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182nd out of 1,499 books
—
3,020 voters
Animal Man, Vol. 1 (Animal Man #1)
This edition collects the bizarre adventures of Animal Man, a second-rate super hero struggling with real-life issues and moral dilemmas. Buddy Baker is a caring husband, devoted father, animal activist and super-powered being. But as he attempts to live up to all of his roles, he soon finds that there are no black and white situations in life. With a strong focus on story...more
Paperback, 240 pages
Published
May 1st 2001
by Vertigo
(first published March 1989)
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Buddy Baker, aka Animal, is a semi-retired super hero and movie stuntman. One day, he decides to return to super hero-ing full time. How will his wife and kids deal with that?
Animal Man isn't one of Grant Morrison's weirder or well-known runs on a title but it's probably the most enjoyable to read. It's a fun book. Buddy struggles with people mistaking him for other super heroes and laments the quality of the super villains he fights. His son thinks his powers are lame. While Buddy is a super he...more
Animal Man isn't one of Grant Morrison's weirder or well-known runs on a title but it's probably the most enjoyable to read. It's a fun book. Buddy struggles with people mistaking him for other super heroes and laments the quality of the super villains he fights. His son thinks his powers are lame. While Buddy is a super he...more
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Here I've encountered, for the first time, a Grant Morrison written title that really, in most parts, didn't really read like a Grant Morrison written title.
Buddy Baker is Animal Man. This being a superhero book (definitely the most traditional superhero book that Morrison has written that I've read), his power is that he acquires the power of any animal near to him. He doesn't get the majestic appearance of the lion, the hulking form of the gorilla, just the abilities that they would add to a h...more
Buddy Baker is Animal Man. This being a superhero book (definitely the most traditional superhero book that Morrison has written that I've read), his power is that he acquires the power of any animal near to him. He doesn't get the majestic appearance of the lion, the hulking form of the gorilla, just the abilities that they would add to a h...more
It's impressive how readable this early Grant Morrison superhero book is. There's one issue with fractal emotional earthquake bombs, but otherwise the whole book is sensible, easy-to-consume, and fun. Those adjectives apply to few of Morrison's more recent work.
The book also feels fairly current. There are some artifacts of the late 1980s--the art feels dated, as do the space Hawkmen with those fractal bombs--but most of the book still works well. The "Coyote Gospel" issue with an interesting Lo...more
The book also feels fairly current. There are some artifacts of the late 1980s--the art feels dated, as do the space Hawkmen with those fractal bombs--but most of the book still works well. The "Coyote Gospel" issue with an interesting Lo...more
Feb 16, 2012
Williwaw
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
comic book crazed folks
Recommended to Williwaw by:
Rachel Getts
Shelves:
comics
This was definitely a wild ride. There does not seem to be a lot of continuity to the story-line from issue to issue, but maybe Grant Morrison wraps everything up later on. Or maybe this is just standard comic book technique, which makes it easier for a reader to dip into any issue without knowing how it all got started.
There's a famous "Coyote Gospel" sequence, where Morrison turns a Wiley E. Coyote-style character (drawn with much more pathos and creepiness than the Roadrunner version)into a...more
There's a famous "Coyote Gospel" sequence, where Morrison turns a Wiley E. Coyote-style character (drawn with much more pathos and creepiness than the Roadrunner version)into a...more
As an avid Grant Morrison fan, its important to try to read stuff from his entire body of work, not just his great stuff. This was the first thing he did after coming to America to write for Vertigo(a darker imprint of DC). Based on a forgotten sixties hero, Animal Man tells the story of a happily married middle aged guy with the power to instantly acquire the traits of the animals close by. No visionary convoluted philosophy. No memorable scenes or dialogue. The book feels as if Morrison was ne...more
Nov 18, 2010
Patrick
added it
Buddy Baker seems like a nice enough guy: he's kind of a loafer and a dreamer roughly my age (WTF?), he looks sort of gay in the cutoff jeans and muscle shirt he's always wearing (hey, it's 80's L.A., I understand), and he has a pretty hot wife who looks like Bobby's mom from Bobby's World. When he decides to become Animal Man again his first case takes him into a moral quagmire concerning animal rights and other leftist causes. This storyline, spanning 4 issues and including a bestiality-loving...more
The DC reboot has been bothering me lately, so I've decided to go back to a simpler time. Perhaps finally delving into Morrison's run on the Animal Man title wasn't the best way to find simple. I know that I've read more surreal comics, but just now I can't think of any. The story about Wiley--I mean Crafty--Coyote ascending to the higher realm of more realistic comics to save his people from their constant, senseless death only to point out that Animal Man is still a comic was incredibly well c...more
With each Grant Morrison comic series/graphic novel I read, the more I love him.
