The fact that I had never read a single panel of Animal Man was one of those things that I could never admit at the local comic shop. Grant Morrison is so infamous a writer and Animal Man is the comic that he made his name on, that it becomes almost required reading for comic nerds (in a similar way of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run). However, the character just never sounded that intriguing and the plots, when related to me, always sounded a bit preachy. How is this comic? Well, the protagonist is a little dull and the story is a bit preachy.
I'm not saying the issue isn't good or that it doesn't work. It is and it does. Morrison does an amazing job of both humanizing the dolphins who are being murdered while also maintaining a certain Otherness that keeps reminding the reader that they are different than us.
This issue is solid and good, but just seems a bit... obvious? Straight-forward? Blunt? I cannot quite put my finger on it but there's something about this story that just feels a little limp in comparison to Morrison's later work.
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