1. A Brief Warning
Spoilers! Spoilers!
2. Angst Is Not An Inevitable & Lasting Byproduct Of Conflict It's really not difficult to spot who's supposed to be the hero in your everyday cape'n'booties comic book. They're the ones with;
- the attention-seeking, merchandising-friendly costume
- the super-powers which turn the fight against whatever evil has dropped in this month
- the greatest measure of angst
Stan Lee's decision to give every one of his superheroes a hang-up of some kind, from a dodgy heart to a dead sidekick, has over the years undergone conceptual inflation until a hero isn't a hero unless they're permanently, cosmically miserable. If I shut my eyes, I can easily picture some great metropolitan skyline where each towering building has a superhero perched on top of it straining to howl "Woe, woe, woe is me!!" louder than the bellowing choir of bemuscled miseries around them. And this choir of broken, self-contradictory and permanently emotionally crippled "super-heroic" characters tell us nothing about despair, or depression, or the even darker spectrum of misery which lurks out there for any of us to endure. Nope, these epic indulgences of self-pity and story-telling short-cutting are just there to increase the supposedly tension-breaking moment when the Thing hits Dr Doom really hard and the misery can stop until the next panel.
What does mental health treatment constitute for the super-powered hordes of the cape'n'booties Universes? It strikes me that it can't be anything other than an hour or two on a Japanese Whack-A-Mole arcade game, because that seems to be the only way any superhero ever experiences a significant measure of validation or closure: by hitting something.
So "huzzah!" for Gerry Conway, who's written 132 pages where the only angst on show is a logical byproduct of everyday human existence, Even more heretically, that angst can be recognised, reflected upon and resolved. Does Buddy Baker come to terms with the fact that he can't be Animal Man anymore? He does. Do his children Maxine and Cliff overcome the fact that Buddy was often absent slugging bad folks when they were growing up? They do. (Their lives may not be perfect, and their pasts certainly weren't, but they've made their own sense of their experiences and they're taking responsibility for their own decisions now. The lack of self-pity on their part is so untypical that it's quite revolutionary.) Did Ellen build a new career and do her best to support Buddy while he was lost in his Aplha-Male denial? She did.
For there isn't a single panel of this comic book which isn't solely focused on the necessity for the individual to learn to take responsibility for both their own life and for the welfare of their own community. The narrative of "TLDOAM" doesn't digress and it never dithers: it's all concerned with being "true" to your own "bliss" - horrible phrase, I readily accept - while contributing to that of others. And here the "heroes", if we can even call them that, are ordinary people, those strange and typically uninteresting characters who usually hang around waiting for walls to fall on them or for tidal waves to sweep them away, or, at the very least, to complicate our heroes' lives by increasing the level of angst-osity they're subject to.
But what we find here, well; it's such a relief.
Nobody is "special" in "TLDOAM"; there's just human beings working for a good cause, or human beings
trying to work for a good cause, and two self-obsessed super-villains whose actions are so contrary to the theme of the tale that we just know they're going to get theirs. (And a fine Black -Plaguey sort of getting-theirs it is too.) But, refreshingly, simply wearing a costume and flying through the air on its' own doesn't complete the job-description of "human being", let alone that of "superhero". Huzzah!
3. The Big Whale GL Whose Story Isn't This Story
I. It's one thing to have the idea of a really big whale wheeling across the page dressed as a Green Lantern. It's another thing to actually draw that very big flying whale. And though there's not currently a great deal of competition in this field, I wouldn't want to be the next artist after Chris Batista stepping into the flying superhero Whale business. And that's because there's some very specific storytelling problems associated with having two quite different scales of focus in a single comic-book panel. Imagine getting the script for the panel above. Mr Batista has to show two very different events in the same panel. Firstly, he has to show the Whale GL rescue Animal Man, and he has to do it without diminishing the grandeur of the Green Lantern or compressing to an unrecognisable degree Buddy Baker and his situation. Then, far below, the script demands that we clearly perceive the conscienceless Bloodrush engaging a gaggle of prison guards. And there's no way to cheat on the flying whale front, because (1) that's the money shot here, and (2) just showing a piece of the whale isn't even likely to tell us it's a whale, let alone make us laugh with the sheer rush of the bravado story-telling riffing off the amusing concept. It really is all or nothing. I can't imagine that anybody won't recognise what a fine job Mr Batista has done in the above panel, or, indeed, through this book.
