How do you follow up something that was good. You know, like really good. I’ll leave the answer to the end, but in comics, there comes a time when the writer or artist (or both) decide it is time to leave a title. In some cases, once unpopular titles like Swamp Thing (vol 2) and Doom Patrol (vol 2) shot up in readership, with writers Alan Moore and Grant Morrison respectively depicting fresh ideas and fundamentally changed characters and their storylines. However, once that writer goes, another must take their place and in nearly every single case, the title never reaches the huge popularity it once had. This is true for Doom Patrol (vol 2), since when Morrison leaves the title with issue 63, giving the writer role to Rachel Pollack, the title abruptly ends with issue 87 just a few years later. While it took longer for this to happen to Swamp Thing (vol 2), with Moore leaving at issue 64 and the title being cancelled with issue 171, the readership and opinions of the title fell. Was Animal Man (vol 1) an exception to this? Grant Morrison finished up his complex, yet stunning stint (read what I think about it starting here) on the title with issue 26. A writer was needed, one who could be as good, but different than Morrison. For this daunting job they decided that Peter Milligan (Shade the Changing Man (vol 2) 1-70) was to become the writer on the series, but not permanently. Milligan wrote just six issues of Animal Man (vol 1) and the story was… well… let’s say… weird.
Animal Man (vol 1) 27-32 was published monthly from September 1990 to February 1991. The six-part story was written by Peter Milligan and regular art by Chas Truog and Mark Farmer, along with one issue being drawn by Steve Dillon. Lastly, I have
read the story in the Animal Man: Born to Be Wild trade paperback. Good, that’s out of the way. Let’s get on with this sh*tshow.
THE “STORY”
In hospital, Buddy Baker lives though a coma, imagining a ferocious tiger biting into the buttocks of a horse. However, Buddy wakes up from his sleep and screams at a nurse, telling her that he will eat her buttocks and heart. Once he is calmed down, the doctor arrives and tells Buddy that he has been extremely ill and in a coma for nearly three months. The doctor continues and tells Buddy that he was found on the streets in a self-induced coma, without any physical injuries. After becoming annoyed at the doctor and the patronizing nurses surrounding him, Buddy asks for his wife, Ellen. Some time later, Ellen visits Buddy in hospital. In shock, Buddy not only notices that his wife looks very different but is now smoking. Ellen puts this down to the death of her mother, which Buddy doesn’t remember. After Ellen leaves the confused Buddy at hospital to recover, he thinks he sees a monkey standing behind him, but there isn’t, making him feel he is hallucinating. Some time later, Buddy comes home, and everybody is happy to see him, apart from Maxine, who stares worryingly at her father. At night, Buddy continues to worry as Ellen ignores him in bed. The next day, Buddy decides to test his flying powers, but fails when he crashes into a wall. He decides to head to the bathroom, where Maxine notices her father, before running off. Buddy is surprised when he opens the bathroom door to find a vast tropical jungle. He slams the door shut but opening it again to find it was a hallucination. Some time later, Buddy heads out into his front garden and… p*sses on the lawn. The kids watch in utter shock as Ellen rages at her husband, telling her that her friends will be there anytime soon. On his own, Buddy notices a small bird fly past him. He quickly grabs it and thinks about eating it, before letting it go. Buddy realises something is wrong with him. Meanwhile inside, Ellen is speaking with her friend Julia when Buddy enters the house and sniffs her ar*e, before getting slapped in the face. Again, Ellen screams to Buddy to leave the house, which he does. He ends up getting drunk, before sleeping on a couch. Meanwhile, Maxine is woken up when she notices someone in the house. She finds that it is a strange monkey-like creature, asking it if he is there to make her daddy her daddy again. At the same time, Buddy breaks into the zoo. He stares at an ostrich, thinking about squeezing it, before he is caught by security guards. Buddy decides to fight the guards and nearly kills them. The next day, Buddy attends an animal rights protest, dressed as Animal Man. He thinks to himself about last night, how he came home and regurgitated his breakfast on the table. Then, a police horse panics in the crowd and Animal Man chases it. However, after capturing the horse, Animal Man bites into the animal’s neck, killing it. The crowd watches in shock.
