Animal Man (1988 - 1995)

Animal Man. Grant Morrison. www.dc.com . www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . 1988. Accessed Mar 5, 2023.

Snapshots

He took himself into the desert. And rose up. And went into the presence of God. And God spoke unto Crafty saying, “You must be punished for this rebellion against my will. Nevertheless, I am a good God and my judgment will be tempered with mercy.” Much afraid, Crafty spoke saying, “I will bear any punishment that will bring peace to the world.” “Then you must spend eternity in the hell above,” said God. “While you live and bear the suffering of the world, I will make peace among the beasts. That is my judgment."

[Rokara] I’ve psi-recorded my entire life experience onto the bomb, fully cross-referenced and infinitely detailed. The bomb will conduct a high-speed random search through my life fractal and when it encounters my most emotionally charged moment it will detonate. A simultaneous telepathic transmission will bombard spectators with everything I have ever said or done or witnessed. My life will flash before your eyes, too. I’ve also placed the bomb on one of the planet’s unstable fault lines. The result will be a seismic poem on a scale never before attempted. I’m confident it will surpass even Hadrak’s critically acclaimed catastrophonics series. I imagine that kind of beauty is beyond the ability of your species to comprehend. However, I’m quite sure your people will be too occupied by the invasion to develop any kind of aesthetic.

[Hamed Ali] You hear me? I’m Hamed Ali! I am he who never dies! You hear me!? [Alien] You are nothing. A minor character. Old-fashioned and melodramatic. Best forgotten. Your story ends here. [Hamed Ali] No! Wait! I am Hamed Ali! You don’t understand. I cannot be killed… I… #fourth-wall

The Alien deleting Hamed Ali from the comic book was an intriguing way to break the 4th wall.

This sort of weirdness allows the writer and artist to get away with some things I’ve never seen in a comic before. Characters are written out of existence, from their full color drawings, to the skeletal line drawing underneath, to be written out of the continuity completely.

[Animal Man] All I know is that the legend of the Beast goes way back. It turns up in the story of Mkunare and Kanyanga, one of the oldest folk myths in East Africa.

[Highwater] “The Unquiet Grave.” I used to love that when I was at school. Christ. Easy pleased. Gasworks against a restless sky, the bones of machine-age dinosaurs. Hideous metaphor. What’ll it be next? Choice extracts from the Oxford dictionary of quotations? Trotting out the Nietzsche and the Shelley and the Shakespeare to dignify some old costumed claptrap?

[Dane] Every year. A long time ago, the Faroese killed dolphins out of necessity, for survival. Now it’s just sport. Now it’s simply slaughter, disguised as “tradition,” and it’s not only dolphins. The annual grind takes its toll of already endangered whale species.

[Animal Man] Yes, exactly… That’s what I’m trying to say! The thalomide tragedy in Europe was a direct result of animal testing! That drug was tested on mice, rats, hamsters, dogs… and there was no effect. Because of those test results, the drug was accepted as safe. 10,000 children were born deformed thanks to the inadequacies of animal testing! On the other hand, there’s penicillin or digitalis or quinine – all valuable medicines. And yet those drugs are lethal to test animals…

[Alternate Animal Man] I’m Animal Man. What happens when the continuity changes? What happens to all those lives? Who’s responsible? They twist us and torture us in our billions. For what? For entertainment. [Animal Man] “They”? Who’s “they”? [Alternate Animal Man] Our lives are not our own. It’s not fair. Wasn’t I good enough? #fourth-wall

[Buddy] What if God, or whoever it is, created us to be better than himself? What of God’s reality… heaven, if you like… What if it’s so bad that he had to imagine us to help make his life bearable?

[Lennox] Elson is dead. Shaver is dead. Doesn’t that worry you just a little bit? Has it occurred to you that Animal Man may be working with McCulloch? [Brumley] They wouldn’t dare. I’m a respected businessman. They’d never get away with it. Anyway, Animal Man’s a superhero. Superheroes don’t kill people. This is still America.