Animal Man was part of the late 80s DC "Hey, that Watchmen was popular. Let's go to Britain and hire people there to reinvent characters and make us awesome" period. Grant Morrison was one of the people given a job and his first choice for what character/series to reinvent was Animal Man - an obscure character who could temporarily absorb the abilities of animals around him.
Well, Grant Morrison took this d-list super...more
Animal Man was part of the late 80s DC "Hey, that Watchmen was popular. Let's go to Britain and hire people there to reinvent characters and make us awesome" period. Grant Morrison was one of the people given a job and his first choice for what character/series to reinvent was Animal Man - an obscure character who could temporarily absorb the abilities of animals around him.
Well, Grant Morrison took this d-list super...more
This volume collects the first 9 issues of Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man which has been heralded as something truly wonderful.
I don't completely agree, but I can see where they are coming from.
Originally published in 1988 1989, these issues I think began to introduce the world to the madness of Grant Morrison as well as the animal activism of Grant Morrison.
As for the animal activism, I feel like Grant Morrison did that best with We3. As for his madness, I think Grant Morrison has aged well...more
I don't completely agree, but I can see where they are coming from.
Originally published in 1988 1989, these issues I think began to introduce the world to the madness of Grant Morrison as well as the animal activism of Grant Morrison.
As for the animal activism, I feel like Grant Morrison did that best with We3. As for his madness, I think Grant Morrison has aged well...more
It seems contrary to give a graphic novel that I enjoyed as much as Animal Man three stars, but it did not read as a coherent collection. I know that there is some controversy about whether comics should be written for the monthly market or for the later trades, and generally I fall into the former camp. However, tonally and stylistically, the first collection is all over the place, to the point where it felt like I was reading three different comics. There's the deeply serious comic that deals...more
Honestly, what this reminded me of most was, strangely, Dave Sim's Cerebus. (Although perhaps not SO strange, given the same bizarre plot twist that happens in the later volumes of each.) Just as with Cerebus, it's clear that the writer had not yet figured out what he REALLY wanted to do with the story until most of the way through the first book. Still, in each one there is undeniably moments of genuine creativity and real brilliance, and in the rightly-lauded issue #5 you can catch your first...more
I enjoyed reading this, and it gave me a bit of a surprise, when I opened it and looked at the first cover, it took me back to being 8yrs old at the corner store, and seeing it on the stands...I definitely remember all the animals, but I didn't buy it, I have no idea what I did buy instead. Buddy Baker is one of the more interesting stories, because he's got powers, but not sure if they're much good, and ends up overmatched every so often. This makes him more appealing to me, as well as the fact...more
Let me put it to you this way - if I had read this before the New 52 Animal Man, I very likely would have skipped the reboot. Morrison's Animal Man doesn't hold up exceptionally well - it is a little unnecessarily campy, especially in the later issues of this volume, it has that late 1980s/early 1990s sensibility that doesn't match up with modern comics, and even if you're able to put all that aside...it just isn't that great. It has its moments, but it was largely a swing and a miss for me.
If y...more
If y...more
Reprints Animal Man #1-9. Buddy Baker decides to become a full time hero as Animal Man and sets out to combine being a hero with political activism. Animal Man is one of the more original series from the '80s. It is somewhat dated, and somewhat over dramatic, but it still works. This collection is a bit fractured due to the DC crossover series of Invasion which occurs in the later issues. The Invasion storyline directly affected the plot of the story but wasn't included in the collection due to...more
The first time I remember ever seeing Animal Man was in the pages of 52. I liked him right away, and I was pleased to see that the parts that I liked best about his character were here during Morrison's run on the title. I like Buddy because he's a family man, a "normal" guy even with the superpowers, and I like him because he has a clear driving motive. Yes, Morrison was pretty much using Buddy as a mouthpiece for his own animal rights agenda, but it suits his character, and his powers, for Bud...more
Is the concept a straightforward superhero story from Grant Morrison too good to be true? Maybe in this day and age, but not back in the 80s. That's one of the things I liked most about this volume: it's a collection of 9 serialized and self-contained stories, free of the pretentious meta-textualism and the masturbatory self-reference that has plagued most of Morrison's recent work. Plus, unlike his work on Batman, you don't need to know every villain from the last 60 years of Animal Man's histo...more
Re-reading this with a lot more background knowledge about some of the other characters was great. I was impressed with this the first time around as well, because of the way the fourth wall is continually challenged (before being scattered at some point in the other volumes, I suppose) and because of, well, the animal rights issues. Besides, Buddy's family life is wonderfully normal and hilarious. It's a fun and intelligent read, and I like that sort of thing.
(And I admit, realizing I am starti...more
(And I admit, realizing I am starti...more
I'm not very knowledgeable about comics, so I asked a friend to recommend a starting point. [The few I've read have been because I either liked the movie -- Sin City, for example -- or was given the first collection as a gift -- Y: The Last Man, or Maus.]
