Animal Man, #15

**ian33407** · 12-04-2012, 10:16 AM

Originally Posted by Outside_85

Frankenstein also happens to be a fringe character at best that's only appeared sporadically since creation, so he's got to run double time to get recognition.

mmm..he had a very brillant start, again with Morrison and Mahnke, but also with Scott Kolins in his wonderful SOLOMON GRUNDY ' mini, so brillant that the DCnU' ongoing seems like a regression to me.Then we have the feeling it was more about launching the book in time for the relaunch than having a really "special plan" for him.

And IMHO the art wasn't good enough, so when you have such potential in your hands, it's also better to not do half of the things..

**Brave Sir Robbin** · 12-04-2012, 11:15 AM

Wow.I really liked that preview. The comic seems to have finally turned the corner of several months of:
"I don't want to be champion"
"you have to"
"but I don't want to, waaaaah!"
"if you don't, we will never speak to you again and let the world die, we'll show you!"
"if you do that, I'll send my mother in law over for Christmas dinner, see how you like that!"
"Jerk! Well, we are going to take your daughter, the true avatar of the red, and make her into a Justin Bieber fan!"
"Jerks! That's going to far, I'm going to go sulk."

We are going to get some good stuff: heroic teamwork, kicking butt, the heroes fighting for a higher cause...all the things I want to see between character development and the growth of the interpersonal world. It's taken a few pages but things it may be time for the heroic quest.

**Kryptonian-Blood** · 12-04-2012, 03:00 PM

I believe the problem with most of these new books is that they have all went into huge major the world could end if we dont do something delimas nearly from the start. I liked action comics letting young clark have small adventures, and Dial H for heroes giving us a couple of mini one book stories.

I started reading Animal man with the new 52 because I wanted to read about a pretty normal guy, with and underwhelming superpower. It seemed like it would be his regular life and then he would step in for things like bank robberies and other small-time stuff, and have a pretty tough time with that. Not fighting a bunch or zombies. The first comic in no way led me to believe that we would have more than a year of zombie fighting.

We barley got to see any peaceful times in Animal Mans life. its a shame. I'm afraid as soon as rotworld ends they will just have to help the red with something else.

Same problem with Dial H, I just wanted to see the fat guy dialing up his magical phonebooth and going out trying to stop bank robberies and destroy the gang that killed his friend, not this crazy inter-dimensional alien monster thing crap. I have quit reading that already and animal man isnt far off.

Are there any New 52 comics that just have a focus on the heroes normal life with a little super hero stuff here and there, but no main huge overarching mission all the time?

I'm talking something like if the focus of superman was clark kents daily struggles of secretly being an alien, with a focus on hiding the fact he's superman, and doing things like going to the daily planet and having a gift exchange. He has bought her a brand new Iphone and its all wrapped up and with everyone's presents, jimmy is starting to pass them out, he is just about to pick up clarks gift for lois, when with his superhearing, clark hears lois in the next room talking to perry, explaining that her boyfriend had gotten her an Iphone for christmas but she doesn't car for it and is probably going to keep using her android, and she really wanted to buy herself one of the new furby's like she had as a kid but they were sold out everywhere in metropolis. Clark rushes out in superspeed without anyone notices, and is going around the U.S trying to find a furby and their sold out everywhere, and eventually finds one in like England or something, rushes back switches the presents out right as jimmy is reaching for it. Obviously more detailed, and not furbies it was just the first thing that came to mind. But I mean stories like that, where the focus of the story isn't fighting some villain or saving the day, but just the more normal clark kent life.

I dont mean superman, I read his comic I know its not like that, but I mean with that human focus like I used in the example?

**Mr. Holmes** · 12-04-2012, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by Kryptonian-Blood

Same problem with Dial H, I just wanted to see the fat guy dialing up his magical phonebooth and going out trying to stop bank robberies and destroy the gang that killed his friend, not this crazy inter-dimensional alien monster thing crap. I have quit reading that already and animal man isnt far off.?

Lucky for you, DC has plenty of mediocre, generic superhero titles for you to read.

**Desaad** · 12-05-2012, 07:02 AM

Medphyll!!!

YESSSSSSS

**Outside_85** · 12-05-2012, 07:21 AM

Originally Posted by Desaad

Medphyll!!!

YESSSSSSS

Is that the guy on the last page?

**havok1977** · 12-05-2012, 07:37 AM

I'm amazed at how much people like to complain over and over about the same thing, so ok yeah it was somewhat bumpy back around issues 9 or 10 when the Bakers were on the run and Buddy was trapped inside the Red for a while, but we are hitting #15 and things have moved on a lot since then - Rotworld is in full swing, Arcane's manipulations brought on a very bleak future and it'll be interesting how Buddy and Alec will get around to undoing this mess.

I do think that zero month was a for the most part bad idea on DC's part, it broke the pace for many books and IMO it just added to people's negative opinions.

And on the art department, Travel Foreman did some great stuff in the first arc - but in my opinion only his 'disgusting' panels really worked. Normal scenes were not really all that pretty to look at and felt weird to me, perhaps it was his use of non standard points of view idk.

Originally Posted by Kryptonian-Blood

I believe the problem with most of these new books is that they have all went into huge major the world could end if we dont do something delimas nearly from the start. I liked action comics letting young clark have small adventures, and Dial H for heroes giving us a couple of mini one book stories.

I started reading Animal man with the new 52 because I wanted to read about a pretty normal guy, with and underwhelming superpower. It seemed like it would be his regular life and then he would step in for things like bank robberies and other small-time stuff, and have a pretty tough time with that. Not fighting a bunch or zombies. The first comic in no way led me to believe that we would have more than a year of zombie fighting.

