relevant during the pre-Crisis era since his first appearance in 1965. It is only after the famous Crisis on Infinite Earths event that DC brought back to life several minor characters and gave them a sweet revamp that will ultimately put them back on everyone’s radar. And for Animal Man, it will all be thanks to the legendary Grant Morrison.
What is Animal Man about? Collecting the first half of Grant Morrison’s run, from issues #1-13, as well as Secret Origins #39, the book follows Buddy Baker in his pursuit of becoming an A-list superhero. Currently a second-rate superhero, a devoted father and an animal rights activist, Buddy Baker is also known as Animal Man, an individual with the power to momentarily borrow the abilities of animals that are in his immediate vicinity. Whether it is a bird’s flight or an elephant’s might, Buddy Baker connects with these creatures and looks to do some good within society while he deals with countless real-life issues and moral dilemmas. As he attempts to secure a spot among the Justice League in order to provide for his family and lend a hand to the world, he quickly finds himself in the middle of some of the most bizarre and ongoing extraterrestrial schemes. Thanks to Grant Morrison’s visionary and unpredictable take on the character, Animal Man finds himself delivering a much more satisfying and commendable impression.
When it comes to Grant Morrison, there’s nothing predictable in his stories. They always have an underlying ominous direction with an offbeat touch as a coating to his stories which often represents his signature style. What he ultimately accomplishes with this hero highlights the best parts of his storytelling abilities and shows that there couldn’t have been a better person to accomplish this unimaginable task. While there’s something comical integrated within Buddy Baker’s character and life, Grant Morrison also injects some thought-provoking aspects to his lore that instantly turns the hero into a relevant personage within the DC universe. To further add to the quirkiness of the hero, other heroes who are slightly better-known also make an appearance to further establish Animal Man’s place in the hero game. How he evolves throughout the story and reflects on his role to better serve the world while prioritizing his role as a father also gives him an interesting angle to explore as most heroes back in that day had to deal with a secret identity, while Animal benefits from a life completely exposed to the world.
The artwork conveys a recognizable 90s comic book visual style that is marked with flashy colours and recurrent use of a six-panel frame. In his comic book run with Animal Run, Grant Morrison is helped with talented Chas Truog and Tom Grummett’s penciling that does a wonderful job in creating fantastic and traditional character designs that are easy to follow. With consistent artwork from cover to cover, the story is also easier to digest and understand. The transition between scenes is also particularly fascinating with creative ways to change from one scenario to another. Splash pages are also sparingly used and mostly present to surprise the reader with unexpected appearances as they give the characters the room needed to fully showcase themselves. There are also some visionary artistic decisions made to explore beyond the square panels and into the edges of the pages that offer the creative team the extra space to explore the character and his stories. It’s safe to say that Grant Morrison didn’t shy away from his unconventional ways when given the opportunity to do what he wants with the character.
Animal Man (Book One) is a fantastic 30th anniversary deluxe edition that covers half of Grant Morrison’s impressive revamp of a forgettable hero with a burgeoning radicalism regarding animal rights and a fever to do good although bound by familial needs.
Yours truly,
Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/
DC Comics is filled with heroes that have either proven to the world their trustworthiness or their uselessness. In the face of grave danger, some vanquish evil with their mere reputation while others struggle to be relevant to the eye of the enemy. It, however, remains that they are all heroes, one way or another. Whether it is through their actions or through their words, they all showcase a hefty amount of unrecalled wisdom that promotes the adoption of a grounded and open-minded vision of the world. One hero who has only been known as the laughing stock of the DC Universe is Animal Man. Initially created by writer Dave Wood and artist Carmine Infantino, this hero barely ever managed to stay relevant during the pre-Crisis era since his first appearance in 1965. It is only after the famous Crisis on Infinite Earths event that DC brought back to life several minor characters and gave them a sweet revamp that will ultimately put them back on everyone’s radar. And for Animal Man, it will all be thanks to the legendary Grant Morrison.
