Brother Blood has been defeated. The Red is finally in safe hands again. Buddy Baker returns to his normal life. And Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman tell one of the most heartfelt goodbyes to a series I have read in a long time. Get the tissues ready for this one, folks, you’ll need ’em.
Written by Jeff Lemire
Illustrated by Travel Foreman & Jeff Lemire
A special finale to Jeff Lemire’s run on the series by the creative team that launched Animal Man in The New 52! What is left of Buddy in the wake of “Evolve or Die”?
I think it’s now safe to say that “Animal Man” has been one of the New 52’s best books. Sure, it’s had it’s fair share of ups and down with arcs that might now have worked as well and overly long crossovers and a short loss of momentum after said crossover, but when all is said and done I really think Jeff Lemire and the team of artists who worked on the book made something special here. Living up to what the point of New 52 should have been, “Animal Man” redefined the character for the new universe while creating a new backstory that made sense and didn’t just throw out all of the old stuff as well retaining a focus on the characters and the story of the book. Even in it’s darkest times, “Animal Man” never truly fell into the New 52 trap of just having the main character sulk and punch people for no real reason. Okay, so he did do that after ‘Rotworld’, but there was a reason for it.
Here, in this 29th issue of “Animal Man”, we see Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman, the creative team that launched the book, reunited to say farewell to the series. This is probably the reason why this issue feels so important as a send-off; because for as good as Steve Pugh and Rafael Albequerque and any other artist who worked on the series’ work was, it was Travel Foreman who defined the visual style of the book from the beginning. The focus on marrying the mundane of married family life (that’s another miracle of “Animal Man”, the fact that DC never managed to really divorce Buddy and Ellen) with surrealist body horror that was truly terrifying. Foreman shares art duties with Lemire himself here as Lemire draws a storybook-esque retelling of the events of the series that came before from Maxine that is utterly heartwarming as it takes a look at how far the family has come since #1.
Lemire’s artwork is the perfect compliment to Foreman’s thanks to the two entirely contrasting styles. While Foreman’s artwork feels like the book’s version of the Real World, even when drawing the Red and the weirdness contained there, Lemire’s artwork, which seems intentionally stylised even more than usual, captures the childlike wonder and storybook quality of Maxine’s story. This is helped by the fact that Maxine’s story is presented in a series of single, splash page images with narration over it that really brings it all together. While it may run the risk of overshadowing Travel Foreman’s work purely based on the fact that, other than one stand-out page in the Red, Foreman’s work is mostly depicting the return to a normal family life of the Bakers. However, thanks to these sections being drawn by Foreman not only does it feel like a return to normality for the Bakers, but it feels like a welcome return to the normality of the very beginning of the run to anyone who has been following the book since the first issue.
However, for as genuinely heartwarming as Maxine’s story and Lemire’s artwork that goes with it is, this issue is mostly taken up by retreading past events of the story. This should be obvious seeing as it’s the final issue of the series and Maxine’s story goes a long way in contextualising the events of the series and giving closure, but it also means not a whole lot gets to happen in the issue outside of that. That’s not to say the issue doesn’t work or that the final isn’t heartwarming or emotional, but it does feel like the issue was conceived of around the storybook idea and Foreman’s pages in the real world were added round out the issue and give context to the story. If that is the case, though, the Foreman still puts in his best work as the last three pages of this issue are sure to hit home for anyone who followed this series.
Continued belowOverall, Lemire and Foreman delivered a conclusion to their run of “Animal Man” with style and grace and emotion and while it might not be the type of finale to throw one last wrench into the mix to surprise readers, that doesn’t make it any less of an effective ending. Seeing how far the family of the Bakers have come since that #1 over two years ago really made this issue something special. As did seeing Travel Foreman and Jeff Lemire work together as artists on this issue and not just writer and artist.
Fare thee well, “Animal Man”. You will be missed.
Final Verdict: 8.9 – Even if you didn’t read the series as whole, this is still an issue worth buying and one that doesn’t need all that much prior reading to make sense. But you’ll want to have read the previous issues for the emotions to set in.
