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Animal Man (1988) (Single Issues) #5
Animal Man (1988-1995) #5
After an argument with his family, Buddy Baker heads to the desert for some time to think, but there he meets an usual a wily coyote with the bizarre ability to survive brutally fatal attacks.
27 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 30, 1988
About the author
Grant Morrison
1,532 books4,317 followersGrant Morrison has been working with DC Comics for twenty five years, after beginning their American comics career with acclaimed runs on ANIMAL MAN and DOOM PATROL. Since then they have written such best-selling series as JLA, BATMAN and New X-Men, as well as such creator-owned works as THE INVISIBLES, SEAGUY, THE FILTH, WE3 and JOE THE BARBARIAN. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning SEVEN SOLDIERS and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN to the reality-shattering epic of FINAL CRISIS, they have also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN AND ROBIN and BATMAN, INCORPORATED and the Man of Steel in The New 52 ACTION COMICS.
In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.
In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 21, 2021
"The Coyote Gospel" Analysis
The story follows Crafty, a coyote which is an analogue for Wile E. Coyote. Crafty used to live in an animation world which was filled with meaningless violence, but he made a deal with God and he went to the real world. As a punishment for his rebellion tho, while he has to live in the real world, with the power to regenerate himself after getting hurt, his world will live with no violence at all. Crafty is being hunted by a guy who accidentally hit him in the road one year ago and since then has had the worst of luck (many people close to him died etc). This guy believes that Crafty is the devil and he does whatever he can to kill him. While he does that, Animal Man, who has left his home after a fight with his wife due to the fact that he wants them to start being vegetarians, passes by and sees Crafty, who gives him a letter saying his whole story, but he's unable to read it because it doesn't make sense. The guy finally shoots Crafty with a silver bullet and he dies, while the hypothetical camera moves to a panoramic shot and we see that the page is being drawn.
First of all, let's start with the most simple aspects of the story. We first see Animal Man in this issue as Buddy Baker, in his house, ready to throw away all the meat, because he decided to become a vegetarian. He is stopped by his wife, who's angry at him, because he made that decision by himself and he didn't talk about it with her. Other than the marital problems or the couple, in this part or the story we can see the concept of duplicity, which is a big part of this issue. Buddy, exactly because he's not a duplicitous person, doesn't want to live his life with double standards, so he decides that he doesn't want to be the reason why animals get killed to be consumed. We can again see the concept of duplicity in the character of the driver. The driver is a devoted Christian and he's preaching about religion to an underaged female hitchhiker, who left her home to go to Hollywood. He's perching about religion, but when he hits a human-like creature on the street, he continues without even looking back. I'm not religious myself, but I'm sure that Christianity doesn't encourage people to be hit and run drivers, so we can easily characterise him as a duplicitous person.
Another theme of the story is irony.This is more apparent in two parts of the story. First of all, there's a lot of irony on God's actions. God sort of treats Crafty as the devil (we'll come back to that later). When Crafty goes to him and protests about the meaningless and endless violence that fills his world, he sends him as a punishment to the seemingly less violent real world, with the ability to regenerate himself after he gets hurt, so that he'll always feel pain, without dying and ending his misery. Also, when God sends him to the real world he stops all the violence in the cartoon world, so that Crafty will know that there's finally piece on his world, but he's not able to go there and live in piece himself. The second part were I find (devastating) irony is when, after we see what Crafty's message says and we learn about his story, we see that what is written on the letter is gibberish. So, Animal Man never actually learned what was written in Crafty's message. I find this very depressing and ironic, but also very interesting. Since the characters in the story are unable to read the message, it means that it's only actual purpose was to be read by us, the readers (I'll come back to that later).
Before I come back to the two things I said, I want to focus on one other thing and that's how perspective is everything. I'll present to you how the three characters of the story see things, to show you what I mean. The driver hits with his track a weird looking creature that seems like a monster. After that, during a few months, he losses his job, his mother dies from cancer, the man who introduced him to religion (it's never said out loud, but he's obviously also his boyfriend) gets crippled and brain damaged and the girl he took with his track gets killed by he police in a drug raid. From this man's perspective, everything went to hell after he hit this creature, so he believes that it's the devil and he wants to kill him to save humanity.
What Animal Man sees is an explosion and when he moves closer he sees an anthropomorphic coyote giving him a letter filled with gibberish and then getting shot by a man and dying. Animal Man's lack of perspective makes him unable to understand what's going on.
Finally, Crafty sees his world filled with violence and when he protests about it he gets put in a world where immediately he experiences unimaginable pain. He's being hunted all day and he feels huge amounts of pain, without being able to have the sweet release of death. As he sees it, he experiences endless pain, but for a reason. The fact that violence ended in his world thanks to him is enough of a reason for him to put up with everything. So, he sees himself as a savior. So, I believe it's obvious that perspective really is everything in this story. We can't blame the driver for trying to kill and eventually actually killing Crafty, because as he sees it Crafty might actually be the devil. But, because we know Crafty's perspective, we feel sympathetic for him and his pain hurts us just as much.
