Animal Man Tome 1: La Chasse (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
Not so happy with this relaunch of the title, both the art and the writing held little surprise or excitement for me. The writing felt one dimensional where it should have been three dimensional, the plot felt slow and unsurprising, and the art didn't really catch me at all. Bill Sienkiewicz had better draftsmanship since he was a Neal Adams clone at the beginning of his career, and that abstraction has been done better by other artists, Marc Hempel in Breathtaker for example. I read this because I read Sweet Tooth and Essex County and Underwater Welder and much of all the other fabulous stuff Jeff Lemire is doing. This is one of the New 52 DC Comics Series, and its interesting and well written, thanks to Lemire, and Travel Foreman, the primary artist on the first volume. The idea was invented by Grant Morrison, apparently riffing off Alan Moore's Swamp Thing revisioning. So Lemire reinvents him, creates more of an origin and direction for him. The idea is this: If Swamo Thing is connected to the earth, with its power source The Green, who is connected with the Animal World, and its power source, The Red? Animal Man, who is a superhero who can draw on the powers of any animal on earth at will. He's also a Dad, which is right up Lemire's alley, much of his work is about fathers and sons one way or the other... so Animal Man is also Family Man, pulled in various directions, trying to make a living, not divorced from the real world like Batman or Ironman, or those kind of cats. The avatars or totems of The Red, are animals. A key defender of the Red turns out to be, not so centrally Animal Man, but his 4 year old daughter, Maxine! Too complicated for you already? That's the world of DC Comics... anyway, the Red and Green are Positive Life Forces opposed by The Rot, which is a grotesque evil realm that is destroying the planet and everything good in it... Which makes this an Environment Friendly Superhero book for Our Times, which kind of works. It's well written, and The Rot creates an opportunity for Foreman and his followers to really out-gross Grant Morrison and get super creepy... which was kind of interesting for me. It was good, I thought, as one NOT so familiar with much of the new DC stuff.
What do You think about Animal Man Tome 1: La Chasse (2012)?
Pretty good not too bad. Want too see where this will go. Wouldn't trade it for now.
—Jenny
Jeff Lemire has reinvented Animal Man. This book is spectacularly good.
—Joiya
Die etwas andere Superheldengeschichte! Aber sehr genial.
—nick
This and Swamp Thing are by far the best of the New 52.
—lina
