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Post-Morrison Era (1990-1992) |
 While
Grant Morrison's
run achieved fantastic artistic success, he had painted the series into a bit of a corner.
The nice gesture of giving Animal Man his family back in Morrison's final issue only left the
question open as to how much of Morrison's run had really happened at all: the seeds of
Morrison's ultimate deconstruction of the title and, indeed, of the entire DC Universe ran
back as far as #5, even before Animal Man had joined
the Justice League
-- and had adventures that were clearly a part of DC continuity. Writer
Peter Milligan
was called in to clear up these matters in what became a six-issue arc, accompanied by the
regular artists left by Morrison.
Ignoring the prosaic conclusion to Morrison's run, Milligan opted instead
to have Buddy Baker awake from a coma into a world quite different from his own. He found that
his wife Ellen had divorced him, that America was controlled by a corrupt, extremely right-wing
government, and that he himself lacked control over his powers. Milligan's six issues were
more outright weird than Morrison's, though Milligan's series of bizarre misadventures were
themselves forgotten as Buddy Baker returned to the DC Universe -- by the method of committing
suicide. It would be just the first death for Buddy Baker.
Tom Veitch took over as regular writer with #33, accompanied most often
by artist Steve Dillon -- whose clearly communicative but simplistic artwork would later lead
to fame on
Preacher.
Veitch continued the title's weirdness, though in a lighter, more traditionally comic tone than
that of Morrison or Milligan. Animal Man's powers continued to malfunction. After they killed
every animal in the San Diego Zoo, the Baker family moved to the farm of Ellen's mother in
Pownal, Vermont. Whereas Morrison had simply featured other animal-related characters, Veitch
now began forming a unified theory of such characters in a move echoing
Alan Moore
making
Swamp Thing
an earth elemental during
his run on that character's title.
Meeting a Native American shaman (which echoed the Native American themes of Morrison's run),
Animal Man learned that he was one of a group called the Animal Masters, who were natural
guardians of nature. He also learned that the cause of his powers malfunctioning was the
coming of Antigon, the natural arch-adversary of the Animal Masters. Antigon finally
manifested in Veitch's final issues, and the villain corrupted, possessed, and killed B'Wana
Beast, revealed to be a fellow Animal Master. Along with Vixen and Tristess, other Animal
Masters, Animal Man defeated Antigon in #50, Veitch's final issue. Buddy Baker also learned
during this time that his own daughter, Maxine, was herself an Animal Master and was
developing powers similar to her father's.
While both Peter Milligan and Tom Veitch are capable writers, their work
on Animal Man suffered by being in the shadow of Grant Morrison's. Any successor had to
be as different as Morrison had been -- while simultaneously keeping elements of Morrison's run
for his fans. Milligan's run, closest to Morrison's, nonetheless lacked the gravity granted
Morrison's weirdness. And while Veitch's work remains laudable for its attempt to do for
Animal Man what Alan Moore had done for Swamp Thing, any leniency one exercised in one's
judgments was long worn thin by the time Animal Man and the ridiculously named Animal Masters,
a group of second-stringers not granted much personality, battled the generic super-foe
Antigon.
Writer
Jamie Delano,
elected to follow Veitch as writer, would instigate several changes on the title -- including
the fulfillment of Veitch's attempt to unify the Animal Man mythos as Alan Moore had Swamp
Thing's.
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