Animal Man

When I was in early high school, we had to watch a video in biology class called "Rainforest Rap". It was a cringe-worthy half hour of earnest youngsters and "hip" adults talking about the plights of the disappearing rainforest. There was a particularly bad rap-style music video that gave the program it's name. I'll never forget the apocalyptic lyric warning of what may lie in store for Earth's rainforests in the grim future; "If we don't change soon, by the year 2000 they'll all be gone." Thankfully we seem to have avoided that dire fate.

Animal Man is not a bad comic. It's no "Rainforest Rap". But it's not a great one either. It's environmental philosophy is intended for an audience with a maturity level somewhere between Captain Planet and "An Inconvenient Truth". I enjoyed Animal Man fairly well, but I don't think you're missing out on too much if you skip this one.

Man, I thought this was supposed to be some kind of astute subversion of 80s superhero comics, but it felt pretty much like every other insipidly-dialogued mainstream superhero story, with a bunch of cheesy cameos shoehorned in to sell issues. I could almost hear the live studio audience squealing with glee whenever Hawkman or Martian Manhunter made a fawning full-frame appearance. Disappointing.