Animal Man #6

"Tights"
written by Jeff Lemire
art by John Paul Leon (pp. 1-17), Travel Foreman (pencils pp. 18-20) and Jeff Huet (inks pp. 18-20)

As an interlude in the larger Rot story, "Tights" is only moderately integrated, but as a satire on superhero angst, it's a gem.  Buddy Baker's acting turn in the critically acclaimed indie superhero drama Tights directed by Ryan Daranovsky and released by Liiramax—thinly veiled allusions to Darren Aronofsky and Miramax, respectively—has been a topic of conversation and a source of mild spousal discord from the opening of Lemire's run on the series.  It is just as you might expect:  Batman by way of The Wrestler.  Chas Grant is an aging semi-obscure costumed hero, no longer able to be the hero he once was but unsuitable for anything else, clinging to the last vestiges of his former life.  He's unemployed, teetering on the brink of alcoholism, and desperate for the continued approval of his son, though he does little to support or parent him.

In fact, Tights is notable only in that it employs every cliché.  It is entirely familiar.  The brilliance of Lemire's deconstruction of the deconstruction is the frame device, detectable only in the final few pages.  Baker's son Cliff uses the remaining battery on his smartphone to watch his father's movie.  Unlike the agonized superhero character Red Thunder, Buddy Baker is relentlessly devoted to his family.  For much of Animal Man's early arc, Ellen, Cliff and especially Maxine are as central to the story as Buddy.  The juxtaposition between the two re-frames the idea of family for superheroes.  By the time Cliff so realistically quips back—"I was just watching some movie.  And please never say 'porn' again, Dad (Animal Man #6: 18)—we can fully appreciate the shift.  Lemire is, quite simply, re-writing the rules.

[April 2012]