Post by aman on Oct 5, 2008 7:57:52 GMT -5
Basic Information:
Real name: Bernhard “Buddy” Baker
Current Alias: Animal Man
Gender: Male
Age: 29
Occupation: Stunt Man, Professional Adventurer, Religious Icon, Shaman
Marital Status: Married
Alignment: Good
Affiliation(s): Donna Troy’s Task Force (One time member); Animal Masters (One time member); JLI/JLE (former), JLA (ally); Forgotten Heroes (frequent member)
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Characteristics
Height: 5” 11’
Weight: 172lbs
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blonde
Character Type: Altered Human/Mystically Powered
Description: Buddy is a man of average height, build, strength and looks. He had been pretty average all his life. His costume is one of the most readily visible elements about him, sporting a traditional form-fitting superhuman look, sleek designs of a stylized A on his chest, and the more than function Leather Jacket which holds things like his Justice League Access Card, Spare change and his MP3 Player. The goggles on his mask are the most distinctive part of his costume, given that their shape is Triangular rather than round.
Personality
Buddy is an all around family man. Initially very happy go lucky, Buddy enjoyed the freedom his wife allowed him to experiment with a super heroic life style. Buddy’s family was very supportive of his efforts as a hero, and later putting his powers to use as stuntman. Ellen, in particular, is very fond of the Martian Manhunter. However, before the Crisis Buddy found himself increasingly more depression, and unhappy, both with the state of the World and the events he found himself in. His demeanor changed to be more aggressive, angry and bitter with the world. Fortunately, Buddy snapped out of it towards the end of his “Shamanic” phase, and returned to his old personality, much to the pleasure of his family. Ultimately, Buddy is just a regular guy, a proto-slacker, idealist, and family man who enjoys spicy Mexican food and R.E.M. music
History
Secret Origins
Buddy was once a happy hell raising punk rocker, playing in a garage band, and trying to win the affections of his high school girlfriend, Ellen Frazier. One autumn afternoon he went hunting in the Adirondack Mountains and when he returned home, he had changed.
Encountering some escaped animals from a nearby zoo; Buddy discovered that in the presence of an animal, he was able to absorb their abilities; such as the spring of a tiger; the strength of a Gorilla or the power of an Elephant. During his first adventure Buddy was met by any large alien beast, presumably from the crash, but later discovered to be the envoy of the other aliens (Important to Buddy later in his life) with similar powers to his. After a fight in the town, Buddy lured the beast back to the mountain range by attacking it with a fire truck. Once there, the hulking alien destroyed the truck, but was defeated when Buddy exposed the alien to frightened field mice. The alien took on the attributes of the mouse, as well as its fear. Initially Buddy only displayed the powers of the Animals he came in contact with during the manifestation of his powers, the Tiger, the Gorilla, the Elephant and the Sea Lions, but he later progressed onto other Animals.
During Buddy’s next big superhero outing, he dealt with more Aliens. Coming to Earth to check on the workings of the beast Buddy had defeated on the first manifestation of his powers, they unleashed their hate ray on the inhabitants of the city, leaving only Buddy unaffected. After discovering the why the aliens sent their beast to the earth, Buddy defeated them, sending them packing to their own planet. Buddy then went on to defeat minor thugs and villains in his next two appearances as a hero before facing off against the Mod Gorilla Boss, which he eventually defeated. It was Buddy’s long time friend, Roger Denning who convinced him to wear the Orange and Blue costume and become the Animal Man.
Along with his new found powers, a new level of confidence came to Buddy. He finally plucked up the courage to ask Ellen, his high-school girlfriend, to marry him. After she accepted his proposal Buddy retired his Animal Man identity, and moved to San Diego. Living on the salary from Ellen's work as an illustrator and Buddy's newly-started career as a movie stuntman, the couple mortgaged a house in the suburbs and raised two children, Cliff and Maxine.
Buddy made a brief appearance to lend Aquaman a hand during the formation of the Justice League during the Appelaxian invasion. He used his powers to mimic a Dolphin and create a Whirlpool, with the assistance of Aquaman, to draw and contain the water based aliens into a freshly created hole his future Forgotten Hero colleagues Dane Dorrance and Cave Carson had just created.
Forgotten Heroes
Buddy gathered together for what might have been the very first meeting of the Forgotten Heroes. They initially joined because of a “coincidence” between the members of the group. All of them had witnessed an Ancient glowing golden temple; Buddy had witnessed it himself in Brazil, however the Government was quick to quiet him down, revoking his passport and sending him packing back to the US, as they did with the other heroes. As what would come to be a common thread for the Forgotten Heroes, Vandal Savage was working and plotting behind the scenes. The Golden Temples, also known as the “Time Pyramids” were built by an unknown race. Savage was peppering Superman with Prehistoric Seedlings so his every movement would spread these spores over the surface of Metropolis, where they grew quickly and voraciously. Savage intended to completely recreate his prehistoric world in Metropolis with the aid of these spores. After some quick thinking and telepathic alerts from Immortal Man, the spores were burnt off of Superman by the sun’s rays, whilst the Forgotten Heroes traveled over the world to visit the Time Pyramids. In Brazil, Buddy was able to alter the codes of the Pyramid, stopping it from going back to the creation of the universe, and preventing Savage from using the energies released from the big bang to control and devastate the world.
Buddy was spotted as one of the hundreds of heroes battling the robotic invasion of the Construct. Eventually, like all the other heroes, Buddy was beaten back and his mind taken over by becoming a slave, until the Red Tornado defeated it and returned the world to normalcy.
Again, working with the Forgotten Heroes, Buddy helped to track down a group of villains, under the lead of Vandal Savage, called the Forgotten Villains. The Villains were attempting to recover pieces of “The Primordial Meteor”, the origin of both Savage’s and the Immortal Mans ever lasting life. Buddy’s part in this was to distract the Faceless Hunter, who was acting as Sentry, to allow the Immortal man to get to the Primordial Fragment before Savage. By enlisting the help of the prehistoric wildlife, in this case a herd of Mammoths, Buddy was able to take the Faceless hunter by surprise and knock him off his guard. Sadly, the Immortal man was defeated, and the group had to return home defeated.
During the first Crisis, Buddy’s role was to investigate the formation of “New Earth” Or “Earth Sigma”, with Rip Hunter, Dolphin, Captain Comet, Adam Strange and the Atomic Knight; their destination was Brianiacs ship, once on board they discovered the Monitor’s viewing screen, which had once been aimed Earth showed nothing but Cosmic Static. Since the universe itself was threatened Brianiac did something uncharacteristically altruistic and took the group through space, eventually meeting with Darkseid. Their meeting with Darkseid alerted him to the presence and dire events caused by the Anti-Monitor, which eventually led to his aiding Alex Luthor by providing him with extra power, allowing the heroes to defeat the Anti-Monitor.
The Human Zoo
After much deliberation Buddy came to the conclusion that he wanted to return to the Superhero Business. He felt as though he was an actor who had wandered into the wrong play by living a relatively normal life and taking just Stunt Man work, and after a small argument with his wife about it, she eventually agreed to allow him to return to his superhero work. After getting himself an agent, his friend and former neighbor Roger Denning, he went on a small time talk show, hosted by Dick Griffiths, who openly mocked Buddy. However, due to his appearance on TV, an intern at STAR labs got Buddy to attend the scene of an apparent break in. Whilst the scientists were working with Primates to synthesize a cure for Aids, someone had broken in and merged the monkeys together. The lab had been wrecked by an eight foot tall Cockroach, according to the eyewitness accounts. Buddy decided to try and track the bug man by latching onto the sense of smell of the dogs in the lab; however he was disturbed by their treatment. After very little luck, and a confused Aquaman fan, he briefly met Superman, before being attacked by a hybrid rat creature. Being beaten to a pulp and having his arm forcibly removed by the Rat creature, Buddy he was able to re-grow his arm by latching onto an Earthworm’s regenerative powers. It transpired that B’Wana Beast was behind the eight foot Cockroach and the rat Creature that had hurt Buddy, Buddy found out by doing some research in the library. He had come from Africa to rescue his friend and benefactor Djuba the Red Ape from Star Labs, where she was being experimented upon.
B’Wana Beast rescued Djuba from the labs, and shortly afterwards it was reveled to Buddy that they were experimenting on a Military grade variant of the Anthrax virus, something which would kill an armies livestock, but leave the invading army unharmed. Buddy, disgusted with this went off to the San Diego Zoo to try and prevent the spread of the Anthrax virus. Meanwhile, in the Woods Maxine and Ellen had escaped a deadly situation which nearly ended in Ellen’s rape, but thanks to the timely intervention of their neighbor. During Buddy’s final battle with B’Wana Beast he managed to avoid fighting the entire Zoo, as B’Wana beast, in a fit of rage had combined many animals together, including a Tiger and Gorilla. When they finally met, they battled briefly before Buddy latched onto B’Wana Beasts own powers and defeated him as he tried to over take Buddy’s mind. The beast apparently died shortly after their battle but Buddy, thinking quickly managed to save the Beasts life by merging some of his white blood cells into super-powerful defensive cells.
Buddy’s next adventure was meeting Crafty the Coyote, an anthropomorphic coyote from another universe, who had been sent to the “higher realms” of Buddy’s universe as punishment for rebelling against his God’s will. The cartoon Messiah was forced to live out his life in the hell of Buddy’s world, being killed over and over again. He tried to get Buddy to read his story, however it was mere scribbles and Buddy was unable to understand it. Sadly Crafty was shot through the chest and killed shortly after meeting Buddy.
During the Invasion event Buddy played a very small part in witnessing the life of a Thanagarian Martyr artist, who gave his life to perform his final artistic masterpiece; to create a planet wide image of Fractal geometry. Sadly Buddy did little more than witness his life, until Hawkman came and switched the bomb off, which Buddy was unable to do because of its unique design.
The Aliens were defeated and Buddy took part in the clean up efforts, particularly in Miami where he was around to witness the last moments of a Golden Age villain the Red Hood. Discovering that he was dying, the Hood decided to try “one more stunt” and let loose a group of barley working Robots around the war ravaged city. Buddy spent some time talking to him, even hearing his “secret origin” before flying away to see if he could get the Red Hood a TV spot, so he wouldn’t throw himself off the edge of the building. The Hood did this anyway, which left Buddy feeling very depressed. As he flew back towards L.A. he was hit with the Gene-Bomb.
Buddy was rescued by Booster and the Blue Beetle when his powers were affecting Local life, including huge swarms of angry birds. He was placed inside Boosters force field and kept in stasis for the duration.
JLI Introductions
After this, Buddy received an invite, along with a multitude of other heroes, to attend a “party” at the Justice League head quarters. He attended confessing to Ice and Power girl that he had no idea why he had been invited and felt a little out of place. After a few hours of mingling, some Khund Warriors who had been miniaturized during a previous encounter with the JLI returned to their original size in the Kitchen, and after they burst through the door they found the next room completely full of heroes. The Khund Warriors retreated, leaping into the teleport tubes of the JLI head quarters, but sadly scattering their atoms since they were destined to the now non-existent JLI Australia head quarters. The heroes’ numbers had worked against them, but after a selection process to thin the group, made by Oberon and Maxwell Lord, Buddy made the initial cut allowing him to finally draw a salary from being a superhero.
Buddy is left somewhat powerless from the Gene-bomb, and after being accepted into the Justice League, he Buddy’s next encounter is with the Mirror Master, who attacks him for what is apparently no reason. However, Buddy learns that the Master was sent after him to “teach him a lesson” from a private party concerned with Buddy’s counter-establishment ideas, and his aid of Subversive Animal Rights groups. Luckily, Ellen was able to defeat the Mirror Master instead of her Husband, by kicking him in the groin and pushing him down the stairs.
