I’m not sure why Jeff Lemire hates Buddy Baker so much, but man, does he kick Animal Man right in his superhero sack. Perhaps it was to counterbalance the rather peaceful and loving end to The Rot arc in Swamp Thing, which was tied up in issue #18 because writer Scott Snyder was moving on. Instead of a simple and uplifting wrap up, Lemire mires Buddy Baker’s life in more horror and woe.
Animal Man #18 begins much as Swamp Thing #18 does. Having discovered that the actual powers of The Rot weren’t evil, but rather were stupid enough to trust Anton Arcane, Animal Man and Swamp Thing were allowed to go back into time to the moment in each of their stories when the tide turned, and when Anton created the fallen world the two heroes have been fighting through. For Baker, it was the moment his all powerful daughter Maxine, avatar of The Red, gave herself to The Rot in order to try and save her family. With the daughter gone, nothing could stop Anton Arcane’s reign of blood.
Buddy fights his way to the moment and manages to interrupt it. Anton Arcane’s nephew William is controlling two beasts of The Rot, so Buddy steps in and starts using his animal connection powers to slap them down. Problem is, Buddy isn’t nearly powerful enough. Only his Maxine is. Momma Baker, aka Ellen, wants nothing to do with allowing her daughter to fight these Rot demons, but Maxine defies her and opens a can of whoop ass on them.
Meanwhile, the two Rot beasts learn that Anton Arcane has fallen and take matters into their own hands. Maxine opens up her abilities and not only defeats the beasts, but frees the humans trapped inside them. It seems like the worst is over, when Ellen begins her speech clearly spelling out that she wants to take the kids and leave Buddy. Just as she is about to lower the boom, William Arcane leaps to kill Buddy, but is stopped by Cliff Baker, the son who had always wanted to be a hero. Just before he dies, William manages to inflict a deadly blow to Cliff. The last page is Cliff dying in the arms of his father.
See what I mean? This is powerful stuff and Lemire doesn’t flinch. If accepting his rightful place has given Swamp Thing peace, it has brought nothing but pain to Buddy Baker. As overly harsh as it seems, it opens up several new avenues for Animal Man to walk down. This series is one of the better DC has going, and seeing a broken, despondent Baker trying to be a hero could make for some terrific drama.
Steve Pugh’s art is solid, though I would have much preferred the return of Travel Foreman. Pugh has a great eye for backgrounds and for the more beastly and fantasy elements of the story. His Rot beasts are disgusting and the settings the action takes place are wonderfully detailed. Pugh’s problem is with human forms, especially faces. There’s no dimension to them, no real emotion. All the faces are blank, as if they were drawn onto mannequins. For a story this emotionally charged, the lackluster art does a real disservice to it.
Colorist Lovern Kindzierski does what he can with the colors, but Pugh’s inks make it hard. The shadowing is inconsistent, so the colors look like they’re fighting the pencils. There’s also a drab look to the color scheme, as if we were seeing the story through a thin film. None of the art is awful – it just betrays the emotional charge of Jeff Lemire’s writing.
(4 Story, 3 Art)
