“Ask the Psycho-Pirate.” These words summarize perfectly the genre-bending metaphysical exploration of the comic medium that is Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man. Animal Man as a character has never gotten major billing in the DC Universe, often being overshadowed by more powerful characters. But as Morrison took Buddy Baker not just on a run-of-the-mill superhero adventure but on a poignant dissection of the very nature of storytelling as a whole, the method of fourth-wall-breaking metafiction was turned completely inside-out.
Buddy Baker was a regular human until an alien spaceship appeared one day. After being infused with a radioactive power from the spaceship Buddy found himself possessing the powers of any animal he could imagine. The strength of a gorilla, the speed of a cheetah, the flight of an eagle; nothing was off-limits to the newly minted hero.
But Animal Man never really took off and Buddy only appeared sporadically over the years. In 1985, however, DC launched one of the biggest and most influential comic events in history with "Crisis on Infinite Earths". The 12-issue story chronicled the convergence of all of the different realities and universes in DC's publishing history. Characters were born, characters died, and their universes were never the same after the event. This universe melding event is very important for Animal Man. Buddy Baker is a family man. He has a wife, a son, and a daughter. His job as a stunt man isn't going as well as it could be and his career as a superhero is less than stellar. With the likes of the Justice League existing in the world, most people either don't know who Animal Man is, or worse, just don't care. Buddy has his share of fighting superpowered villains, as superheroes tend to do.
But very quickly in Morrison's run things become very strange. A life-like Wile E. Coyote analog appears in the desert, suffering gruesome death after gruesome death. A mystery is slowly revealed with only a single cryptic message given: Ask the Psycho-Pirate. As Animal Man deals with a cast of villains and various hero team-ups in traditional comic fashion, the comic itself begins to take very obvious strides to show that it's self-aware of being a comic book. The aliens that gave Buddy his powers so many years ago return and mention how he hasn't aged over the decades and how his origin story is different. Psycho-Pirate, locked in Arkham Asylum, babbles about infinite worlds trapped inside of his mind. As events spiral further and further out of control around Buddy, he finally learns that he is, in fact, in a comic book. Psycho-Pirate is the only person alive who actively remembers all of the events of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and it's driven him mad. All of the characters and alternate universe counterparts of Earth-1's characters burst from his mind, even breaking free of their art panels.
Animal Man eventually finds himself outside of his own world and in the limbo where forgotten comic book characters go to die. After traversing the wasteland he finds himself in another world altogether, face to face with Grant Morrison himself. Buddy is aghast at learning that his entire life was not only written, but ruined by a writer for nothing more than simple shock value. Morrison explains the ins and outs of the comic book industry and what kind of writing sells books. It's a heartless and callous business, he explains, ruining good people's lives for other people's enjoyment. The series ends with Buddy being returned to his world, the family that he thought he lost coming back to him.
Grant Morrison's Animal Man is a surreal and scathing deconstruction of the comic book industry. By injecting his strong personal views of veganism and animal rights into the narrative Morrison subjects his readers to graphic and harrowing depictions of animal abuse and cruelty, both in the names of science and entertainment. He addresses the abject cruelty comic book characters are subjected to by writers and editors for the sake of book sales and how fickle the fates of these characters truly are. Despite the gravity of the questions Morrison poses to his readers, though, his run ends on a positive note. We are the ones that can help animals. We are the ones that can make the world a better place. And we are the ones that can write positivity into life, not just for ourselves, but for others as well.