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Another single issue review
Animal Man #9 – “The Sea of Red”
Written by Jeff Lemire
Art by Steve Pugh
Rating – 3.5/5
Continuity is king, and Lemire delivers in one line that made me so giddy I read it again. And again. And then three more times. Yes. Lemire makes reference to Buddy talking to his ‘creator’ in Animal Man #26!
Geek out. Complete. Moving on with the review.
In this issue Buddy Baker or Butter as he’s later referred to, finds himself deep in the Red looking for a way out which is fine, except his body is being exploited on the Earth’s surface by the Rot in an attempt to lure ‘Baby Girl’ Baker into the their underground. Prophetic dreams and rapid fleeing on the familial front take place in the concurrent storyline which ends abruptly with the introduction of a new character… and the announcement of a cross-over with into Justice League Dark, one of my least favourite things. Not Justice League Dark. Crossovers.
Why? A lot of things I’ve been reading have reiterated over and over that it’s not necessary for the ready to pick up the crossover to discover who this mystery character at the end of the book is, but I beg to differ.
Those not as resourceful, or maybe just not as inclined to inquire on the internet might turn away from the book thinking that they HAVE to pick up Justice League Dark for the story to advance, which is something that they may not necessarily want to do. This is unfortunate because the series has been totally bad ass… up until that happened.
Granted, I can’t let a little thing that a crossover derail this entire review. After all, if they can do it in television, I was super excited when Willow took off to fight some big bad with Angel and Friends in L.A., why not in comics, right?
So let’s focus on the meat and potatoes, and get away from the meagre dessert part of our dinner shall we? The dialogue and story in general remain, as always, phenomenal. Nothing glaringly out of place there. Did I mention the Grant Morrison shout-out already? Steve Pugh’s artwork is great, filling in nicely for series regular Travel Foreman. At times the panel arrangement and action flow are a little less fluid then normal, Pugh breathes life into the words like he’s been at it from the start.
All in all, a pretty good issue.
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