Once upon a time, DC had a best-selling title called Animal Man. Originally created in the silver age as a brightly colourful hero who could gain the powers of animals, Animal Man was revived and placed into the modern world by Grant Morrison. In his run, Animal Man explored new and unique territory, incorporating the closeness of family with a dangerous world of supervillains – later complicated by alternate universes and the breaking of the fourth wall. In short, Morrison revitalised a forgotten character and created something memorable, personal, surprising, emotional, and funny. But over time, things changed. As DC’s darker titles malformed into Vertigo comics, Animal Man became something else. Gone was the appeal of a united family you could feel something for as they lived in a strange world. Under writer Jamie Delano, Animal Man became a grim and grey title. Buddy Baker, the hero – dead. His family – insane, lonely, or just plain freaky. Animal Man became the symbol of a hippie cult, representing a new movement before sacrificing himself… for some reason. With Animal Man’s prime long over, what can little known writer Jerry Prosser do to reinvigorate a title once flawless.
Animal Man (vol 1) 80-89 was published from February to November 1995. These final issues of the title were written by Jerry Prosser, with art by Fred Harper, and Jason Temujin.
Homecoming
After reading nearly thirty issues of Delano’s unbearable run, Animal Man (vol 1) 80 appears to be some kind of salvation. Why? Because you think things can’t get any worse. This issue is a short prelude for things to come and explains how Animal Man
returns, since in the previous issue, Animal Man sacrificed himself to save nature or some crap. For the whole issue, Buddy Baker is trapped in the Red as a non-living organism. Reexperiencing through memories of his childhood, we’re treated to stories about how grim Buddy’s childhood was. Sigh. I really thought things were going to be different. Upon learning about the tragedies of Buddy Baker’s life, the burning down of his home, and the death of his father, you realise that Prosser is simply continuing the decay created by Delano. Why can’t Animal Man be a normal guy with a normal happy background? Why does every Vertigo character need to be miserable? From there, things just stop making sense as we’re forced to witness Buddy’s adventures
through the Red as he attempts to come home. As I said, this just sets up Animal Man’s return, but it’s a pretty unimportant prelude. But most sadly of all, it’s disappointing. Perhaps I was naïve, but I hoped that Prosser might change things, or at least bring Animal Man back to anything like its glory days. Animal Man (vol 1) 80 proves me wrong.
Wild Type
Animal Man (vol 1) 81-83 is the first mule-part story of the run as we’re reintroduced to this grim world. The first part is your standard scene-setter, and if you’ve read Delano’s run, there’s not much new here. In the plains of Montana, the cult left behind by Animal Man continues to influence America’s hippie culture and green movement. His daughter, Maxine, continues to make speeches to influence the world, while her brother Cliff spends his time watching TV and their mother, Ellen, sits around doing nothing. Prosser does introduce some new characters to us, one of whom is Doctor Varma. His charming, yet somewhat intriguing mysteriousness builds him as an interesting character, but any interest vanishes once he begins talking at length about his theories on the consciousness and other worlds. Prosser’s long and drawn-out dialogue scenes about crap that no one’s interested in basically sets the tone of his run. He tries too hard to come across as clever – to the point where he loses all readers because we haven’t got a clue what he is talking about, and we no longer care. Sure, there’s some interesting stuff about a Fundamentalist Christian movement attacking Buddy’s cult, but that isn’t really enough to entice me. However, things finally get interesting again when Animal Man returns to the life, falling to Earth from a UFO.
Part two focuses on Buddy as he returns to the world. For some unknown reason, he looks like a completely different character. No longer does he look like a giant dinosaur-like bird, nor his usual blonde hair average guy look. Instead, he kind of looks like a traumatised Ozzy Osbourne with white and black hair. Admittedly, I like how Prosser writes the family reunion. It does – for the first time since the Peter Milligan story – feel like the loving family is back together again. It’s told nicely by a wordless panel featuring the family in a group hug. Aww! Right, now back into the toilet! Animal Man – or Buddy as I’ll now call him since he never wears his great superhero costume once in the run – meets with Dick Keel, a boring man who records all the cult’s TV broadcasts. He then bumps into Varma, and we all fall back to sleep. That said, he does mention one thing of importance during a wall of text. Buddy Baker is a shaman. He retells the tale of his journey back to life and Varma notices that he travelled through other realms, including the Red. This very non-Animal Man plotline comes back later however, as the Christian Fundamentalists return. Meanwhile, a group of baboons murder a cameraman, leading Buddy into a spiral of guilt since – as a person connected to the Red – he is linked to their ‘crimes’. This is like something from a bad silver age story. By this logic, every time an animal kills a human, Buddy is to blame. Why can’t Buddy just find the body and accept the death as a result of what happens with humans get too close to dangerous animals? The fact that Prosser makes this into a plot point is ridiculous.
