Animal Man (1988-1995) Vol. 2: Origin of the Species Kindle & comiXology

This is a solid volume, and Grant Morrison's experimental/metatextual style is much more prevalent in this second collection. As with the first volume, I enjoyed this quite a bit, but still think it skews much more heavily toward focusing on Morrison and his experimentation with the genre rather than on the titular Animal Man and really developing him. I would have given it 4 stars but there were not any hard-hitting memorable issues like there were in Volume 1, and the animal activist storyline for Buddy felt forced and preachy (something Morrison himself apologizes for in the next volume). Still a good run, but just an okay middle chapter in between slightly better volumes.

The second Volume of animal man is even better than the first. After reading through these issues, I no longer have to wonder how this became such an influential and acclaimed series.This volume is divided into two sections. The first half is one long arc, where the meta-fiction is extremely ramped up, and Buddy finally gets his powers back under control. The second is a series of stand-alone issues that show the superhero side of animal, dealing with villains of the super and not super variety.The big problem with Vol. 1 was the cross-over dominated the back half of the story, and wasn't explained in nearly enough detail. That issue disappears here, and you don't need to know about everything going on in the DC universe to understand the plot. I look forward to the final volume for Morrison.

Morrison's plots start paying off and building on each other. A more consistent volume than the Volume One, where Coyote Gospel particularly stood out but the other stories felt rushed. The political commentary in the context of South Africa is interesting, the plots involving the overlay of the original Animal Man with his more modern 1980s counter-part and the alien intervention to fix the problem is also particularly interesting. Animal Man's concerns for animal rights causes becomes more pronounced as does his involvement with more fringe elements of that moment, but this plot line did not feel as fleshed out as one would hope. This comic is still strong now, and one can feel Morrison start to really strain the forth wall a bit. It is nice that DC finally released the entire DC mature/Vertigo run of pre-New 52 Animal Man.

As the second volume of Grant Morrison's existencial Animal Man trilogy, Origin of the Species is just that as Buddy Baker, AKA the Animal Man, learns some very interesting, and confusing, details of his origin. This happens as Animal Man teams up with Vixen on a trip to Africa and has a run in with some mysterious aliens, and soon enough Buddy begins to learn the true nature of his existence, but it's nowhere near as jaw dropping as what happens next. Buddy also has another meeting with B'wanna Beast, and the mysterious Highwater as well, who knows more than he's letting on. As a middle volume, Origin of the Species feels disjointed and the issues don't always connect with each other, but there is a reason for this, and it's all thanks to highly creative and possibly slightly deranged writer Grant Morrison. The art is relatively the same as before, so it's either take it or leave it depending on how you feel about it. By the time you reach the final page, you'll be stunned, shocked, and possibly scratching your head (if you've never read any of the books or heard anything about them that is), but make no mistake that what happens next solidifies the classic status of Morrison's take on Animal Man.

Read this out of respect to someone who raved about how good it was. Hard to follow sometimes, and the one dimenional war on whaling, meat eating, environment, kind of trite. But unique in some good ways.

How do you turn graphic novels on their side? Send in Animal Man and enjoy the ride.

I'm a huge fan of Morrison's surreal work in Doom Patrol, and his take on the JLA injected new life into a series that had been meandering aimlessly for fifteen years or so. I bought the three Animal Man volumes as part of an attempt to fill out my collection.I hate to say it, but this run on Animal Man is just clumsy stuff. Out of the three volumes, this is the one that most disappointed me with its ponderous detours into social issues, namely apartheid and dolphin-hunting. The problem here is that there's no subtlety in his presentation. Instead of approaching these topics with sincerity, we get straw men designed to evoke cheap outrage. Sneering, mouth-breathing thugs gloat about how much they enjoy doing bad things to good people and harmless, cuddly animals. Think along the lines of a Captain Planet villain like Hog Greedly. With utmost satisfaction they perform apectacles like stabbing a dolphin repeatedly, just to rub in the hero's face that everyone who might consider hunting an animal for any reason is a sadist and psychopath. And then Animal Man slugs the bad guy and walks away frustrated at how this failed to solve anything in the long run.It would be far more engrossing to read about how real human beings--people who have families, who think they're raising their kids right--can be corrupted and find themselves complicit in a vile practice. Such an approach provides understanding and the potential for solutions rather than just the easy path of indignation.Whoops, almost forgot. There's also some cosmic stuff with yelllow-skinned, big-headed aliens. This subplot is Morrison's way of taking Animal Man into the realm of metafiction, going off an a self-referencing tangent about superhero comics. It's enjoyable enough, but I thought it telegraphed where it was going pretty heavily.

Great character written by a great writer. Grant Morrison's early work shows you exactly how great he'll be writing the big characters.

Everything was superb, from shipping to reading it.

This review is not fair because I think morrison is one of the master authors of this era. This early work is quite hard to read (mainly because is... well... old) but despite this, the story is really enjoyable and sensitive.