Post-Morrison Animal Man

[CaptainAwesome]

For Christmas I got Animal Man Vol.'s 1-3 and I have to say I think they are a lot of fun. I'm about half-way through the second trade amd I am loving it so far. Anyway, I found out today that the series doesnt end after the third trade and I was wondering how good it was. I had always thought that it was all collected in those three trades, but I guess that was only Morrison's run. Was the rest of the series any good, or was it just a bunch of malarkey? I understand that after Morrison, most things would pale in comparison, but is it worth checking out? Thanks for the info.

[Apathy Boy]

The six issues after Morrison's run were written by Peter Milligan, and they're fabulous. On par with the Morrison issues, in my opinion, though it reads more like Morrison's DOOM PATROL than Morrison's ANIMAL MAN.

I'm currently trying to pick up the rest of the run, even though I've heard it ranges from decent to awful. From what I've read so far, the Jamie Delano issues seem to be pretty good, but quite drastically different from the Morrison stuff (e.g. don't expect to see costumes or superheroics).

[FanboyStranger]

For Christmas I got Animal Man Vol.'s 1-3 and I have to say I think they are a lot of fun. I'm about half-way through the second trade amd I am loving it so far. Anyway, I found out today that the series doesnt end after the third trade and I was wondering how good it was. I had always thought that it was all collected in those three trades, but I guess that was only Morrison's run. Was the rest of the series any good, or was it just a bunch of malarkey? I understand that after Morrison, most things would pale in comparison, but is it worth checking out? Thanks for the info.

Milligan's "Schrodinger's Pizza" arc is excellent reality hopping stuff with a lot of offbeat characters. Defintiely recommended.

Tom Veitch's run is very uneven, and while he did work towards a huge epic for Buddy, it failed in its conclusion. Definitely a down grade from Morrison/Milligan. There are some nice issues, though, particularly towards the beginning of the run, and the Penalizer stuff was a pretty solid parody. In the end, however, it started the "mid-life crisis" Buddy that sucked a lot of fun out of the book, and the strong family unit that fueled Morrison's run was pulled apart.

Delano's run was more of the same. Buddy's family was essentially torn apart, and the book became far more political and horrific. The first arc with Cliff and Uncle Dudley is pretty good, although with a far different tone than the Animal Man that preceded it, and I believe it introduced the concept of "The Red" as sort of an animal kingdom collorary to Swamp Thing's "Green". But, like I said, the tone of the book changed drastically, and Animal Man became very dark, with Buddy himself turning more and more into a sort of Animal Messiah. It's not bad, per se, but it's not really Animal Man. There are some good artists on the book, however, in Steve Pugh and Russ Braun.

Avoid Jerry Prosser's run. It's altogether poor.

All in all, I would say hunt down the Milligan issues, but only pick up Veitch's and Delano's respective runs if you found them in a bargain bin or a great bulk deal on eBay or something.

[stealthwise]

The six issues after Morrison's run were written by Peter Milligan, and they're fabulous. On par with the Morrison issues, in my opinion, though it reads more like Morrison's DOOM PATROL than Morrison's ANIMAL MAN.

Thanks for the warning, DOOM PATROL read like shite to me. I've been toying with the idea of reading Milligan's ANIMAL MAN, but I didn't really dig his SHADE series, and haven't been able to get into any of his writing, except for his X-STATIX issues.

[diablo7]

i liked morrison's doompatrol, and i thought shade was great(i'm still getting back issues to finish it off, even those crappy collen doran drawn issues)...i've been meaning to get animalman...