well geeze, why not cut to the chase and say "it's only comics"?

i wouldn't agree Animal man was left "pretty much" the way Morrison found it, and certainly other characters he used durring the run were never restored.

And yes, sometimes, when mistakes are made, they get corrected, but sometimes it takes years or decades and requires a continuity scrub like JB's Doom Patrol -- and as a fan of many characters, i would much rather they remain viable and useable instead of expended like dirty tissue by morrison.

Did you read his entire run, just in order to complete the sense of outrage at what he was doing to these beloved characters, who, outside of an appearance in Crisis, had been firmly in the third tier for years?

Troy Nunis wrote:  and as a fan of many characters, i would much rather they remain viable and useable instead of expended like dirty tissue by morrison.

Nice image. Did Morrison run over your dog or something?

Matt Reed wrote: That's what eventually turned me off to Morrison on ANIMAL MAN.  I didn't like him setting himself up as "god".  Yeah, a writer could ultimately be perceived as the god of the characters they write, as they act at the writer's behest, but it got too cutesy and internal for me.  I also have a problem with any writer working on a company-owned character(s) as if they are a god and can do pretty much whatever they want without thinking about future consequences, instead of what they should be doing which is writing in service to the character.

As a general rule, I agree with you, but any genre can use some experimentation and third-tier Animal Man was about as safe a character to experiment with as can be found. But I think quality of story, subjective as that is, is probably the biggest factor in determining when to experiment and when not to.  For me, Morrison's ANIMAL MAN experiment was so suspensful, so heartfelt, so full of great ideas and moments, that it easily passes that test. Milleage may vary, but I think the principle stands. Moore's SWAMP THING, Byrne's SHE-HULK, the Bierbaum LEGION era, and Truman and Ostrander's HAWKWORLD all come to mind as some of the riskier Marvel/DC ventures that I've enjoyed.

QUOTE: Even though he put the pieces back together, so to speak, I have a feeling that most think of the character in a way that's not conducive to being a player in the DCU because of Morrison's association with him.

That may be the perception, but there's no real reason for it to exist. Fer inst, Geoff Johns could send the character to Keystone City for a few issues of FLASH and have Buddy and his wife bond with Wally and Linda between mixing it up with some supervillains...and I think everyone would take it perfectly in stride. I think that's all it would take to shake off the character's pre-Vertigo Vertigosity.

-Dave