[Highwater] No, you’re wrong. You can all still be seen. We can all still be seen. Our lives are replayed every time someone reads us. We can never die. We outlive our creators. We outlive our gods!

[Grant] We’ll stop at nothing, you see. All the suffering and the death and the pain in your world is entertainment for us. Why does blood and torture and anguish still excite us? #fourth-wall

[Grant] The trouble is, I felt I was turning the comic into a kind of “Animal Abuse of the Month” soapbox. Didn’t you feel that? I feel too strongly about the subject. I think I was just becoming preachy. [Animal Man] I didn’t think so. [Grant] I could talk about it for a hundred pages – two hundred – but in the end it all boils down to three words. “Might makes right." Man is able to abuse and slaughter and experiment on animals simply because he’s stronger than they are. Other than that, there’s no moral ground on which to justify any animal exploitation. A child with leukemia has no more intrinsic right to life than does a white lab rat. Anyone who believes that man’s “intelligence” makes him special has only to look at how we continue to destroy our environment. Man is not an intelligent species. See what I mean about preaching?

Origin Stories

Funny… He always called him “Ken”… Always… Except for that one time. [B’wana Beast] Rupert! No! [Narrator] And Ken went down heavily, gracelessly, twitching as all his dreams drained into the dirt. [Soldier] General! The White God! The Beast Who Walks! [General] No. I don’t believe you… I don’t… [Narrator] A drizzle of blood glittered in the sun… The general’s body took two confident steps forward… Then dropped to its knees, as though to pray… But the time for forgiveness had passed… And the sky went black… He could barely hear the screams of the soldiers as the birds carried off lips and eyes and other wet trophies… And if he heard, he was unmoved… All that once was human in him fled and hid its face… It was his ascension… His apotheosis… Now… Forever… He was The Beast… The White God.

OP back story

[Red Mask] There you go. That’s exactly what I’m saying. You get your animal powers, I get death touch. Fickle finger of fate. ‘Course my wife left me. Well, what would you have done? To be honest, I think she was seeing the mailman anyway. So, in the end, what else could I do with a death touch? I became a bad guy.

The Psycho-Pirate, of course, is the only character in the DC universe who remembers the multiverse that existed before the events of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. These memories are now escaping from the Pirate’s head and taking flesh-and-blood form. In effect, the Crisis is reverting itself. Infinite alternate earths are hemorrhaging into existence from the mind of the Psycho-Pirate.

Language

There’s something in the air… Tension, like there’s a storm coming. Or an earthquake. The animals are feeling it too. Everywhere’s so quiet. It’s like the world’s holding its breath. Huddling down. Afraid of being seen.

[Hamed Ali] I was born before Christ. I watched the fall of the Roman Empire and slept through the Renaissance. I have no interest in the motivations of mayflies.

Others’ Snapshots

Buddy is forced to confront the imponderables of super-heroing – whether superheroes must always be role models, whether a hero’s responsibility is to the law or to moral rights, how costumed heroes can possibly fight the true injustices of the world – and the prose shines on the page. Morrison, of course, can offer no better answers than any others, but his portrayal of Buddy’s struggle in imminently compelling.

#super-heroes-on-social-order

Animal Man’s visit to limbo [is] the most compelling part of [], especially the idea that comic book characters live entire lives in limbo that they simply can’t remember when they re-emerge.

“It’s all here. This is where I write the wrongs of the world,” Morrison tells [Buddy]. And at last, we see how it all fits. Morrison must create stakes and conflict, and for that, they need the character to feel pain. In the end, is the writer really a god or merely a devil?

[Animal Man’s] main drives are animal rights and the environment, even been disregarded as an eco-terrorist by some in the media. It’s clear that Morrison cares deeply about these issues, and to see something so focused on saving the environment from thirty years ago really puts the naysayers in 2020 into perspective.

