Animal Man: Hour of the Beast / The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

[alicemacher]

Warning for racism, and for cruelty to animals.


Today's post covers two non-consecutive issues (#13 and #15) instead of one. This is because they share two things in common: they're both "social problem" stories in the tradition of Neal Adams's Green Lantern / Green Arrow team-ups, and they both focus solely on their respective topics, thus standing apart from the ongoing metafictional mystery plot. Beyond this, while these stories are competent enough I feel that, much like the first four issues, they're not really representative of Morrison's Animal Man run as a whole. Your mileage may vary, of course; let's discuss!


Issue 13 (July 1989) takes place mainly in South Africa, where apartheid was still in effect at the time. A young activist, Dominic Mndawe, meets with a white journalist who's heading to the United States. Dominic talks him into smuggling out some undeveloped film he's taken of atrocities against black people, so the American press can get the uncensored truth. After the meeting, the police arrest Dominic, beat him and throw him in jail.

Meanwhile Buddy, after seeing Vixen onto her plane home, runs into the B'wana Beast. Or, rather, into Mike Maxwell, who explains over coffee that, after taking time over the past year to recover emotionally, he's decided to pass on the role to someone else. Buddy agrees to tag along with him to Tanzania, where Mike, in a special ritual, drinks his Beast elixir one last time. The ensuing psychic experience points him toward his successor.

Sometime later, in a South African jail cell, Mr. Van de Voort -- apparently some sort of government or police official -- bestows further physical and verbal abuse on Dominic as he ties a noose for the prisoner's "suicide." He also mentions that the authorities will apprehend the journalist at the airport, so all of Dominic's efforts have been in vain. As, Van de Voort claims, will be the efforts of Archbishop Mogatusi, a leading anti-apartheid activist (presumably based on Desmond Tutu, then Archbishop of Capetown). The government, he says, plans to entrap Mogatusi by inciting anti-apartheid protesters to violence, to which the cleric will characteristically respond by appealing for calm. At which point he can be arrested for "addressing an illegal gathering."







Buddy and Mike burst into the cell, knock Van de Voort out, and take Dominic to a safe location.










Later still, Van de Voort puts his plan into action, ordering a crowd of protesters to return to their homes. However, Mogatusi throws a wrench in by broadcasting his appeal for calm over a loudspeaker instead of appearing in person. The frustrated Van de Voort gives orders to prevent the protesters from dispersing, so the military will have a pretext to shoot them. Maxwell then steps forward as a human shield, claiming the government won't be able to explain an American national's death. Van de Voort shoots him anyway, fortunately only through the arm.

Just as the soldiers are about to receive "fire at will" orders, Buddy burrows onto the scene from underground, causing a small earthquake which allows the crowd to disperse safely. Van de Voort, in the confusion, manages to find Mogatusi nearby and points his gun at him, telling him he's finished. Then someone calls his name.










A South African government minister is enraged to find that the photos, for which Dominic's journalist ally was detained at the airport, are apparently just "holiday snaps." Meanwhile, Buddy turns up at the Daily Planet with the real photos and hands them to Perry White.



In Issue 15 (Sept. 1989), Animal Man joins his former Forgotten Heroes team members Dane Dorrance and Dolphin for a special operation in Denmark's Faroe Islands. (Meanwhile, a mother dolphin, in thought-captions throughout the issue, looks forward to reunion with her mate and child from whom she's gotten separated, and to the day when the pitiful "hu-men" abandon their murderous ways, shed their clumsy limbs, and join the dolphins peacefully in the ocean.) Dane tells him that the Faroese locals -- among them the particularly vicious Ongur Nielsen -- gather once a year for a mass slaughter of dolphins.







Dane explains that Buddy's and Dolphin's task will be to guide the dolphins away from the hunt using ultrasound, while he and Jóannes, a Faroese man opposed to the traditional slaughter, block the hunters by ship. When Ongur spots Dane and Jóannes, he harpoons one of the dolphins, reasoning that the others won't leave an injured member of their school behind. From underwater, Buddy capsizes Ongur's boat before he can attack the activists' ship, while Dolphin sees to the injured mammal and directs the rest of them away.

However, as the dolphins approach the shore, there's a spear-bearing crowd ready to strike. Dane fires a machine gun into the water as a warning to the hunters.










Later, as Dolphin swims happily home, Buddy regroups with Dane and Jóannes, who assure him the rest of the dolphins are safe for now. Dane asks about Ongur, and Buddy admits that he lost his temper and "gave him to the fishes." But -- enter the mother dolphin:










Of these two issues, I prefer "Hour of the Beast" by a wide margin. While I dearly wish we could regard it as a historical piece, post-apartheid, Van de Voort's "make them, not us, look like the bad guys, then shoot 'em" approach to anti-racism protesters remains all too familiar in present-day America. Mike Maxwell's character is further rounded out, revealing him as an individual still deeply devoted to universal justice, even as he remains short-sighted about some of the particulars, such as the colonialist offensiveness of the title "B'wana." (While some readers have called Dominic's new choice of title, "Freedom Beast," hokey or on the nose, it's definitely preferable to the Swahili word for "master.") And Dominic himself is one of Morrison's best original characters from the run, getting all the best lines and making it clear he'll continue the Beast's fight -- his way.

