Animal Man #10-18

Animal Man #10-18

Originally released in 1989

Written by Grant Morrison

Art by Chaz Truog (#10-13, 15-18), Tom Grummett (#14)

With Grant Morrison's Animal Man run turning out to be much shorter than I expected (only 26 issues), I'm hoping to finish it before the end of the year. So far, the book's only hinted at the surreal nature of things to come, though those hints haven't reached Animal Man yet.

Thanks to the Invasion event, Animal Man's powers have been scrambled, making the attributes that he takes from nearby animals completely unpredictable.  The aliens that gave him his powers are watching in secret, and they notice some discrepancies, causing them to review Animal Man's original origin.

The aliens, at least, are aware that something is different, nodding to both the changes made to DC's universe after Crisis On Infinite Earths and how different Grant Morrison's run is compared to what came before. Things get a little more complicated as their conversation goes on, however, and it's indicated that these beings might not be aliens.

Vixen shows up at Animal Man's door, though she's interrupted by the arrival of the yellow aliens who are trying to fix Animal Man's powers, and more importantly, the continuity of the DC universe.  The first part is easy enough for them to do, but it's the second one that proves troublesome.

In a flash of light, Animal Man winds up in Africa where they're quickly put up against the forces of a character who appears to be one of Vixen's villains, an unkillable man named Hamed Ali who's been alive for at least two thousand years.

Meanwhile, Highwater, the man who was quickly becoming aware of the fourth wall, visits Arkham Asylum to see the Psycho-Pirate, who is the sole person who remembers pre-Crisis Earth.  Oddly enough, the Mad Hatter is also aware of the fourth wall, though it's dismissed as the ramblings of a lunatic.

Characters breaking the fourth wall is fairly common by now - She-Hulk, Deadpool, and Gwenpool do it so often that it's a surprise that Marvel's fourth wall is intact.  However, it's usually played for comedy, whereas here, it's almost played for horror.

Continuity is starting to break down, as Animal Man's pre-Crisis origin story is incompatible with his post-Crisis status quo. (Pre-Crisis, he was older than he is now when he got his powers) The aliens interrupt the Hamed Ali plot to try to fix this using Animal Man's memories, though they aren't exactly reliable.

The yellow aliens are, by all appearances, stand-ins for the creative team behind the book.  When Hamed Ali tries to kill them so he can take their technology, they break him down until he's a rough sketch before he eventually disappears.

The continuity being fixed by Animal Man's memories seems to explain any inconsistencies within the series itself.  For example, I was pretty sure that B'wana Beast died in an earlier issue, but he turns up alive and well after this with a story about him passing off his mantle to a black man in apartheid-era South Africa, who chooses to go by Freedom Beast. (alternatively, I misinterpreted what happened or forgot some details)

Upon his return home, Animal Man's family (the Bakers) are haunted by what seems to be a future version of Animal Man who can't be heard by anyone else and who is trying to warn them about something involving the numbers 9 and 27. They dismiss it as ghosts and don't seem to consider the warning, which seems like it will have disastrous consequences.

Meanwhile, Highwater's dreams are haunted by visions of someone who is trying to come up with ideas, only to dismiss them as being too pretentious.  I'm pretty sure this person is the mastermind behind all of the problems that Animal Man goes through in this run, though I'm not 100% certain.

After issue 15, which involves Animal Man saving some dolphins who are being hunted for fun (and showcasing the cruelty behind the people who do that), Animal Man's wife Ellen finds out that her book's getting published, so Buddy and Ellen take a trip to France to celebrate courtesy of Justice League Europe.  Of course, they get caught up in a lot of strangeness (beyond the team itself).

An obscure Green Lantern villain called the Time Commander is causing chaos by bringing people and creatures through time in the middle of Paris.  It has mixed results - obviously, a tyrannosaurus rex rampaging through city streets and the French Revolution being brought back are going to have negative effects for the city, but a trip to the cemetery allows him to reunite people with their deceased loved ones.  Despite the Time Commander not being entirely there mentally, his defeat is played for tragedy, as the revived are abruptly ripped away from the people who miss them as soon as he's knocked out, and Animal Man can sympathize with him somewhat.

Throughout the trip, a man named Lennox is following them.  He already shot a mother and daughter for no apparent reason, and he meets up with Mirror Master to get information that he needs to try and assassinate Animal Man, as he's working for the same group that hired Mirror Master, who want Animal Man to stop helping animal rights activists.

As for Buddy, he's starting to question if he should even be Animal Man any more.  He attempted to help an animal rights group save monkeys that were being tested on, but in the process, three firemen were badly hurt trying to put out a blaze that one of his partners started.  Rather than feeling bad about it, it seems to galvanize Buddy, making him feel like he's not making enough of a difference in the world, to the concern of his family and his manager. (it doesn't help that he's gotten extremely preachy to the point where people around him are getting concerned, telling his son that the act of eating a hamburger is killing the planet and directly comparing fox hunters to Nazis on live TV)

Things don't seem to be going well for Buddy Baker, and that's before he arrives home to find James Highwater waiting for him.  Highwater is trying to reveal the horrible truth about the universe to Buddy, but mysterious forces beyond his comprehension keep trying to erase him and his evidence from existence.

Traveling to a mesa in Arizona, Buddy and Highwater take some peyote that they find there, because taking hallucinogenic drugs on top of tall rock structures is definitely a great idea.  They have no idea how they'll know if it's kicking in or not, though.

While incredibly high (both in the physical and the figurative sense), Animal Man discovers the true nature of his powers, and that (despite what he previously believed) he doesn't need to be near an animal in order to gain their powers.  This kind of reminds me of Swamp Thing meeting with the Parliament of Trees, though the nature of what Buddy's seeing becomes more questionable given how he's seeing it.

As Buddy continues to hallucinate, issue 18 ends by cutting back to his home, with the reveal of the date: September 27th, or 9/27.  Ellen answers the door to find Lennox standing out front, a nasty grin on his face and nothing good in mind.

I'm on the edge of my seat while reading this, and I want to keep going with this run, but it's getting late, and I feel like stopping at this cliffhanger will encourage me to finish the series off as soon as I can.  I have a rough idea of what happens in the final issue, but I have no clue what leads to that point, so I'm looking forward to finishing Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man and finding out.