In this way, Animal Man confronts his writer to find that he is not God, but one writer of a “world written by committee”. “I’ve been planning this meeting for nearly two years. I had so much to say. It was going to be a really good story.” He continues, “This is my last story. I’m sorry it’s all been an anticlimax, but this is as far as I can go with you. No explosions, no big revelations. A whimper rather than a bang."

Morrison (Animal Man), Alan Moore (Swamp Thing), and Neil Gaiman (Sandman) were part of the wave of UK talent brought in by DC that helped comics mature in the US (alongside American authors like Frank Miller). They treated the characters in US comics very seriously, and they wrote the comics as adults writing for other adults.

Ellen is a strong character. She has a full-time job and supports the family. Ellen does not put down Buddy’s new ideals (going vegetarian), but she’s practical - what’s the family going to eat, and how are they going to buy some new food. She plays an active role as a real woman who has to put up with – not serve or worship – a husband who happens to be a superhero.

Self-aware literature is not new, but Morrison’s triumph is doing it in a major label, DC, on a character that interacts, albeit briefly, with mainstream continuity, e.g., Superman and Martian Manhunter.

Studying the nature of stories at the same time he’s telling the story is both the trademark and the genius of Morrison’s work. And not just applying straight-forward didactic storyline + complex philosophic narrative = popular and critical success. In the first arc, Animal Man does fight an opponent, satisfying a comic book narrative, but B’wana Beast is neither a villain nor even bad at all, calling into question our desire for such a narrative.

References

1. Animal Man Vol 1 #3. The Nature of the Beast. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Jul 28, 1988. Accessed Mar 5, 2023.
2. Animal Man Vol 1 #5. The Coyote Gospel. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Oct 6, 1988. Accessed Mar 5, 2023.
3. Animal Man Vol 1 #6. Birds of Prey. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Nov 3, 1988. Accessed Mar 5, 2023.
4. Animal Man Vol 1 #7. The Death of the Red Mask. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Dec 1, 1988. Accessed Mar 5, 2023.
5. Animal Man Vol 1 #11. Out of Africa. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Mar 30, 1989. Accessed Mar 5, 2023.
6. Animal Man Vol 1 #12. Secret Origins. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Apr 27, 1989. Accessed Mar 5, 2023.
7. Animal Man Vol 1 #13. Hour of the Beast. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Jun 1, 1989. Accessed Mar 5, 2023.
8. Wakonyingo | Bestiary.us. Eugene Kot. www.bestiary.us . Accessed Mar 5, 2023.
9. Animal Man Vol 1 #14. Spooks. Grant Morrison; Tom Grummett; Steve Montano. dc.fandom.com . Jun 29, 1989. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
10. Animal Man Vol 1 #15. The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Aug 3, 1989. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
11. Animal Man Vol 1 #17. Consequences. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Sep 28, 1989. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
12. Animal Man Vol 1 #19. A New Science of Life. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Nov 30, 1989. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
13. Animal Man Vol 1 #21. Tooth and Claw. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Feb 1, 1990. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
14. Animal Man Vol 1 #24. Purification Day. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Apr 26, 1990. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
15. Animal Man Vol 1 #26. Deus Ex Machina. Grant Morrison; Chaz Truog; Doug Hazlewood. dc.fandom.com . Jun 28, 1990. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
16. Review: Animal Man. collectededitions.blogspot.com . collectededitions.blogspot.com . Dec 20, 2007. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
17. How Grant Morrison’s ANIMAL MAN Changed My Concept of What a Comic Book Could Be. Zac Owens. monkeysfightingrobots.co . Oct 31, 2019. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
18. Breaking the Fourth Wall – ‘Animal Man’ by Grant Morrison. Jack Bumby. mycreativeramblings.org . Nov 17, 2020. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
19. Retro-Review: Animal Man #18-26 - 'Deus Ex Machina' - DC Comics News. Derek McNeil. dccomicsnews.com . Apr 15, 2020. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.
20. Animal Man: One of the most important works in comics | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews. Brad Hawley. fantasyliterature.com . Apr 12, 2013. Accessed Mar 12, 2023.