Ewwwwwww ...

Animal Man 1-4
DC Comics
Jeff Lemire, writer
Travel Foreman, artist

Not quite sure what to make of this book.

I initially became aware of the Buddy Baker Animal Man character with Grant Morrison's re-imagining of the title as a Vertigo comic before Vertigo even existed. I liked the first five issues, and then dropped the title for some reason I can no longer recall, likely money and/or too many other titles I liked better. I later purchased the entire Morrison run on the title through the three trades DC collected them in. Not sure I was ready for the title when the individual issues came out, but I liked it enough to keep an eye out for the remainder of the series as it went through several subsequent writers. I have since purchased all of the issues of the Vertigo Animal Man after Morrison's run, but have not yet had/taken time to read them.

I next got a taste of Animal Man in the pages of 52, which returned him to a more super-hero style, in my mind, but I like that Animal Man. He wants to be a hero and has super powers, but he's also a family man and the superheroing is kind of like a part-time hobby for him. It's an interesting and not too common dynamic for a superhero title.

Then with the announcement of the DCnU, I learned that Animal Man would be one of the new titles DC was starting out with. I was excited by the idea of a monthly Animal Man book, while also trepidacious about all the talk of it being a horror title by a writer known for horror.

Buddy still has his wife and two kids, and he's a former stunt man who developed the ability to draw on the strengths of various animals. He's a part-time hero/adventurer and a full-time family man. But that family life is threatened when his young daughter, Maxine, begins displaying some abilities of her own. Dead animals seem to be re-animating and being drawn to her. They share with her, and she tries to tell her father, about the dangers of something called The Rot about the same time three monsters, agents of The Rot, show up to try to destroy her. It seems Maxine is a defender of The Red — kind of a carnivore's equivalent to The Green for plants in Swamp Thing — and The Rot wants to corrupt her to its own ends. All of this is new to Animal Man, and he must defend his daughter from these opposing forces.

Well, now that I've read the first four issues, I'm not sure I would exactly call this horror, but it isn't exactly my taste either. This title also seems like it will be heavily interacting and crossing over with Swamp Thing and a few other similarly themed books I don't have much interest in buying. Not sure this is my style of book plus it will tie in with several other books I'm not reading equals this is looking like a book for me to drop.

And, unless this is a completely original take on Lemire's part, it is making me think I might not like some of those later issues of that earlier Animal Man run I have yet to read.