I’ll be brutally honest with you guys right now: I have not read Grant Morrison’s Animal Man run. I know, I know shame on me. It’s not like I don’t want to read anything by Morrison, it’s just that I am not really interesting in a book starring Animal Man. The character to me feels like a very lame 60s hero (which he is) where the creators gave him a routine power. Maybe having the power of any animal could lead to interesting stories, but I just don’t see it. So when the time came for the new 52’s to be announced I was surprised to see Lemire’s name on an Animal Man book. So far Lemire has won me over with Sweet Tooth, Superboy, Essex County, and the like. So it’s definitely a step in the right direction for this series.

Unfortunately what ultimately fails this book, and the big problem I had with it, was the art. I’ve never heard Travel Foreman before and my only judge of his work is that horrible Loki cover he did last year. So right off the bat my first impression of him before opening the book is pretty iffy. Opening the book, and it pains me to say this but, I don’t think Foreman is a very capable artist. On the surface it all looks fine, character models in one panel look decent enough and he emotes the characters very well. Also, Lemire seems to have the knack of getting artists who are creative in panel layouts. (I guess if Lemire can’t do the art like that he’ll find someone close) But then you really look at these pages and you see the mistakes throughout. Basically, Foreman does not draw these characters on model from the first to last page. Once in a while a character will look ‘okay’; but their facial structures, to anatomy, to their eyes are all over the place. Sometimes Foreman will use a ‘manga’ effect for the eyes (see Maxine on page four) other times they’ll just be simple circles with a dot to express pupils. Buddy just doesn’t look the same from panel to panel so when the big moment of the issue comes with his eyes; I couldn’t tell if it was that serious since he never looks the same. (Although bleeding from the eyes is kinda fucked up) Maybe it’s because he had to ink himself for the most part because the inking does seem to change once and a while (Dan Green helps with inks). I would like to see how Foreman’s pages look outside of his own inks. I bet there will be a 100% improvement if that were to happen.

The story itself is pretty good for the most part. Lemire is always great at writing stories about families and relationships and that seems to be the crux of this run from the start. Buddy is a very good father and husband with his relationship with his daughter Maxine being the strongest. (Obviously more of her ‘powers’ will be discussed after that final page) But I think Lemire doesn’t do much to really convey the powers of Buddy. Or maybe that’s because Foreman fails to really showcase them, it’s hard to tell. But when Buddy does go to his animal powers it does nothing for me. I never get the sense he becomes a Rhino to deflect bullets or be a dog to scare someone. (He just looks like a guy who barks like a dog) If you take those moments away all I know for certain is that Buddy can fly. And that to me is very boring once you boil it down to that.

This was officially the first DC 52 book I read and I’m sorry to say it disappointed me. The art by Foreman, in my eyes anyways, was atrocious from beginning to end. There might be some ‘okay’ panels here and there but for the most part the comic is inconsistent and pretty ugly. Maybe it was his inks again but for the most part another artist should have sufficed. With the story, Lemire puts a good foundation on why family is important but the superhero aspect of Buddy is pretty generic in my view. (Also I got a huge Sweet Tooth retread with the fantasy). Ultimately I will not be giving Animal Man a second issue which is a shame. It might not have been the most anticipated book out of the new 52, but Lemire’s comics never steer me wrong.