II. And thankfully, in story-terms, the Green Lantern flying whale is allowed to remain what it is; a fantastic idea whose main purpose, beyond the golly-gee-wowisms, is to provide the audience with a sense that this is a world where time has past. The four human Green Lanterns of 2010's Earth are gone and there's a whale doing their job: story plot-point cleverly dumped. We get that it's the future, and yet what a sheer relief it is that the story isn't pulled away from it's theme and its narrative just to fill in the fanboy details. We don't need to know how the whale came to be a big flying whale, and so we aren't told. And this untypical restraint allows, for example, the "League Of Titans" to appear without us having to be told, in continuity-deep and continuity-ignorable depth, why Batman isn't in the League and Nightwing is, or why that new Flash is black and blunt rather than white and bumptious, or white and revered. Because it doesn't matter. The story matters. These are the background characters, they're facilitators for the main event, and we don't need to know. Huzzah!
Somebody else can create a "mythos" for our intergalactic whale. And they can come up with his long-lost one-finned and beautiful mate, his crippling inability to sing underwater and all the angst he'll need to really fail to engage an audience on that fundamental level where a big whiner registers spectacularly highly on the "I'm not enjoying this at all" scale.
4. The One In The Gym Where We Discover Who's The Grown-Up
My favorite page of comic book story-telling in a very long time appears in the third chapter of "TLDOAM. (It's the next scan you'll come across as you scroll down this blog.) It's a brilliant fusion of script and art and I'd love to know how much of this was Mr Conway and how much Mr Batista, though in truth, it doesn't matter a jot; "just" pulling off the excellence of the execution of this page would be a feather in Mr Batista's cap even if the composition had been outlined in detail and laid out in a storyboard by Mr Conway beforehand. And it's the mass of detail and how elegantly it's delivered through the fusion of words and pictures which delights so. Consider, if you would;
- the elegance of the rarely-used eight panel page, which allows the awkwardness of Buddy's meeting with Maxine to be accentuated, which slows down time and also permits the space for some considerable measure of dialogue to be presented there.
- how the young woman sitting on the stands watching the game in panel one, who seems incidental to the drama of the page, is revealed on a second reading to be intimately connected with what's going on, and how all of that is conveyed without words until she takes a protective and supportive position next to Maxine.
- the beautifully-telling body language of the discussion, how Maxine is calm and deliberate and Buddy defensive and awkward. (Maxine of course has come to terms with Buddy's lack of parenting skills, even if that coming to terms hasn't left her as the young woman Buddy thinks he wishes she could be. This is a comic book about being a grown-up, after all, and Maxine is as much her own creation, if not considerably more, than she is Buddy's.)
- how the angle of view in panel 7 quickly shifts, as we are taken behind Buddy's shoulder to grasp how he feels as his daughter walks away with her partner, and then the marvellous subtlety of Mr Batista's rendition of Maxine's almost-pitying expression as she delivers in panel 8 what would have otherwise been an even more shattering final note to the conversation. Maxine's strength and common-sense adjustment to less than perfect circumstances would've been swallowed up in anger and angst in the hands of a less-careful artist, but here her words seem less bitter and cruel and more wistful and yet matter-of-fact.
It really is lovely work, and should have been far more highly praised and granted a far higher profile. It may be that the decision to deliberately front-load each chapter - except for the first - with fan-catching comic book scenarios, and to end each chapter with, again, fanboy-audience cliffhangers worked against the recognition of the book for what it is. Because there's a sense that much of the more-traditional superhero fare has been placed where it'll grab casual readers, and that the story-pages between the two money-shot sections of each issue is therefore quieter, less dramatic, and almost belongs to a different comic entirely. And though, for example, Mr Batista draws a splendidly forceful first page of chapter 6, where Buddy's face is being hit by a very large drawing of Bloodrush's right fist, and though the full page conclusion of chapter 2 with the League Of Titans is a well-executed superhero group shot, it's actually the less-intense scenes, and the more quiet and personal shots, that Mr Batista excels the most in. An artist on a superhero book who can't draw 7 superheroes presenting themselves to the reader in an entertaining fashion isn't fit for minimum purpose, but an able artist such as Mr Batista who can take a relatively small panel and make something thrilling out of a throwaway shot of three costumes racing to the rescue, as shown below, is a more precious talent.
(There
is a problem with that structural choice to so front-and-back load the comic book. It leaves the middle pages often feeling slow by comparison, and I kept thinking of a sandwich where a slice of bread has been coated on each side by some very tasty ingredients. It would almost be an sandwich, and it would all be, I'm sure, very edible and tasty, but the composition wouldn't be, shall we say, quite right.)