After Buddy’s house was partially destroyed by the Mirror Master, the JLA, who offer a service to help rebuild their members’ households represented by the Martian Manhunter turned up to fix the house. Buddy took off with J’onn to explain that his powers aren’t working correctly. Whilst J’onn explains the JLA will not carry passengers he also lets Buddy know he is impressed with his stance to protect the Earth and not just be a hero for “White bread” reasons. J’onn does try to help Buddy understand the problems with his powers, but Buddy describes the malfunction as though he felt he was dying every time he reached out for an Animal.
Buddy was one of the first members of the newly created Justice League Europe. On the first meeting Buddy was initially very wary of the League, and none too impressed considering they’d spent weeks fixing a teleport tube in his basement, that they decided fly him, along with his team mate the Red Rocket known as Dmitri, out to Paris. After Captain Atom’s long and rambling introduction, the League settled in for what appeared to be a long first day. A man turned up dead on the doorsteps of the Embassy in Paris, only for it to be revealed later that he was a Nazi. To top things off Animal Man’s costume and luggage had been vaporized by the teleport tubes and a meta-human, controlling the minds of the locals caused them to attack the embassy.
Looking into the case more, Animal Man and Captain Atom traveled to California, where they met and were attacked by the Wild Huntsman in the rubble of a Nazi Camp. The Huntsman, who accused Buddy and Atom of being Nazis, was quickly dispatched by Captain Atom, since Buddy was having trouble with his powers. It transpired that the Huntsman was in an apparent coma; his breathing was shallow, almost unnoticeable. When a small group of Justice League Europe members went to the national monument to the Global Guardians (The Dome) a minor incident occurred resulting in a battle with the Guardian Jack O’Lantern, and the destruction of the Dome. Whilst Buddy wasn’t directly involved, he watched the results of the battle on the TV, as well as the slander against the Justice League, and raced with the others down to the Dome.
Out of Africa
At the beginning of perhaps one the most important chapters of Buddy’s life, he journeyed to England to help out on sabotaging a Fox hunter. After rescuing the Fox, he returned to England, complaining that his scrambled powers were making him feel unwell. Upon his return he found that Mari Jiwe Macabe AKA the Vixen had appeared at his house, knowing only that she should reach out for Animal Man. She had been pursued by invisible Animal spirits, all the way from Africa, after Hamid Ali “The Undying One” had begun to excavate a spot of tribal importance. The invisible creatures tracked Vixen, and Buddy to his home where they attacked. Buddy was “unraveled” by their gaze, the second time he was to die, and ceased to exist disappearing before Ellen’s own eyes. However, her grief and confusion was cut short by the arrival of the two yellow Aliens, who had formerly attacked Buddy.
The aliens, rebuilding Buddy the same way they initially worked on him rebuilt him from a template. His powers were boosted and he was released, along with Vixen into Africa, though his colleague, performing the equally complicated maintenance on “the Continuum” was having a much more difficult time, in both controlling it, and keeping things as they were. Ellen faded out of existence at least once stating they Buddy and her were not able to have kids. Animal Man and Vixen were both taken hostage by Hamid Ali and his servant, Tabu, who also possessed Animal powers. Hamid who attacked them both with Tabu and his tank, Buddy was tranquilized and placed, along with a depowered Vixen in a sterilsed room, preventing Buddy from using his powers. Tabu was to kill them in the morning. Meanwhile, the Alien’s craft, the Traveler was breached by Hamid’s laser weaponry; it transpired that the Traveler was the sacred tribal object.
After reaching out into Hamid’s body, Buddy was able to duplicate himself in a similar fashion to a bacterium replicating itself. As they escaped, leaving Buddy’s duplicates to deal with Hamid and Tabu, Vixen planted a bomb inside the complex, apparently destroying the Animal Masks. Buddy then threw himself down the hole, where the breached Traveler lay. The Alien explained to Buddy about the Template; how the invisible beasts were Memory-forms; and that every few thousand years they return to the surface to give out items, or powers to allow people to touch the “Template” (Which would later be known as Space B). Buddy was told that he was a Paradox that his Pre-Crisis form was an older man, who should not have existed in the post-crisis continuum. Buddy re-wrote his history, with everything the Alien told him taken into consideration. The Monster that first attacked him was re-written in as Memory form, and he was a much younger man when his powers manifested.
After seeing Vixen onto the plane in Africa, Buddy ran into an old acquaintance - Mike Maxwell, the B’Wana Beast. Mike included Buddy in the ritual to find the new Beast. After what happened in San Diego Zoo, Mike found it nigh impossible to continue being the beast. After donning the garb a final time, Mike and Buddy found Dominic Mndawe in a cell. He had been arrested for trying to smuggle photographs out of Africa. After helping Dominic route a potential disaster at the hands of some racist white supremacists, Buddy left Dominic the hands of Mike who insisted that the Beast belonged in mythology, not in politics. Dominic however, had other ideas.
Whilst Buddy was in Africa, a number of events clicked into place. Ellen, Maxine and Cliff had all been seeing or experiencing “Ghostly goings on”. Maxine had seen and even met a Ghost. When Buddy returned from Africa he even tried to track down the Ghost, after it appeared in the Window of his house. Chasing it outside Buddy remembered the vision of the Ghost from when he was ten.
Whilst Buddy was “Ghost hunting” he received a call from his former Forgotten Hero colleague, Dane Dorrance. Dane wanted Buddy to help prevent the annual slaughter of Dolphins on the coast of the Faeroe Islands. Buddy assisted in preventing any more of the slaughters, along with the help from the Sea Devils and Dolphin. In an uncharacteristic move for the time in Buddy’s life, he lost his temper and carried the head leader right to sea, before dropping him and leaving him there, potentially to die. Luckily for him he was saved by a Dolphin, who had forgiven him even though he killed many of the Dolphins family.
JLA Days
After the revelation that Jack O’Lantern was working and living in Biayla with the Queen Bee, Powergirl and Buddy went under cover to see what exactly was going on. Whilst visiting Biayla the dup now reunited with the majority of the league sets out to infiltrate the royal palace via the sewer system. However, they are headed off inside the sewers after Buddy notices that there a tiny cameras lining the walls. After a brief battle the League defeated Lantern and headed off the Queen. After a short discussion the Queen and the League came to an agreement – she’d stop attacking the name of the league and controlling the minds of innocents, and they’d keep quiet about the way she ran her country.
When Metamorpho’s wife turned up at the JLE headquarters, Buddy along with the rest of the league were surprised to learn Rex had a wife, but nobody was more surprised than the amnesiac Metamorpho. It turns out that Sapphire had married Java in the interim whilst Rex was dead, and was in a rage about his wife returning to her former spouse. Ralph Dibny and Buddy tried to delay Java in the lower levels whilst Rex and Sapphire talked it out. Ralph and Buddy opted to “sit outside” whilst Java and Rex wrecked the headquarters.
Buddy was part of the JLI envoy that traveled over the planet “familiarizing” themselves with the staff and layout of the JLI embassies. During which they experienced the London Embassy’s fire drill, and overly officious chief of staff, the repairs of the Australian Embassy after the Invasion, A visit to the Paris embassy, where Blue Beetle’s anger at Captain Atom was apparent, and the trip to the Russian embassy, where Buddy got the Flash almost into trouble with the very butch chief of staff there. Eventually the league was offered a station on a tropical island, where the league spent the rest of the day relaxing.
Under the suggestion of Max Lord, J’onn and Catherine Cobert, the French Liaison with the JLE, most of the group went to learn French at a night class. However, by a twist of fate, the Injustice League also attended the same class. A brawl ensued, which resulted in both Leagues being arrested. However, the Buddy and his fellow JLI members were later released from prison after they learned they had diplomatic immunity!
When Captain Atom lost his powers Buddy was initially very against the idea of lying to the press about it. Since he’d recently become a media darling at the hands of his own actions as well as publicity from the Justice League he felt it might compromise the integrity and the respect of the Justice League as well as himself, from the Press.
When Ellen received word that her children’s book was going to be published, Buddy took her to Paris to celebrate. While they were in Paris, the newly escaped Time Commander took “control” of time, and caused all sorts of havoc in the streets. Buddy fought a Tyrannosaurus Rex, before the rest of the JLE caught up with him. Upon discovering the Time Commander was behind the problems, the other heroes tried to beat him up, which was met with little success. Ever the different hero, Buddy simply talked to the Time Commander, finding that he was trying to make the world a better place, reverting back to the Garden of Eden. However, his Hour glass was destroyed by Metamorpho, who also broke his nose. Buddy felt sorry and even guilty for what had happened to the Time Commander.
When the League was called to a small European village, they found themselves at the receiving end of the wrath of Dr. Irwin Teasdale, who was working with The Gray Man. The European town’s people were apparently turned into Vampires, and rampaged across the town infecting non-vampires, and attacking the JLI members. During the day light hours Buddy confessed to Dmitri how out of place he felt, and how he felt, literally, out of his league around so many other heroes with stronger and more useful powers, in such weird situations.
It transpired that Teasdale was working for Simon Stagg, who initially funded the creation of the gas, which had turned the townspeople, and in a later attack, the U.N troops into Vampires. Buddy had to forcibly restrain Metamorpho, who was more than willing to beat Stagg into a pulp. Teasdale, along with his Vampire army moved on the Stagg industries plant, whilst Dr Fate and the Spectre went to try and neutralize the threat of the Gray man, who was using the ultimately fatal disease to expand his power base, by causing all the “Vampires” to kill themselves on the electrical fences of the plant. Buddy didn’t stomach this very well, and was more sensitive to the loss of life here than the other members of the League, particularly Guy Gardner. Eventually, with the combined powers of the Lords of Chaos and Order, they gave the Gray man a “Cosmic Lobotomy” allowing him to continue his work, without the risk of him returning to his power hungry search.
During the battle with the Vampires and the Gray Man, Powergirl had been badly wounded and ended up in Hospital. After the quick thinking of Sue Dibney, she was saved, after the Doctors and Superman helped to treat her. Buddy watched the results of the operation, as well as the news report on TV with Dmitri.
When a Painting, under the control of the Brotherhood of Dada, ate Paris Buddy and his colleagues in the Justice League called on the Doom Patrol to sort the situation out. Whilst they didn’t go on the adventure with the Doom Patrol, they witnessed the Doom Patrol’s unique brand of Weirdness in action, when the group moved inside the painting, and then caused the painting itself to regurgitate the “Fifth Horseman” in the form of a Rocking Horse.
While Buddy was away dealing with other Business, namely the problem with the Painting that Ate Paris, and the Doom Patrol, the Crimson Fox was offered JLA membership, however she declined forcibly by spitting on Captain Atom, and leaping through the window. The next day she reclined her previous statement and moved into the embassy!
The End of Animal Man
When Buddy returned to America he took part in a raid on an Animal testing facility. Disturbed and shocked by the monkeys, whose eyes had been sewn shut for experiments on animal testing, whilst the other animal rights protestor torched the place, Buddy discovered through Ellen that the fire was chemical in nature, and had put a fireman into critical condition. Buddy was horrified by this; Buddy quit the JLE, and his Animal Man identity, giving over his last pay cheque to the injured fireman. As Buddy came home to tell Ellen the bad news, he found the physicist and sufferer of an existential fourth wall breaking trauma, James Highwater, half corporeal, half “sketched” on his living room floor.