After biting the horse, Buddy is arrested and questioned by the police. Buddy tells the officer that he can’t believe what he has done and that he is overridden with guilt. Although the officer wants Buddy to be sent to prison, he is told to let the fallen hero go by the CIA, shocking Buddy. Some time later, Buddy walks through a park, wearing different clothes and dark glasses to hide his identity. He picks up a newspaper from a bench and reads it. He then drops it and runs away, noticing from it that singer Marvin Gaye is still alive (he died in 1984 after being shot by his own father). To test out a theory, Buddy heads to the library and discovers that Adolf Hitler was tried and hanged and that the first man on the moon was named Dwight Larkins. This proves Buddy’s theory was true, that history has been altered. Buddy decides to head home, where he finds Ellen sleeping with Julia’s boyfriend, Mike. Beginning to cry, Buddy is told by Ellen that their marriage has been dead for years. In response, Buddy stares at Mike evilly, before screaming at him. Buddy then gets Mike down to the ground, before sitting on him, proving to Ellen that he is a real man. Then, a strange man walks into the room dressed in weird clothes. Enraged again, Buddy strangles Mike, but is stopped by the strange man. Telling Buddy that his name is Nowhere Man and that they are both working for the CIA. Ellen then leaves with Mike, ordering Buddy to leave. Together, Buddy heads into a restaurant with Nowhere Man, who begins to explain his past, saying that he was brought up just by his mother and that he is molecularly displaced due to his repressed sexuality. He then joined his uncle’s circus, where he fell in love a woman named Lizard Girl. However, she died, and he ended up joining third-rate heroes The Front Page and the Notional Man. He decided to leave them after they decided to make porn films. Suddenly, a window in the restaurant shatters when a newspaper is thrown at it. The newspaper then reveals itself to be The Front Page, shocking Nowhere Man. The Front Page tells Nowhere Man that he wants revenge after he stole money from him. The Notional Man then appears, attacking Nowhere Man. Despite thinking about leaving, Buddy attacks The Front Page, who reminds Buddy of the horse incident, causing him to become angry and violently kill The Front Page. In fear, Buddy and Nowhere Man leave the restaurant and go to a club. After trying to phone Ellen, but only getting an answer from the babysitter, Buddy notices Notional Man leave the club, dropping a package on the ground. Buddy works out that the package is a bomb. It explodes.
Notional Man watches the aftermath of the club explosion, noticing a beaten and bloody Buddy Baker on the ground. He wakes up and gets off the ground, noticing a young girl screaming out for her friend trapped under the rubble. Using the power of an earthworm, Buddy digs into the ground and finds the girl’s friend, but she is dead. Later on, Nowhere Man finds Buddy, who is receiving medical attention from a doctor. It doesn’t take long for the fallen hero to push the doctor away, before leaving with Nowhere Man. Notional Man watches them leave. Nowhere Man and Buddy head to a hotel because why not, where Buddy phones Ellen, who tells him that she has got a court order in order to keep Buddy away from Cliff and Maxine. Completely ignoring that, Buddy heads to the school, taking his two children before driving off. Elsewhere, Nowhere Man is met by CIA members, telling him that Buddy must be found in order to protect the President, otherwise they will all be arrested (for what?). Meanwhile, Buddy drives to a motel and stays there with Cliff and Maxine, worried for them. The next day, they all go to the Grand Canyon, where Maxine asks Buddy when she is going to go back to Ellen. Although Buddy tells her that they will be staying for a bit, Maxine tells Buddy that he isn’t her father. Confused, Buddy asks her why she said that. Maxine explains that he has changed due to the coma and that a strange old monkey-creature keeps appearing. Shortly afterwards, Buddy speaks to Ellen on the phone, reassuring her that the kids are safe with him. However, he cuts the phone call short when he attacks a person speaking to both Maxine and Cliff. In fear the person drives away, but Cliff tells his father that the person was only after directions, making Buddy feel guilty. Later on, driving to another motel, Buddy and the kids notice the monkey in the middle of the road, screaming. Getting out of the car, Buddy touches the monkey, before it disappears, leaving Buddy confused. Later at the motel, Buddy hears a knock at the door, but there is no one there. Buddy then
turns around and discovers that Maxine is missing. Heading out, Buddy finds Maxine in the back of their car, on the edge of a cliff, about to be pushed off by Notional Man. The villain tells Buddy to cut himself with a knife, which he does, before losing his temper and throwing the weapon at Notional Man. This causes the car to fall off the cliff, seemingly killing Maxine. In rage, Buddy attacks Notional Man, cutting him to pieces, before beheading him. Crying, Buddy is surprised when he finds that Maxine is alive and that she isn’t hurt. She explains that she magically disappeared from the house and appeared in the car. She then thanks her daddy, telling him that she might prefer him now to how he once was. Some time later, Buddy heads to church, despite not being religious. However, is shocked when he notices blood drip from the ceiling. Then, a strange figure crashes through the window into the building. It is Animal Man, dead on the floor.