5. An End To The Valhalla Syndrome?
With a few notable exceptions, superhero deaths have always been terribly melodramatic and often strangely futile. There's something so saturated with hyper-angst about the character who insists on going down with their boots on and their wrist-projectors pumping out energy-blasts, especially if it's the hundredth cape this year to be popping off to the other side for a temporary stay. For every Captain Marvel, dying in bed from cancer surrounded by the alien allies who have become his family, there are a host of last-ditch, hold 'em off at the pass impossible stands which have often felt very wrong to me. So, whereas the Executioner atoning for his sins by holding off Hela's army of the dead in Water Simonson's "Thor" felt appropriate, because it grew out of the narrative and naturally closed a character's journey, so many superhero deaths feel indulgent, manipulative, thrown in to add gratuitous levels of jeopardy to unremarkable stories which otherwise wouldn't synthetically carry enough weight to earn a second reading. So, it's often as if
this character and
that character have to die because the writers have decided that a bit'o'death will work like the final drum roll just before the closing chorus, ratcheting up the momentum before the grand finale, and not because there was no other future for the hero at all.
But the "death" of Animal Man is a challenge to all of these exploitative narratives, and that's all the more welcome because there don't seem to be many other Big Two superhero books which are taking on the shallow-effect climaxes of dying universes and self-sacrificing "heroes". Because although Buddy could've gone down in one last punch-up, that has all been done. We've seen it happen, and we also know it doesn't last. The Flash will return from the Anti-Monitor's beams, the Batman will survive Superman's battering and lead the revolution. And where cheap effect is futile and counter-productive and yet constantly put to use, it needs to be deconstructed and undermined, and, obviously, that's what's happening here. It's thoroughly enjoyable to watch how Mr Conway plays with his readers, allowing the possibility of Animal Man's death to stay in the options for narrative closure, while the themes of the story declare with absolute authority that Buddy isn't going to die here. He's going to have to be far more brave than that.
6. That Bloody Heroes Journey, That Damn Kubler-Ross Model
If there's two models of story-telling that I had no interest in ever catching sight of again, they would be the Heroes Journey, and all its' bastard Vogler-esque children, and the Kubler-Ross model of the progression of grief. So full marks and a throwing of hats in the air to note that Mr Conway has applied both with such considerable control that it would take a curmudgeon to object to their use, particularly when they've been used as a structure to nail the theme that the real challenge of life is how to live it well rather than how to "nobly" throw it away. And this
is, no matter how obvious and commonplace, a necessary corrective to a medium which in its' obsessively adolescent-worldview celebrates physical potency and denigrates anything to do with its' decline. (Heroes are young, villains are old. Heroes are hirsute, villains are bald. Heroes are either young
and wise or quickly learn wisdom while young, the old, such as the Guardians of the Universe, are scared and forgetful.) In a medium where Reed Richards marks the onset of old age, and where even the old superheroes in "Watchmen" were only there to be riven with regret and murdered by criminals or their old teammates, Mr Conway is radical in suggesting that life may not only extend beyond the menopause and the end of naturally-occurring hour-long hard-ons, but that it may even be more productive and more satisfying than before.
A middle-aged person who's lost their powers and who isn't immediately senile, lost to an ill-defined and meaningless suburban domestic stupor, or a victim of disease or crime? Oh,
please. Men and women can fly and that's easy to swallow, but growing old and death are pretty much the same horrible thing, aren't they? Better to get ripped apart limb-from-limb by Superboy-Prime in a fight in which you have no chance of winning and no business engaging in than getting
old.
Well, "
Huzzah" to Mr Conway for having nothing to do with that rubbish.
7. The Relentless Application Of Theme And StructureThere is something about the relentless application of theme and structure to "TLDOAM" that left me smiling even as I knew that there were elements of the story I didn't enjoy. For example, there
was a sense of ill-disguised inevitably about the stories' progression and conclusion, though that was cleverly subverted in part in chapters 5 and 6 by the shifting of scenes of time and place during Buddy's last confrontation, where we're introduced to Buddy's final weapon of choice and then to his survival before we're told how he saved the day and himself too. There was also a sense in which Maxine and Cliff and their relationship with Buddy were unresolved, because we went straight from seeing how their lives had been affected by his decisions, and their sense of those decisions, to seeing them function as an Animal Man cheering section. Bloodrush was, I know, a deliberately Image-like stereotypical villain, chosen perhaps to appeal to the modern audience while acting out the theme of necessary responsibility, but he was too close to the unremarkably familiar for my taste. I also worry about Ellen's role in the tale, where she does come off as more of a facilitator for Buddy's development than a woman in her own right. And the lack of representations of people of colour and non-majority culture ethnicity disappointed me too: the future of 2020 seemed awfully middle-class and white and clean, though it's heartening to note that at least Mr Conway and Mr Batista think we might make it through another ten years with our laundry facilties intact.
