So I've been rereading Animal Man to remind myself if I'd ever actually read the entirety of Animal Man, and it turns out I hadn't. Apparently I'd gotten about halfway through and then skipped to the end, because there were a couple of poorly-reprinted issues in the middle that were brand new to me. It was actually kind of odd to read them now. The issues focus on a weird pseudo-epilogue to Crisis on Infinite Earths, the first big continuity-focused DC crossover that took a narrative approach to...

All Buddy Baker wanted to do was use his animal powers to fight for animal rights but he had to go and be written by Grant Morrison, who's obsessed with obscure comic book characters and commentary on comic book continuity and the metafictional levels of reality. All of this might make sense if you get really high, and Animal Man does give that a shot (Morrison has incorporated/appropriated a lot of Native American shamanistic beliefs about totem animals), but then we have to address the Crisis

Morrison doesn't have a word called Simple in his dictionary. I don't like his style. In my personal opinion the whole series can be omitted.

Had read dis one previously though never clicked button. Not crazy about artwerke though ole Grant Morrison creatively subverts the genre. Deus ex Machina - God from the Machine (aka "an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel.") Spoiler : Animal Man Buddy confront the writer Grant Morrison. Although this 4th wall has a bit of hokey look at me I'm clever to it, Grant does manage to cast light on symbiotic quality o...

The ending/twist can be a real mind-fuck depending on how you look at it, but overall a very solid and thought-provoking story.

Some of the meta, meeting your author stuff was as expected, but mostly it was done creatively and actually thinking about the psychological and emotional implications of realizing you’re a creation with no free will. Cool stuff.

This is the book where the Morrison-type stuff comes together. Not only is it smart, but it's fun, too -- as much a page-turner as anything. The metafiction peaks here, but it's not as stodgy as that might sound. Reading it this far after the fact lets us see not only the obvious take on Crisis on Infinite Earths, but also some of the early ideas that would get a much bigger working in Final Crisis (and, to some extent, the sort of multi-year structuring that worked so well in, say, his run on B...

This one is a left hook to my jaw.It not only wraps up the meandering tales from before, but it, despite the soliloquy of a certain special character in the pages, has a TON to say in a very interesting way.And it's not about Animal Man. It's not even about animal rights activism. It is, however, one of the best treatments of the oft-maligned, devilishly decadent 4th-wall busting meta fictions I've ever read.That was the left hook.I won't pretend that I know all of the b, c, or d-lister characte...

No need to write a review when the book reviews itself.

Amazing. Morrison delivers an emotional story that truly reflects on the nature of comics storytelling, and the nature of mainstream super hero comics. Managing to lament the dearth or drab and “realistic” comics post-Watchmen, yet also explaining why those stories ultimately deserve to demoralize rather than inspire. I love also how Morrison talks about the tendency of modern comics writers changing fundamental aspects of characters they have no ownership of, to appeal to the slightly sadistic

I wonder if this is the longest anyone has ever taken to read a volume by GM, or all the volumes he wrote in the series for that matter. Although I somewhat enjoyed the existential abstraction of Animal Man's universe, it just didn't grab me. Of course I'm relatively knew to the whole graphic novel scene so I may not have the "time in" to fully appreciate the ground breaking nature of this run. Probably why I procrastinated so long in coming back to it. To be honest I think I jumped back in just...

Okay… So now we’ve hit the apex of weird for Morrison’s series. The man takes the concept of breaking the fourth wall and laughs at it. Writing himself right into the story and giving poor Buddy Baker some serious meta drama.When I’m recommending Animal Man to other people, I tend to recommend the first two, and suggest they don’t pick up the third trade unless they really enjoy the first pair. It’s odd, full of surreal situations and a lot of egotistical artistic back-patting. That being said,

The final issues of Mozza's Animal Man are a beautiful post-modern take on the monthly superhero comic, elevating the previously already-strong run into something classic. A highlight of Morrison's career and the superhero comic genre.

I was absolutely blown away by this last volume of Animal Man by Grant Morrison. Everything that had been written up until this point, is utilized in such a special way. It's so hard to ignore the absolute talent of Grant Morrison. When his writing makes sense, it can really be of some of the best quality writing period, let alone in graphic novels themselves. This was of graphic novel classic quality, and I see now why so many hold this high on the list of comic classics. The fourth wall isn't

WHOA!WHOA!Grant Morrison ends his run in his dramatic re-imagination of Animal Man in spectacular fashion. It was already cool but then he kicked it up a notch.And then he turned the knob to eleven!The multiverse and Crisis on Infinite Earths has long been one of the coolest aspects of the DC universe and Morrison digs deep in his bag of magic tricks and throws it all in, leaves nothing off the table in this opposite of Seinfeld – this is a comic about EVERYTHING.No kidding, this has plenty of c...

I was sad when I finished the last page of this volume (the last Grant Morrison Animal Man volume). In three volumes, Grant Morrison crafted a story about an obscure DCU superhero I had never heard of and reinvented the character, giving him, the characters surrounding him, the universe he exists in such wonderful depth that once you fall in (to the deep hole....depth?), you won't be able to get out but you won't mind, who would want to leave?I'm not a fan of Watchmen and I'm very open about it....

Ah, the days when metafiction and comics were just going on their first dates. I'm so glad this is finally collected in trade paperback. Animal Man was so much fun. The art is kind of lame early 90s bad DC house style, until the end of the book. I always cry at the end.

This final volume of Morrison's run on the Animal Man title culminates in balls out meta-fiction, which was interesting for all its implied, abstract elements of contemplation but as far as the text itself it worked as a kind of short hand for theoretical work a reader could do, you know, on his own time. Lack of intellectual rigor aside, this is a comic book, meaning it has certain responsibilities to entertainment as well as enlightenment and I thought Morrison balanced both wonderfully.I am s...

If there's one thing, one plot element, that Morrison is famous for, it's here, in the on-the-page meeting of Animal Man and Grant Morrison. Everything, it seems, was working towards that moment, when the fourth wall abruptly ceased to exist entirely. It could have been gimmicky, but Morrison managed to pair that with a storyline about characters I actually cared about and were invested in. So when Buddy looks directly off the page and into the eyes of the reader? If you're invested enough, abso...

Animal Man volume three collapses the fourth wall and the panel; Morrison uses Crises on Infinite Earth as a way to reimagine the multiverse and the relationship of characters to comic creators. Furthermore, elements from issues nine forward start to make more and more sense as the story arc is wrapped up and some of the earlier rushed stories seemed to add into something. The utter destruction of the fourth wall and the extreme meta-textuality works here because the character and plot have buil...