Animal Man #22

Buddy Baker's family life has fallen apart so he's become a Pet Detective. But his pet detecting has been hampered by his star power. While on the trail of the Frankenpet, he's been waylaid by a gaggle of gossip reporters. And in The Red, Maxine has signed a contract with the Totems that allows her the freedom to be a little girl while her mother is watching and an Avatar of the Red late at night. With her new responsibilities as the Avatar, Maxine manages to reform The Red into Animal Crossing.

With maybe a little Harvest Moon thrown in for good measure.

I bet Maxine's idea will be to grow a garden of penises so she can see what one looks like. Her only friends are a talking cat and a bunch of animated animal skeletons, so who else is she going to play doctor with if not a field of human organs?

Back in the real world (the comic book real world! What did you think? I was going to describe my fucking day? Who wants to hear about how I fell asleep last night like an old person, woke up at six in the morning, and then watched some Angelina Ballerina and Mister Rogers? Sans children), Buddy Baker has cornered Frankenpet inside a warehouse. The reporters were just a stupid cliffhanger diversion that didn't really add much to the scene. Maybe they'll all get torn apart later by Frankenpet to make their appearance worthwhile.

It turns out there are an army of Frankenpets. And they can use tools.

Back in The Red, Maxine does not grow a field of penises. It's even less surprising! She tries to regrow Cliff's body. How she's going to find Cliff's memories to shove into the new brain, I have no idea. Because memories are what make us. Memories accessed by our cognition and self-awareness which Maxine doesn't have access to. I don't think. These are the things that people insist on believing is the soul, the mystic doodad that somehow resides separately from the body. But the soul is simply metaphor for our conscious awareness that ultimately can only exist within the machine of our physical form. But this is a comic book! So of course Cliff's soul is out there somewhere. And if Maxine wants to do this right, she'll need to go on a quest to find it. Perhaps she'll have help from her new brother she's creating who will have no spark in his eyes. Or maybe he'll just become a non-sentient monster with just the animal instincts of the brain stem controlling its actions.

He looks just as smart as the original.

I'd question what she made his penis look like but since I'm not going to also question how she knew how to make a liver or a lung or a lymphatic system, the question would just show that I'm more interested in Cliff's penis than Maxine is. I'm sure Maxine just concentrated on her love for her brother and The Red took over, creating a perfect image of Cliff, right down to the tightness of his asshole. Because how could Maxine ever know that for sure? Only mysticism could get that right.

Back in San Diego, the Frankenpets have captured Buddy Baker and have begun draining him of his blood. They're animal activists that have gone a bit too far in their activism. Usually I'd question how they're protecting animals by mutilating them and incorporating the animal parts into their own bodies, but where would that get me? Nuts is nuts! There's an actual reason for pleading insanity in our court systems and that reason isn't to avoid incarceration inside a federal penitentiary.

You know, there's also a reason why we don't charge minors as adults but that reason seems to be getting lost more and more in our country as citizens demand that youths be treated as adults. Crime is a symptom of many other something elses. Treating symptoms is never the way to cure disease. Not that America doesn't love to make money on selling people things that treat symptoms! That's a cash cow! Which is why locking up every one that does anything that might make middle class or rich people afraid is the generally preferred answer to the problem. Because prison is a cash cow that makes a load of money by treating the symptoms of poverty. And it seems less and less people care about eliminating poverty (or getting as close to it as our current economic model makes possible) because it seems to spend money on other people. But the more people you raise out of poverty, the safer everybody's possessions will be! You know, if that's what you fucking care about.

What the hell am I talking about? I think all youths should be locked up!

The nutty cuckoo Frankenpets just want to be like Buddy Baker. They're searching for a way to connect to The Red. They've taken Buddy's blood to deliver it to somebody who promised them he could find The Red. Who is this somebody? Is Victor Frankenstein back? I seriously doubt that even the Frankenpet leader, Clinton Hogue, could have done the animal surgeries on himself. I suppose all the Frankenpets could have worked on each other. But I suspect the person getting Buddy's blood will be the one behind the animal-human hybrid surgeries.

During Clinton Frankenpet's Bad Guy Monologue, the reporters break in to get the story!

The Paparazzi are heroes...is something that will never, ever be said again.

Back in The Red, Maxine learns the truth about her new brother.

This is probably for the best since his penis was a candy cane.

Maxine does learn that she'll have to quest for her brother because that's the way things work. I knew that Jeff Lemire would know that! But before she can learn the details of her future quest to find Cliff's soul, Socks flips the fuck out because Maxine's mother, Ellen, is coming toward the bedroom. Maxine and Socks head back to bed in time to not get in trouble.

And then back to Southern California (this comic book is all back and forth and forth and back! But I like that it's following the stories of both Max and Buddy), Buddy's blood has arrived at the leader's house in the Hollywood Hills. And it looks like there's one more page to turn to which should be the reveal of the Frankenpets' secret benefactor! If it's not Victor Frankenstein, it's entirely possible it might be Brother Blood. Seeing as how he has a connection to The Red and he's getting a delivery of, you know, blood!

Whew. That was cutting it close! I almost didn't give myself time to guess at the antagonist! I actually took a break to think up a joke Hollywood person that could be behind it when I realized Brother Blood made a lot of sense.

Animal Man #22 Rating: No change. Thank the comic book gods that Jeff Lemire will be writing the new incarnation of Brother Blood now! Howard Mackie's version was awful. And while I still prefer his old look to this new look, and I liked him better when he was a mature psychotic cult leader, I believe that Jeff Lemire can make him a worthy villain for The New 52.