James Highwater had been led to Animal Man after “coming into the world”. He’d felt that even though he had memories of his entire life he was only now just existing. Visiting Arkham Asylum, he met with the Psycho- Pirate, who was babbling insanely about dead universes. Picking up a piece of paper at the Pirates feet, he had found images of Buddy from his Pre-Crisis days. Tracking him down to his house in San Diego, he tried to show Buddy these images, but found they had been transformed into a map of Native American preserves, with a Mesa circled.
Once they reached the Mesa, they both took some Hallucinogenic Peyote Buttons, experiencing cosmic truths and visions. Buddy was greeted by a ghost-messenger, since his position as the Animal Man prevented him from having a totem. It all led James to come to the conclusion that Buddy was connected to the Morphogenetic field, the place where every animal that ever existed is represented by it’s perfect form, it’s own ideal form.
Witnessing the Prophecy rock, Buddy traced the path of images to the Crisis, then finding a suggestion of “a second crisis.” As the duo reached the ultimate revelation, Ellen was visited by a man known as Lennox.
During the second part of the vision, Buddy met his pre-crisis predecessor, who had been wiped from Continuity. Unlike Buddy he didn’t receive his powers until he was thirty, and when he married he was unable to have kids. The Radiation that gave him his animal powers made him sterile as well. After explaining that Buddy worked for people who twisted his life for entertainment, he broke the Fourth wall, looking outside of his comic book existence, and then Buddy and James finally started to understand the nature of reality, and Buddy’s powers. Feeling born again Buddy returned home to Ellen and his kids to explain his new experiences only to find that they had been shot, and killed by the man known as Lennox.
Aftermath
Just days after his Family was killed Buddy went back to the JLE Embassy, to gain some support from his friends. Dmitri, who had grown close to Buddy, looked out for him when he first arrived. However that was soon sidelined when Metamorpho, enraged by Stagg’s recent experiments as well as Batman labeling him “unstable” went to seek out his son, with Buddy and Dmitri tagging along to prevent any kind of violence breaking out. However, Metamorpho broke free of the duo to see his son, who was “being treated like a monster”. He beat up Guy Gardner, but before he could get to his son, he was confronted by the Metal Men. Once Buddy woke up, he got into a typical “misunderstanding” fight with Java, who later had his arms melted by Metamorpho’s baby. Once all the excitement had died down, Buddy who was still in a lot of turmoil and grief over his family, quit the Justice League forever.
Buddy was devastated beyond words. Roger and his Ex-Wife as well as their neighbours tried to comfort Buddy, but with little success. He later held a funeral for his children and wife, in which most of the JLE attended to offer their condolences. In a fit of depression and desperation, Buddy decided to take his own life, but was saved at the very last minute by a phone call from the Mirror Master.
Donning his old punk costume, Buddy and the Mirror Master took off around the world tracking down the corporate “big-wigs” who killed his family. Buddy drowned the first man, buried the second man alive, and finally punched an elevator containing the third man off the side of the building, allowing him to drop to his death. Buddy finally faced Lennox, who was wearing a suit of enhanced armor. Eventually defeating him, he found that killing the murderer’s of his family didn’t help his pain at all.
Grasping at straws Buddy went ahead and got a time traveling machine from Rip Hunter, by lying about a possible threat from time controlling enemies. He traveled backwards through his own timeline, appearing to be the ghost that Buddy had encountered a few months ago. James Highwater was recruited by the aliens to help prevent the Psycho-pirate from bringing about the second crisis, which would collapse the continuum, whilst Buddy, trapped in the Seventies was taken to lunch with the immortal man, Jason Blood and the Phantom Stranger. Finally Buddy was rescued, pulled back through time by one of the Aliens to help prevent the rip in the architecture of the real.
As Psycho-Pirates mind gave birth to every possibility, every character that had been erased from continuity, including Over-Man, a superman variant from a world where he enacted doomsday. Stepping outside of the Continuum, into Space B, Buddy was able to effectively fight and eventually defeat Overman. During this Battle James Highwater put the Medusa mask on, and took the Psycho-pirates place inside the Asylum. The aliens took Buddy back to his house, to tell him that there was time for just one more adventure, and as he opened the door to his house he stepped into Limbo.
Meeting up with the Inferior Five, more specifically with Merry man first who gave him a small tour of Limbo. In the background of these events, a Monkey with a type writer sits underneath a tree, typing the script for “Animal Man”: Issue 25” before suffering wooziness and falling face first into his type writer. Merryman explained that the Monkey is important to Limbo, which led Buddy to suggest he take the Monkey somewhere it could be helped. So the plan was formed, for Buddy to take the Monkey to the City of Formation, to try and heal it. Searching for weeks, months possibly even years, Buddy finds there was no city, and he’s been led directly back to his own house. Stealing the script from the Monkeys hands he reads and carrys out the final parts – cutting a key from the script and using it to unlock a door in his house, stepping out into the “real world” where he met his “writer” Grant Morrison.
Buddy spent a good long time talking to his creator. Finding out if he was real, or not. Grant explained that he always wrote Buddy, but didn’t create him. He killed his family because there was something about bloodshed and death what excited people. He also told Buddy that he was moving on, he wasn’t going to be writing him anymore, and he might change. He might find himself no longer a vegetarian or interested in Animal rights, as they were Morrison’s passions. Finally at the end of the story, Morrison leaves Buddy sat on the couch in his home, only for his family to come walking through the door. Buddy is upset, but he doesn’t know why.
Unreality
Buddy emerged from a three month long Coma, with no knowledge of how he got into the coma, or what had happened leading up to it. Everything was very strange, dreams of murderous saber-toothed cats and horses plagued his thoughts as he woke up to a world where Ellen and his kids were very, very different. Buddy, had also changed during his coma. More uninhibited, more animalistic, he created some problems for his family when he “marked his territory” and sniffed the buttocks of Ellen’s publishers wife. Finally Buddy created a real problem for himself when he was taken over by primal urges and tore the throat of a police horse out in front of thousands of people.
After doing some research Buddy found that he was elsewhere, in a different universe apparently. Things didn’t make sense here, Marvin Gaye was still alive, Hitler was put on trial and Neil Armstrong wasn’t the first man on the moon. After discovering that this wasn’t his world, he went to talk it over with Ellen. He discovered that she was having an affair, which threw him into an animalistic rage. Beating the man and forcing him to submit, he declared that he had won ownership of Ellen back. Ellen, however, had other ideas. Buddy was taken from the bedroom by the Nowhere Man, a molecularly displaced individual, who informed Buddy he’d been drafted to protect the President from some super powered toddlers.
After killing the nowhere mans former friend, the Front Page, and earning the hatred of the Notional man, Buddy took off from his assignment to protect the president and took Cliff and Maxine with him, against the wishes of Ellen who had put a court order on him, preventing him from seeing them until after the Divorce. Maxine was kidnapped shortly afterwards by the Notional man, who was dispatched by Buddy, possessed by Animalistic rage. Stopping in a church afterwards, Buddy’s prayer was disturbed by the shattered sky light and his own body falling down in front of him.
Discovering that the Buddy in front of him was in fact a hallucination from one of the three super-powered children, Buddy retracted from the church, only to have the C.I.A and nowhere man catch up and detain him. His children were returned to their mother, whilst he was briefed about the children and their powers, and his mission. However, Buddy found that the hallucination he thought he was having about the Jungle in the bathroom, was in fact truth, and is possibly the reason for his more animalistic and ape-like behaviors, as he was confronted with saving a young primate from a saber-tooth tiger. Buddy then faced one of the children, but was apparently killed for the second time when a piece of glass pierced his heart.
At Buddy’s funeral, the nowhere man managed to sneak past Ellen and into the house, trying to sneak a glimpse of this jungle in the bathroom. With the aid of Maxine, he was able to access the jungle. Upon later explanation, it appears that the Buddy who died was of a divergent reality. The Buddy who came back with nowhere man from the Jungle had originally walked into the Jungle. The Buddy who died was from a divergent branch of reality where he slammed the door closed. The reason both were allowed to exist was solely to do with the Jungle, a point in the distant past connected to the present. A group of future scientists traveled to the divergent point in humanities evolutionary history; however after a tussle one of the ape-man was trapped in the time-door preventing it from closing properly.
Upon further explanation it seems that two Buddy’s could not inhabit the same world at the same time, every time the Buddy from the jungle entered a world, that world’s natural Buddy was killed. In the Jungle many Buddy’s from different time lines could meet and discuss their apparent problems, which led our Buddy to eventually work out a way to break the reality loop. Buddy managed to make friends with one of the children, called Lucinda, and after the promise of a presidential pardon he managed to get the kids to turn themselves in. However, Buddy was betrayed by the President and the kids were taken to be experimented on.
Buddy flipped out, killing the president and then escaping his guards. With the aid of the nowhere man he was able to find Lucinda, who implanted a hypnotic suggestion inside of him, allowing him to remember all of his experiences after the trigger word “Mr. Baker” was spoken. After stepping into the jungle bathroom again, Buddy rescued the Ape-man who had been caught in the time door, and threw himself off a large rock. Waking from a Coma, and finally remembering what happened, Buddy found himself in the correct universe finally, where he was met by his true wife and children.
Shaman’s Work
A Month after his experience with the Coma, Buddy’s life was back on track. Making a lot of money from his career as a stunt man, he is living comfortably with his family until endangered birds begin to turn up dead around him. Their insides appear to be cooked. On a flight home from a stunt shoot, Buddy is shot at by a “crazy hippy” with a bow and arrow. Whilst the arrow misses Buddy, it hits his son in the side. Chasing up the hippy later, the police find that while he had no bow and arrow, he did have an array of interesting machinery. Altered to more raptor deaths, Buddy is attacked by a Wolverine, and after defeating the animal he tries to turn its powers off, but is unable too. The powers even begin to mutate his arm into a wolverine’s claw.
Buddy’s connection to the Red was affecting both his behavior and his powers. Unable to make his hand return to normal, or to control his temper, he found that his daughter was tapping into the same power set he was. She was becoming more animalistic, tearing her soft toys apart with her teeth, and then making friends with a pack of rats, which were drawn to her. Using his own powers he was able to quiet the rats and remove them, retracting Maxine’s powers and behavior with his own abilities. After confronting the Hippy, who accused Buddy of killing the birds of prey, he had the man arrested, only to find at a later date that he was in fact correct – his own powers were killing the Animals.
Working with Travis the hippy, Buddy and he tested his Animal powers. When he took the powers directly from an Animal, as he used to, he was able to take the powers fully and control them. However, when he tried to take it directly from the M-Field he found he was unable to, and his connection began to degrade. He took this theory and managed to apply it to a stunt for a film, an electrical stunt which sadly for Buddy went horribly wrong, particularly when the director ordered the murder of three dogs.
Continuing to work with Travis Buddy began to research more into animal lifestyles and their structures. He bought a van and looked into new methods of using his powers without killing animals. Meanwhile, Buddy’s daughter was being visited by an entity she called “Mr. Rainbow”, when Maxine made one of her frequent trips inside Mr. Rainbow she met an old native American, who she named “All the Animals”. He told her to pass a message on to her father. “The Animals are going to teach him a Big Secret.”
Trying more experiments with his Animal powers, Buddy began to experiment some negative effects from his powers. Taking the poison squirting ability from a fire Salamander, he also changed his facial features, making them more elongated and extending his tongue. All of these changes led Ellen to take Maxine and Cliff away for a few days. Meanwhile Travis was visited by Mr. Rainbow, who convinced him that the end of the world was coming. In an attempt to gain some of his old popularity, Buddy did a one off demonstration at the San Diego Zoo, which culminated in the power of the Red exploding out of him, killing every Animal around him.