What is Animal Man about? Collecting the first half of Grant Morrison’s run, from issues #1-13, as well as Secret Origins #39, the book follows Buddy Baker in his pursuit of becoming an A-list superhero. Currently a second-rate superhero, a devoted father and an animal rights activist, Buddy Baker is also known as Animal Man, an individual with the power to momentarily borrow the abilities of animals that are in his immediate vicinity. Whether it is a bird’s flight or an elephant’s might, Buddy Baker connects with these creatures and looks to do some good within society while he deals with countless real-life issues and moral dilemmas. As he attempts to secure a spot among the Justice League in order to provide for his family and lend a hand to the world, he quickly finds himself in the middle of some of the most bizarre and ongoing extraterrestrial schemes. Thanks to Grant Morrison’s visionary and unpredictable take on the character, Animal Man finds himself delivering a much more satisfying and commendable impression.
When it comes to Grant Morrison, there’s nothing predictable in his stories. They always have an underlying ominous direction with an offbeat touch as a coating to his stories which often represents his signature style. What he ultimately accomplishes with this hero highlights the best parts of his storytelling abilities and shows that there couldn’t have been a better person to accomplish this unimaginable task. While there’s something comical integrated within Buddy Baker’s character and life, Grant Morrison also injects some thought-provoking aspects to his lore that instantly turns the hero into a relevant personage within the DC universe. To further add to the quirkiness of the hero, other heroes who are slightly better-known also make an appearance to further establish Animal Man’s place in the hero game. How he evolves throughout the story and reflects on his role to better serve the world while prioritizing his role as a father also gives him an interesting angle to explore as most heroes back in that day had to deal with a secret identity, while Animal benefits from a life completely exposed to the world.
The artwork conveys a recognizable 90s comic book visual style that is marked with flashy colours and recurrent use of a six-panel frame. In his comic book run with Animal Run, Grant Morrison is helped with talented Chas Truog and Tom Grummett’s penciling that does a wonderful job in creating fantastic and traditional character designs that are easy to follow. With consistent artwork from cover to cover, the story is also easier to digest and understand. The transition between scenes is also particularly fascinating with creative ways to change from one scenario to another. Splash pages are also sparingly used and mostly present to surprise the reader with unexpected appearances as they give the characters the room needed to fully showcase themselves. There are also some visionary artistic decisions made to explore beyond the square panels and into the edges of the pages that offer the creative team the extra space to explore the character and his stories. It’s safe to say that Grant Morrison didn’t shy away from his unconventional ways when given the opportunity to do what he wants with the character.
Animal Man (Book One) is a fantastic 30th anniversary deluxe edition that covers half of Grant Morrison’s impressive revamp of a forgettable hero with a burgeoning radicalism regarding animal rights and a fever to do good although bound by familial needs.
Yours truly,
Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/
September 27, 2021
Probably closer to a high 3 but this is by far the best set of comics I've read in a long time. Very keen to see what else the team does in volume 2.
October 2, 2023
First book of Grant Morrisons animal man run was definitely very good and enjoyable, feels like there’s a lot of potential to ramp up the story in the second book so I’m looking forward to reading more!
February 13, 2022
Morrison's most dull work to date.
July 9, 2021
Animal Man was part of the British Invasion era of the Vertigo/DC line. It was written by a long time favourite of mine, Grant Morrison. Now this must of been early in his career since it’s a little heavy handed at times but it still has moments of true brilliance and indications of why GM was so successful and unique.
Of all the comics I’ve read from the 80’s this one is one of the most meta stories I’ve seen from the era. With Animal Man, just like most of the other British Invasion writers, GM took an old goofy superhero and put a new spin on his story. In his first few stories we deal with Morrison’s views on animal cruelty and his own set of views on the topics of meat and industry. And we see Morrison foreshadowing his eventual niche of meta criticism about the comic book industry and especially the big two publishers. Which was something I liked even though it was a little awkward and patchy at times. It still showed a lot of promise. But aside from the normal, albeit early Morrison themes that he still continues to this day, the part that is most refreshing about this story is that GM also makes Animal Man a down to earth character with a family and average problems that the reader can relate to. It balances the whacky meta stories and keeps them grounded.