After witnessing himself fall to his death, Buddy runs out of the church after hallucinating a wedding. Outside, he is met by Jones and Kinnock, two CIA members, along with Nowhere Man. Although Buddy tries to run away, he is stopped by Nowhere Man. The CIA agents explain that Buddy has become under the influence of Angel Mob, a sibling trio with unnatural mental powers. While Buddy still tries to get over the visions he saw, he turns around and sees that Jones and Kinnock have strange sun-like heads, making Buddy see that they aren’t real either. The CIA members appear again to Buddy, telling him that they need his help. Buddy recommends Batman, but the agents explain that he failed in defeating Angel Mob. He then continues, explaining that Animal Man and Nowhere Man where chosen to protect the President as they were seen as mentally unstable. Later at night, Buddy returns home, sending Cliff and Maxine to their beds. However, when Buddy enters the bathroom, he ends up in the jungle again and runs away from a tiger. He then notices the tiger heading towards a baby monkey, causing Buddy to jump onto the tiger’s back, making it retreat. The baby monkey’s mother seems to recognise Buddy and so does the father, who Buddy saw on the road near the Grand Canyon. Before leaving, Buddy tells the monkey family that he will come back to them and help them. Back in the real world, Buddy is surprised when he finds Ellen pointing a shotgun at this head, thinking he is an intruder. She puts away the weapon and transforms into a child, named Lucinda Angel, who is the creator of Buddy’s visions. She tells him that if he kisses her, she will explain the jungle and what it means. However, before he can do that, Buddy appears back in the real world, where Ellen tells him to leave the house. Later on, Buddy and Nowhere Man meet with President Eagleton, who will be driving through crowds in San Francisco. However, during the drive, Buddy notices another of the Angel trio, Mark, on a rooftop. Buddy goes to attack the villain but fails when he is pushed off the building and falls to his death, impaled on broken glass.
Seeing Animal Man’s body on the ground, Nowhere Man feels lost and broken, but he is told by a CIA agent that they’ll have to find another partner for him. Elsewhere, Lucinda is furious with her brother Mark for killing Animal Man and punishes him by covering him in spiders. Later, a funeral for Buddy takes place, attended by Ellen, Maxine, Cliff, Bwana Beast and others. Before they leave, Nowhere Man asks Maxine if the jungle is still in their bathroom. She tells him it is sometimes. Then, Nowhere Man is introduced to his new partner, named the Green Cigarette, who constantly smokes. After the funeral, Nowhere Man heads into the Baker home and speaks to Maxine and Cliff, both of whom are upset by their father’s death. After some failed attempts at getting it to appear, nowhere heads into the jungle through the bathroom door. He is instantly chased by a tiger, but somehow, Buddy appears and defeats it, saving Nowhere Man. Elsewhere, the Angel Mob continue to argue with each other, ignoring their parent’s wimpy requests to stop it. Meanwhile, after explaining to Nowhere Man how he managed to survive and cheat death, Buddy speaks about how he has to find Lucinda to put things back to normal. However, he has been in the forest for years, telling Nowhere Man that the forest is two million years old and how he has met versions of himself and people from the future in it. Due to this, he has picked up items from the future, such as a strange gun, from what Buddy believes is from 2020. Elsewhere, President Eagleton is attacked by Matthew Angel’s powers, causing him to fly in the air and… look, this is getting f*cking annoying and boring to write now, so I’ll summarise the rest of the story, I’ll explain in why in detail later. Basically, Buddy meets with Lucinda to tell her and her family to give themselves over to the police. She agrees, but the President decides otherwise, capturing the trio for himself in a net.