Maxine and Ellen went to visit Ellen’s mother in Vermont, leaving Cliff in Buddy’s care. Cliff and his friend Ace torched Travis’ place imitating the ultra violent comic book character “The Penalizer”. Travis left Buddy as well, going off to New York to get on the “Angels space ship”, to avoid the world ending. Buddy’s powers went more haywire, trying to patch him into every Animal he kept in his basement, as a reserve power base. Finally witnessing Mr. Rainbow, Buddy attacked it, and defeated it, using his ability to fire energy bursts from the Red for the first time.
As Buddy’s powers continue to go haywire, he descends into the depths of depression and almost insanity. Cliff left Buddy after he struck him in a depressed stupor, and finally released the animals in his basement. Buddy’s powers had also been affecting local wildlife, bringing in three large packs of Wolves, which terrorized the city, as well as driving birds and other animals crazy. In a final drop of sanity, Buddy ran around naked with the wolves, being “at one” with them, before trying to pull himself together and visit his daughter and wife.
On his way to visit Ellen and Maxine, Buddy stopped off in a sleep little village. During his stay here he was almost recruited to the Dr Fate and the Phantom Strangers cause to defend the planet, but he rejected them, exploring the village and finding America’s only black bear farm. The energies released by Circe and the Gods gradually transformed the Men into twisted versions of the bears they hunted and slaughtered. Buddy finally managed to control his powers, meeting and communicating with a bear then controlling or persuading the bears of the surrounding areas to come down and kill the men.
Whilst the other heroes from around the world were squaring off against Gods, or the Gods themselves battling each other Buddy was recruited by some of the most powerful mystics on the planet in the form of Dr Fate, Zatanna, Madame Xanadu and the Phantom Stranger. Circes original spell to free the Gods, as well as set Beastimorphs off all over the planet was taking hold but a solution seemed to present itself. By taking some of Buddy’s blood, Dr Fate was going to attempt to tap into his blossoming powers, and mix it into Circes original spell. Once the spell was cast, Animal Man was charged with standing in the centre of it, assuming the essence of the Animals. With Buddy’s role at the centre of the spell he was able to whittle down Circes Beastimorph army to just a few; however it paid a terrible toll on Buddy, taking him out of the equation for the duration of the War.
Buddy finally made it to Freeport, staying with his Wife and Daughter and his wife’s Mother. Travis, who had been offered the chance to train with the Shaman, “Stone that cracked the Earth open like an Egg”. However, Travis was picked up a man known as Mr. Samson, who had previously offered Buddy a job for S.T.A.R labs. However, Buddy had refused it; Travis on the other hand was not in a position to, as he had broken his probation by leaving the state. Whilst on the farm, Buddy’s, now completely malfunctioning caused a number of Animals, mostly the larger ones such as the horses and cows, to float in the air. Buddy was contacted by his old Hawk, Harriet, who was being used as a vessel for Stone. Upon approaching Stone, he was struck and told that the two of them had much to accomplish.
Cliff had wound up in San Franciso, saved by his uncle Dudley from a group of “ruffians”, whilst Travis was seduced by Samson’s assistant, whilst the S.T.A.R. labs released prototype genetically engineered warriors, who went rogue and killed the soldiers they were being “field tested” against. Buddy’s essence inhabited a black bear, whilst his conscious mind was being tested on the spirit planes. Whilst his Bear form met up with Maxine, and played with her, Buddy woke from his dream trek to meet the other Animal master who had been by his side his entire journey. Buddy and Tristess, the other Animal master, then proceeded to make love in both the form of Black Bears and humans. Eventually meeting up with Travis again, and engaging in a short battle with Vixen, who wore the Animal master Tabu’s masks, Buddy returned to the farm to learn that Ellen had traveled to New York to get work to provide for their family, while he was off effectively doing “nothing”.
Reunited with his family, Buddy expressed a concern for the work that Ellen was doing for a “grim and gritty” comic book, especially since the writer was using the story submitted by Cliff. Buddy and Ellen also had some trouble locating Maxine, who appeared to have disappeared. Whilst this was going on, Raney Fox, the movie director Buddy originally did some stunt work for, wanted to buy the rights to the Animal Man life story and make a film about it.
The more time Buddy spent with Stone the more he began to realize they had a shared past, in fact the Bakers all had a shared past with the Red. Going back to “Old Jack Baker” who fought with Tomahawk in the revolutionary War, Buddy’s father told him that all Bakers were close to nature, and natural hunters. Deep within Buddy’s repressed memories, he found that he had met Stone before. On a hunting trip with his Father, Stone had rescued Buddy’s dad from death by treating the wounds he received when killing a grizzly. Stone also wanted to use Buddy his “Son” to kill a beast who had fallen to Earth in a cosmic cocoon.
Buddy, using his powers, managed to locate Maxine, who was a mile below the surface of the Earth. It turns out that Maxine, along with Mike Maxwell, had tapped into the powers of the “Antagon”. The entity that fell to Earth in the Cosmic Cocoon some years ago, this power was the source of Buddy’s problems, after fighting with Maxwell; he was absorbed into the Antagon.
With the Antagon now possessing Mike Maxwell, it set off on its rampage across the country, killing plant and Animal life along the way. Killing Raney Fox, Ellen feared that Buddy and Maxine had been killed, but Buddy had used his powers to shield the two of them. Traveling to the Sweat Lodge of Stone, he moved into the between realms, with Tristess and Vixen.
Taken into the between realms Buddy passed one of the final tests, calming and controlling the massive guardian of the realm, a Dustmite. Riding on the mite, they met up with Stone who told me of the remaining three Animal masters, himself, Krate and Arum. When the world was young, the Animal masters used their powers to create Animals. They still create animals. Meanwhile, Samson from S.T.A.R labs had used dead animals, touched by the M-Field, to create a super human body for himself, as the Antagon ravaged through Vermont. Buddy returned, learning that he was supposed to be one of the five animal masters, a long with Vixen, Tristess and his daughter Maxine that would finally defeat and kill the Antagon.
The Animal Masters, the old ones pulled the Antagon, who now possessed the body of the super human Samson, into the M-Field. Within the field Buddy, Tristess and Vixen pulled together, their powers reaching out into the uncreated and doing something that had not been done since the big bang. They created another universe, a universe inside the M-Field, away from this creation and this world that would contain the living embodiment of destruction.
Flesh and Blood
Flying out to the last known location of Dudley, Buddy began the search for his missing son. In the meantime, Maxine had something of a prophetic dream showing Cliff being vivisected by what appeared to be a twisted version of Uncle Dudley, whose fingers were transformed into knives. As Buddy grew closer to the trail of Dudley, and Cliff, he was hit, deliberately, by Dudley’s truck, apparently killing him.
Ellen flew into the city to meet Buddy’s remains, but was met with a horrible shock. Buddy had reanimated himself only to find that his body was a wreck, a completely destroyed shell that he could no longer feasibly inhabit. Before that, Buddy had embarked on the mammoth task of moving against the flow of life and death, swimming up from the Red where the spirits of all animals went and returning to his original body. The climb and movement was difficult for Buddy, and every fragment of his being called for him to go back into the Blood Sea.
Buddy was reborn in that moment, clinging to life, even though he didn’t know it as a mite living on Ellen’s eyelash. As she cried he was pulled from his precarious position and pulled down into the pond where his ashes were just scattered. He then moved through various animal life forms, a Hydra, a Fish, and then a Dragonfly Larvae, which eventually metamorphosed into a Dragonfly. Buddy’s emergence was greeted by an elated Maxine, who became distraught when Buddy’s Dragonfly body was eaten by a passing Bat.
Buddy moved his way up the tropic levels of nature, from the bat he was eaten by to Maxine’s pet Triceratops, Winky. Whilst inhabiting Winky, he found something of a kindred spirit. They were both somewhere they didn’t belong, both somewhere outside of their own realms of existence, and they were both desperately lonely.
Meanwhile, Dudley had taken Cliff to a place where he and his friends had made old slasher movies. It began to dawn on Cliff that Dudley had gone wrong somewhere in his life, and was insane. His uncle later trapped him in a “church” worshipping death itself. Over the other side of the country Buddy was being reborn again, using Winky’s capacity to lay an egg, as well as his own abilities to tap into the Red, even unconsciously at this stage, to grow himself a new body. As he had generated Winky before, Buddy managed to dig deep into the template and make himself anew.
Real name: Bernhard “Buddy” Baker
Current Alias: Animal Man
Gender: Male
Age: 29
Occupation: Stunt Man, Professional Adventurer, Religious Icon, Shaman
Marital Status: Married
Alignment: Good
Affiliation(s): Donna Troy’s Task Force (One time member); Animal Masters (One time member); JLI/JLE (former), JLA (ally); Forgotten Heroes (frequent member)
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Characteristics
Height: 5” 11’
Weight: 172lbs
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blonde
Character Type: Altered Human/Mystically Powered
Description: Buddy is a man of average height, build, strength and looks. He had been pretty average all his life. His costume is one of the most readily visible elements about him, sporting a traditional form-fitting superhuman look, sleek designs of a stylized A on his chest, and the more than function Leather Jacket which holds things like his Justice League Access Card, Spare change and his MP3 Player. The goggles on his mask are the most distinctive part of his costume, given that their shape is Triangular rather than round.
Personality
Buddy is an all around family man. Initially very happy go lucky, Buddy enjoyed the freedom his wife allowed him to experiment with a super heroic life style. Buddy’s family was very supportive of his efforts as a hero, and later putting his powers to use as stuntman. Ellen, in particular, is very fond of the Martian Manhunter. However, before the Crisis Buddy found himself increasingly more depression, and unhappy, both with the state of the World and the events he found himself in. His demeanor changed to be more aggressive, angry and bitter with the world. Fortunately, Buddy snapped out of it towards the end of his “Shamanic” phase, and returned to his old personality, much to the pleasure of his family. Ultimately, Buddy is just a regular guy, a proto-slacker, idealist, and family man who enjoys spicy Mexican food and R.E.M. music
- Easy Going: Buddy is an easy going guy really, being a Father will do that to you. He tends to role with the situation and goes ahead with whatever’s going on. This allows him to be a great asset of any team as he just continues on with his task despite the situation and regardless of the consequences.
- Charismatic: People are generally nice to Buddy and like to hang around with him. This is because of his easy going and friendly demeanor. He finds that most people don’t mind having him around, and he rarely gets into arguments with anyone, simply because he never says anything inflammatory, or controversial. His good nature and occasional insights make him interesting and pleasant to have around.
- Unfazed: The amount of weirdness in Buddy’s life over his years as a superhero has made him very difficult to shock. Whilst he is not unshockable but he is uneasy to faze. He generally takes to things with an open mind, instead of questioning why it was happening, or how it was working, he simply gets on with whatever the situation is, and tries not to consider the intricate details.
- Humor: Not quite on the same level as the Blue Beetle or Booster Gold, Buddy is a very happy go lucky hero. He always has a smile for everyone he meets, and is generally pretty happy most of the time. He can joke around as much as the next guy, and is always one of the first to offer a quip, or a barbed comment to lighten up a potentially devastating situation. Whilst his humor occasional ventures in the realms of Dad humor, he is fairly easy going exhibiting irony, wit, dry humor, stating the obvious and his personal favorite of Surrealism .