The only criticism I would have against this story is that like I said before, this is an early Morrison story so it’s not quite as polished as his work would become later. And being a story from the 80’s there’s certain aspects that can come across a little dated but that’s to be expected.
And that’s all I can really say about this. It’s definitely worth a read if you’re a fan of comics, or the big two, or a fan of Grant Morrison. There’s not much here going wrong it just depends if meta is your thing and if it isn’t there’s a wealth of superhero romp’s that require no thought just waiting for you.
Of all the comics I’ve read from the 80’s this one is one of the most meta stories I’ve seen from the era. With Animal Man, just like most of the other British Invasion writers, GM took an old goofy superhero and put a new spin on his story. In his first few stories we deal with Morrison’s views on animal cruelty and his own set of views on the topics of meat and industry. And we see Morrison foreshadowing his eventual niche of meta criticism about the comic book industry and especially the big two publishers. Which was something I liked even though it was a little awkward and patchy at times. It still showed a lot of promise. But aside from the normal, albeit early Morrison themes that he still continues to this day, the part that is most refreshing about this story is that GM also makes Animal Man a down to earth character with a family and average problems that the reader can relate to. It balances the whacky meta stories and keeps them grounded.
The only criticism I would have against this story is that like I said before, this is an early Morrison story so it’s not quite as polished as his work would become later. And being a story from the 80’s there’s certain aspects that can come across a little dated but that’s to be expected.
And that’s all I can really say about this. It’s definitely worth a read if you’re a fan of comics, or the big two, or a fan of Grant Morrison. There’s not much here going wrong it just depends if meta is your thing and if it isn’t there’s a wealth of superhero romp’s that require no thought just waiting for you.
August 11, 2019
My new favourite hero. Grant Morrison's Animal Man isn't someone who goes around saving the world from Earth-shattering multi-dimensional catastrophes. What he tends to fight for is those who are usually kept down or belittled. For the most part, he fights for animals. As a vegan, this hits a real soft spot for me, especially knowing that Grant Morrison agrees with his hero's vegetarian lifestyle.
Animal Man fills a void in superhero graphic novels, tackling animal rights. Surprisingly, the book is 30 years old, but it rarely feels as though it is. It gives strong vibes of Matt Fracton's Hawkeye run, pitting a hero against more everyday villains. Animal Man stops fox hunts, has a villain invade his house, and saves cats from trees.
The art style and colours are vintage, of their time, and took me a page or two to get used to, but they are almost perfect for the story, adding to its everyman tone. There are a few moments where certain female characters seem over-sexualized, but thankfully nowhere near as badly as many old and new comics.
This is one of Grant Morrison's earliest graphic novels and his first work with DC, and it's easy to see how the series would help to catapult him onwards. Animal Man is one the best heros out there, and thankfully his relatively unknown status means that DC are unlikely to give him an awful movie-adaptation any time soon.
Animal Man fills a void in superhero graphic novels, tackling animal rights. Surprisingly, the book is 30 years old, but it rarely feels as though it is. It gives strong vibes of Matt Fracton's Hawkeye run, pitting a hero against more everyday villains. Animal Man stops fox hunts, has a villain invade his house, and saves cats from trees.
The art style and colours are vintage, of their time, and took me a page or two to get used to, but they are almost perfect for the story, adding to its everyman tone. There are a few moments where certain female characters seem over-sexualized, but thankfully nowhere near as badly as many old and new comics.
This is one of Grant Morrison's earliest graphic novels and his first work with DC, and it's easy to see how the series would help to catapult him onwards. Animal Man is one the best heros out there, and thankfully his relatively unknown status means that DC are unlikely to give him an awful movie-adaptation any time soon.
January 26, 2023
After being irradiated by the explosion of an alien spaceship, Buddy Baker is given superhuman powers, he can take on the abilities of animals around him: Elephant strength, bird flight.
Grant Morrison took this stock-standard superhero who'd been left behind in the 1960s, and turned him on his head with weird, unexpected stories and lots of breaking the fourth wall. It's interesting and entertaining, I'm looking forward to reading the next one.
