In the final confrontation, Morrison tells Buddy: "Of course I know [how you feel about the death of your wife and kids]. I wrote your grief and your rage and your acceptance." He also explains that he killed them in the first place in order to "add drama". Buddy says: "That's not fair." And then Morrison gives him the real explanation for the grim turn in the series--"No. It's not. One of my cats died last year. Something, maybe a bone, punctured her lung. Pus built up in her lungs so that she couldn't breathe. She suffered for four weeks and then died at the vets, a couple of weeks after her third birthday. Her name was Jarmara. That wasn't fair either but who do I complain to?"

The truth is that there is no "compensation" for the wrongs that befall us in real life. So artists close the loop in their work. Sometimes they even make preemptive strikes upon their fears, as Morrison implies when he says: "I told you about my cat Jarmara. I took her to the vet every tuesday and thursday. I liquidized her food and fed her with a dropper. I prayed for her to get better... I'd have done anything to save her really. And yet there was a part of me--the part that observes and writes--rubbing its' hands and saying, 'well, at least if she dies, I'll be able to use it in Animal Man'..." As Rorschach would say--"one more body in the foundation." But where Moore argues that political orders are built upon the suffering of the expendable, Morrison offers a far more radical formulation--our lives are built up at the expense of those who mean the most to us...

Death is not the final enemy in Animal Man--the rationalization of death is. Morrison tells Buddy that he couldn't possibly bring Ellen and the kids back, because "that wouldn't be realistic". But then he changes his mind. Why? Isn't it because he recognizes that the "integrity" of Buddy's march toward acceptance--his "developmental arc"--doesn't make real suffering any easier to endure? Ultimately, Buddy's desire to see his family again is the only "real" thing about him. And we owe it to ourselves to be kind to others, if it is in our power to help them... Who knows? They may turn out to be real. (just like Foxy...)

okay, now get ready 'cause it's time to go

Spelunking for Apocalypse

Okay, I've been doing a lot of talking about Animal Man as a "narrative field" radiating out of the abyss--and it's about time I dove in there(I'll call out if I need you!)

These story arcs trace circles 'round a center that just ain't there, so forget about taking the measurements--but if there's a pi in the swirl, it's "Ghosts of Stone"...

I know many of you have never come across this story, from Secret Origins #46(Dec 1989), so I'll be as concrete here as I can!

It's a JLA story...pencils by Curt Swan/inks & coloring by George Freeman.