Animal Man to End in March

While many, many series that were spawned from DC’s New 52 relaunch, Jeff Lemire’s Animal Man is one that I never had a hard time liking or recommending to people. It’s been one of the few consistently good books from DC, and something I always enjoyed reading. So it is with a heavy heart that I bring you this news.

Jeff Lemire, writer of Animal Man as well as the current writer of Green Arrow, announced this past week on his blog that his run on the book would be coming to an end. In fact, the entire series is coming to end with the 29th issue due out this coming March…

After finishing the script for #29, I felt I had completed the story I wanted to tell with the Baker family and thought it was a perfect ending for the series.  The best way for me to explore new things with the character would be to move him to a team setting and shakeup his status quo, DC agreed, and the Animal Man series will end with my final issue in March.

The team he’ll be moved to is the Justice League (possibly that new Canadian one). Lemire has written out the first five issues and says that the character “has really taken on a new life in the book.”

Lemire also said that he will be drawing the last issue as well as writing it. He’ll be joined by Travel Foreman, the artist of the first ten issues of the Animal Man book, who will be illustrating a framing sequence the pages, and Jose Villarrubia, the colorist for Sweet Tooth and Trillium, who will be doing the coloring.

I’m not sure how I feel about Animal Man on a team. One of the real strengths of his solo book was the family aspect. Ellen, Cliff, and Maxine were all good characters and helped make the book a bit more than a superhero book to me. I get the feeling that the rest of the Baker family will be pushed to the sidelines in the new team, assuming they’re there at all. But still, it could be good.

Animal Man comes to an end with issue 29, on sale March 2014.

Source: Jeff Lemire’s Blog