Oct 08, 2025
Okay, so here are my thoughts. This was really cool. I really loved the commentary on the comic book medium and how writers get to decide things about the characters they write, but how nothing really matters because it can all be undone or re-written later by someone else (I would've complained about Animal Man getting his family back in the end and the story not actually having accomplished anything lasting for the character, but I see that that's basically Morrison's whole point). I loved how this was held up in contrast to real life and how it doesn't work like that for us. For us, death is permanent, and violence has real, lasting consequences. That was a really powerful, thought-provoking idea that was well-executed. I loved Morrison'
s introspection on his own writing tendencies; I thought that showed a refreshing level of self-awareness and was very entertaining to read. I guess my main gripe is one I mentioned a couple issues ago, which is that this whole fourth wall-breaking comic book commentary idea could have been written about any character, and there was nothing unique to Animal Man about it. We didn't even see him use his powers at all in the last several issues. Maybe that's part of the point too and I'm just not getting it, but I don't know... I just felt like it was a cool idea but it would have worked whether it was a Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, or even Detective Chimp comic. Animal Man was basically just a vessel to preach about animal rights until Morrison decided he wanted to comment on the creative process behind comic books. And that's totally fine, and I did enjoy it, but I think the fact that any other character could have been used to tell the ending story sorta takes a little bit away from it for me personally. Not a lot, but a little. In the end, I enjoyed this run, although it had it's ups and downs, it was clever, intriguing, and thought-provoking. I will be reading Morrison's Doom Patrol eventually, and honestly I'm excited because I think some of the ideas and weirdness in this series will work even better with that group.
Side note: I don't know if Morrison was being intentionally controversial or if he truly believes that "a child with leukemia has no more intrinsic right to life than does a white lab rat", but God help him if he does believe it... What a horrifyingly misguided opinion that would be. more
/25.jpg)
/27.jpg)
/26.jpg "Animal Man #26")