Now, it's time for me to come back to the two things I said earlier. First of all, I wanna talk about Crafty being presented as both the Devil and Jesus Christ. God sees his protests as rebellion and as he did when Samael (the devil) rebelled, he punished him. So, God sees Crafty as someone very similar to the devil. Someone else who sees him as the Devil is the driver. So, we have God and one main character that see him like the devil, but the similarities don't end there. Crafty is being drawn as a monstrous and devilish creature, so even his looks resemble the Devil's. This analogue between Crafty and the devil might be done to show us how he see everything new as evil. His similarities to the Devil are quite obvious, while his similarities to Jesus are a bit more subtle. Crafty is being punished and tortured for the mistakes (sins) of others. He gets send by God into earth and there he's being treated as the enemy, while he's actually only trying to provoke peace and love. He sees himself as the savior, because thanks to him there's peace now in his world and even if he can't live there with piece, he has the knowledge that it happened thanks to him. The final thing that makes me believe that Crafty is sort of an analogue for Jesus, is the fact that when he dies he has his hands in a way that it seems like he's been crucified.
The last thing I wanna talk about is the 4th wall breaking and what could this mean. It's obvious that this issue criticizes the unnecessary violence of the cartoons of the time and it's also obvious that Crafty is an analogue for Wile E. Coyote. I believe tho that it's not only criticising the cartoons of the time. I think that it also criticizes the violence in the comics. I have a few reasons why I believe that. First of all, Grant Morrison uses this run to criticize all sorts of aspects of comics, so it's very possible that he wanted to criticize the unnecessary violence as well. The second reason why I believe that is a bit more complicated. Animal Man can't read Crafty's message, so the only one who reads it is us. The message is for the unnecessary violence in a fantastic, unrealistic world. The comic ends with Grant Morrison breaking the 4th wall and showing us the brush painting Crafty's blood red, showing us both the fantastic and unrealistic aspects of the world we are reading, but also the violence it has. So, it shows us that what we are reading is a fantastic story, in a fantastic world, which similarly to Crafty's world is filled with unnecessary violence. So I wonder: "What if this letter is meant for us to read it and take action? What if Grant Morrison wants to show us how similar the world of comics is to Crafty's world and that we need to do something about it? What if Animal Man is us, not understanding the correct message of the comic?"
The story follows Crafty, a coyote which is an analogue for Wile E. Coyote. Crafty used to live in an animation world which was filled with meaningless violence, but he made a deal with God and he went to the real world. As a punishment for his rebellion tho, while he has to live in the real world, with the power to regenerate himself after getting hurt, his world will live with no violence at all. Crafty is being hunted by a guy who accidentally hit him in the road one year ago and since then has had the worst of luck (many people close to him died etc). This guy believes that Crafty is the devil and he does whatever he can to kill him. While he does that, Animal Man, who has left his home after a fight with his wife due to the fact that he wants them to start being vegetarians, passes by and sees Crafty, who gives him a letter saying his whole story, but he's unable to read it because it doesn't make sense. The guy finally shoots Crafty with a silver bullet and he dies, while the hypothetical camera moves to a panoramic shot and we see that the page is being drawn.
First of all, let's start with the most simple aspects of the story. We first see Animal Man in this issue as Buddy Baker, in his house, ready to throw away all the meat, because he decided to become a vegetarian. He is stopped by his wife, who's angry at him, because he made that decision by himself and he didn't talk about it with her. Other than the marital problems or the couple, in this part or the story we can see the concept of duplicity, which is a big part of this issue. Buddy, exactly because he's not a duplicitous person, doesn't want to live his life with double standards, so he decides that he doesn't want to be the reason why animals get killed to be consumed. We can again see the concept of duplicity in the character of the driver. The driver is a devoted Christian and he's preaching about religion to an underaged female hitchhiker, who left her home to go to Hollywood. He's perching about religion, but when he hits a human-like creature on the street, he continues without even looking back. I'm not religious myself, but I'm sure that Christianity doesn't encourage people to be hit and run drivers, so we can easily characterise him as a duplicitous person.
