Animal Man #6
Story By : Jeff Lemire
Art By: Travel Foreman and Jeff Huet
Review Score : 8 /10
Jeff Lemire takes us away from the Baker family this issue to focus on one of Buddy Baker’s films as the lead in Red Thunder. Right away Jeff Lemire uses the narrative in the film to parallel whats happening in Buddy’s life with his family. We see Buddy as Chas, a down on his luck father who is separated from his wife and hasn’t seen his son in over a month . When Chas decides to suit back up to earn the respect and interest of his son and ex – wife things go terribly wrong and he ends up in the hospital. Chas is greeted by his ex wife and son in the hospital and its apparent that they don’t want to see him do this anymore , but Chas is not picking up on the fact they want him to stop.
Jeff Lemire nods his hat to films like Crazy Heart and The Wrestler, even on the opening page the film is presented by Liramax and is directed by Ryan Daranovsky obvious nods to The Wrestler. The narrative switches back to Buddy and his family when we see the picture start to buffer and stop. It is here that we are brought back into the van that is now the Baker’s shelter from The Rot as they are on the run in search of Alec Holland aka Swamp Thing.
The art in this book is handled by Jeff Huet for the movie scenes and Travel Foreman for the scenes after. Both artists do an amazing job of creating an atmosphere wit Jeff drawing very cinematic scenes to help establish that you are watching a film and Travel delivering cleaner line work than Ive seen in previous issues . As always this is a pretty book.
Jeff Lemire continues to tell a well crafted tale and seems to be It seems like Buddy’s role as the Red Tornado is going to have more in common with the way his family views him in the immediate future . Animal Man continues to be one of DC’s books on the stands . Lemire is doing a great job and has more than able artists backing him up creating a very different Superhero book that you cant help but love.
Mike Devivo
Follow me on Twitter @pandasandrobots
