Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
2nd out of 8 books
—
2 voters
Animal Man, Vol. 2: Origin of the Species (Animal Man #2)
The second collection of Grant Morrison's groundbreaking run on ANIMAL MAN reprints issues #10-17, plus the 19-page story from SECRET ORIGINS #39, this volume shows Animal Man moving more and more deeply into the cause of animal rights. But something else is going on beyond his burgeoning radicalism. Strange visions of aliens, people disappearing into strange pencil-like d...more
Paperback, 224 pages
Published
July 1st 2002
by Vertigo
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
1,463)
From nearly the first panel of THIS volume of Animal Man (the second of three in Morrison's run), we can see Morrison's style exemplified more clearly.
Readers familiar with his other work see oft-used Morrison themes of aliens, mysticism and the occult, fiction vs. reality, perception of time, and other things that weren't often, if at all, touched upon in Morrison's first volume of this title.
Although markedly more Morrisonian, we do have chapters that, despite offering valid social commentary...more
Readers familiar with his other work see oft-used Morrison themes of aliens, mysticism and the occult, fiction vs. reality, perception of time, and other things that weren't often, if at all, touched upon in Morrison's first volume of this title.
Although markedly more Morrisonian, we do have chapters that, despite offering valid social commentary...more
Now, THIS is what I'm talking about! Having realized to his surprise (in the issues collected in Book 1) that he could write Craziness and get away with it, the stories in this collection show Grant Morrison rapidly realizing his potential, and starting to become the writer he's known as today.
The writing here is crisp, sharp, and incredibly smart; even when writing stories that take place firmly in the superhero milieu from which Buddy Baker began, the telling has a self-awareness and realism t...more
The writing here is crisp, sharp, and incredibly smart; even when writing stories that take place firmly in the superhero milieu from which Buddy Baker began, the telling has a self-awareness and realism t...more
The Second Volume of Grant Morrison's Animal Man Trilogy/series/arc, wasn't as amazing as the first, but it builds on the first volume and has more of a Environmental Story Arc then the last volume did, most of the Issues in this volume deal with a storyline in Africa and also has the Bwanna Beast and Vixen, a character I've haven't read much with which was cool.
The rest of the book has some good issues in it and the ending of the volume leaves me ready to read the final part of Morrison's run a...more
The rest of the book has some good issues in it and the ending of the volume leaves me ready to read the final part of Morrison's run a...more
view 2 comments
Probably the pinnacle of Morrison's work on the character of Buddy Baker. The first volume feels a bit rough and the last explodes into meta-criticism of comics continuity and format, but this volume hits a nice middle of smart, reverent yet playful comics that devolve into didactic-but-great social polemics only a couple times.
Morrison does really interesting things with DC continuity and tropes. He has fun reintroducing a slew of other animal-powered DC heroes, but they all serve the stories...more
Morrison does really interesting things with DC continuity and tropes. He has fun reintroducing a slew of other animal-powered DC heroes, but they all serve the stories...more
More philosophical play from Grant Morrison. This volume definitely shows a marked interest in political activism: anti-animal testing, anti-whaling, vegetarianism, and even anti-superhero violence. In one story, images of violence being committed against dolphins prefigure with stunning accuracy the documentary footage captured in The Cove.
Most interesting to me, however were the storylines involving a mysterious "red man" who challenges the very foundations of reality for the characters he int...more
Most interesting to me, however were the storylines involving a mysterious "red man" who challenges the very foundations of reality for the characters he int...more
"How can I sleep?" asks the Psycho-Pirate. "If I go to sleep they might decide to remove me from the continuity and then I'll never wake up."
This surreal run of Animal Man after the crisis really is the best antidote for bad feelings about the current reboot. Ambivalent about fighting and heroics, the very human Buddy Baker wants to make the world a better place for every creature on the planet. Sometimes his arguments for vegetarianism and animal rights are over the top, but a superhero arguing...more
This surreal run of Animal Man after the crisis really is the best antidote for bad feelings about the current reboot. Ambivalent about fighting and heroics, the very human Buddy Baker wants to make the world a better place for every creature on the planet. Sometimes his arguments for vegetarianism and animal rights are over the top, but a superhero arguing...more
I did like the first volume of Morrison's Animal Man, but volume two blows it out of the water. I've expressed before my normal mix of annoyance and admiration that Morrison usually leaves me with, but this time it really does come together.