I definitely wasn't interested in the Marvel/Vertigo world of Superheroes and villains, but this book was actually pretty good. I don't think I'll get Book 2 any time soon, but I feel a little more in the know about a somewhat obscure character...more
I definitely wasn't interested in the Marvel/Vertigo world of Superheroes and villains, but this book was actually pretty good. I don't think I'll get Book 2 any time soon, but I feel a little more in the know about a somewhat obscure character...more
Just re-read the entire run of Animal Man.
This was my favorite comic book when I was in high school. Grant Morrison's run on this was visionary, flawed and deeply moving. Issue 5, "The Coyote Gospel", was my favorite single work of art for a few years though. Ah, youth.
Morrison started Animal Man as a 4 issue mini to re-introduce an obscure character in a new and "adult" manner. They were handing these type of books off to every Brit off the boat in the late 80's. Amping up the violence and advo...more
This was my favorite comic book when I was in high school. Grant Morrison's run on this was visionary, flawed and deeply moving. Issue 5, "The Coyote Gospel", was my favorite single work of art for a few years though. Ah, youth.
Morrison started Animal Man as a 4 issue mini to re-introduce an obscure character in a new and "adult" manner. They were handing these type of books off to every Brit off the boat in the late 80's. Amping up the violence and advo...more
I have read a little Grant Morrison Work in the past, mostly his Batman related Work and Final Crisis...Recently I had taken a somewhat interest in the Animal Man Character, so I decide to pick this book and see how it was....
My Thoughts, Grant Morrisons Best work So far that Ive ever have read, it's amazing and thought provoking. I think after reading this Buddy Baker, Animal Man will start becoming one of my favorite superheroes of all time....PS For anyone who hasn't read this be prepared to...more
My Thoughts, Grant Morrisons Best work So far that Ive ever have read, it's amazing and thought provoking. I think after reading this Buddy Baker, Animal Man will start becoming one of my favorite superheroes of all time....PS For anyone who hasn't read this be prepared to...more
This is a very good book. Animal man is thinking about coming out of retirement, and his first job is to help some scientists. This is a book with heart, it looks at animal cruelty and makes a stand. The 'Thunder god' character who in recent times is a joke on 'brave and the bold' is strikingly serious and very vengeful. This makes his creations truely scarey. It's nice to see a family man, whose children are not used as hostages but are just part of his life.
Man, I thought this was supposed to be some kind of astute subversion of 80s superhero comics, but it felt pretty much like every other insipidly-dialogued mainstream superhero story, with a bunch of cheesy cameos shoehorned in to sell issues. I could almost hear the live studio audience squealing with glee whenever Hawkman or Martian Manhunter made a fawning full-frame appearance. Disappointing.
It is fascinating to return to Grant Morrison's earliest large-scale work, his work before his heroes were totemic gods. Animal Man starts small in scale, though you will see seeds of the meta-fiction epic Morrison was building sown throughout. Morrison has expressed explicitly that he had no interest in the Moore school of deconstruction, of treating superheroes as "underwear perverts", and his sense of optimism and social justice ring throughout this volume, which coincided with Morrison's own...more
Read Issue #1 for free on Comixology. MUST READ REST OF SERIES. Liked this a lot better than the New 52 version just based off of this first issue... We'll see where it goes. Surprised I never knew about the awesomeness of Animal Man until recently. He's kind of an adult hero the likes of Batman (mostly), Swamp Thing, etc.
Morrison's run on Animal Man starts out as a relatively straightforward superhero tale (albeit about a superhero who proselytises on animal rights). But any comic book that leads to the protagonist finding out that he's fictional and then walking around Glasgow having a conversation with the author can't be bad!
3.5 actually. It's dated, and heavy-handed both in its metaphor and its politics. Apparently the divergent storylines come together in later issues, but it's VERY scattered as a piece in and of itself. Some gestational interesting ideas though, and probably very, very weird for the late 80s, and thus commendable.
A well done series about a super hero that isn't well known. This also brings up questions about animal rights and if their lives mean less than humans. The series also seems fresh because Animal man has a wife and kids. The family interaction is probably my favorite part of the story. I look forward to the next volume.
Sep 30, 2011
Jon
added it
Ummm....I can't decide. One small issue is I don't know the dc timeline as much and obviously some events happen between issues, but I don't know what they are. Some humorous stories, some melodramatic ones, some ones that have some obvious parts. I did finish reading it though.
I love Grant Morrison. I don't know why I shied away from this title. Maybe I was buying too many books when it was popular? I think Marty used to read it in high school. But reading this tale of an everyman superhero who looks deeper into the nature of his powers made me want more and more. Luckily, it's all in trades.
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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.
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Jun 13, 2011 10:13am
Jun 13, 2011 10:28am