We barley got to see any peaceful times in Animal Mans life. its a shame. I'm afraid as soon as rotworld ends they will just have to help the red with something else.

Same problem with Dial H, I just wanted to see the fat guy dialing up his magical phonebooth and going out trying to stop bank robberies and destroy the gang that killed his friend, not this crazy inter-dimensional alien monster thing crap. I have quit reading that already and animal man isnt far off.

Are there any New 52 comics that just have a focus on the heroes normal life with a little super hero stuff here and there, but no main huge overarching mission all the time?

I'm talking something like if the focus of superman was clark kents daily struggles of secretly being an alien, with a focus on hiding the fact he's superman, and doing things like going to the daily planet and having a gift exchange. He has bought her a brand new Iphone and its all wrapped up and with everyone's presents, jimmy is starting to pass them out, he is just about to pick up clarks gift for lois, when with his superhearing, clark hears lois in the next room talking to perry, explaining that her boyfriend had gotten her an Iphone for christmas but she doesn't car for it and is probably going to keep using her android, and she really wanted to buy herself one of the new furby's like she had as a kid but they were sold out everywhere in metropolis. Clark rushes out in superspeed without anyone notices, and is going around the U.S trying to find a furby and their sold out everywhere, and eventually finds one in like England or something, rushes back switches the presents out right as jimmy is reaching for it. Obviously more detailed, and not furbies it was just the first thing that came to mind. But I mean stories like that, where the focus of the story isn't fighting some villain or saving the day, but just the more normal clark kent life.

I dont mean superman, I read his comic I know its not like that, but I mean with that human focus like I used in the example?

Pretty much everything in this post would drive me away from buying a comic book; give me high adventure, big threats scifi/fantasy with a really heartfelt and deep human backdrop - not mundane everyday stuff. For an example of what I believe gives the best example of blending those see Fear Agent.

**Desaad** · 12-05-2012, 07:41 AM

Originally Posted by Outside_85

Is that the guy on the last page?

Yes, he's an alien Green Lantern we saw in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. James Robinson's Starman had him go evil after the destruction of the Corps, but perhaps that's no longer canon.

I LOVE the old GL lore, and he was getting mega respect here, so this is...well, it really made my day.

This was also a lot of fun, as an issue, and the best issue we've had probably since number 6 or 7.

Additionally, Pugh has really come into his own here; there were one or two panels that I swear to god were done by Totleben.

**Man-Thing** · 12-05-2012, 07:55 AM

Originally Posted by Desaad

That is what I'm guessing. His family is still being followed in the current continuity, after all, so I'm sure it has to do with looping back to what is going on there.

Ditto in Swamp Thing, where we are following Abby in current continuity and Swamp Thing in a post apocalyptic future.

If you want to really talk about the odd man out it's Frankenstein, who exists in the current continuity but is showing some sincerely and severely catastrophic damage that isn't being reflected in other books, even Swamp Thing and Animal Man's 'current' segments. Cities destroyed and shite. I'll be interested to see if all of that stuff somehow gets undone, that Frankenstein's book is operating slightly ahead of the 'current' scenes from Animal Man/ Swamp Thing.

The current issue of Justice League Dark seems to indicate that, at least for Frank, the current JLD stuff takes place before his Satan's Ring & Rotworld stuff. So "current" Frank is with off with JLD while Agent of SHADE is taking place a bit in the future but is catching up/will converge with Animal Man this month.

**Brave Sir Robbin** · 12-05-2012, 08:19 AM

As an intermittent complainer, I have to say that while the long arc fans love these books, and I stick with them, they can really test people’s patience. These aren’t Vertigo titles but DC ones so I think the fan expectations are probably different. Also, both AM and ST had healthy doses of angsty paralysis and some self loathing thrown in that got tedious in spots. Sometimes I felt like going “Arcane, just finishes these idiots off already.”

It’s tricky pulling off these long plots without turning people off at points. I bailed on Preacher for a few months when I was about ¾ of the way through because it lapsed into tedium and lost sight of the big picture. Eventually, it all came together beautifully in the end but I almost dropped it before that. It’s really tricky to keep the momentum up. I think that while the books are doing well overall, it is a very legitimate criticism to say that the plotting, especially a year long set up for the Rotworld event, made things sort of overdone.

The expectation for new fans is a monthly comic, not a run on one character that has a beginning, middle and end. That is different for fans that expect shorter stories. When you buy a book that has the premise of one story, you expect that. When you by a DC comic in the New 52 that doesn’t have that premise, you may not be braced for that.

So the fans say that some of us have tiny attention spans and or need cheese with our whines while I would say, if you are going to make a huge plot, set the expectations and PLOT IT OUT BETTER. I have read a bunch of long storied books, and I am saying the reason a lot of people are starting to complain and threaten to drop it is because it has had a long buildup that sometimes worked, sometimes was pretty bad, and it has been a long time coming.

**JSA** · 12-05-2012, 04:13 PM

A.M comic is little gory for my taste, but this crossover is amazing : Constantine, Beast Boy, Steel, Black Orchid, Animal Man , and Frankie what a team ! -Lemire is doing a better work here than JLD .
the JLD book, has potential, but that team is kinda boring.

**nosocialize100** · 12-05-2012, 05:07 PM

I'm getting so tired of the stories in here and Swamp Thing. They're not in the same universe as the regular DCU right? At least they are futures that MAY happen...aka won't. Also it feels like this story has carried on for ages.