Grant Morrison’s Animal Man is Still Iconic Almost 40 Years Later (& I Know Why)

Grant Morrison is one of the comic industry’s most beloved creators. Morrison’s an expert at writing superhero books, creating mindblowingly compelling plots all while serving the characters brilliantly. Morrison’s work is more than just superhero books, putting out multiple books from genres like horror, sci-fi, and more. Grant Morrison changed DC Comics forever, and it all started with one book — 1988-1990’s Animal Man. Morrison, working with artist Chaz Troug and Tom Grummet with covers by Brian Bolland, took an obscure DC character that fans hadn’t seen since Crisis on Infinite Earths #12 and made them into a more complex and popular character than they had ever been. Animal Man was a revolutionary book, and it showed everyone exactly what Morrison was capable of.

It’s been almost forty years since Animal Man started, and yet it remains a great read all these years later. Comics have changed a lot since then and the twist of Animal Man is well-known. It should have faded by now, and yet Animal Man is just as acclaimed as it once was. Animal Man is a iconic book, even with everyone knowing everything about it, and the key to that is taking a look at the book and dissecting it.

Animal Man Is a Perfect Portrait of a Flawless Superhero Comic

So, let’s get the twist of the story out of the way, because while it’s important, it’s not the main reason that Animal Man has stuck around. Animal Man is a comic that is about how we treat our fictional characters. This become apparent in Animal Man #5, the issue titled “The Coyote Gospel”. The issue revolves around a Wile E. Coyote look alike cartoon character escaping to the real world to learn why we torment him and his people for our entertainment. Everyone thinks that Animal Man meeting Morrison in the last issue of their run is a gimmick, but it’s not. It’s Morrison pulling back the curtain on the book and telling us that “The Coyote Gospel” was the entire point. We create entire universes and we give the people therein life. Yet that life is full of pain and suffering, all for our entertainment. Morrison’s point in the book is that our brutal entertainments say a lot about the kind of people we are, and that maybe we should choose kindness for our fictional children. Then, Morrison does this by resurrecting Animal Man’s family, who were killed because Animal Man’s activism was making the powers that be angry.

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However, none of this would have landed without Morrison making us care about Animal Man, his wife Ellen, and their children Maxine and Cliff. Many people think that Morrison’s greatest writing skill is their ability to come up with gonzo ideas — like, say, the way we treat fictional characters — but their greatest skill is their grasp of character. Animal Man and his family felt like real people. We entered into their lives and we got attached to them. This is the reason why Animal Man stays so vital almost forty years later. Sure, the ideas behind the book are great, but the minutiae of the book — the family’s interactions, Animal Man’s heroism, and Animal Man’s animal activism — are what makes the book continue to work. The ideas are great, but the ideas wouldn’t matter without Morrison making the characters feel so real. Morrison gives us ideas to think over, but the delivery system is the characters and their lives. That last issue wouldn’t hit nearly as hard if we didn’t love the Baker family. Morrison pulls us into their world and makes us care about them. That’s what keeps Animal Man fresh all of these years later. It’s a book full of big ideas, but it’s also a pitch perfect superhero book.

Animal Man‘s Success Is Much More Mundane Than It Seems

Animal Man‘s big ideas are what get talked about the most, and they should be. Morrison’s views on fiction — that these universes are real because we give them life — are intriguing and what Animal Man says about us as consumers of entertainment is definitely something to think about. Why do we need this violence? Why do we drain everything of wonder and replace it with “realism”? What does our entertainment say about us? However, the way that Morrison delivers these ideas is by giving us an excellent comic that took a boring, simple Silver Age character with cool powers and made him into a three-dimensional character with a vital supporting cast that we grow to love as the book goes on.

That is the secret of Animal Man. Everyone walks into it because they’ve heard of its interesting meta narrative. However, without the adroit character writing and plotting, readers would never get to the end. Animal Man is full of amazing stories — the aforementioned “The Coyote Gospel”, Animal Man #15’s “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”, Animal Man #6’s “Birds of Prey”, Animal Man #7’s “The Death of the Red Mask” (I’m going to stop there because I could list every single issue) — and what makes them sing is the characters and plots. Animal Man stands the test of time not because of its ideas, but because its a great superhero story.