After saying that he wants the trio for himself and they must be dissected, Eagleton is killed by Buddy. He then escapes from the guards and discovers that the ape he has been seeing is his ancestor and that he was trapped in a time door inside a prehistoric jungle in Buddy’s bathroom. The reason Buddy survived his death was because of a quantum mechanical anomaly. Understand? Neither do I! Then, there’s floating pizza and Buddy finds the Angel Mob being tested on; he leaves them. He heads into the forest, where he decides to kill himself. He jumps off a cliff, causing him to wake up in the real world, out of his coma. Buddy asks the nurse who the President is. The answer is George H.W Bush, causing Buddy to feel relieved. Later on, Ellen, Maxine and Cliff arrive, and they are all normal. The doctor tells Buddy that he went into the coma after experiencing something so terrible that his mind refused to accept it (an obvious reference to Animal Man (vol 1) 26, the end of the Morrison run. Then, everyone’s happy and Buddy wants pizza. The end.
MY THOUGHTS
I have to say what’s good about this story now, don’t I? Well, honestly, I think the best thing to come out of this story is the fact that it did not happen. The world of Animal Man didn’t fundamentally change (yet), which is certainly a good thing, otherwise a strong set of memorable and excellent characters would go down the plughole. After all the b*llsh*t that this story forcefully pushes us through, in the end it was all a dream. This is often a solution to many stories over different mediums and in all-almost every case, I hate it. But here, I’m thankful. Milligan had enough decency to keep what was great about these characters alive and although Jamie Delano would become writer of the title over a year later (starting with Animal Man (vol 1) 51) and figuratively sh*t on the Baker family, I’m glad we still have some time with them. Other than that, there isn’t really much else. I guess I have a soft spot for Nowhere Man. Even though this origin makes no sense and Milligan is clearly attempting to be pretentious, he is probably the only original character in the story with any character. For instance, when Buddy dies, he does feel sad, as opposed to Ellen or anybody else at the funeral. Also, just as a last point, the first two parts of this story aren’t terrible reads. They certainly feel off, but you can actually understand the dialogue and what is going on. From there on in, you could get more out of this story by closing your eyes when reading it.
Ahhh, this is going to be some fun. Where do I start? The moment this story begins, you know something is wrong. I get that that might be the feeling that Milligan was going for, since Buddy is no longer in the real world, but the early stages of the story aren’t great reading. This is mainly due to how twisted Ellen becomes, as her once actually decent character becomes that of an old drunk. Cliff is pretty much the same, but Maxine constantly seems to know more about the monkeys in the jungle than we do. Why? Never explained, not here anyway. The major problem with this story is that Milligan was clearly attempting to out-weird Grant Morrison, but he made a huge mistake. To balance things out, reality needs to be present when fiction is present. Morrison’s run on the title got that right. It did have strange storytelling, such as Animal Man meeting Morrison himself, but there was a real grasp of characters and comics realism (there is a difference between that and real realism). Here, Milligan throws too much crap into the story and none of it is really grounded in a reality which the readers can recognise. Like I said before, you can follow the plot right up until the end of the second part, as everything (with the exception of the monkey and the jungle) makes sense. Sure, the sense it is making is great character writing, but it made sense. Afterwards, the plot goes way downhill. I’ll get onto the characters later, but the plot and revelations are just non-sensical and confusing. As you may have read when I was detailing the plot, the big reveal that the monkey that has been following Buddy is in fact an ancestor really doesn’t change or add anything to the story, in fact it just makes things confusing. However, the most nonsensical and b*llsh*t part of the story is the death of Animal Man at the end of part four. He dies, but then comes back. The explanation for this is due to some anomaly related to quantum pizza, or something. Not only did I not understand that, since I haven’t got a PhD in Physics, but
what the actual point of his death? He comes back anyway in the jungle, somehow getting a load of junk from people who occasionally come by him from the future. Plus, the weapons he got from his time in the jungle doesn’t get a mention again and even if it did, it wouldn’t have added anything to the overall story. Honestly, I think it is clear as mud to why this story undeniably makes no sense as to the general reader (or person who has an IQ number lesser than Stephen Hawking had), meaning that all the twists and turns throughout the story wont register or deliver any emotion to a reader, because they just don’t care. And to the people who think that this is a prime example of how an engaging fictional story should be written, you have to remember that everybody has to understand your story when