On the downside, the art (Chaz Truog pencils, Doug Hazlewood ink) is distractingly awful, especially jarring as it comes after each issue's stunning Brian Bolland cover (he did The Killing Joke). The stories feel really fresh and different, until I found out there's some feud between Grant Morrison and Alan Moore (even down to Morrison also claiming he's some kind of occult wizard). That invites comparison, and compared to Moore this is lightweight and the characters and dialogue flat.
But still, taken on its own terms, it's a fun book and definitely worth a read.
Grant Morrison took this stock-standard superhero who'd been left behind in the 1960s, and turned him on his head with weird, unexpected stories and lots of breaking the fourth wall. It's interesting and entertaining, I'm looking forward to reading the next one.
On the downside, the art (Chaz Truog pencils, Doug Hazlewood ink) is distractingly awful, especially jarring as it comes after each issue's stunning Brian Bolland cover (he did The Killing Joke). The stories feel really fresh and different, until I found out there's some feud between Grant Morrison and Alan Moore (even down to Morrison also claiming he's some kind of occult wizard). That invites comparison, and compared to Moore this is lightweight and the characters and dialogue flat.
But still, taken on its own terms, it's a fun book and definitely worth a read.
February 26, 2019
Animal Man by Grant Morrison may be one of my all-time favorite works of fiction. It goes meta when it needs to be meta, it gets silly when it needs to get silly, and it breaks your heart when you're not wanting your heart to be broken.
One of Grant Morrison's first mainstream comics, it lays the thematic and stylistic seeds for everything he's done since.
One of Grant Morrison's first mainstream comics, it lays the thematic and stylistic seeds for everything he's done since.
April 27, 2022
This is a great one. I was skeptical at first thinking “Animal Man!?!?” But Morrison has created a well thought out character with a family and put him in lots of interesting scenarios. I believe the strength of this series, is that it has humanized these super hero’s, given them an extra dimension that one can empathize with.
December 6, 2022
Very interesting dive into this superhero. We’re figuring out who he is, just as he himself is. Grant Morrison is really showing off his ability to write within the details of a story. Interested to see how his run continues and maybe concludes.
March 28, 2023
A couple of really brilliant, forward thinking issues that manage to push the medium to new heights, and a bunch of others that are just pretty good. The writing is so good, but it has yet to make Buddy an engaging hero.
March 4, 2019
This was amazing!!
November 20, 2025
pretty good, tiktok overhyped it for sure but i enjoyed it. him being basically a normal guy and wanting to help is pretty cool
March 28, 2023
A rock solid read. Grant Morrison really knows how to take silver age lore and make it compelling. At times silly and dated but excellent art and a clear precursor to what Morrison would create later on
January 15, 2022
Reading comics, one hears a lot about the name Grant Morrison. He's known for serious works that explore moral issues, really bring superheroes down to their roots and use them to ask important questions of the reader. I enjoyed his take on Superman in "All-Star Superman," but since I prefer the smaller heroes (and find they are better in character-driven stories that highlight their unique characteristics,) I was interested to read this collection which I've heard is acclaimed.
And the first few issues seemed to be true to this. Buddy Baker, aka Animal Man, is a stuntman who has the power to absorb abilities from nearby animals. He has a wife and two kids, and apparently a pretty normal suburban life. He decides to re-enter the superhero scene, and in the first few issues, he faces a macabre mystery involving a weird cast of mutant animals straight from Dr. Moreau's island. Meanwhile, as he is away, his family is attacked at random and suffers from his (coincidental) absence. It's a pretty serious story, and left me interested in the rest of the volume.
Sadly, after that the series really dropped. The next story was Animal Man dealing with some kind of real-life Wile E. Coyote, some kind of were-coyote man who never dies, even when exploded or pushed off a cliff. Was this supposed to be a joke?