So I don't want you to mistake what I'm saying for unqualified praise.
And yet, all those qualifications didn't matter in the end. The structure of the story was so taut, the absence of unrelated and irrelevant digressions so noticeable, the emotional and intellectual power of the moral so decent and pleasing, that whatever quibbles I had dissolved into a great big toothy smile. This is a story which has a directed momentum and logic all of it's own. If the reader is expecting a typical superhero story, then I could imagine a sense of frustration and disappointment and then even more frustration emerging, because it's as much an anti-superhero narrative as it is a genuingly traditional tale, which it is too. But I don't mind being manipulated by such a control of craft into finding myself - almost against my will - smiling. That's what storytelling is. A great big lie that can completely subvert and defeat conscious objections. And whatever my objections, by the time Buddy is clear through the fire and clocking on in his new job, I was
smiling.
It's an ultimately feel-good comic about how to ultimately feel good.
8. Saying Goodbye To Our Man Buddy
I. There was a great deal more from Mr Conway and Mr Batista that I could've plastered up here to be admired. I had every intention of discussing the chilling scene of what happened when Prismatik encountered her lost father in a "mirror" dimension, for example, and Brian Bolland's typically peerless covers. But then I had the little sense to recall that these pieces aren't supposed to replace the reading of the text, of course, but to encourage it. And the truth is, that anything else I added would only act to underline the points I've made above, which is that this is a book worth tracking down and indulging yourself in. It may be that it's another piece of evidence that the superhero comic-book marketplace can't accommodate narratives that reflect a world view of anybody older than about 14, but I'd rather see it as another subtly inspiring blow against the Empire. If enough of these quietly conventional-and-yet-unconventional superhero books can slip out into the marketplace, there's perhaps a tiny hope that some kind of critical mass might eventually be achieved. A niche market within a niche market? Superheroes for folks too jaded for traditional superhero fare, and yet too conservative to want to break from the genre completely?
That's me, then.
For this isn't a masterpiece, and I wouldn't want to sell it to you as such. There are strains and contradictions between the theme and the expectations we may bring despite ourselves to superhero tales. There are moments of quiet beauty which sit uneasily with big-time superhero smackdowns, and if Plasmatik is a gem of a new villain whom somebody needs to transport back to the present DC Universe now, then Bloodrage is best left crippled with plague in 2024. But it is without doubt a splendid example of craft and care, a noble and in-part successful attempt to square the circle of what to do with these perpetually adolescent musclemen and women, and I was glad to read it.
II. The very last page of "TLDOAM" is a splash of Buddy Baker alone in the morning on the floating base of the League Of Titans off the shore of Ellis Island. It's a well-executed piece. There's nothing of the super-heroic about it, although Buddy is obviously the hero of the shot. (It's clever of Mr Conway and Mr Batista to avoid showing Buddy with any of the active superheroes who serve in the base. That would create a sense that he's there to serve them, because a superhero always unbalances a narrative in their direction, whereas Buddy's quiet early morning of coffee and reflection on his own shows us that he's working for his own bliss as much as for the needs of others.) The rebuilt Twin Towers reflect the early morning sunlight, the waters are calm, and Buddy tells us how
"Life is a choice. I choose to live."And yet I prefer the preceding panel, which you'll find above, where Buddy is just leaving the interior of the LOT building. As is typical in this book, the big moments are perfectly competent, but the smaller ones are often more revealing and charming. I love here how Mr Batista has Buddy's hair catch the breeze, and how we see his middle-aged neck and the hint that one day our man Baker will have a fair double chin. He seems very real to me in that panel, and I'm glad that he isn't dead yet, even in that far-off, impossible-to-believe-it's-out-there-somewhere 2024.
Not dead yet, though one day, of course, just like the rest of us, he will be.
But not yet.
I read "TLDOAM" because Mart of the "TooDangerousForAGirl" site advised me to. You can find the link to his blog to your right, in the "Comic Book Role Of Honour UK" section. If you like your reviews erudite and unpretentious, two enviable skills, then I'd advise you to pop over anytime about now. And thank you for reading. I hope you have a fine day, and let me know how you yourself have found "The Last Days Of Animal Man", or indeed anything in this piece; I would love to know.
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