reading it. Now, moving onto another awful piece of the story: the characters, and there are a lot of them. Starting with the main character, Animal Man, this clearly isn’t the same character we are used to. While his moments of acting like an animal can be quite humorous, these moments do become less surprising almost standard towards the end of the story. As it progresses, it starts to become clear that everything that is happening just isn’t real. Therefore, you don’t give a sh*t if Animal Man violently murders the President, it just happens, and you don’t feel shocked by it. If anything, Buddy’s character comes across as incredibly irrational, unlike his usual self. He puts his children in danger numerous times throughout the story and the charm of a father that he had during Morrison’s run seems to have vanished. As both a hero and a character, he feels unnatural and boring. The rest of the Baker family are all pretty much the same, with the obvious exception of Ellen, who acts like an unlikable egotistical drunk. I get that Milligan wanted to make her character different, but there is no way that you can sympathise for her problems and why she is like that, due to the fact that Milligan never explains why. With the possible exception of Nowhere Man (who’s character is just confusing anyway), the original characters all lack the same thing: character. The Front Page’s gimmick of the words of his newspaper-like body changing comes across as an empty idea and seems to be in the story only so he can be killed. Notional Man does
have a lot more coverage in the overall story, as he seemingly kills Maxine, but even he feels dry in terms of character. He is just evil and nothing else. The two CIA agents, Kinnock and the other guy just don’t add anything to the story. If you wrote them out of it, the story would be just as sh*t. They don’t make it better, or worse. They add nothing. Next, we have the Green Cigarette, who just smokes and can’t speak as he just continuously coughs. Then, we get President Eagleton, who pretty much has the character of Donald Trump, if he had his natural hair colour that is. He seems to want the evil trio for their power so he can dissect them. Why? I mean, just why? Evil for the sake of it. Lastly, we get the Angel Mob, all of whom are so tiresome and boring. They are also introduced so late in the story that we no longer care as we have already been through enough b*llsh*t. There is no reason why they want to mess around with Animal Man’s mind and as characters, they are just irritating. I don’t care that we see Animal Man at an animal rights protest. I don’t care that he bites a horse’s a*se or that Batman makes a pointless cameo in the story. These are all interesting parts of the story, but they are just so small and overshadowed by the Asimov-like muddled plot, which in the end doesn’t mean anything to Animal Man and his character story. To end this long-winded rant, the only thing I would have liked to have seen (apart from another story) was more of the ending. I would have liked Buddy to come home and we would see his family back to normal, just as everything was. This would have clearly presented to us that the mess is over, and that Animal Man is back. Instead, it ends with Buddy wanting pizza…
Most of the art done for this story is by Chas Truog and Mark Farmer, the usual art team on the title. While I think the inks by Farmer are quite good, since he is a talented inker, the finished art is nothing special. It isn’t terrible, or average. It is just about good, but nothing amazing. I think some of the problems with it is that it can look a bit uneventful and often, the garish colouring by Tatjana Wood (who worked best on less abstract stories) cheapens the overall look of the comic. However, part three of the story is drawn completely by Steve Dillon and it looks alright. It can look quite roughly drawn in some panels, but overall, it tells the story well enough for the mess that it is. There really isn’t much else to say about the art. Above average and it can be good, but nothing spectacular.
VERDICT
Overall, Animal Man: Born to Be Wild is a pile of crap. For every good choice in the story, you get about ten bad ones. Like I said, I’m kind of glad it was a dream in the end as it meant everything in the story didn’t happen, but in that case, then what’s the point of writing the story at all. Milligan writes a completely alien story to both casual and experienced readers. The story itself is full of unenjoyable nonsense, with numerous pointless and characterless characters sprinkled all over it. Even the usual characters are dire, with Animal Man coming across as irresponsible, against all that he stood for in Morrison’s run. Milligan completely ignores the fundamentals in the Baker family, constantly trying to impress readers, but just confusing them. Milligan tries to out-weird Morrison, but unless the story has a balance between reality and fiction, it’s a failure. So, how do you follow up something that was good? The answer is simple, not like this, that’s for sure.
Story: 1/10
Art: 6/10
Next Week: Doom Patrol: Crawling from The Wreckage (Doom Patrol (vol 2) 19-25). Written by Grant Morrison with art by Richard Case, Carlos Garzon, Scott Hanna, Doug Braithwaite and John Nyberg. Expected to be published by 02/02/2020.
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