Then Buddy faces off against random Thanagarian invaders and then an army of robots, led by a has-been suicidal supervillain. Then his house is attacked by the Mirror Master after he joins the Justice League Europe (although his wife telling the villain off, mid-fight, for trashing her house is pretty funny,) and then he has a run in with Vixen and Bwana Beast in Africa. All of this is handled I think in single- or two-issue runs. Overall, this gives the impression of a chicken running around with his head cut off. Where are the morals? The gravity? the message? Is it just that Buddy doesn't think that eating meat is right, and that animals are just as important as people, a point that's only addressed in passing? Even read as just typical superhero fare, the stories feel scattered and unconnected, like they were written by 10 different writers. The villains pop out of nowhere, with no connection to Buddy, and then disappear, kill themselves off, or are killed by others just as quickly.
I'm sure it has thousands of fans, but for me, this volume was a disappointment. The art was nothing special, and the only thing I really got out of this was a bit of appreciation of Buddy as a family man (although, that's nothing really new; after all, Wally West is married with kids too,) who apparently doesn't think much of eating meat, or Blue Beetle.
And the first few issues seemed to be true to this. Buddy Baker, aka Animal Man, is a stuntman who has the power to absorb abilities from nearby animals. He has a wife and two kids, and apparently a pretty normal suburban life. He decides to re-enter the superhero scene, and in the first few issues, he faces a macabre mystery involving a weird cast of mutant animals straight from Dr. Moreau's island. Meanwhile, as he is away, his family is attacked at random and suffers from his (coincidental) absence. It's a pretty serious story, and left me interested in the rest of the volume.
Sadly, after that the series really dropped. The next story was Animal Man dealing with some kind of real-life Wile E. Coyote, some kind of were-coyote man who never dies, even when exploded or pushed off a cliff. Was this supposed to be a joke?
Then Buddy faces off against random Thanagarian invaders and then an army of robots, led by a has-been suicidal supervillain. Then his house is attacked by the Mirror Master after he joins the Justice League Europe (although his wife telling the villain off, mid-fight, for trashing her house is pretty funny,) and then he has a run in with Vixen and Bwana Beast in Africa. All of this is handled I think in single- or two-issue runs. Overall, this gives the impression of a chicken running around with his head cut off. Where are the morals? The gravity? the message? Is it just that Buddy doesn't think that eating meat is right, and that animals are just as important as people, a point that's only addressed in passing? Even read as just typical superhero fare, the stories feel scattered and unconnected, like they were written by 10 different writers. The villains pop out of nowhere, with no connection to Buddy, and then disappear, kill themselves off, or are killed by others just as quickly.
I'm sure it has thousands of fans, but for me, this volume was a disappointment. The art was nothing special, and the only thing I really got out of this was a bit of appreciation of Buddy as a family man (although, that's nothing really new; after all, Wally West is married with kids too,) who apparently doesn't think much of eating meat, or Blue Beetle.
October 25, 2019
What to say about Animal Man...
This was raved about by a friend and he kept telling me that I was required to read it. So I got a copy. The first thing I noticed was the art. This is from the late 80s -early 90s. A lot has changed in the world of comic art since then so I'd imagine this was good stuff back in the day. With that being said, it's not all that bad. In fact, it's generally quite tolerable. It's consistent with vibrant colors. With the age also comes the cheesiness. Animal Man can be quite goofy but it's evident that it was intended that way. The story doesn't have much of an overarching story. It's Grant Morrison and after looking over my Goodreads reviews, I find that I typically am not a fan of Grant Morrison and well...that's on par with my experience here.
The strengths? There's some deep stuff happening. Wikipedia says it best:
"Animal Man was innovative in its advocacy and for its use of themes including social consciousness (with a focus on animal rights), metaphysics, deconstruction of the superhero genre and comic book form, postmodernism, eccentric plot twists, explorations of cosmic spirituality and mysticism, the determination of apparent free will by a higher power, and manipulation of reality including quantum physics, unified field theory, time travel and metafictional technique. The series is well known for its frequently psychedelic and "off the wall" content."
However, I find it generally to be pretty brief. And at times it may seem a bit preachy?
I will not be seeking out further issues of Animal Man.
