The Last Days of Animal Man [Paperback]

Gerry Conway (Author), Chris Batista (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Is Buddy Baker (a.k.a. Animal Man) losing it all? The everyman hero has fought hard for our world, and for his family. But by the year 2024, the Earth has seen better days: The heroes are growing tired, the villains have grown nastier and Buddy's own hometown of San Diego has struggled for years to recover from a cataclysmic typhoon. His children have grown and his marriage has gotten colder... and now, as San Diego faces the most vicious Super-Villain it's seen in years, Animal Man's powers are starting to fail him! Without his abilities, without his family - who is Buddy Baker? Can he still be a husband? Can he still be a father? Can he still be Animal Man? And more importantly, can he even survive the bloodthirsty plan his arch-rival's progeny has in store for him?

Find out in this collection of the 6-issue miniseries from comics legend Gerry Conway (THE FURY OF FIRESTORM, Amazing Spider-Man, "Law and Order") makes his return to DC with this can't-miss miniseries!

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics (March 9, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140122640X
• ISBN-13: 978-1401226404
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #781,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Barking at the moon, April 29, 2010

By	Babytoxie (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Last Days of Animal Man (Paperback)

Why Gerry Conway was given the go-ahead to write THE LAST DAYS OF ANIMAL MAN is beyond me. While Conway has a well-established career in comics with many impressive credits to his name, he'd never had any involvement with Animal Man prior to this miniseries. There are plenty of other writers whose names are more closely associated with the character, such as Grant Morrison, Tom Veitch, and Jamie Delano. These guys transformed Animal Man from a barely-remembered Silver Age character into a fan-favorite, so if any more stories needed to be told of Buddy Baker and his alter-ego, especially the finale, then they should have been the ones to do it.

If you're going to write a story that claims to be a character's "Last Days" (and in the title, at that), then you'd better deliver. Well, Conway doesn't. This is a boring, drawn-out story of Animal Man's future, where his connection to the morphogenetic field is fading. As a result, he's losing his ability to "borrow" the abilities of animals and almost gets himself killed several times going up against a new villain and the offspring of an old villain. So what's a guy to do? Well, Conway apparently couldn't think up a very interesting answer, so he takes the easy way out, filling the book with bombastic villains, repetitive fight scenes, and fairly predictable uses of Buddy's power. When you're a veteran superhero who has the abilities of the entire animal kingdom at your disposal, why would you simply pick the obvious choices of strength, speed, or flight? EVENTUALLY, Buddy uses his power in a fairly unconventional (perhaps even impossible) manner to put the kibosh on the baddies, but it takes soooo long for Buddy to figure it out. I guess that either Conway isn't a very creative writer, or Animal Man isn't a very creative hero. I've read enough of Buddy's adventures to know that the latter isn't the case.

Chris Batista's stiff & angular art is barely passable, and a competent inker could have helped things tremendously. About the only thing I can give a nod to is the work of longtime cover artist Brian Bolland, which even features the original title copy from the Vertigo series. In fact, what really annoys me about THE LAST DAYS OF ANIMAL MAN is that the character has been associated with Vertigo for so long, but the miniseries has all traces of that groundbreaking imprint extracted. In summary, this miniseries was a bad idea and an insult to a great character.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 2009 DC mini-series of Animal Man's declining powers - written by comics legend Gerry Conway, March 28, 2010

By	K. W. Schreiter (Conshohocken, PA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Last Days of Animal Man (Paperback)

This enjoyable six issue 2009 DC Comics mini-series shows Buddy Baker/Animal Man in 2014 San Diego as he deals with the atrophy of his superpowers, an accumulated alienation from his wife and two children, and new villains Bloodrage and Prismatik. DC published an Animal Man series from 1988 to 1995, but the character fell back into obscurity until the 2006 "52" epic. This "Last Days" mini-series was written by comics legend Gerry Conway with pencils by Chris Batista, inks by Dave Meikis and colors by Mike Atiyeh. Brian Bolland, the cover artist for DC's 1988-1995 Animal Man monthly series, provides the covers for this mini-series as well. Superman, the Flash, and Power Girl guest as part of the new supergroup "The League of Titans", as does Starfire/Princess Koriand'r, who was lost in space with Buddy during a major "52" story arc. The artwork is serviceable, though many of Batista's female faces look like the same person (with the notable exception of Koriand'r). The plot occasionally drifts towards corniness, and the villains are underwhelming, but I enjoyed reading each issue of this mini-series. Familiarity with the character and the DC Universe is not required as Conway provides enough background for new fans without boring old ones.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Amimal Man, May 21, 2010

By	Terry L. Favor "tfav" (Lubbock, Tx) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: The Last Days of Animal Man (Paperback)

This is a story of a hero becoming a man, which is what he was in the beginning.
Having powers doesn't change who you are.
What do you do when what you have been doing is no longer an option?
This is the question that is answered here.