- Responsibility: Buddy is a responsible man. He considers a lot of thing his responsibility, and often takes actions to try and sort those things out. He is a great advocate of non-violent animal rights activists, and protestors, an environmental protection supporter, and takes part in a number of programs to prevent pollution and extinction of endangered animal species.
- Advocate: Buddy is a great backer of Animal Rights appeals, often accompanying them on protests, as well as taking a more active role, such as preventing fox hunts, and defending dolphins from slaughter. However, Buddy does not condone the actions of some of the more extreme members of the animal rights movements, particularly the violent ones.
- Forgiving: Buddy isn’t Hitman, or Batman. He never errs on the side of caution; in fact most of his philosophy is caution to the wind. He will forgive anyone mostly, even his encounter with Psycho-pirate during the lesser known “Secret Second Crisis” he forgave the man, noticing his powers and the responsibility had taken a toll on his psyche. The only time Buddy has ever been driven to do something inherently unforgiving was during the period in which is family was murdered, ultimately they were resurrected by “the creator” but during this time Buddy lost himself to a more primal place.
- Primal: Buddy can be very primal stemming from his connection with the Red. He can be ruled purely by emotions, and on a few occasions has worked on an entirely instinctive and intuitive level, such as when his body was destroyed by being run over by a truck, he reached out and put his soul into the body of the nearest Animal – a Dragonfly.
- Dependable: If you have a problem, call Buddy Baker. Once he starts something he generally goes through with it. He’s helped the Justice League on many occasions, lending them his knowledge, as well as Aiding in political problems
- Family Man: Buddy is constantly given comfort by the idea that he has a loving family behind him. This gives him a little bit of an added edge in meeting new people, as well as giving him a bit more confidence in his actions and his responsibility. When not on duty, or adventuring Buddy defaults to his most important role, a Father and a Husband, and whilst Ellen and the kids have been through up’s and down’s over the years, Buddy has always done his best by them, and cared for them, sometimes from a distance.
- Religion: Buddy is sometimes viewed as a religious icon, particularly amongst the more “new age” people of the world. His previously outspoken distaste for human culture and economical gas guzzling climate meant he won over a lot of teenagers and left over hippies. He even started his own religion, which to a certain extent he still abides to. No Meat, not needless destruction of the natural world. You reap what you sow and you replace what you reap. It’s a simply way of life, and it fits for many people, but sometimes Buddy does enjoy using his new iPod.
- Shaman: Buddy wasn’t a shaman in the same sense as Manitou Raven. He does not tap into Mystical forces, but rather the forces of the Life Web and the Three Kingdoms, the Mind, the Spirit and Matter. Using these he can perform introverted spirit quests to learn more about himself, the world, and gain wisdom from the life web.
- Centered: Around the Animal man, even the wildest animal can be calm. They are both attracted to him and calmed by him, his presence often enough to prevent animal attacks, or to stop them in their tracks.
- Passionate: Buddy is a very passionate individual. Particularly when it comes to his family, and too Animals, his passions can drive him to achieve almost anything. Sadly, they also drive him to go too far sometimes, pushing him into the realms of Madness as well as radical movements, such as the one which causes the Life-Power Church of Maxine.
- Messiah: Buddy was and still is the Messiah to a whole religion. Operating from two distinct places, with a variety of different minds and ideals existing under one roof, Buddy is the cement that holds it all together. He has died for the religion and been resurrected as well, he truly is their miracle. Many people still find his presence awe inspiring and deeply religious.
- Open Minded: Buddy has seen and done a lot in his short life, from conversing with Aliens, surviving death in a Dragonflies body, or accepting different people’s opinions, life styles, or religious views. He tries to be tolerant of all ideas, including the ones that upset or distress him, such as deforestation, or over culling of Animals, because he understands there is more than one point of view.
- Impulsive: Buddy Baker is not a Planner. He tends to leap into things, sometimes without fully considering all the possibilities. Batman his isn’t. On many occasions he’s leapt into a situation without completely understanding what greater repercussions that might have for him, or his family.
- Open: As well as being Open Minded, Buddy is also very open about himself and his life. Most of his friends in the hero community call him Buddy, and if they don’t, he asks them too. He never made much of an effort to conceal his secret identity, and isn’t all that bothered at the end of the day. He openly discusses events with other heroes about his family, and how much he cares about them.
- Perceptive: Buddy sees things from a different point of view. Mostly because of his life style and his connections, putting him in a slightly different place to most other superheroes. He looks at things from the natural perspective, rather than the home grown American, or the introspective detective. Often his opinions and ideas are derivative of his naturalist point of view, rather than those of a human.
- Wise: The Red allows Buddy the wisdom and understanding of the Animals across the world, as well as the Wisdom of the Animal Masters – Native Americans, Aboriginals and other Shamans across the ages who have tapped into this resource and share their knowledge with it – Even Tefé Holland’s (Daughter of Swamp Thing and Avatar of the Red) knowledge, is accessible through the Red.
History
Secret Origins
Buddy was once a happy hell raising punk rocker, playing in a garage band, and trying to win the affections of his high school girlfriend, Ellen Frazier. One autumn afternoon he went hunting in the Adirondack Mountains and when he returned home, he had changed.
Encountering some escaped animals from a nearby zoo; Buddy discovered that in the presence of an animal, he was able to absorb their abilities; such as the spring of a tiger; the strength of a Gorilla or the power of an Elephant. During his first adventure Buddy was met by any large alien beast, presumably from the crash, but later discovered to be the envoy of the other aliens (Important to Buddy later in his life) with similar powers to his. After a fight in the town, Buddy lured the beast back to the mountain range by attacking it with a fire truck. Once there, the hulking alien destroyed the truck, but was defeated when Buddy exposed the alien to frightened field mice. The alien took on the attributes of the mouse, as well as its fear. Initially Buddy only displayed the powers of the Animals he came in contact with during the manifestation of his powers, the Tiger, the Gorilla, the Elephant and the Sea Lions, but he later progressed onto other Animals.
During Buddy’s next big superhero outing, he dealt with more Aliens. Coming to Earth to check on the workings of the beast Buddy had defeated on the first manifestation of his powers, they unleashed their hate ray on the inhabitants of the city, leaving only Buddy unaffected. After discovering the why the aliens sent their beast to the earth, Buddy defeated them, sending them packing to their own planet. Buddy then went on to defeat minor thugs and villains in his next two appearances as a hero before facing off against the Mod Gorilla Boss, which he eventually defeated. It was Buddy’s long time friend, Roger Denning who convinced him to wear the Orange and Blue costume and become the Animal Man.
Along with his new found powers, a new level of confidence came to Buddy. He finally plucked up the courage to ask Ellen, his high-school girlfriend, to marry him. After she accepted his proposal Buddy retired his Animal Man identity, and moved to San Diego. Living on the salary from Ellen's work as an illustrator and Buddy's newly-started career as a movie stuntman, the couple mortgaged a house in the suburbs and raised two children, Cliff and Maxine.
Buddy made a brief appearance to lend Aquaman a hand during the formation of the Justice League during the Appelaxian invasion. He used his powers to mimic a Dolphin and create a Whirlpool, with the assistance of Aquaman, to draw and contain the water based aliens into a freshly created hole his future Forgotten Hero colleagues Dane Dorrance and Cave Carson had just created.
Forgotten Heroes
Buddy gathered together for what might have been the very first meeting of the Forgotten Heroes. They initially joined because of a “coincidence” between the members of the group. All of them had witnessed an Ancient glowing golden temple; Buddy had witnessed it himself in Brazil, however the Government was quick to quiet him down, revoking his passport and sending him packing back to the US, as they did with the other heroes. As what would come to be a common thread for the Forgotten Heroes, Vandal Savage was working and plotting behind the scenes. The Golden Temples, also known as the “Time Pyramids” were built by an unknown race. Savage was peppering Superman with Prehistoric Seedlings so his every movement would spread these spores over the surface of Metropolis, where they grew quickly and voraciously. Savage intended to completely recreate his prehistoric world in Metropolis with the aid of these spores. After some quick thinking and telepathic alerts from Immortal Man, the spores were burnt off of Superman by the sun’s rays, whilst the Forgotten Heroes traveled over the world to visit the Time Pyramids. In Brazil, Buddy was able to alter the codes of the Pyramid, stopping it from going back to the creation of the universe, and preventing Savage from using the energies released from the big bang to control and devastate the world.
Buddy was spotted as one of the hundreds of heroes battling the robotic invasion of the Construct. Eventually, like all the other heroes, Buddy was beaten back and his mind taken over by becoming a slave, until the Red Tornado defeated it and returned the world to normalcy.
Again, working with the Forgotten Heroes, Buddy helped to track down a group of villains, under the lead of Vandal Savage, called the Forgotten Villains. The Villains were attempting to recover pieces of “The Primordial Meteor”, the origin of both Savage’s and the Immortal Mans ever lasting life. Buddy’s part in this was to distract the Faceless Hunter, who was acting as Sentry, to allow the Immortal man to get to the Primordial Fragment before Savage. By enlisting the help of the prehistoric wildlife, in this case a herd of Mammoths, Buddy was able to take the Faceless hunter by surprise and knock him off his guard. Sadly, the Immortal man was defeated, and the group had to return home defeated.
During the first Crisis, Buddy’s role was to investigate the formation of “New Earth” Or “Earth Sigma”, with Rip Hunter, Dolphin, Captain Comet, Adam Strange and the Atomic Knight; their destination was Brianiacs ship, once on board they discovered the Monitor’s viewing screen, which had once been aimed Earth showed nothing but Cosmic Static. Since the universe itself was threatened Brianiac did something uncharacteristically altruistic and took the group through space, eventually meeting with Darkseid. Their meeting with Darkseid alerted him to the presence and dire events caused by the Anti-Monitor, which eventually led to his aiding Alex Luthor by providing him with extra power, allowing the heroes to defeat the Anti-Monitor.
The Human Zoo
After much deliberation Buddy came to the conclusion that he wanted to return to the Superhero Business. He felt as though he was an actor who had wandered into the wrong play by living a relatively normal life and taking just Stunt Man work, and after a small argument with his wife about it, she eventually agreed to allow him to return to his superhero work. After getting himself an agent, his friend and former neighbor Roger Denning, he went on a small time talk show, hosted by Dick Griffiths, who openly mocked Buddy. However, due to his appearance on TV, an intern at STAR labs got Buddy to attend the scene of an apparent break in. Whilst the scientists were working with Primates to synthesize a cure for Aids, someone had broken in and merged the monkeys together. The lab had been wrecked by an eight foot tall Cockroach, according to the eyewitness accounts. Buddy decided to try and track the bug man by latching onto the sense of smell of the dogs in the lab; however he was disturbed by their treatment. After very little luck, and a confused Aquaman fan, he briefly met Superman, before being attacked by a hybrid rat creature. Being beaten to a pulp and having his arm forcibly removed by the Rat creature, Buddy he was able to re-grow his arm by latching onto an Earthworm’s regenerative powers. It transpired that B’Wana Beast was behind the eight foot Cockroach and the rat Creature that had hurt Buddy, Buddy found out by doing some research in the library. He had come from Africa to rescue his friend and benefactor Djuba the Red Ape from Star Labs, where she was being experimented upon.