This was raved about by a friend and he kept telling me that I was required to read it. So I got a copy. The first thing I noticed was the art. This is from the late 80s -early 90s. A lot has changed in the world of comic art since then so I'd imagine this was good stuff back in the day. With that being said, it's not all that bad. In fact, it's generally quite tolerable. It's consistent with vibrant colors. With the age also comes the cheesiness. Animal Man can be quite goofy but it's evident that it was intended that way. The story doesn't have much of an overarching story. It's Grant Morrison and after looking over my Goodreads reviews, I find that I typically am not a fan of Grant Morrison and well...that's on par with my experience here.
The strengths? There's some deep stuff happening. Wikipedia says it best:
"Animal Man was innovative in its advocacy and for its use of themes including social consciousness (with a focus on animal rights), metaphysics, deconstruction of the superhero genre and comic book form, postmodernism, eccentric plot twists, explorations of cosmic spirituality and mysticism, the determination of apparent free will by a higher power, and manipulation of reality including quantum physics, unified field theory, time travel and metafictional technique. The series is well known for its frequently psychedelic and "off the wall" content."
However, I find it generally to be pretty brief. And at times it may seem a bit preachy?
I will not be seeking out further issues of Animal Man.
February 6, 2023
This is from what I've learned is called a post-modern comic book. What that exactly means I'm not too sure. But I am to understand that the work itself deals with characters who are aware they're in a story. Or, at least in this case, becoming aware.
This story was originally supposed to be a 4 issue miniseries. When you read the first 4 chapters of this miniseries, you see a very traditional superhero story that is slightly adult and deals with themes of animal welfare and such. And it's legitimately cool! But what happens is issue: 5 the coyote gospel. It is one of the most important comic issues of the Era. This issue was a criticism of how dark superheroes had become with books like Watchmen and TDKR. How we took characters intended for kids and made it adult. In the issue, you'll see the rudiments of post modernism that the series would later become known for.
This series is excellent. Great art, brisk pace, inventive villains, and scenarios. My only true criticism deals more so with the fact that I feel so overwhelmed with how much smarter the writer is than me. I wish I had taken a class of understanding post modernism to fully appreciate everything in this series. Then again, I wish I was just smarter.
This story was originally supposed to be a 4 issue miniseries. When you read the first 4 chapters of this miniseries, you see a very traditional superhero story that is slightly adult and deals with themes of animal welfare and such. And it's legitimately cool! But what happens is issue: 5 the coyote gospel. It is one of the most important comic issues of the Era. This issue was a criticism of how dark superheroes had become with books like Watchmen and TDKR. How we took characters intended for kids and made it adult. In the issue, you'll see the rudiments of post modernism that the series would later become known for.
This series is excellent. Great art, brisk pace, inventive villains, and scenarios. My only true criticism deals more so with the fact that I feel so overwhelmed with how much smarter the writer is than me. I wish I had taken a class of understanding post modernism to fully appreciate everything in this series. Then again, I wish I was just smarter.
April 5, 2021
Well I don't know how I slept on this series for as long as I did, but dang was it a treat. Like, all the best aspects of Wandavision with a surreal serialised style and reality-breaking concept.
Pair all that with a protagonist who's main conflict is against animal exploitation and earth-conservation and you have a book that I can stand behind.
Beautiful, often hilarious, forever ground-breaking. A new favorite of mine.
5/5 stars
Pair all that with a protagonist who's main conflict is against animal exploitation and earth-conservation and you have a book that I can stand behind.
Beautiful, often hilarious, forever ground-breaking. A new favorite of mine.
5/5 stars
March 15, 2022
Animal man by Grant Morrison takes one of DC's lesser known, C maybe borderline B tier characters in terms of importance, and weaves in Morrison's usual multiversal metaphysical narrative, tying into one of the most significant events in DC canonical history.
Bernard 'buddy' Baker was your everyday guy, that is until he became acquainted with extraterrestrial life forms, in the form of an exploding spaceship. This incident had the additional effect of giving him superpowers, specifically, being able to borrow the strengths of animals in his vicinity for about 30 minutes. (Most heroes of the time got their powers from chemicals, aliens and magic, Morrison makes an in canon joke about the nature of several Golden and silver age characters).