Another theme of the story is irony.This is more apparent in two parts of the story. First of all, there's a lot of irony on God's actions. God sort of treats Crafty as the devil (we'll come back to that later). When Crafty goes to him and protests about the meaningless and endless violence that fills his world, he sends him as a punishment to the seemingly less violent real world, with the ability to regenerate himself after he gets hurt, so that he'll always feel pain, without dying and ending his misery. Also, when God sends him to the real world he stops all the violence in the cartoon world, so that Crafty will know that there's finally piece on his world, but he's not able to go there and live in piece himself. The second part were I find (devastating) irony is when, after we see what Crafty's message says and we learn about his story, we see that what is written on the letter is gibberish. So, Animal Man never actually learned what was written in Crafty's message. I find this very depressing and ironic, but also very interesting. Since the characters in the story are unable to read the message, it means that it's only actual purpose was to be read by us, the readers (I'll come back to that later).
Before I come back to the two things I said, I want to focus on one other thing and that's how perspective is everything. I'll present to you how the three characters of the story see things, to show you what I mean. The driver hits with his track a weird looking creature that seems like a monster. After that, during a few months, he losses his job, his mother dies from cancer, the man who introduced him to religion (it's never said out loud, but he's obviously also his boyfriend) gets crippled and brain damaged and the girl he took with his track gets killed by he police in a drug raid. From this man's perspective, everything went to hell after he hit this creature, so he believes that it's the devil and he wants to kill him to save humanity.
What Animal Man sees is an explosion and when he moves closer he sees an anthropomorphic coyote giving him a letter filled with gibberish and then getting shot by a man and dying. Animal Man's lack of perspective makes him unable to understand what's going on.
Finally, Crafty sees his world filled with violence and when he protests about it he gets put in a world where immediately he experiences unimaginable pain. He's being hunted all day and he feels huge amounts of pain, without being able to have the sweet release of death. As he sees it, he experiences endless pain, but for a reason. The fact that violence ended in his world thanks to him is enough of a reason for him to put up with everything. So, he sees himself as a savior. So, I believe it's obvious that perspective really is everything in this story. We can't blame the driver for trying to kill and eventually actually killing Crafty, because as he sees it Crafty might actually be the devil. But, because we know Crafty's perspective, we feel sympathetic for him and his pain hurts us just as much.
Now, it's time for me to come back to the two things I said earlier. First of all, I wanna talk about Crafty being presented as both the Devil and Jesus Christ. God sees his protests as rebellion and as he did when Samael (the devil) rebelled, he punished him. So, God sees Crafty as someone very similar to the devil. Someone else who sees him as the Devil is the driver. So, we have God and one main character that see him like the devil, but the similarities don't end there. Crafty is being drawn as a monstrous and devilish creature, so even his looks resemble the Devil's. This analogue between Crafty and the devil might be done to show us how he see everything new as evil. His similarities to the Devil are quite obvious, while his similarities to Jesus are a bit more subtle. Crafty is being punished and tortured for the mistakes (sins) of others. He gets send by God into earth and there he's being treated as the enemy, while he's actually only trying to provoke peace and love. He sees himself as the savior, because thanks to him there's peace now in his world and even if he can't live there with piece, he has the knowledge that it happened thanks to him. The final thing that makes me believe that Crafty is sort of an analogue for Jesus, is the fact that when he dies he has his hands in a way that it seems like he's been crucified.
The last thing I wanna talk about is the 4th wall breaking and what could this mean. It's obvious that this issue criticizes the unnecessary violence of the cartoons of the time and it's also obvious that Crafty is an analogue for Wile E. Coyote. I believe tho that it's not only criticising the cartoons of the time. I think that it also criticizes the violence in the comics. I have a few reasons why I believe that. First of all, Grant Morrison uses this run to criticize all sorts of aspects of comics, so it's very possible that he wanted to criticize the unnecessary violence as well. The second reason why I believe that is a bit more complicated. Animal Man can't read Crafty's message, so the only one who reads it is us. The message is for the unnecessary violence in a fantastic, unrealistic world. The comic ends with Grant Morrison breaking the 4th wall and showing us the brush painting Crafty's blood red, showing us both the fantastic and unrealistic aspects of the world we are reading, but also the violence it has. So, it shows us that what we are reading is a fantastic story, in a fantastic world, which similarly to Crafty's world is filled with unnecessary violence. So I wonder: "What if this letter is meant for us to read it and take action? What if Grant Morrison wants to show us how similar the world of comics is to Crafty's world and that we need to do something about it? What if Animal Man is us, not understanding the correct message of the comic?"
January 16, 2024
Literally jaw-dropping.
Between the design of the antagonist and the cover art, you could kind of piece together what's going on but that doesn't make it any less impressive to me.
Also: the social commentary in this series is really powerful to me.
Between the design of the antagonist and the cover art, you could kind of piece together what's going on but that doesn't make it any less impressive to me.
Also: the social commentary in this series is really powerful to me.
September 13, 2021
That so much analysis was given to a filler issue as this series transferred from a 4 issue mini series to an ongoing series is beyond me.
February 27, 2024
Art was awesome, story was quite sad.
April 25, 2024
there's probably some very long essays about this issue
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews