Animal Man #5

Title: Animal Man
Issue: 5
Date: March 2012
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Penciler: Travel Foreman, Steve Pugh
Inker: Travel Foreman, Jeff Huet
Colorist: Lovern Kindzierski
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Kate Stewart, Joey Cavalieri
Cover: Travel Foreman, Lovern Kindzierski

Buddy and Maxine return from the Red to confront the third of the Hunters Three, but Maxine's inexperience with her own powers makes a bad situation much, much worse.

This is exactly what the current plot needed: Something to show that Maxine is not the all-powerful and all-knowing god-child. And perfect timing too.

There were also good moments from just about every member of the supporting cast as the situation degenerated from bad to near-apocalyptic. This was a good taste of how deadly an enemy the Rot is going to be, and it was delivered with good fast pacing and some unexpected twists.

Ending was a bit too much of a blatant marketing plot for my tastes, but overall a strong issue.

Rating: 7.5/10

Animal Man #4

Back to the New 52!

Title: Animal Man
Issue: 4
Date: February 2012
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Penciler: Travel Foreman
Inker: Travel Foreman, Jeff Huet
Colorist: Lovern Kindzierski
Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Kate Stewart, Joey Cavalieri
Cover: Travel Foreman, Lovern Kindzierski

Two of the Hunters Three are fighting Buddy Baker in the Red's dimension while the third is currently impersonating a cop to get close to the Baker family.

And in spite of all that, this feels like a very transitional issue, dominated mostly by a huge infodump courtesy of the Red. The tension did pick up toward the end, but the opening fight scene (featuring a hulked-up Animal Man) didn't do much for me.

The visuals continue to be creatively shocking, especially the final scene.

Rating: 6/10