Lemire’s plot for Animal Man is far from original—I think the idea of a little girl controlling “the Red,” or flesh, is from Mark Millar and Brian K. Vaughan’s Swamp Thing, definitely Vaughan’s. And Lemire’s dialogue is occasionally weak between Buddy and his wife… but the issue’s still compelling.
Foreman is the wrong artist for it, because as Buddy starts getting weird looking, how are we supposed to be able to tell he’s any different from how Foreman usually draws him.
Still, this issue is a lot better than the first one suggests Lemire is capable of doing on the title. It’s mostly a suburban talking heads book and then it becomes a father-daughter story. The uncanny domestic situation takes up about half the issue—animals resurrected, neighbors deformed—and Lemire’s pacing of it is fantastic. It’s panicked and stressful and excellent.
Lemire’s starting to win me over.
