Strange Adventures #180 (1965)
by Dave Wood & Carmine Infantino
Few superheroes have had a career as bizarre as Animal Man, so perhaps it’s appropriate that he’s not really a superhero in his first story.
One of the things that will make him stand out is his marriage to a civilian, and his very first story begins with Buddy Baker being too shy to ask his future wife to marry him.
If you’re only familiar with Buddy from his Grant Morrison series… which let’s face it is like 95% of the people aware of the character… you might be surprised to see him go hunting.
And then SUDDEN TIGER!!!
And he suddenly has the powers of a tiger!
And the strength of a gorilla!
I know DC Comics was infamous for pushing writers to use gorillas in order to sell more books, but this is getting ridiculous.
You might expect Buddy to be shaken by this whole experience, but he takes it incredibly well.
This complete lack of a reaction is almost something from the Golden Age.
C’mon Buddy, you just realized how you gained superpowers! At least be as worried as if you just lost your wallet!!!
Next, Buddy has to stop an escaped elephant by using the strength of a gorilla.
That sounds kind of ridiculous… gorillas are ridiculously strong, sure, but punching an elephant?
A quick research that gorillas are estimated to be able to bench press between 400 to 600 kg; obviously that’s not the same of a punch, but let’s use that as a comparison.
Let’s say Buddy is using the strenght of a tiger on top of the gorilla’s.
This was a bit harder to research, but tigers can either drag or carry prey that weighs between 450 and 550).
So by using this incredibly scientific method, let’s assume that by combining the strenght of those animals Buddy can lift between 850 kg to 1,150 kg (1,873 to 2,535 pounds).
Depending on the exact species, an elephant can weight anywhere from 2,000 to 6,300 kg (4,409 to 13,889 pounds).
If Buddy has the strenght of the strongest gorilla and the strongest tiger, he could potentially lift a little more than half of the smallest elephant or a little less than a fifth of the largest elephant.
So yeah, while Buddy definitely couldn’t LIFT an elephant, I can see he could potentially knock one out.
And that was EVEN MORE pointless, because immediately afterwards he absorbs the strength of the elephant anyway.
Okay I could potentially see the tiger attacking Buddy, especially if hungry, and both the gorilla and the elephant were minding their own business before the humans bothered them.
But why is the sea lion randomly attacking a raft!?
Also, sea lions CAN move on land, even achieving 24 kmh / 14 mph for very brief bursts, so while I have no clue why it’s attacking the raft, the sea lion COULD have escaped into the lake!
What, there wasn’t a fish around to absorb its ability to survive underwater?
And now, ladies and gentlemen, is when the story turns absolutely bonkers.
Yes.
NOW.
You guys “stood there gaping at the thing” while it’s destroying the place!?
Sounds legit.
Too bad that the alien is stronger than any animal…
…because of course it also absorbed animal powers! Buddy, you got your powers from HIS ship, you really should’ve seen this coming.
The alien gets no dialogue, but I really want to know what he was thinking here.
Heck we can read Buddy’s thought and I still have no idea why he thought this was a good idea!
Bad news: Buddy’s powers were only temporary.
Good news: this story runs on “Murder She Wrote” logic, so all Buddy needs to solve the mystery is hear one word tangentially connected to the actual solution.
So Buddy lures the alien by borrowing a fire truck…
… to confront him with his weakness.
Mice.
For a moment I thought that this was due to the alien absorbing the elephant fear of mice (which is just a myth by the way)… but nope, he absorbed the fear of a mice.
Whatever that means.
Causing the death of a creature that he knews very little about gave Buddy the courage to propose.
Historical significance: 1/10
Animal Man’s origin is almost an afterthought for the character. The origin will be revisited by Grant Morrison in Secreto Origins vol2 #39 in 1989: it includes a panel-by-panel retelling, but it also adds aliens commentating on the absurdity of it all.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
I can’t stress enough how unimpressed Buddy is with gaining superpowers and fighting an alien.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
It’s not a TERRIBLE story, mind you, but the conventions of the time mean you can’t really tell the story today without adding a ton of stuff over it.
Buddy has no personality, the alien has no motivation, and the resolution is rushed.
It’s clear that this was intended as a one-and-done anthology story like SO many others of the era.
How close is this to the modern character? 0/10
If you’re familiar with the Morrison run, you might have been surprised by the alien: he doesn’t look at all like the ones Animal Man interacts there!