Animal man’s greatest weakness, seems to be his own existential crisis. When I went to his wiki page, they too seemed to agree with this assessment. Whether it's trying to make it big and join the JLA, or living up to his namesake by abandoning meat, or by trying to be a good role model for his children, his struggles have an everyman's vibe to it.
What I found hilarious was how Buddy seems to be a spectator in his own adventures. His name might be in the title, and it might be his story, but more often than not, his allies, adversaries and even his non-powered family seem to take center stage, while Buddy is someplace shooting the wind. For Christ’s sake, the man is somehow the cosmic lynchpin which holds together reality after the events of Infinite Crisis, a nexus assigned by a group of omniscient all knowing alien watchers, and he just stumbles across the whole thing doing a whole lot of contributions.
And what is this reality altering event which buddy is central to? Retcons. You see, in the gamut of comic book characters, not everyone is lucky enough to have the same backstory over their publication history. Not everyone can be Batman, with his riches, dead parents in an alley and fear of bats.
Most lower tier characters undergo quite a few changes in accordance with the era and the writer who handles them. Some, like hawk man, guy Gardner and Power girl go through multiple iterations until something sticks.
Buddy's existential crisis ties into his very existence changing at a meta level, as, at a meta level his origin story and relationships change according to the whims of the writers. This translates into the pages as one would expect. The reality ending crisis is his Retcons over and over again while he himself stares on helpless as the very core of his being is changed, his loved ones simply erased or cease to exist in accordance to the dictates of an uncaring hand of God, which in this case is the literal hand of the comic artists. Chilling stuff.
One of my favorite stories amongst the anthology, is one rooted in the Looney toons world, where in a bizarre twist, Wile E Coyote becomes something akin to the son of God. Who has descended into our world from the realm of looney mayhem, and is sentences to experience gruesome deaths, as a penance for his people. He Suffers, so that they can gain freedom from the unending cycle of violence. Like some modern version of Christ/ Prometheus, he is killed and brought back to life again and again. It made me bust my gut laughing, at the same time feeling for the character.
I would recommend this book, if only for the zany retellings of the lesser known DC characters, which oftentimes break the metaphysical wall of existence, and maybe make you question your own.
Bernard 'buddy' Baker was your everyday guy, that is until he became acquainted with extraterrestrial life forms, in the form of an exploding spaceship. This incident had the additional effect of giving him superpowers, specifically, being able to borrow the strengths of animals in his vicinity for about 30 minutes. (Most heroes of the time got their powers from chemicals, aliens and magic, Morrison makes an in canon joke about the nature of several Golden and silver age characters).
Animal man’s greatest weakness, seems to be his own existential crisis. When I went to his wiki page, they too seemed to agree with this assessment. Whether it's trying to make it big and join the JLA, or living up to his namesake by abandoning meat, or by trying to be a good role model for his children, his struggles have an everyman's vibe to it.
What I found hilarious was how Buddy seems to be a spectator in his own adventures. His name might be in the title, and it might be his story, but more often than not, his allies, adversaries and even his non-powered family seem to take center stage, while Buddy is someplace shooting the wind. For Christ’s sake, the man is somehow the cosmic lynchpin which holds together reality after the events of Infinite Crisis, a nexus assigned by a group of omniscient all knowing alien watchers, and he just stumbles across the whole thing doing a whole lot of contributions.
And what is this reality altering event which buddy is central to? Retcons. You see, in the gamut of comic book characters, not everyone is lucky enough to have the same backstory over their publication history. Not everyone can be Batman, with his riches, dead parents in an alley and fear of bats.
Most lower tier characters undergo quite a few changes in accordance with the era and the writer who handles them. Some, like hawk man, guy Gardner and Power girl go through multiple iterations until something sticks.
Buddy's existential crisis ties into his very existence changing at a meta level, as, at a meta level his origin story and relationships change according to the whims of the writers. This translates into the pages as one would expect. The reality ending crisis is his Retcons over and over again while he himself stares on helpless as the very core of his being is changed, his loved ones simply erased or cease to exist in accordance to the dictates of an uncaring hand of God, which in this case is the literal hand of the comic artists. Chilling stuff.