B’Wana Beast rescued Djuba from the labs, and shortly afterwards it was reveled to Buddy that they were experimenting on a Military grade variant of the Anthrax virus, something which would kill an armies livestock, but leave the invading army unharmed. Buddy, disgusted with this went off to the San Diego Zoo to try and prevent the spread of the Anthrax virus. Meanwhile, in the Woods Maxine and Ellen had escaped a deadly situation which nearly ended in Ellen’s rape, but thanks to the timely intervention of their neighbor. During Buddy’s final battle with B’Wana Beast he managed to avoid fighting the entire Zoo, as B’Wana beast, in a fit of rage had combined many animals together, including a Tiger and Gorilla. When they finally met, they battled briefly before Buddy latched onto B’Wana Beasts own powers and defeated him as he tried to over take Buddy’s mind. The beast apparently died shortly after their battle but Buddy, thinking quickly managed to save the Beasts life by merging some of his white blood cells into super-powerful defensive cells.
Buddy’s next adventure was meeting Crafty the Coyote, an anthropomorphic coyote from another universe, who had been sent to the “higher realms” of Buddy’s universe as punishment for rebelling against his God’s will. The cartoon Messiah was forced to live out his life in the hell of Buddy’s world, being killed over and over again. He tried to get Buddy to read his story, however it was mere scribbles and Buddy was unable to understand it. Sadly Crafty was shot through the chest and killed shortly after meeting Buddy.
During the Invasion event Buddy played a very small part in witnessing the life of a Thanagarian Martyr artist, who gave his life to perform his final artistic masterpiece; to create a planet wide image of Fractal geometry. Sadly Buddy did little more than witness his life, until Hawkman came and switched the bomb off, which Buddy was unable to do because of its unique design.
The Aliens were defeated and Buddy took part in the clean up efforts, particularly in Miami where he was around to witness the last moments of a Golden Age villain the Red Hood. Discovering that he was dying, the Hood decided to try “one more stunt” and let loose a group of barley working Robots around the war ravaged city. Buddy spent some time talking to him, even hearing his “secret origin” before flying away to see if he could get the Red Hood a TV spot, so he wouldn’t throw himself off the edge of the building. The Hood did this anyway, which left Buddy feeling very depressed. As he flew back towards L.A. he was hit with the Gene-Bomb.
Buddy was rescued by Booster and the Blue Beetle when his powers were affecting Local life, including huge swarms of angry birds. He was placed inside Boosters force field and kept in stasis for the duration.
JLI Introductions
After this, Buddy received an invite, along with a multitude of other heroes, to attend a “party” at the Justice League head quarters. He attended confessing to Ice and Power girl that he had no idea why he had been invited and felt a little out of place. After a few hours of mingling, some Khund Warriors who had been miniaturized during a previous encounter with the JLI returned to their original size in the Kitchen, and after they burst through the door they found the next room completely full of heroes. The Khund Warriors retreated, leaping into the teleport tubes of the JLI head quarters, but sadly scattering their atoms since they were destined to the now non-existent JLI Australia head quarters. The heroes’ numbers had worked against them, but after a selection process to thin the group, made by Oberon and Maxwell Lord, Buddy made the initial cut allowing him to finally draw a salary from being a superhero.
Buddy is left somewhat powerless from the Gene-bomb, and after being accepted into the Justice League, he Buddy’s next encounter is with the Mirror Master, who attacks him for what is apparently no reason. However, Buddy learns that the Master was sent after him to “teach him a lesson” from a private party concerned with Buddy’s counter-establishment ideas, and his aid of Subversive Animal Rights groups. Luckily, Ellen was able to defeat the Mirror Master instead of her Husband, by kicking him in the groin and pushing him down the stairs.
After Buddy’s house was partially destroyed by the Mirror Master, the JLA, who offer a service to help rebuild their members’ households represented by the Martian Manhunter turned up to fix the house. Buddy took off with J’onn to explain that his powers aren’t working correctly. Whilst J’onn explains the JLA will not carry passengers he also lets Buddy know he is impressed with his stance to protect the Earth and not just be a hero for “White bread” reasons. J’onn does try to help Buddy understand the problems with his powers, but Buddy describes the malfunction as though he felt he was dying every time he reached out for an Animal.
Buddy was one of the first members of the newly created Justice League Europe. On the first meeting Buddy was initially very wary of the League, and none too impressed considering they’d spent weeks fixing a teleport tube in his basement, that they decided fly him, along with his team mate the Red Rocket known as Dmitri, out to Paris. After Captain Atom’s long and rambling introduction, the League settled in for what appeared to be a long first day. A man turned up dead on the doorsteps of the Embassy in Paris, only for it to be revealed later that he was a Nazi. To top things off Animal Man’s costume and luggage had been vaporized by the teleport tubes and a meta-human, controlling the minds of the locals caused them to attack the embassy.
Looking into the case more, Animal Man and Captain Atom traveled to California, where they met and were attacked by the Wild Huntsman in the rubble of a Nazi Camp. The Huntsman, who accused Buddy and Atom of being Nazis, was quickly dispatched by Captain Atom, since Buddy was having trouble with his powers. It transpired that the Huntsman was in an apparent coma; his breathing was shallow, almost unnoticeable. When a small group of Justice League Europe members went to the national monument to the Global Guardians (The Dome) a minor incident occurred resulting in a battle with the Guardian Jack O’Lantern, and the destruction of the Dome. Whilst Buddy wasn’t directly involved, he watched the results of the battle on the TV, as well as the slander against the Justice League, and raced with the others down to the Dome.
Out of Africa
At the beginning of perhaps one the most important chapters of Buddy’s life, he journeyed to England to help out on sabotaging a Fox hunter. After rescuing the Fox, he returned to England, complaining that his scrambled powers were making him feel unwell. Upon his return he found that Mari Jiwe Macabe AKA the Vixen had appeared at his house, knowing only that she should reach out for Animal Man. She had been pursued by invisible Animal spirits, all the way from Africa, after Hamid Ali “The Undying One” had begun to excavate a spot of tribal importance. The invisible creatures tracked Vixen, and Buddy to his home where they attacked. Buddy was “unraveled” by their gaze, the second time he was to die, and ceased to exist disappearing before Ellen’s own eyes. However, her grief and confusion was cut short by the arrival of the two yellow Aliens, who had formerly attacked Buddy.
The aliens, rebuilding Buddy the same way they initially worked on him rebuilt him from a template. His powers were boosted and he was released, along with Vixen into Africa, though his colleague, performing the equally complicated maintenance on “the Continuum” was having a much more difficult time, in both controlling it, and keeping things as they were. Ellen faded out of existence at least once stating they Buddy and her were not able to have kids. Animal Man and Vixen were both taken hostage by Hamid Ali and his servant, Tabu, who also possessed Animal powers. Hamid who attacked them both with Tabu and his tank, Buddy was tranquilized and placed, along with a depowered Vixen in a sterilsed room, preventing Buddy from using his powers. Tabu was to kill them in the morning. Meanwhile, the Alien’s craft, the Traveler was breached by Hamid’s laser weaponry; it transpired that the Traveler was the sacred tribal object.
After reaching out into Hamid’s body, Buddy was able to duplicate himself in a similar fashion to a bacterium replicating itself. As they escaped, leaving Buddy’s duplicates to deal with Hamid and Tabu, Vixen planted a bomb inside the complex, apparently destroying the Animal Masks. Buddy then threw himself down the hole, where the breached Traveler lay. The Alien explained to Buddy about the Template; how the invisible beasts were Memory-forms; and that every few thousand years they return to the surface to give out items, or powers to allow people to touch the “Template” (Which would later be known as Space B). Buddy was told that he was a Paradox that his Pre-Crisis form was an older man, who should not have existed in the post-crisis continuum. Buddy re-wrote his history, with everything the Alien told him taken into consideration. The Monster that first attacked him was re-written in as Memory form, and he was a much younger man when his powers manifested.
After seeing Vixen onto the plane in Africa, Buddy ran into an old acquaintance - Mike Maxwell, the B’Wana Beast. Mike included Buddy in the ritual to find the new Beast. After what happened in San Diego Zoo, Mike found it nigh impossible to continue being the beast. After donning the garb a final time, Mike and Buddy found Dominic Mndawe in a cell. He had been arrested for trying to smuggle photographs out of Africa. After helping Dominic route a potential disaster at the hands of some racist white supremacists, Buddy left Dominic the hands of Mike who insisted that the Beast belonged in mythology, not in politics. Dominic however, had other ideas.
Whilst Buddy was in Africa, a number of events clicked into place. Ellen, Maxine and Cliff had all been seeing or experiencing “Ghostly goings on”. Maxine had seen and even met a Ghost. When Buddy returned from Africa he even tried to track down the Ghost, after it appeared in the Window of his house. Chasing it outside Buddy remembered the vision of the Ghost from when he was ten.
Whilst Buddy was “Ghost hunting” he received a call from his former Forgotten Hero colleague, Dane Dorrance. Dane wanted Buddy to help prevent the annual slaughter of Dolphins on the coast of the Faeroe Islands. Buddy assisted in preventing any more of the slaughters, along with the help from the Sea Devils and Dolphin. In an uncharacteristic move for the time in Buddy’s life, he lost his temper and carried the head leader right to sea, before dropping him and leaving him there, potentially to die. Luckily for him he was saved by a Dolphin, who had forgiven him even though he killed many of the Dolphins family.
JLA Days
After the revelation that Jack O’Lantern was working and living in Biayla with the Queen Bee, Powergirl and Buddy went under cover to see what exactly was going on. Whilst visiting Biayla the dup now reunited with the majority of the league sets out to infiltrate the royal palace via the sewer system. However, they are headed off inside the sewers after Buddy notices that there a tiny cameras lining the walls. After a brief battle the League defeated Lantern and headed off the Queen. After a short discussion the Queen and the League came to an agreement – she’d stop attacking the name of the league and controlling the minds of innocents, and they’d keep quiet about the way she ran her country.
When Metamorpho’s wife turned up at the JLE headquarters, Buddy along with the rest of the league were surprised to learn Rex had a wife, but nobody was more surprised than the amnesiac Metamorpho. It turns out that Sapphire had married Java in the interim whilst Rex was dead, and was in a rage about his wife returning to her former spouse. Ralph Dibny and Buddy tried to delay Java in the lower levels whilst Rex and Sapphire talked it out. Ralph and Buddy opted to “sit outside” whilst Java and Rex wrecked the headquarters.
Buddy was part of the JLI envoy that traveled over the planet “familiarizing” themselves with the staff and layout of the JLI embassies. During which they experienced the London Embassy’s fire drill, and overly officious chief of staff, the repairs of the Australian Embassy after the Invasion, A visit to the Paris embassy, where Blue Beetle’s anger at Captain Atom was apparent, and the trip to the Russian embassy, where Buddy got the Flash almost into trouble with the very butch chief of staff there. Eventually the league was offered a station on a tropical island, where the league spent the rest of the day relaxing.
Under the suggestion of Max Lord, J’onn and Catherine Cobert, the French Liaison with the JLE, most of the group went to learn French at a night class. However, by a twist of fate, the Injustice League also attended the same class. A brawl ensued, which resulted in both Leagues being arrested. However, the Buddy and his fellow JLI members were later released from prison after they learned they had diplomatic immunity!
When Captain Atom lost his powers Buddy was initially very against the idea of lying to the press about it. Since he’d recently become a media darling at the hands of his own actions as well as publicity from the Justice League he felt it might compromise the integrity and the respect of the Justice League as well as himself, from the Press.
When Ellen received word that her children’s book was going to be published, Buddy took her to Paris to celebrate. While they were in Paris, the newly escaped Time Commander took “control” of time, and caused all sorts of havoc in the streets. Buddy fought a Tyrannosaurus Rex, before the rest of the JLE caught up with him. Upon discovering the Time Commander was behind the problems, the other heroes tried to beat him up, which was met with little success. Ever the different hero, Buddy simply talked to the Time Commander, finding that he was trying to make the world a better place, reverting back to the Garden of Eden. However, his Hour glass was destroyed by Metamorpho, who also broke his nose. Buddy felt sorry and even guilty for what had happened to the Time Commander.
