3 crampons out of 5

Having to follow-up any notable writer’s run on any title can’t be fun, and when someone – Grant Morrison in this case – ends something as definitively as he did with his run on Animal Man, you’re bound to be a footnote.

Milligan’s Animal Man run is 6 issues that varies between inspired energy and forced strangeness.  In order to combat the meta-weirdness of Morrison, DC chose well with one of Morrison’s friends – Pete – and to his credit, Pete did the best thing that probably could’ve been done to prevent the title from tanking and getting canceled: he just went wacky with it.   The 6 issues aren’t too moving, and don’t change much of A-Man’s history, but as far as a filler run goes – Milligan had potential to stay on the title, but a short run was pitched in case (as it turned out) he had to leave for another project – this is valid stuff, good reading that you don’t mind plunking down cover price for to see where the title is going.

So what happens?  Good question.  Without the ties to a character that his creator books have offered (or his more recent loving run on Hellblazer), Milligan just brings in what interests him, which in this case happens to be Burroughs and Schrodinger.  Maybe Animal Man’s powers are going ballistic and the world around him as changed, and maybe it’s due to alternate versions of himself that are showing up, and maybe it’s due to some psycho kids that the government has hired our lead and new “hero” Nowhere Man to combat.  Maybe you don’t end up caring too much about the ‘why’ as Milligan throws oddity after oddity at you – starting with an impressive head-first leap in his first issue as Animal Man chows down on a horse during an Animal Rights rally – and continues with the ‘displaced’ Nowhere Man, who speaks using Burroughs’ cut-up method, and enemies like “The Front Page” whose body is wrapped in newspapers that announce, in headlines, what’s going on at any given moment.

Chas Truog’s art is consistent but can’t keep up with some of the demands of Milligan’s imagination, and the script has some of the same problems in a way, collapsing on itself with too many bits and pieces of purposeful strangeness.  It makes for a read where the character is almost a side note – Animal’s Man family life and powers could’ve been exchanged for anyone – and the story is a lot of bluster that could end at any given point.  However, again, this is an impressive way to have kept things going.  Imagine a story that actually tried to make advancements in Animal Man’s then-established world?  Everyone would have cried foul.  At least with a run like Milligan’s, you keep buying issues, not really knowing what to say.