 Animal Man first appeared in Strange Adventures #180 (cover-dated
September 1965) in a story entitled "I Am the Man with Animal Powers!" There, Buddy Baker,
while hunting, was caught in the blast as an alien spaceship exploded. Reviving, he found that
he had the power to duplicate the abilities of any animal near him. For example, he could
acquire the ability to fly from a bird (despite not having wings). His first foes were the
very aliens who had inadvertantly created him.
Nicknamed "A-Man," Animal Man was a recurring feature in Strange
Adventures for some time. Perhaps most memorably, in Strange Adventures #201
(cover-dated June 1967), he fought Mod Gorilla Boss, a talking gorilla in a zoot suit.
When "A-Man" lapsed as a feature in Strange Adventures, he entered comic book limbo.
And he would stay there throughout the 1970s. Seriously, a decade.
Everyone, it seemed, had forgotten this obscure character.
That is until Animal Man resurfaced in
Wonder Woman (first series) #267
(cover-dated May 1980), the beginning of a two-parter. Animal Man would return again in the
pages of Action Comics; this time, however, he would appear along with other forgotten
heroes who would team together. This team, christened The Forgotten Heroes, also included the
Immortal Man (the team leader who reincarnated again and again after dying -- again and again
-- in his battles), Rip Hunter (the time-travelling scientist), Rick Flagg (the former Suicide
Squad leader), Dane Dorrance (the former leader of the Sea Devils, an undersea team of scuba
men), Congorilla (Congo Bill, a mercenary whose mind had been magically transferred into the
body of a gorilla), Cave Carson (a spelunker), and Dolphin (a water-breathing heroine). After
four appearances in Action Comics, the team appeared in DC Comics Presents
#77-78 (cover-dated January and February 1985). The team battled foes such as Vandal Savage
and their opposite number, The Forgotten Villains. They also appeared in
Crisis on Infinite Earths,
but seemed to have no place in DC's revised post-Crisis continuity and new focus.
Animal Man next appeared in his own ongoing series. How could he go from
such obscurity to his own ongoing? Well... DC, following the success of
Alan Moore
on
Swamp Thing,
began to recruit British comics writers. As Moore had revived a dying title, so these creators
would be given obscure characters who could be recreated with impunity. This initiative led to
Neil Gaiman's
work on
The Sandman
-- and it also led to
Grant Morrison's
work on Animal Man.
Beginning with #5, Morrison began to execute a roughly two-year plan for
the series -- a great rarity at the time. The series was a stunning artistic success. But
Morrison, who had taken the job of writing DC's
Doom Patrol,
left the title as his two-year plan concluded.
Writer
Peter Milligan
performed the difficult task of following Morrison, who had severely undermined the notion of the
series's reality by the end of his run. Following his six-issue rehabilitation of the
characters, Tom Veitch took over as writer. Veitch continued until issue #50, at which point
Jamie Delano
took over as writer. Delano did for Animal Man what Alan Moore had done for Swamp Thing,
giving Animal Man the animalistic Red, a field of connected consciousness and his equivalent of
Swamp Thing's vegetative Green. After half a year, Animal Man became one of DC's six
ongoing mature readers books that formed to core of Vertigo, DC's new mature readers imprint.
When Delano left a couple years thereafter, the scripting reigns were handed to Jerry Prosser,
who continued until the series's cancellation. But none of these writers, while on the whole
quite capable, could match in fame what Morrison had done on the title.
Animal Man has subsequently appeared in a number of standard DC Universe
titles, as well as the Vertigo one-shot Totems.
The following eras are available:
Following these eras is a list of other sites of interest.
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