When the League was called to a small European village, they found themselves at the receiving end of the wrath of Dr. Irwin Teasdale, who was working with The Gray Man. The European town’s people were apparently turned into Vampires, and rampaged across the town infecting non-vampires, and attacking the JLI members. During the day light hours Buddy confessed to Dmitri how out of place he felt, and how he felt, literally, out of his league around so many other heroes with stronger and more useful powers, in such weird situations.
It transpired that Teasdale was working for Simon Stagg, who initially funded the creation of the gas, which had turned the townspeople, and in a later attack, the U.N troops into Vampires. Buddy had to forcibly restrain Metamorpho, who was more than willing to beat Stagg into a pulp. Teasdale, along with his Vampire army moved on the Stagg industries plant, whilst Dr Fate and the Spectre went to try and neutralize the threat of the Gray man, who was using the ultimately fatal disease to expand his power base, by causing all the “Vampires” to kill themselves on the electrical fences of the plant. Buddy didn’t stomach this very well, and was more sensitive to the loss of life here than the other members of the League, particularly Guy Gardner. Eventually, with the combined powers of the Lords of Chaos and Order, they gave the Gray man a “Cosmic Lobotomy” allowing him to continue his work, without the risk of him returning to his power hungry search.
During the battle with the Vampires and the Gray Man, Powergirl had been badly wounded and ended up in Hospital. After the quick thinking of Sue Dibney, she was saved, after the Doctors and Superman helped to treat her. Buddy watched the results of the operation, as well as the news report on TV with Dmitri.
When a Painting, under the control of the Brotherhood of Dada, ate Paris Buddy and his colleagues in the Justice League called on the Doom Patrol to sort the situation out. Whilst they didn’t go on the adventure with the Doom Patrol, they witnessed the Doom Patrol’s unique brand of Weirdness in action, when the group moved inside the painting, and then caused the painting itself to regurgitate the “Fifth Horseman” in the form of a Rocking Horse.
While Buddy was away dealing with other Business, namely the problem with the Painting that Ate Paris, and the Doom Patrol, the Crimson Fox was offered JLA membership, however she declined forcibly by spitting on Captain Atom, and leaping through the window. The next day she reclined her previous statement and moved into the embassy!
The End of Animal Man
When Buddy returned to America he took part in a raid on an Animal testing facility. Disturbed and shocked by the monkeys, whose eyes had been sewn shut for experiments on animal testing, whilst the other animal rights protestor torched the place, Buddy discovered through Ellen that the fire was chemical in nature, and had put a fireman into critical condition. Buddy was horrified by this; Buddy quit the JLE, and his Animal Man identity, giving over his last pay cheque to the injured fireman. As Buddy came home to tell Ellen the bad news, he found the physicist and sufferer of an existential fourth wall breaking trauma, James Highwater, half corporeal, half “sketched” on his living room floor.
James Highwater had been led to Animal Man after “coming into the world”. He’d felt that even though he had memories of his entire life he was only now just existing. Visiting Arkham Asylum, he met with the Psycho- Pirate, who was babbling insanely about dead universes. Picking up a piece of paper at the Pirates feet, he had found images of Buddy from his Pre-Crisis days. Tracking him down to his house in San Diego, he tried to show Buddy these images, but found they had been transformed into a map of Native American preserves, with a Mesa circled.
Once they reached the Mesa, they both took some Hallucinogenic Peyote Buttons, experiencing cosmic truths and visions. Buddy was greeted by a ghost-messenger, since his position as the Animal Man prevented him from having a totem. It all led James to come to the conclusion that Buddy was connected to the Morphogenetic field, the place where every animal that ever existed is represented by it’s perfect form, it’s own ideal form.
Witnessing the Prophecy rock, Buddy traced the path of images to the Crisis, then finding a suggestion of “a second crisis.” As the duo reached the ultimate revelation, Ellen was visited by a man known as Lennox.
During the second part of the vision, Buddy met his pre-crisis predecessor, who had been wiped from Continuity. Unlike Buddy he didn’t receive his powers until he was thirty, and when he married he was unable to have kids. The Radiation that gave him his animal powers made him sterile as well. After explaining that Buddy worked for people who twisted his life for entertainment, he broke the Fourth wall, looking outside of his comic book existence, and then Buddy and James finally started to understand the nature of reality, and Buddy’s powers. Feeling born again Buddy returned home to Ellen and his kids to explain his new experiences only to find that they had been shot, and killed by the man known as Lennox.
Aftermath
Just days after his Family was killed Buddy went back to the JLE Embassy, to gain some support from his friends. Dmitri, who had grown close to Buddy, looked out for him when he first arrived. However that was soon sidelined when Metamorpho, enraged by Stagg’s recent experiments as well as Batman labeling him “unstable” went to seek out his son, with Buddy and Dmitri tagging along to prevent any kind of violence breaking out. However, Metamorpho broke free of the duo to see his son, who was “being treated like a monster”. He beat up Guy Gardner, but before he could get to his son, he was confronted by the Metal Men. Once Buddy woke up, he got into a typical “misunderstanding” fight with Java, who later had his arms melted by Metamorpho’s baby. Once all the excitement had died down, Buddy who was still in a lot of turmoil and grief over his family, quit the Justice League forever.
Buddy was devastated beyond words. Roger and his Ex-Wife as well as their neighbours tried to comfort Buddy, but with little success. He later held a funeral for his children and wife, in which most of the JLE attended to offer their condolences. In a fit of depression and desperation, Buddy decided to take his own life, but was saved at the very last minute by a phone call from the Mirror Master.
Donning his old punk costume, Buddy and the Mirror Master took off around the world tracking down the corporate “big-wigs” who killed his family. Buddy drowned the first man, buried the second man alive, and finally punched an elevator containing the third man off the side of the building, allowing him to drop to his death. Buddy finally faced Lennox, who was wearing a suit of enhanced armor. Eventually defeating him, he found that killing the murderer’s of his family didn’t help his pain at all.
Grasping at straws Buddy went ahead and got a time traveling machine from Rip Hunter, by lying about a possible threat from time controlling enemies. He traveled backwards through his own timeline, appearing to be the ghost that Buddy had encountered a few months ago. James Highwater was recruited by the aliens to help prevent the Psycho-pirate from bringing about the second crisis, which would collapse the continuum, whilst Buddy, trapped in the Seventies was taken to lunch with the immortal man, Jason Blood and the Phantom Stranger. Finally Buddy was rescued, pulled back through time by one of the Aliens to help prevent the rip in the architecture of the real.
As Psycho-Pirates mind gave birth to every possibility, every character that had been erased from continuity, including Over-Man, a superman variant from a world where he enacted doomsday. Stepping outside of the Continuum, into Space B, Buddy was able to effectively fight and eventually defeat Overman. During this Battle James Highwater put the Medusa mask on, and took the Psycho-pirates place inside the Asylum. The aliens took Buddy back to his house, to tell him that there was time for just one more adventure, and as he opened the door to his house he stepped into Limbo.
Meeting up with the Inferior Five, more specifically with Merry man first who gave him a small tour of Limbo. In the background of these events, a Monkey with a type writer sits underneath a tree, typing the script for “Animal Man”: Issue 25” before suffering wooziness and falling face first into his type writer. Merryman explained that the Monkey is important to Limbo, which led Buddy to suggest he take the Monkey somewhere it could be helped. So the plan was formed, for Buddy to take the Monkey to the City of Formation, to try and heal it. Searching for weeks, months possibly even years, Buddy finds there was no city, and he’s been led directly back to his own house. Stealing the script from the Monkeys hands he reads and carrys out the final parts – cutting a key from the script and using it to unlock a door in his house, stepping out into the “real world” where he met his “writer” Grant Morrison.
Buddy spent a good long time talking to his creator. Finding out if he was real, or not. Grant explained that he always wrote Buddy, but didn’t create him. He killed his family because there was something about bloodshed and death what excited people. He also told Buddy that he was moving on, he wasn’t going to be writing him anymore, and he might change. He might find himself no longer a vegetarian or interested in Animal rights, as they were Morrison’s passions. Finally at the end of the story, Morrison leaves Buddy sat on the couch in his home, only for his family to come walking through the door. Buddy is upset, but he doesn’t know why.
Unreality
Buddy emerged from a three month long Coma, with no knowledge of how he got into the coma, or what had happened leading up to it. Everything was very strange, dreams of murderous saber-toothed cats and horses plagued his thoughts as he woke up to a world where Ellen and his kids were very, very different. Buddy, had also changed during his coma. More uninhibited, more animalistic, he created some problems for his family when he “marked his territory” and sniffed the buttocks of Ellen’s publishers wife. Finally Buddy created a real problem for himself when he was taken over by primal urges and tore the throat of a police horse out in front of thousands of people.
After doing some research Buddy found that he was elsewhere, in a different universe apparently. Things didn’t make sense here, Marvin Gaye was still alive, Hitler was put on trial and Neil Armstrong wasn’t the first man on the moon. After discovering that this wasn’t his world, he went to talk it over with Ellen. He discovered that she was having an affair, which threw him into an animalistic rage. Beating the man and forcing him to submit, he declared that he had won ownership of Ellen back. Ellen, however, had other ideas. Buddy was taken from the bedroom by the Nowhere Man, a molecularly displaced individual, who informed Buddy he’d been drafted to protect the President from some super powered toddlers.
After killing the nowhere mans former friend, the Front Page, and earning the hatred of the Notional man, Buddy took off from his assignment to protect the president and took Cliff and Maxine with him, against the wishes of Ellen who had put a court order on him, preventing him from seeing them until after the Divorce. Maxine was kidnapped shortly afterwards by the Notional man, who was dispatched by Buddy, possessed by Animalistic rage. Stopping in a church afterwards, Buddy’s prayer was disturbed by the shattered sky light and his own body falling down in front of him.
Discovering that the Buddy in front of him was in fact a hallucination from one of the three super-powered children, Buddy retracted from the church, only to have the C.I.A and nowhere man catch up and detain him. His children were returned to their mother, whilst he was briefed about the children and their powers, and his mission. However, Buddy found that the hallucination he thought he was having about the Jungle in the bathroom, was in fact truth, and is possibly the reason for his more animalistic and ape-like behaviors, as he was confronted with saving a young primate from a saber-tooth tiger. Buddy then faced one of the children, but was apparently killed for the second time when a piece of glass pierced his heart.
At Buddy’s funeral, the nowhere man managed to sneak past Ellen and into the house, trying to sneak a glimpse of this jungle in the bathroom. With the aid of Maxine, he was able to access the jungle. Upon later explanation, it appears that the Buddy who died was of a divergent reality. The Buddy who came back with nowhere man from the Jungle had originally walked into the Jungle. The Buddy who died was from a divergent branch of reality where he slammed the door closed. The reason both were allowed to exist was solely to do with the Jungle, a point in the distant past connected to the present. A group of future scientists traveled to the divergent point in humanities evolutionary history; however after a tussle one of the ape-man was trapped in the time-door preventing it from closing properly.
Upon further explanation it seems that two Buddy’s could not inhabit the same world at the same time, every time the Buddy from the jungle entered a world, that world’s natural Buddy was killed. In the Jungle many Buddy’s from different time lines could meet and discuss their apparent problems, which led our Buddy to eventually work out a way to break the reality loop. Buddy managed to make friends with one of the children, called Lucinda, and after the promise of a presidential pardon he managed to get the kids to turn themselves in. However, Buddy was betrayed by the President and the kids were taken to be experimented on.