"The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," while it also deals with a still-unresolved societal issue worthy of our attention, comes up a bit short as a story. Whereas there have been, and still are, many Van de Voorts in the real world, Ongur Nielsen comes across as an over-the-top cardboard cruelty-dispenser like Ray the poacher from the first arc. What's more, his constant (not just in the page I posted) pejorative dismissal of his opponents as "Americans" both ignores that one of them is Faroese like him and, in a more external and troubling way, implies that Americans somehow have a monopoly on concern for animal welfare. Finally, I think Buddy's deliberate (if impulsive) attempt to kill a villain is totally out of character for him at this juncture of the ongoing story, and thus dilutes the dramatic impact of certain... actions further down the line where they're more understandable and arguably justifiable in context.

Next up: a ghost story. A temporal mirror-image of an issue to come.

Comments

[scorntx]

Huh.
And here I was thinking only royalty could die of symbolism.


And Freedom Beast went on to a long, distinguished career of... standing around being in the background, then getting killed by Cry for Justice.
*sigh*
... still, for a Morrison creation, that's almost a step-up from "just completely forgotten".


The dolphin monologue, giving Grant a chance to have someone speak in broken sentences.
More intelligible than usual for Morrison, though.
(Given what dolphins get up to, that guy got off seriously lucky...)

[silverhammerman]

Freedom Beast would eventually show up in the Midnighter solo series by (who else) Steve Orlando, where he had a pretty fun role! So at least his last appearance wasn't in Cry for Justice.

[lordultimus]

Fun fact: back in the day, B'wana Beast was seen as racist even when he was created; co-creator Mike Sekowsky eventually refused to continue drawing the strip.

[tcampbell1000]

That's pretty amazing!

[lordultimus]

He was made in 1967. People were getting pretty sick of the "Mighty Whitey" trope.

[beyondthefringe]

Bob Haney created a lot of characters in his time... and some of them were flat-out bonkers and out-of-touch with the times. He was a good, if not great, writer, versatile. but increasingly unable to reflect changing trends and cultural opinions. B'wana Beast is an example of something that might have been popular in the '50s (like Congorilla, the evolution of the similiar Big White Hunter Trope, Congo Bill).

It's a shame Freedom Beast never caught on, though maybe with a better outfit, he might have fared better.

It's a little baffling that long after Freedom Beast was created, DC STILL insisted on using B'wana Beast in both JLU and Batman: The Brave and the Bold--two excellent series which honestly had no call to bring back the culturally insensitive version of the character (if you ask me.) (Even if they were both fun stories...)

[tcampbell1000]

In JLU, at least, they presented the character as pretty much exactly the sort of person who would think calling himself B'wana Beast was a good idea and wrung some laughs out of that, which seems like one of the best approaches you can take.

[mastermahan]

I was surprised about The Brave and the Bold using B'wana Beast over Freedom Beast. They used the Jason Rusch Firestore, Ryan Choi Atom, and the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle (though Ted gets an episode too).

At least they recognized the same thing as Morrison - that the only thing making Beast memorable is his beautifully weird power.

[tcampbell1000]

To clarify, what I find impressive is that the co-creator of the series was willing to walk off it during a time when refusing any work was a dicey proposition for a comics artist (so... 1933 to now, basically). I mean, I get why, but that still doesn't happen very often.

[themajesticmoose]

The second he started mewling and whining about how it's "Not about politics" like a spineless little centrist piece of garbage I utterly despised him and learning that the character was racist as hell even by the standards of the silver age? That just gives me another reason to be glad he was replaced by someone better

Also "You've got some lessons to learn Dominic"?

Literally no white man illegally occupying South Africa has ever had anything of worth or value to teach anyone.

Please tell me that Mike Maxwell died shortly after this story and that his detah was an extremely humiliating and pathetic one because that would be hillarious

[tcampbell1000]

The Beast storyline is an impressive achievement, and big chunks of it still feel contemporary despite the changes to South Africa. Dominic and Mike's interactions are choice; I wish we'd gotten to see them together at least once more after this.

For all that I like to talk about art, there are things I can't fully explain. I could rave about the "Make a Man Out of You" sequence in original Mulan (I have no interest in any other versions), and how it manages to cram in so much story that it feels like there's more movie in its three minutes than in the entire rest of the movie. But I can't tell you whether that's why it brings tears to my eyes almost every time I see it. I just know that it does.

And so do the last two pages of Animal Man #15. Most of the run-up has most of the problems Alice mentioned, and Buddy seems more aggressive than his usual even in his opening scene, in which an unexpected use of his powers knocks everyone in a bar fight senseless. But I can't say too much against a comic book that ends so beautifully.

