The Last Days of Animal Man: A Medical Review
The Last Days of Animal Man
Gerry Conway, writer
Chris Batista, penciller
I just finished reading The Last Days of Animal Man, and I’ve got a couple of problems with it, particularly the last issue.
1.
Animal Man defeats the villains by using his powers to infect them with Yersinia pestis, the Bubonic Plague. At first read, this is extremely clever — in a Merlin versus Madame Mim sort of way. But the more you think about it, the less sense it actually makes.
Animal Man’s powers allow him to gain the abilities of any animals he is near. He can gain the strength of a gorilla, the flight of a bird, the swimming ability of a fish, and so on. In this case, it appears he used his powers to gain the virulence of the bacteria.
Animal Man doesn’t become the animal in question; he just gains some of their abilities. So if he had won by incapacitating his opponents with a nasty bacterial toxin, that would make a certain amount of sense. But instead he actually infected them with the bacteria. How did he manage this? His powers don’t work this way. You need the actual bacteria to cause an infection, let alone one which is “overwhelming their immune systems.” Animal Man wasn’t infected himself, and he didn’t come into contact with the bacteria, so how did he infect the villains? He seems to have achieved abiogenesis – creating life (in this case the bacteria) from nothing.
2.
The biggest problem is basic biology. It goes back to something I first learned in seventh-grade science. Everyone read what Superman says, and then repeat after me: bacteria are not animals.
They belong to a separate kingdom entirely.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Was it laundry day for the girl in white (first panel), or is that her normal costume?
I guess the unstable molecule material they make these things from must be expensive, if she couldn’t afford pants. :)
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:35 am
A-Man’s often been able to absorb bacteria and viruses. Granted, they’re not animals any more than trees and flowers are, but they are connected to “the red”, so what are you gonna do?
He can connect to SPACE BACTERIA!
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:53 am
Official Comment
I actually don’t have a problem with Animal Man hitting up the occasional bacteria or virus for powers, I just get annoyed when they’re referred to as “animals” (as Superman does here).
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:32 am
It doesn’t seem all that heroic to me to defeat the bad guys by giving them the plague. Maybe it’s just me, but I prefer my heroes not to hand out crippling pustules and painful buboes.
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:06 am
Is the plague even a particularly dangerous disease any more? Certainly it seems to be against comic book morality to give them a fatal disease, but I’m not sure that if what he’s done is the equivalent of forcing them to be bedridden for a few days with antibiotics is all that bad – certainly Batman and even Superman have probably put criminals in hospital for (hopefully minor) injuries in the past. Pacifist Man doesn’t seem to have made it into any major titles.
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:17 am
That’s her normal costume.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:11 am
Little known fact, on Krypton, all bacteria are animals. Superman just forgot which planet he was on (which is easy to do since he commutes so much between planets).
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Oh, hey, that’s the Flash on the left in that second panel. Here I was thinking it was some red, random, rock formation in the hospital.
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:36 pm
How about this: if a plague bacteria’s “power” can be described as “breaking down cellular materials in the body to build new bacteria,” all Buddy would have to do is exercise that power to build a colony of bacteria in the bad guy, then that colony would continue to grow on its own.
As for being able to tap the abilities of creatures technically outside the animal kingdom, after Buddy dies in 52 he’s brought back to life by the aliens who gave him his powers, who expand his abilities, allowing him to utilize alien creatures as well. That could well mean that he’s not limited to just “animals” any more.
I seem to remember a much earlier issue of Animal Man where he borrowed the replicating ability of bacteria to make a bunch of full-sized copies of himself. That bothered me a lot more than this does.
November 27th, 2009 at 2:43 am
@ Jeff: I was trying to think of a way to say what you said in your first paragraph, but couldn’t. Thanks!
@GAZZA: Plague is still killing people and is quite dangerous. It is endemic in most of the West and is commonly misdiagnosed until too late.
Do you think it might be too late for the villains in Animal Man?
November 27th, 2009 at 2:45 am
By the way, he could have gotten it fairly easily by hanging out with some prairie dogs. He didn’t have to get it from CDC.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:08 am
There ya go. If you think of “transmitting dangerous bacteria” as a superpower of fleas…
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