Buddy flipped out, killing the president and then escaping his guards. With the aid of the nowhere man he was able to find Lucinda, who implanted a hypnotic suggestion inside of him, allowing him to remember all of his experiences after the trigger word “Mr. Baker” was spoken. After stepping into the jungle bathroom again, Buddy rescued the Ape-man who had been caught in the time door, and threw himself off a large rock. Waking from a Coma, and finally remembering what happened, Buddy found himself in the correct universe finally, where he was met by his true wife and children.
Shaman’s Work
A Month after his experience with the Coma, Buddy’s life was back on track. Making a lot of money from his career as a stunt man, he is living comfortably with his family until endangered birds begin to turn up dead around him. Their insides appear to be cooked. On a flight home from a stunt shoot, Buddy is shot at by a “crazy hippy” with a bow and arrow. Whilst the arrow misses Buddy, it hits his son in the side. Chasing up the hippy later, the police find that while he had no bow and arrow, he did have an array of interesting machinery. Altered to more raptor deaths, Buddy is attacked by a Wolverine, and after defeating the animal he tries to turn its powers off, but is unable too. The powers even begin to mutate his arm into a wolverine’s claw.
Buddy’s connection to the Red was affecting both his behavior and his powers. Unable to make his hand return to normal, or to control his temper, he found that his daughter was tapping into the same power set he was. She was becoming more animalistic, tearing her soft toys apart with her teeth, and then making friends with a pack of rats, which were drawn to her. Using his own powers he was able to quiet the rats and remove them, retracting Maxine’s powers and behavior with his own abilities. After confronting the Hippy, who accused Buddy of killing the birds of prey, he had the man arrested, only to find at a later date that he was in fact correct – his own powers were killing the Animals.
Working with Travis the hippy, Buddy and he tested his Animal powers. When he took the powers directly from an Animal, as he used to, he was able to take the powers fully and control them. However, when he tried to take it directly from the M-Field he found he was unable to, and his connection began to degrade. He took this theory and managed to apply it to a stunt for a film, an electrical stunt which sadly for Buddy went horribly wrong, particularly when the director ordered the murder of three dogs.
Continuing to work with Travis Buddy began to research more into animal lifestyles and their structures. He bought a van and looked into new methods of using his powers without killing animals. Meanwhile, Buddy’s daughter was being visited by an entity she called “Mr. Rainbow”, when Maxine made one of her frequent trips inside Mr. Rainbow she met an old native American, who she named “All the Animals”. He told her to pass a message on to her father. “The Animals are going to teach him a Big Secret.”
Trying more experiments with his Animal powers, Buddy began to experiment some negative effects from his powers. Taking the poison squirting ability from a fire Salamander, he also changed his facial features, making them more elongated and extending his tongue. All of these changes led Ellen to take Maxine and Cliff away for a few days. Meanwhile Travis was visited by Mr. Rainbow, who convinced him that the end of the world was coming. In an attempt to gain some of his old popularity, Buddy did a one off demonstration at the San Diego Zoo, which culminated in the power of the Red exploding out of him, killing every Animal around him.
Maxine and Ellen went to visit Ellen’s mother in Vermont, leaving Cliff in Buddy’s care. Cliff and his friend Ace torched Travis’ place imitating the ultra violent comic book character “The Penalizer”. Travis left Buddy as well, going off to New York to get on the “Angels space ship”, to avoid the world ending. Buddy’s powers went more haywire, trying to patch him into every Animal he kept in his basement, as a reserve power base. Finally witnessing Mr. Rainbow, Buddy attacked it, and defeated it, using his ability to fire energy bursts from the Red for the first time.
As Buddy’s powers continue to go haywire, he descends into the depths of depression and almost insanity. Cliff left Buddy after he struck him in a depressed stupor, and finally released the animals in his basement. Buddy’s powers had also been affecting local wildlife, bringing in three large packs of Wolves, which terrorized the city, as well as driving birds and other animals crazy. In a final drop of sanity, Buddy ran around naked with the wolves, being “at one” with them, before trying to pull himself together and visit his daughter and wife.
On his way to visit Ellen and Maxine, Buddy stopped off in a sleep little village. During his stay here he was almost recruited to the Dr Fate and the Phantom Strangers cause to defend the planet, but he rejected them, exploring the village and finding America’s only black bear farm. The energies released by Circe and the Gods gradually transformed the Men into twisted versions of the bears they hunted and slaughtered. Buddy finally managed to control his powers, meeting and communicating with a bear then controlling or persuading the bears of the surrounding areas to come down and kill the men.
Whilst the other heroes from around the world were squaring off against Gods, or the Gods themselves battling each other Buddy was recruited by some of the most powerful mystics on the planet in the form of Dr Fate, Zatanna, Madame Xanadu and the Phantom Stranger. Circes original spell to free the Gods, as well as set Beastimorphs off all over the planet was taking hold but a solution seemed to present itself. By taking some of Buddy’s blood, Dr Fate was going to attempt to tap into his blossoming powers, and mix it into Circes original spell. Once the spell was cast, Animal Man was charged with standing in the centre of it, assuming the essence of the Animals. With Buddy’s role at the centre of the spell he was able to whittle down Circes Beastimorph army to just a few; however it paid a terrible toll on Buddy, taking him out of the equation for the duration of the War.
Buddy finally made it to Freeport, staying with his Wife and Daughter and his wife’s Mother. Travis, who had been offered the chance to train with the Shaman, “Stone that cracked the Earth open like an Egg”. However, Travis was picked up a man known as Mr. Samson, who had previously offered Buddy a job for S.T.A.R labs. However, Buddy had refused it; Travis on the other hand was not in a position to, as he had broken his probation by leaving the state. Whilst on the farm, Buddy’s, now completely malfunctioning caused a number of Animals, mostly the larger ones such as the horses and cows, to float in the air. Buddy was contacted by his old Hawk, Harriet, who was being used as a vessel for Stone. Upon approaching Stone, he was struck and told that the two of them had much to accomplish.
Cliff had wound up in San Franciso, saved by his uncle Dudley from a group of “ruffians”, whilst Travis was seduced by Samson’s assistant, whilst the S.T.A.R. labs released prototype genetically engineered warriors, who went rogue and killed the soldiers they were being “field tested” against. Buddy’s essence inhabited a black bear, whilst his conscious mind was being tested on the spirit planes. Whilst his Bear form met up with Maxine, and played with her, Buddy woke from his dream trek to meet the other Animal master who had been by his side his entire journey. Buddy and Tristess, the other Animal master, then proceeded to make love in both the form of Black Bears and humans. Eventually meeting up with Travis again, and engaging in a short battle with Vixen, who wore the Animal master Tabu’s masks, Buddy returned to the farm to learn that Ellen had traveled to New York to get work to provide for their family, while he was off effectively doing “nothing”.
Reunited with his family, Buddy expressed a concern for the work that Ellen was doing for a “grim and gritty” comic book, especially since the writer was using the story submitted by Cliff. Buddy and Ellen also had some trouble locating Maxine, who appeared to have disappeared. Whilst this was going on, Raney Fox, the movie director Buddy originally did some stunt work for, wanted to buy the rights to the Animal Man life story and make a film about it.
The more time Buddy spent with Stone the more he began to realize they had a shared past, in fact the Bakers all had a shared past with the Red. Going back to “Old Jack Baker” who fought with Tomahawk in the revolutionary War, Buddy’s father told him that all Bakers were close to nature, and natural hunters. Deep within Buddy’s repressed memories, he found that he had met Stone before. On a hunting trip with his Father, Stone had rescued Buddy’s dad from death by treating the wounds he received when killing a grizzly. Stone also wanted to use Buddy his “Son” to kill a beast who had fallen to Earth in a cosmic cocoon.
Buddy, using his powers, managed to locate Maxine, who was a mile below the surface of the Earth. It turns out that Maxine, along with Mike Maxwell, had tapped into the powers of the “Antagon”. The entity that fell to Earth in the Cosmic Cocoon some years ago, this power was the source of Buddy’s problems, after fighting with Maxwell; he was absorbed into the Antagon.
With the Antagon now possessing Mike Maxwell, it set off on its rampage across the country, killing plant and Animal life along the way. Killing Raney Fox, Ellen feared that Buddy and Maxine had been killed, but Buddy had used his powers to shield the two of them. Traveling to the Sweat Lodge of Stone, he moved into the between realms, with Tristess and Vixen.
Taken into the between realms Buddy passed one of the final tests, calming and controlling the massive guardian of the realm, a Dustmite. Riding on the mite, they met up with Stone who told me of the remaining three Animal masters, himself, Krate and Arum. When the world was young, the Animal masters used their powers to create Animals. They still create animals. Meanwhile, Samson from S.T.A.R labs had used dead animals, touched by the M-Field, to create a super human body for himself, as the Antagon ravaged through Vermont. Buddy returned, learning that he was supposed to be one of the five animal masters, a long with Vixen, Tristess and his daughter Maxine that would finally defeat and kill the Antagon.
The Animal Masters, the old ones pulled the Antagon, who now possessed the body of the super human Samson, into the M-Field. Within the field Buddy, Tristess and Vixen pulled together, their powers reaching out into the uncreated and doing something that had not been done since the big bang. They created another universe, a universe inside the M-Field, away from this creation and this world that would contain the living embodiment of destruction.
Flesh and Blood
Flying out to the last known location of Dudley, Buddy began the search for his missing son. In the meantime, Maxine had something of a prophetic dream showing Cliff being vivisected by what appeared to be a twisted version of Uncle Dudley, whose fingers were transformed into knives. As Buddy grew closer to the trail of Dudley, and Cliff, he was hit, deliberately, by Dudley’s truck, apparently killing him.
Ellen flew into the city to meet Buddy’s remains, but was met with a horrible shock. Buddy had reanimated himself only to find that his body was a wreck, a completely destroyed shell that he could no longer feasibly inhabit. Before that, Buddy had embarked on the mammoth task of moving against the flow of life and death, swimming up from the Red where the spirits of all animals went and returning to his original body. The climb and movement was difficult for Buddy, and every fragment of his being called for him to go back into the Blood Sea.
Buddy was reborn in that moment, clinging to life, even though he didn’t know it as a mite living on Ellen’s eyelash. As she cried he was pulled from his precarious position and pulled down into the pond where his ashes were just scattered. He then moved through various animal life forms, a Hydra, a Fish, and then a Dragonfly Larvae, which eventually metamorphosed into a Dragonfly. Buddy’s emergence was greeted by an elated Maxine, who became distraught when Buddy’s Dragonfly body was eaten by a passing Bat.
Buddy moved his way up the tropic levels of nature, from the bat he was eaten by to Maxine’s pet Triceratops, Winky. Whilst inhabiting Winky, he found something of a kindred spirit. They were both somewhere they didn’t belong, both somewhere outside of their own realms of existence, and they were both desperately lonely.
Meanwhile, Dudley had taken Cliff to a place where he and his friends had made old slasher movies. It began to dawn on Cliff that Dudley had gone wrong somewhere in his life, and was insane. His uncle later trapped him in a “church” worshipping death itself. Over the other side of the country Buddy was being reborn again, using Winky’s capacity to lay an egg, as well as his own abilities to tap into the Red, even unconsciously at this stage, to grow himself a new body. As he had generated Winky before, Buddy managed to dig deep into the template and make himself anew.