Issue Description

Maxine Baker plays in the back yard until she is surprised by the appearance of the entity she calls Mister Rainbow. Inside Mister Rainbow is a surreal landscape, which Maxine enters. Inside, she encounters an elderly Native American man and names him "All the Animals." He gives her a message for her father.

Meanwhile, Buddy Baker is with Travis Cody in Mexico at a resort owned by S.T.A.R. Labs. Despite the efforts of Buck Samson to convince Buddy to join S.T.A.R., Buddy senses something fishy about it, and decides to go back to San Diego, taking Travis with him.

When Buddy returns home, he, his family, and Travis have lunch in the living room. Maxine, mentions having been inside Mister Rainbow, and delivers the message from the old man she met. The message is that the animals want to teach him a big secret. She asks if he's going to go away with the animals, and Buddy feels a strange pull that he has to suppress.

Buddy gets a $37,000 cheque from the recent stunt work he did, and he offers Travis a position as his assistant in being a superhero. Travis is excited, and develops inventions to help Animal Man while Buddy does research on unusual animals whose powers he can use in new ways. Unfortunately, in his efforts to get back into being a superhero, Buddy overdraws his account by $700, which causes tension with his wife Ellen.

Elsewhere, the man that Maxine met inside Mister Rainbow and two other Native Americans summon their messenger because of concern for Animal Man, who he refers to as his son. Mister Rainbow - the messenger - appears, delivering the message that Buddy is creating pain for himself by longing for the good old days. He warns that they could kill him if they press too hard. Then, they send the messenger to Travis.

Travis is terrified at first, but soon has a religious experience as a result of his encounter with the messenger. Meanwhile, Ellen promises to accept Buddy's efforts to return to being a superhero, no matter what happens.

-Source

Animal Man

Publisher

Vertigo

Volume Description

House Ad

Writer Grant Morrison was one of the" British Invasion" creators from the UK who were brought in to DC to revamp older and obscure properties after the success of Alan Moore 's Swamp Thing . Thus Morrison pitched the idea of Animal Man, originally as a four issue mini-series. Strong sales however, meant DC asked Morrison to continue his series an ongoing, which he did for 26 issues. During his run, Morison incorporated themes such as animal rights and vegetarianism as well as fourth-wall breaking story lines which ended in Morrison inserting himself into the comic and directly speaking to Animal Man and revealing his status as a fictional character. Morrison's series re-invented Buddy Baker as a suburban family man and "average Joe" character, he also introduced a new Mirror Master (McCulloch).

After Morrison's run ended, Peter Milligan took over briefly and then Tom Veitch, who focused on Baker's stuntman career. Writer Jamie Delano then came on board as writer, transforming the title into a horror book and lining Animal Man much closer to the Swamp Thing style character, by re-inventing him again as an avatar of "The red" a force of animal life similar to Moore's "The Green" in his Swamp Thing stories, something which Morrison was opposed to but became part of Baker's status quo, especially in Jeff Lemire's New 52 Animal Man series. it was during this time (issue #57) the book was placed under DC's new Vertigo imprint along side other mature readers titles at DC where it remained for the rest of its run. Between issues #66 and #67, Delano also wrote the Animal Man Annual #1, focusing on Buddy's daughter Maxine, the annual was the third part of Vertigo's crossover The Children's Crusade.

The series had never been fully collected though #1-26 (Morrison's run) have been collected in three trades so far, the first nine issues were collected soon after they had been printed back before Vertigo came around in Animal Man- through the art of reprinting the volume has been updated to Vertigo. Over a decade later, a second volume was released, Animal Man: Origin of the Species which collected the next eight issues as well as Animal Man's origin issue from the Secret Origins series. And finally, a year later the third volume was released, Animal Man: Deus Ex Machina which collected nine more issues though left the majority of the series (including all the issues that were printed after the Vertigo imprint got stamped onto the series) uncollected.

Peter Milligan's run on the book would eventually fill a fourth trade in 2013, possibly due to the revived interest in Animal Man after the New 52.

The Shifting Cast of Writers on the Title

Grant Morrison: # 1- 26Peter Milligan: # 27- 32Tom Veitch: # 33- 50Jamie Delano: # 51- 79Jerry Prosser: # 80- 89AnnualAnimal Man Annual #1 - MisfitCollected TradesVol. 1: Animal Man (#1-9)Vol. 2: Origin of the Species (#10-17)Vol. 3: Deus Ex Machina (#18-26)Vol. 4: Born to Be Wild (#27-37)Vol. 5: The Meaning of Flesh (#38-50)Vol. 6: Flesh and Blood (#51-63)Vol. 7: Red Plague (#64-79)OmnibusesAnimal Man Omnibus (#1-26 and Secret Origins #39)

Please first Sign In before leaving a review.

Status: Not in Collection