That’s because the yellow aliens are from the SECOND Animal Man story, four issues later.
Now that his powers are permanent, Buddy decides to become a superhero in his third story, Adventure Comics #190.
Although he initially takes the name A-Man.
He only has two other Strange Adventures stories, #195 and #201, when he’s finally Animal Man.
And #201 has the only true supervillain in Animal Man’s rogues gallery, by the way: “Mod Gorilla Boss”.
Not to be confused with the Batman villain “Gorilla Boss”, they are two completely separate characters.
Buddy STILL hasn’t married, by the way, and he’s STILL trying to make “A-Man” a thing.
That was a 1967 story: Animal Man wouldn’t return until 1980, on Wonder Woman of all places, written by Gerry Conway.
Even this makes fun of his obscurity.
But it does hint at something more substantial than his status as a minor gimmick hero.
So now you can probably understand why in 1984 Animal Man joined the Forgotten Heroes.
A team you might recognize from their brief appearance on Crisis On Infinite Earths and by just how many times I’ve had to say “and we never saw him anywhere until he joined the Forgotten Heroes”.
And Animal Man would definitely have remained a footnote, much like fellow Forgotten Hero Cave Carson, if it wasn’t for the 1988 Grant Morrison series.
Not only by this point he’s married, but he’s had a couple of kids.
Morrison wrote the first 26 issues of the series, and I regard the final storyline… where Animal Man deals with the existentialism of both learning about Crisis and the knowledge that he is a fictional character, including meeting his own writer… to still be the best thing Morrison has ever written.
That was high profile enough to make Animal Man join the Justice League, but I share Buddy’s opinion on his membership.
In particular, I cannot recommend issues 24 to 26 enough.
In later years Morrison tends to go overboard with the metatext, but I’ve always found his speech in issue #26 on how fictional characters can be considered to be more real than actual people to be shockingly profound.
Although to be honest, a lot of the earlier issues can be a bit hard to swallow… Morrison goes very hard on animal rights and can be unbearably preachy. Something that even Morrison recognized.
The Morrison run is SO influential that most people forget that the series actually continued, by Peter Milligan (6 issues), Tom Veich (18 issues) and Jamie Delano (29 issues). During the Delano run, the series moved to the Vertigo imprint “for mature readers”, lasting until #89 (with a brief run by Jerry Prosser) in 1995.
If you thought that Morrison took the character in weird and esoteric places, that was nothing compared to what followed. And I haven’t even read the Vertigo issues, which from my understanding are on a whole other level of weirdness.
The Delano run in particular introduced an explanation for Animal Man’s powers: The Red, the metaphysical connection between all animal forms.
Well to be precise Delano codified and named The Red: the concept had already been introduced by Morrison, when it was called the “morphogenic field”.
That’s the parallel of The Green, the connection with all vegetation that Swamp Thing controls.
Not to be confused with The Headache which is what is caused by trying to take any of this seriously instead of just going along for the ride.
Animal Man continued to appear here and there, including having a relatively sizeable role in the “52” series in 2007.
Where he went REALLY overboard with his powers, even absorbing the abilities of a Sun-Eater.
That was followed in 2011 by a new series that eventually lasted 29 issues. I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard it’s good.
That’s the series where his daughter Maxine became Animal Girl, after inheriting her father’s powers (actually even stronger, since she’s become basically an avatar of The Red).
Not surprising at all considering all the weird stuff that happened to her in the original series.
Good thing her older brother didn’t get powers… after that series, you cannot convince me Cliff won’t grow up to be a serial killer.
No wonder that Animal Man took so long to find a sweet spot, as his power can be quite lame.
I mean would rather see a guy fly like any other superhero because he says he copied a bird, or would you rather see Beast Boy transform into a green bird?
Being in the same universe of Beast Boy AND of Vixen (who basically has the same power) really screwed him over.
What makes Animal Man unique is that you can use him as the family man superhero, you can use him for a hero with a very basic but versatile power… or you can use him for what has become his specialty: animal-themed acid trips.
But can we PLEASE stop killing him?
Honestly, he’s did like SO many times at this point he might as well be the Jean Grey of DC Comics.
I don’t think Animal Man will ever reach the amount of almost popularity he had with original series. I’m happy that he found his niche, but even after the Morrison run the rest of his series was way too metaphysical for my tastes.
But I understand why writers go back to hi most bonkers history… that’s by far his most interesting side.
