Animal Man: Monkey Puzzles

[alicemacher]

From Animal Man #25 (July 1990).



In a field somewhere, a monkey finishes typing the epilogue to Shakespeare's The Tempest (the Yellow Aliens having quoted from earlier in the play, in the previous issue). Meanwhile, Animal Man gazes at the landscape of weird ruins that's replaced San Diego outside his house. After telling his pets Skipper and T.C. he won't be long, he ventures forth in hopes of learning once and for all who writes his world and is therefore responsible for everyone's suffering. He comes across a fellow, in a jester costume, who introduces himself as Merryman.






Merryman introduces Buddy to the other members of his team, the Inferior Five, bumbling Silver Age heroes from Earth-12. Elsewhere, in the aforementioned field, the monkey collapses from a heart attack in the midst of typing the script for this very issue.







The Inferior Five did go on to appear sporadically in comics after this; most notably, Dumb Bunny was revealed to be the half-sister of Angel from Angel and the Ape. (There's a 2019-2020 Inferior Five mini-series currently on hiatus after four issues. And it is in fact "done serious," except with pretty much entirely new protagonists -- children.)

Buddy, in any case, is more interested in who the creator is who murdered his family. Merrryman suggests he try the City of Formation, but wants to find the monkey first. He complains that while some of the human characters now in Limbo will eventually get out, no one cares about the animal characters.










The Gay Ghost, despite his embarassment over his name due to lingustic shift, did make later, minor appearances in stories set during the Golden Age, thus justifying the use of that name with its original meaning. (The year prior to this comic, he also appeared in Secret Origins vol. 2 #42 [July 1989], but as the Grim Ghost.)

Buddy spends the next five years(!) wandering through Limbo with the monkey, occasionally meeting people. As he reaches snowy territory, he taks pity on a shivering Red Bee (of the Freedom Fighters) and gives him his jacket. Days later, in the midst of a blizzard, he comes across Mr. Freeze, who objects that he shouldn't be there because he was "one of Batman's greatest foes!" (This is the pre-B:TAS version of the character, before Victor Fries and his tragic backstory, so yes, he hadn't made any appearances in quite some time.)







Eventually, Animal Man comes across Nightmaster (later to return as leader of the Shadowpact), who tells him there's no city where Buddy's headed, "just some old house," which he points out. "No," says Buddy as he recognizes it all too well.







Realizing the monkey too is dead, Buddy slumps to the floor in despair. Unable to remember the last time things were normal, he once again laments the undeserved suffering and deaths of so many, and wonders what to do now. Remembering the monkey is clutching a script, he breaks its fingers so he can extract it.







Buddy leaves the house, this time finding himself not in Limbo but a contemporary city. Arriving at a particular house, he finds the door opened to him. "Hi," says the occupant. "I've been waiting for you."







Next: the conclusion, in one of my all-time favourite comic issues regardless of genre.