Animal Man #20

I would rather see The Return of Chicken Thief!

Because Buddy Baker's life is too sad and pathetic at the moment, the Animal Man comic book will now be preempted by the less sad but still sad in it's own right documentary, "Tights". At least it stars Buddy Baker acting as Chaz, the secret identity of Red Thunder! At least I won't have to do much commentary on it since it's not really about Animal Man! Right?

Red Thunder is down and out. His wife has left him and his kid has ambivalent feelings towards him. But his life looks like it's rounding a corner (a good corner into a good neighborhood and not a bad corner leading him into a shadowy back alley. But who knows? That would make for a better documentary!) when an agent approaches him to try and market The Red Thunder after a video of Red Thunder getting his ass beaten goes viral.

The likeness isn't right but that must be Jay Leno with the horrible "was green already taken" joke that I can see him saying in an attempt to be funny while his brain-dead audience of mutant cows laughs uproariously at it.

Chaz begins living the big Hollywood life even though all he ever wanted was his family and to help people as Red Thunder. Hey! This sounds an awful lot like Buddy Baker's Animal Man! Is this one of those analogy things from which I'm supposed to glean some insight into Animal Man? Because I'm a stupid moron and I don't understand anything less than being told explicitly what I'm being told! So if this is a clever ruse to teach me about Buddy Baker, I'm not falling for it! Or I'm not learning from it either! I think those things are the same thing, it just depends on your point of view.

Chaz better watch out or the next video to go viral will be Green Arrow kicking his ass for being famous for no good reason.

At the party later that night, Chaz comes across a man assaulting a young woman. He puts a stop to it as Red Thunder and later finds out the man was a powerful movie executive. The man blacklists Chaz for being a decent human being and Chaz's agent drops him. It wouldn't be so bad except that Chaz's contract gave up all rights to Red Thunder to his agent's company. What an idiot! Now he's back on the bottom once again. So what does he have to lose? Who cares if he's sued? Red Thunder must live!

As Tights begins to wrap up with Chaz believed dead only to have his son see a news report of a new, unidentified super hero, the comic book returns to Buddy Baker's world.

Master Comic Book Reader Me, last month: "I’d send Buddy Baker off into a downward spiral, living in a motel, drinking constantly, ignoring the world entirely." Not that I could see the Cliff's death aftermath really beginning from any place else though.

But then Buddy gets a call from his old agent to receive the news that he's been nominated for Best Actor in Tights! Unless he was nominated for Chicken Thief!

Animal Man #20 Rating: +1 Ranking. I know it didn't have much Animal Man in it, but I enjoyed seeing Tights fleshed out some more, especially with how it relates to Buddy's life falling apart now. Hopefully next issue will be "The Thrilling Neighborhood Adventures of Maxine and Socks!"