Much of the book is taken up with Buddy's political activism, mostly expressed through animal rights causes. (There's an issue dealing with apartheid, too.) Maybe in some other books, with some other heroes, this would feel belabored, false to what the book i...more
Much of the book is taken up with Buddy's political activism, mostly expressed through animal rights causes. (There's an issue dealing with apartheid, too.) Maybe in some other books, with some other heroes, this would feel belabored, false to what the book i...more
In this second volume of Animal Man, Grant Morrison moves into the true raison d'etre for Buddy Baker's story. His animal rights activism, the thing that initially piqued Morrison's interest, persists, but he's beginning to have a crisis of conscience about some of the actions he's taken. The meat of the story, in a fashion, is Buddy's metaphysical crisis, which is only addressed from the corner of his eye in this volume. Something is wrong, terribly wrong. Psycho Pirate knows that he's fiction,...more
Reprints Animal Man #10-17 and Secret Origins #39. Animal Man faces the aliens that created him and finds himself more involved in fighting for the rights of animals. This book of the Animal Man series is strong but mostly feels like set up for the final installment in Grant Morrison's run. Their is an overall character arc and it could be argued that the character is inconsistant but Morrison "fixes" these problems in the final book.
Interesting concepts Morrison plays with here of having the original incarnation of Animal Man run into his modern version, and how the 2 co-existing is destroying reality. That story very cool, some of the others, not so much. Still, one great idea is worth sifting through a few ho-hum ones.
Going to be a bit lazy and go with this review. More involving than the first volume, gradually increasing (and satisfying) WTF component, fleshing out the story and characters. Looking forward to seeing how it all pulls together.
Another set of adventures for Animal Man. He works with the JLE and animal rights activists. Some big moral questions, and some good character development. Lots of cameos with people acting not quite the way you would expect. And then there's the whole aliens rewriting history. A very good read.
My main problem with book 2 is that I get a little frustrated with the switching between continuous narrative and stand-alone episodes. When "Cliff 9-27" appears mysteriously in an August issue, I assume that'll come up again in September, but it doesn't. I can deal with this a little better in TV, perhaps because I have more practice at it (or maybe Joss Whedon's just better at shifting gears than Morrison). Still, it remains smart and interesting, not to mention concerned with issues like cont...more
I really enjoyed this one (despite the little hiccup when Animal Man is attracted to Vixen because he's drawing from the abilities of...apes. Lol, that was a little problematic). Animal Man is now one of my favorite superheros(my top three favorites are Wonder Woman, Batman, Wolverine...Vixen is way up there now, too. But that was after reading Return of the Lion). I'm also a sucker for apes and there were apes in this volume.
Under Grant Morrison's direction, Animal Man goes from being a throw-away character with a minor power to a complex character coming to terms with increasing abilities and questioning what it means to be a hero that protects all life rather than just mankind.
Grant Morrison rescues a DC character from obscurity and uses him as a foil for his own agendas. Setting up some self-referential sequences in here...looking forward to seeing where this is leading.
Again, really great writing. Morrison is clearly not afraid of changing readers' expectations. While Animal Man would otherwise be a relatively boring comic, G.M. exceeds expectations.
I'm enjoying reading Grant Morrison's seminal run on Animal Man for the first time, a good decade or more after every other comics fan declared it to be genius. Enjoying, but feeling somewhat underwhelmed, too. I have a feeling that the whole run needs to be judged as one long story, adn the payoffs in the end probably are what makes it a classic. The biggest thing that sticks out to me now is that the art is pretty terrible - distractingly so, especially in contrast to the gorgeous covers the s...more
I felt pretty much the same with volume 2 as I did with volume 1.
Continuation/buildup to a good story....
superhero comic book as existential crisis.
Delves into some psychedelic adventures.
I was pretty unimpressed with the first Animal Man collection, but I'm glad I picked this one up. Morrison is in some ways more restrained here than he is in Doom Patrol, but at the same time he is playing even more blatantly with the whole idea of comic books and re-writing characters' histories and continuities. I have a feeling that the next volume is going to be even more deeply weird.
As the story continues it becomes obvious that something is not right in superheroland and the problem points towards Animal Man. As he makes powerful enemies when pursuing his raids on animal labs and stopping wholesale dolphin slaughter he comes to attention of super villains hired to stop him. Yet, there is an unraveling, an appearance of aliens and a question of just what Animal Man really is.
Some of the weirder stuff begins here with a tale of Animal Man meeting some aliens which is intertwined with a origins story of how Buddy got his powers. The book also goes political with the then South African race problem. Couple filler stories in here which aren't all that interesting and the book culminates with Buddy hanging up his mantle.
This is where the story really starts to take off, exposing that Morrison's ambitions lie far beyond using the standard set of cliched superhero tropes to promote a boring environmental morality play. Animal Man will make you wish DC had been more ambitious in their attempts to resolve the problems presented by the idea of the multiverse.
Feb 01, 2011
Madeleine
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
fans of meta-fiction, post-modernism, and animal rights
Brilliant.
Same as the first volume of this run for Grant Morrison. It was okay, but didn't blow my mind.
grant morrison is a genius. really over the top shit. this one just didn't do it for me.
the absolute best comic series i have ever read.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Scottish comic book author Grant Morrison is known for culture-jamming and the constant reinvention of his work. His often controversial books also rate amongst some of the most popular and critically-acclaimed. He is also active in screenwriting.
More about Grant Morrison...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“Sometimes you wonder, in an interconnected universe, who's dreaming who?”
—
17 people liked it
More quotes…
