ANIMAL MAN
Grant Morrison, Chas Truog, Tom Grummett
DC Comics/Vertigo
BUDDY Baker is a superhero with a better life than most. He lives in a nice house, in a nice neighbourhood, with his nice wife, his nice daughter, and his grumpy-but-ultimately-nice son. He even has nice fridge magnets.
Motivated by a desire to do something genuinely useful with his powers - and a bad case of middle-class guilt - Buddy dusts off his old superhero costume, puts on a stylin' leather jacket, and sets out to make the world a little safer. Using his ability to borrow the powers of any animal within earshot, from earthworms to elephants, Buddy Baker strikes out in the not-so-secret guise of Animal Man.
Not the most edgy or relevant superhero, you might think. But that's only the beginning. Buddy Baker soon becomes involved with animal rights issues, alien invasions and superhero franchises - none of which prepares him for the challenge ahead.
Grant Morrison's Animal Man is two very complicated-sounding things, wrapped up in the purest of trappings. It's a treatise on the nature of reality one minute, and an examination of the relationship between the creator and the created the next.
It all starts with a story in the first book called The Coyote Gospel. A poignant and quite unexpected tale of martyrdom among the Toons, Coyote Gospel tells the story of what happened to the cartoon character who, tired of the endless chaotic violence of his existence, bargained with God to find a way out. While it isn't the first story to look at the cold harsh truth behind what we call "entertainment," it's certainly one of the most powerful. In fact, when I first read it, aged fifteen, it burned itself into my memory, almost moving me to tears. It's that good.
Morrison follows The Coyote Gospel with a look at the revisionist nature of superhero comics. The DC comics stable of characters has been "rebooted" on more than one occasion, ostensibly with the intention of clearing out the metaphorical cobwebs. Morrison takes a Lost Toys approach to this phenomenon, and in so doing, demonstrates a deep and abiding love for even the most unutterably awful characters. He rightly asks: what happens to these characters in Comic Book Limbo? How do they feel about being sidelined? And why don't we care more? The obvious answer is not the only answer.
Finally, Morrison goes for the Big Questions: just what sort of world is it where any and every terrible thing can happen to a person, seemingly without balance? In the relationship between the creator and the created, what responsibilities lie at the feet of the creator? Which side of the relationship gets the better part of the deal? And just what is the Universe there for, anyway? To say that Morrison throws himself into his work would be an understatement�
Animal Man is a product of its time that manages to transcend its time. Originally published in 1989-1991, the stories carry a postmodern, socially aware aesthetic. Animal Man, like Swamp Thing before him, is a poster child for second-rate superman made good, drawing inspiration from the Greenpeace leaflets and anti-vivisection headlines of the day. Morrison's skill as a character writer, coupled with the burgeoning surrealism of the series, prevent this aspect of the story from becoming overly preachy. Buddy Baker, like most superheroes, is a man desperate to impose some sort of order on a world in Brownian motion, and as the series goes on, he pays an ever more severe price for his nobility - not that it ever stops him. Appropriately enough, the ultimate solution to this downward spiral is not only the most satisfying, but also the most infuriating.
As with much of Morrison's work, such as The Invisibles and JLA, Animal Man is a science fiction adventure story that threatens to burst out of the confines of the printed page. The everyman art of Chas Truog and Tom Grummett only serves to enhance the surreality of the story. And while Animal Man may lack the bombast of his more recent works, it has a personable charm that does Morrison proud.
Animal Man is a smart superhero series that doesn't rely on cynicism, faux-cool dialogue or subversion of the genre to tell a good story. With a depth of thought and emotion that puts other books to a well-deserved shame, and a number of scenes and moments that will stay with you for life, Animal Man is a series with the strongest pedigree.
Review text (C) Matthew Craig
Originally published in the pop culture magazine Robot Fist