In any case, I'm a bit conflicted about whether Buddy's killing rage is out of character or not. If I had to use one word to describe his personality in the series, I'd probably go with "overwhelmed." He seems almost constantly out of step with his own life, partly due to his discomfort with celebrity and maybe also due to the way his powers bring the animal world into his head. This usually makes him passive but can make him subject to wild, brief impulses. In any case, this impulse is the only reason the ending works. Ongur could've nearly drowned due to his own hubris or Buddy could've dropped him by accident, but we had to establish him as a criminal against wildlife on a scale seemingly unforgivable even by the generally merciful Buddy. "Our way is different."

[tripodeca113]

Freedom Beast is mistaken. Hundreds of people die of symbolism every year.

[dcbanacek]

This reminds me of the old "Knights of Pendragon" comic Marvel (UK?) did. They too did an issue dealing with the Faroe dolphin hunts.

[reveen]

Wow, I didn't think I'd ever again see a depiction of an anti-environmentalist that was more cartoonish than how people act in real life. Even Captain Planet seems kinda tame these days compared to corporate practices.

But straight up gutting a porpoise with a bowie knife to make a point how little you think of the environment? Yeah, that'll do it.

[lordultimus]

Yeah, there's a reason that the environmentalist stuff is actually one of the less remembered parts of this run. Even Morrison took a crack at some of it in the final issue (pointing out that it doesn't make much sense for his powers to be the reason for Buddy to be a vegetarian since most of the animals he copies are carnivores).

[silicondream]

A South African government minister is enraged to find that the photos, for which Dominic's journalist ally was detained at the airport, are apparently just "holiday snaps." Meanwhile, Buddy turns up at the Daily Planet with the real photos and hands them to Perry White.

I do love the cheekiness of using the Planet here. It reminds us that Superman and Clark Kent are both fairly terrible at doing their jobs when real-world politics are involved.

Whereas there have been, and still are, many Van de Voorts in the real world, Ongur Nielsen comes across as an over-the-top cardboard cruelty-dispenser like Ray the poacher from the first arc.

This, I have to disagree with. The cardboard villains in this story are all the Faroese Islanders—as Dane Dorrance describes them. He’s the one who tells us that Ongur’s an insane murderer, that the Faroese don’t need the dolphin meat, that they torture and mutilate the dolphins for the sheer fun of it.

But the Ongur we actually see on panel is…not that. He doesn’t hurt or threaten to hurt any human except the ecoterrorist outsiders, who are clearly prepared to do the same. He’s not a rapist or a notably greedy businessman. And he doesn’t particularly take pleasure in the act of killing the dolphins.

What Ongur is, is a right-wing nationalist. He’s a conservative, a patriot. He’s proud of his culture’s traditions, fearful of outside contamination, and resentful of the foreign powers that can turn his way of life upside down on a whim. When he flips out at the end and starts stabbing the dolphin calf over and over again, he’s not doing it because fuck dolphins, he’s doing it because fuck the Americans who have spent the entire issue spying on him, beating him up, wrecking his boat and almost drowning him, and are now threatening to machine-gun his neighbors. It’s the injustice of it that enrages Ongur, and the strongest act of defiance he can commit in response is to risk his life by shocking American sensibilities.


And that’s why Animal Man tries to kill him, I think. Buddy can keep his cool with villains driven by sadism or lust for power, because those impulses mean very little to him. But Ongur’s a fellow activist driven by moral indignation, and that hits too close to home. Even the narrowness of Ongur's moral vision has to feel a little familiar to Buddy at this point, considering the latter's decision to ignore all violence between animals.

…and while I’m fluffing him, note that Ongur is the only character in the issue who actually grows. He has his moment of communion with the dolphin underwater, and when he returns to the beach he seems to have lost his rage. Perhaps he’ll treat dolphins differently after this. Dane, meanwhile, has learned absolutely nothing from the whole affair and plans to do everything exactly the same next time around. The dolphin’s the only hero of this story, but Ongur’s the deuteragonist.

What's more, his constant (not just in the page I posted) pejorative dismissal of his opponents as "Americans" both ignores that one of them is Faroese like him and, in a more external and troubling way, implies that Americans somehow have a monopoly on concern for animal welfare.

Rather, I think Ongur’s implying that Americans have a near-monopoly on force, which of course they do—both in this story and in the real world. The Faroese environmentalists are clearly a minority and would normally have to persuade or negotiate with their fellows, but Dane’s team are willing and able to just police the entire territory. Their presence makes Faroese sovereignty irrelevant.

BTW, the worst thing about this issue as far as I’m concerned is the fact-checking. Dane’s description of the grind is (unsurprisingly) straight out of Sea Shepherd propaganda and gets just about every detail wrong—the whale species involved, the importance of the grind to the local diet, the treatment of the whales by the hunters. The whole bit about “whales keep the plankton population down and thereby prevent global warming” is scientifically absurd, and was back in the 80s as well. Morrison’s never been a hard science kind of writer, but this is Trump-level crankery.

It’s like that Swamp Thing arc where Woodrue tries to have the plants wipe out the animals via global forest fire and then then Swampy’s like “oh but plants need animals to breathe” and, like…no, Alan Moore. You know better. If you care about environmental issues, ask a scientist before you publish.