One of my favorite stories amongst the anthology, is one rooted in the Looney toons world, where in a bizarre twist, Wile E Coyote becomes something akin to the son of God. Who has descended into our world from the realm of looney mayhem, and is sentences to experience gruesome deaths, as a penance for his people. He Suffers, so that they can gain freedom from the unending cycle of violence. Like some modern version of Christ/ Prometheus, he is killed and brought back to life again and again. It made me bust my gut laughing, at the same time feeling for the character.
I would recommend this book, if only for the zany retellings of the lesser known DC characters, which oftentimes break the metaphysical wall of existence, and maybe make you question your own.
January 7, 2024
When it got to later creators, or even the ones just before, the message was a little scrambled. The later ones, Busiek, Robinson, they got lost in reverence. The earlier ones, Moore and Miller, they got lost in sensationalism. But Gaiman? Morrison? They pushed the boundaries. Sandman explains itself. Animal Man?
In the TV show Titans, in its last season, Beast Boy finally got his spotlight, and it was an adaptation, a rough sketch, a summary of Grant Morrison’s Animal Man (Morrison even pops up!). But it kind of missed the point. The point was never even the denouement, the big reveal, the metafictional, multiverse twist at the end. It was about exploring more about superheroes than “just” their superhero adventures, or their personal lives. It was about, well, everything.
A couple issues in this collection seem to have no purpose in the overall arc, and a few even happen just because DC mandated participation in Invasion. The first one is the famous “Coyote Gospel,” obviously a riff on Wile E. Coyote, but more than that, so that we actually care about this one-off. Then there’s the Invasion tie-in itself, which sees Morrison explore Thanagarian culture. Who does that? It’s not even an Animal Man story. Then there’s “Death of Red Mask,” which again happens at all because of Invasion, a spotlight for a has-been villain.
And the meta commentary on Buddy Baker existing unchanged from pre-Crisis continuity, which is Morrison’s, ultimately, purest DC Crisis story itself (what really disappointed so many readers of Final Crisis was that it was far more of a New Gods story than relating to either the original Crisis or even the Johns follow-up; Zenith is among other things Morrison’s non-DC Crisis extravaganza).
It builds. It builds and builds. Where Gaiman zags far away from superheroes, Morrison stays firmly on them. Takes on the entire art form. And this is how it begins. In some ways, this is the story at its purest, when the wider implications are only suggestion and Buddy can still think of himself as part of the ordinary landscape. This wouldn’t last.
In the TV show Titans, in its last season, Beast Boy finally got his spotlight, and it was an adaptation, a rough sketch, a summary of Grant Morrison’s Animal Man (Morrison even pops up!). But it kind of missed the point. The point was never even the denouement, the big reveal, the metafictional, multiverse twist at the end. It was about exploring more about superheroes than “just” their superhero adventures, or their personal lives. It was about, well, everything.
A couple issues in this collection seem to have no purpose in the overall arc, and a few even happen just because DC mandated participation in Invasion. The first one is the famous “Coyote Gospel,” obviously a riff on Wile E. Coyote, but more than that, so that we actually care about this one-off. Then there’s the Invasion tie-in itself, which sees Morrison explore Thanagarian culture. Who does that? It’s not even an Animal Man story. Then there’s “Death of Red Mask,” which again happens at all because of Invasion, a spotlight for a has-been villain.
And the meta commentary on Buddy Baker existing unchanged from pre-Crisis continuity, which is Morrison’s, ultimately, purest DC Crisis story itself (what really disappointed so many readers of Final Crisis was that it was far more of a New Gods story than relating to either the original Crisis or even the Johns follow-up; Zenith is among other things Morrison’s non-DC Crisis extravaganza).
It builds. It builds and builds. Where Gaiman zags far away from superheroes, Morrison stays firmly on them. Takes on the entire art form. And this is how it begins. In some ways, this is the story at its purest, when the wider implications are only suggestion and Buddy can still think of himself as part of the ordinary landscape. This wouldn’t last.
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