The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1275: Strange Adventures #184, January 1966

I just love Animal Man. I don't really know what it is about him. And I've thought about it. I think what it is is that when I started buying his eponymous title, I'd already read his first adventure in an old Blue Ribbon digest of secret origins that I had. I've since lost that comic, but I remember reading, over and over, "The Man with Animal Powers," amongst others (Hal Jordan was one, I think). He was also the first "mature" title that I ever bought - being a very mature 13 year old when the series came out - but that also meant it was one of the first really thoughtful comics I read.

Of course, there is the fact that Grant Morrison's writing is magic.

But these old Animal Man, even pre-Animal Man adventures, they're so strange. And not just because of the comic they inhabit. I can see Buddy and Ellen and Roger in these characters, but it's like they're caricatures of themselves. I'm reading this comic through the lens of the future.

Actually, let me adjust that. I can't see Ellen in the caricature in this story. She's literally there as a prop for Buddy.

Gil Kane's art is really great, unsurprisingly. His enlarged tiger/cat creature is quite uncanny, and the giant pink alien looks as natural as such a beast can. You can see why Gil Kane is revered, even in silly little stories like this one. The shots of Buddy flying are fantastic, and the tumble of his body when he's levitated with an entire lake is entirely believable. I don't have a lot of really nice examples of classic DC art, but I think this one definitely counts.

Speaking of, I actually only bought this comic today. I'd decided a little while back that I was going to start trying to get some more of the key issues I'm interested in, and I happened upon this one for a mere $38 today. And it's in lovely condition.

More to come...

(Oh, and the back-up was about a guy who flies into hurricanes for the weather service running afoul of modern-day sky pirates in a cloud-swathed dirigible - and he has some really real moments flashing back to flying in the Korean War. Weird, well, Strange, I suppose, story.)

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 838: Strange Adventures #201, June 1967

Just before we get to this comic, if you're interested on the brief thoughts I had about Animal Man's previous adventures, they're here:

"I Was the Man with the Animal Powers"
"Return of the Man with Animal Powers"
"A-Man, The Hero with Animal Powers" (Don't actually have this. Only one of the early adventures I've never read.
"Animal Man, Hero or Freak?"

So let's get on to the only one of his adventures not reprinted in the later Adventure Comics series.

Is it just me, or does that look like a very poorly put together Hank McCoy on the cover of that comic? Animal Man's early adventures were, to be blunt, pretty forgettable. Aside from his bizarre origin, which grows only more bizarre as Morrison gets his hands on Buddy, the stories are really pretty mediocre, which might explain the 13 year absence from comics following this story. (Well, not entirely true. His tales were reprinted in Adventure Comics, but when you're a back-up feature to Supergirl, who's going to notice anything else?)

Those reprints actually tell us all we need to know about today's A-Man story. It's so silly that they didn't even bother reprinting it, even though they'd reprinted every other Animal Story that had been written. Today's villain injects himself with...something that turns him into a gorilla with the brain of a human. Then he dresses in "mod" clothing and robs banks.

Can't wait for the gritty, Vertigo-esque reboot of the Mod Gorilla Boss - a grim tale of addiction to Quaaludes and going to too many The Who concerts.

The most interesting aspect of this story is the Carmine Infantino art. Infantino is famous for much of his work, and for me it's mostly his run on the later issues of the Barry Allen Flash series. But here we're seeing a much less-refined version of his art. Infantino has a very distinctive style, easily picked out from amongst his contemporaries. The art in today's comic isn't quite there yet, though the potential of what he was to accomplish shows through. There's some really great shots of Animal Man flying that speak to the draughtsman that Infantino would eventually become.

On to a couple more early adventures tomorrow. To be continued.