Part three goes even further on this front. Not only does Prosser grace the pages with your usual Vertigo right-wing commentator raging about hippies and left-wingers, but it gets too realistic for such a silly story. Buddy and the baboons go to court – yes, I’m not joking – after a group of youths attempt to kill the animals in their cages for what they have done. I’m assuming these kids are the Christian Fundamentalists again, but that’s not quite clear. Either way, Buddy solves the situation by moving the courtroom drama to the Red, where he is in control, and he convinces the judge to dismiss the case. Well, that’s that out of the way. However, the story then takes another dark twist – and it’s one I quite like. Buddy may understand the nature of animals, but human nature is even worse. The youths return and kill the baboons anyway. This moment should have led to something significant. Instead of Buddy just moping and crying about it as he does, he should have really gone for the kids and killed them. This would have actually begun a slightly interesting story, but instead he lets them go. This is a disappointing end to a crazy and silly story. Some aspects may be better than the trash that Delano delivered, and parts of the story do feel vaguely appropriate for a title like Animal Man, but the quality of the storytelling and characters is just so poor. Perhaps I can let this one off slightly since it is undoubtedly the most comprehensible story of Prosser’s short run.
Bedtime Story
Animal Man (vol 1) 84 is another one-off, and one which launches the main story of Prosser’s run. It’s Maxine’s bedtime, and Buddy reads her a story before she sleeps. At first, this has potential. For the first time in a while, Buddy might enjoy a father-daughter relationship with Maxine that actually feels real. But then you read the story – one about a princess hiding behind a mask – which manages to dull readers with its exposition and wordiness. If this bores adults, the kids won’t find it too interesting. Anyway, Maxine falls asleep during the story and begins to dream about those aliens who gave Buddy his powers in the first place (who turn out to be just products of the Red, not real aliens). Maxine’s dreams then lead her to meeting the Spider Queen, a demon of the Red who is intent on killing Buddy for some reason. Using Maxine’s dreams, she possesses her body.
Upon waking up in her bed, Maxine is no longer herself, but this strange villain. We don’t really know much about the Spider Queen, but at least it feels like there’s some genuine threat in the run now. But I don’t know why she needs Maxine for her plans. Surely, since Buddy is linked to the Red too, she could just possess his body and cause havoc that way. Regardless, this wordy and sluggish issue can be summarised with this – Maxine falls into a trap and becomes the villain. Aside from that, there is actually a moment of interest here which aims to tie up a plot point from Delano’s run. Remember Annie? The woman who Buddy had an affair with because she was interested in all that cult crap. Well, it turns out that she is pregnant with Buddy’s third child. You’d think that Ellen would have a lot to say about this, but apparently not. Either way, that creates some mystery, I guess. Overall, this one-off is okay. It begins a much larger story but isn’t really that memorable.
Anima Mundi
Animal Man (vol 1) 85-87 is where Prosser’s run really begins. Christ, we’re already half-way through and we’ve only just been introduced to the main villain. Part one is slow. Like, really slow. Buddy notices right from the off that something is wrong with
his daughter. Again, I like how the father-daughter relationship has returned, but annoyingly Prosser has to tell some pointless and relentlessly boring story about ants. Regardless, Prosser reintroduces us to the concept of other worlds as an unwashed hippie named Phester delivers a hologram box to Buddy. A hologram plays, and Buddy is introduced to a ghostly old man who asks him to follow but watch out for danger. As Buddy heads to the location that this mysterious being wants him to go to, ghostly FBI-like agents are hunting him down. At first – despite the randomness of it all – things appear tense. But then Phester has a chat with Varma about his theories. As if written by a computer science and failed philosophy student, Prosser bores us with reams of dialogue about other worlds and how he built the hologram box. There’s probably something important to note in all of this, but Prosser bores us to death with crap that fails to engage anyone. Sadly, Buddy and Varma are forced to enjoy the hologram box, leading them to the centre of the Earth. More pretentiousness is on the way!
With part two, Buddy explores this bizarre new world. Essentially, it’s just the Red with another name. That old guy is there, along with some strange aliens, and a riot of naked freaks. It turns out that this world is created by imagination, and this old guy discovered it years ago while exploring some caves. There isn’t really much said about this guy. At first, he appears to be some wise shaman figure, but in the end, he is shown to be an elderly hippie who dabbles in the same conspiracy theories as Varma and Phester. Regardless, the purpose of this story is to introduce Buddy to the Spider Queen, who is effectively in charge of this world because she herself is only an idea (an idea itself which tries to be too clever). The Spider Queen has the power to transform into anything she wishes, but she also has the power to possess those in contact with the Red. With that, Buddy discovers that the Spider Queen has possessed Maxine, and she plans to use the body to invade the Earth little mind-controlling insects. Sure, there’s a threat there, but since the villain is so shallow and Prosser has forced us to read so much exposition and dialogue, it’s a pretty bland and boring idea. From there, Buddy is trapped in the Spider Queen’s world and literally skinned (there’s no blood). However, he soon bumps into Maxine’s spirit and as they plan to leave, Buddy must help another bizarre creature named the Black Queen.
So, the Black Queen. Enter another miserable origin story. Predictably, the Black Queen and the Spider Queen were bitter enemies in some far-away mystical kingdom. The problem with this isn’t just how standard this type of background is, but the pretentious and very Vertigo-way that Prosser conveys this. He tries too hard to be creative and unique with storytelling and the way that some information is shown. Nothing feels natural – it feels like he is constantly trying to impress an audience who just want to understand and enjoy this story. Not only is the story dire and dull, but it’s hard to understand. The main point is that Buddy escapes, but without Maxine. As the Spider Queen heads to the surface, Buddy pledges to rescue his daughter. Sweet and all, but this story is definitely the one which killed Prosser’s run. It delves too much into nonsensical ideas which try too hard. Not only is the result boring, but the characters also lack any areas of intrigue. Delano failed because he gave these characters the wrong personalities. Here, they are as dull as ditch water.
Birth Pains
Animal Man (vol 1) 88-89 finally ends this mess. Instead of charging straight into action and taking on the Spider Queen with all of his force – aiming to rescue his daughter – Buddy Baker has become an alcoholic who screams at the TV. Well, it’s certainly an unpredicted move, but it just completely destroys any potential drama that could have occurred for the final two issues. He spends his time screaming at Maxine, screaming at the Spider Queen through her but doing little about it. Drunkenly, Buddy stumbles to Annie’s house. There, the whole pregnancy story comes up again. Prosser hasn’t put this as centre-stage as it should be, but at least he comes back to it with this story. Buddy senses that the baby is on the way, and it is a creature of the Red with the Spider Queen’s control. With that threat in mind, Buddy runs to Varma, who is now suddenly dying after his experience in the other realm. Just as the Spider Queen’s army arrives, Varma dies. With that, the Spider Queen no longer has any use for Maxine; she lets her die in Buddy’s arms. This makes for a shocking end, and one that actually fuels some emotion. This time, it looks like Buddy will finally get serious.
For the final issue, Buddy leaves us disappointed again. I remember how he was in the Morrison run – fuelled by utter rage when his family was murdered. Here, Maxine dies, and he simply does nothing but look after her body. Just like Delano, Prosser doesn’t understand these characters. However, Buddy does enter the Red while the Spider Queen explores Annie’s baby. Almost as if Prosser only has one issue to tie things up, Buddy defeats the Spider Queen by growing to giant-size using the body of God. What? I know that Varma gave Buddy some kind of godly hope before he died, but this? I’m sorry, but this is the laziest conclusion I’ve ever read. It just stinks of a writer who is rushing to end a story. Sure, Prosser may have had a hard time trying to end everything quickly, but this conclusion is just awful. Regardless, giant Buddy eats the Spider Queen, and her invasion is over. Meanwhile, Buddy is forced to leave the Red as Annie gives birth. With that, Buddy is a father again. But then, Maxine returns to life as well.
Again, it just feels like Prosser has to clear up the mess he created – little explanations are offered. With the Spider Queen story over, I have to say that the idea of it felt significant. However, it was bogged down by too much dialogue, bland characters, and an overall story which just failed to engage or interest me. It tries too hard. Unlike Morrison’s run, things felt real and surreal at the same time. Here, everything is just wrong. What happens to our characters next? Who cares? Plainly, these are not the same characters we came to love earlier in the title’s run. What made Animal Man unique is dead.
Animal Man (vol 1) has never been famous for its art (aside from the great covers that Brian Bolland drew for the title). Here, Fred Harper and Jason Temujin provide pretty ordinary Vertigo art. It’s grim, scratchy, and looks like Steve Dillion or Steve Pugh. The storytelling is uninspiring, and the art is not memorable in any way possible.
VERDICT
So, yeah. Jerry Prosser’s highly forgettable run is a failure. Similarly, to Steve Veitch’s run, its failure comes from the magnitude of its pretentiousness – which leads to instant boredom. But unlike Veitch, Prosser fails to capture the personalities of these characters and places them in a bland setting with some terrible stories. What about the future? From Morrison to Delano, with Milligan and Veitch in-between, Animal Man transformed into something it just wasn’t. Prosser’s run may be so pretentious that it becomes bland and forgettable, but it deserves credit for putting these once-great characters and a once-fabulous title out of its misery. In short, to make Animal Man great again, a total reboot is the answer.
Stories: 2/10
Art: 3/10
Next Week: Formerly Known as The Justice League (Formerly Known as The Justice League 1-6). Written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis with art by Kevin Maguire and Joe Rubinstein.
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