Good Restart For New Readers
I know I have made it clear I am over the super hero genre and Marvel and DC but with the latter trying desperately not to fall I decided to give it a shot with their relaunch. I was wanting to steer away from the super heros so I was tossing up between Swamp Thing and Animal Man as I had decided I was only going to pick one title to spend my money on because honestly I wasn't giving it much hope. So I knew a bit about Swamp Thing and nothing of Animal Man and a mate of mine had said AM looked like it was going to be DC's sleeper hit, so I opted for him.
The issue starts with a page looking from a magazine and it is a fictional interview with the character Buddy Baker (Animal Man) and this little piece gives a great crash course into the history of Buddy, so that makes it a great jump-on point for new readers (like me). So the story continues on in showing that Buddy has become down with life because he barely plays hero anymore for his family's sake but later with an emergency he dons the costume and goes flying. Buddy narrates his powers, which are that he can tap into a force and take on traits of any animal. Towards the end he has a trippy dream in this life force (The Red) and then finishing with his daughter doing something strange.
Jeff Lemire wrote this issue. As a completely new reader to this character I found that Lemire did a good job at giving this character a reset. Without giving everything away he had enough explained to get to speed with AM which worked well in making sure the story didn't start slow and be a bore (which is a risk with an #1). He has drawn me into what could possibly be a very weird world revolving around a strange creation and so I have decided I am going to continue this series, for now. Seeing his take on this does make me wanna check out his other creation Sweet Tooth.
Mr Travel Foreman was the artist for this issue. At times the art looks quite nice and effective but at other times it just looks weird (mainly to do with a person's face up close). This is most obvious when Buddy is talking to a deranged man holding a hostage. It looks quite awkward. His coolest page is when these three weird amalgamated animals confront him (apparently these are The Hunters Three). They are made up of the most random parts of animals and if I had these in my dream it would creep me out thats for sure.
I am quite impressed with this issue and as I said before I am going to continue this series and I hope that it only gets better with each issue. Who knows, I may have found a new series to collect. So if you are still contemplating what new DC 52 you should pick up then I definitely recommend this one.
originally posted on my blog
www.comikkazee.com
