Land of the Red: A review of Animal Man #13

Now that we have seen how Alec and the Green are doing. It is time we saw how Buddy is handling himself in this new world. What friends will he have along the way and how the hell does he know them?

Post contains spoilers

So like Alec, Buddy finds himself back home and it doesn’t take long for him to make some friends. He is still trying to get his head wrapped around all of this when zombie Hawkman attacks. Buddy tries to talk to him. It seems that he at least knows who Hawkman is but I am not sure of any connection. However soon the big guns arrive to save Buddy. Black Orchid, Beast Boy, and Steel show up and save the day…for now..

Like in Swamp Thing, they get confused when he tries to tell them that he is Buddy Baker. The start heading to the Red City and Steel fills Buddy in on the events of the past year. While almost everyone in the world stood against the Rot, not many of them came out. In fact very few are still alive and most that are have some kind of connection to the Red or the Green.

I have to say the Red seems much better off then the Green. The Red is a whole city filled with life. It was created by the Totems who are no longer sentient but they keep the city alive and safe. More so there are actually people living there. Back in the Green is just seemed like Ivy and Deadman. Buddy finds that Shepherd is there and so is John Constantine. Constantine is quick to snap and points the blame on Buddy. Now while in this world it is the fault of Animal Man and Swamp Thing, there were only gone for a few hours why the rest lived for a year.

Shepherd and Constantine break the bad news to Buddy and let him know that his family didn’t make it. While his daughter was very powerful, she was not protected and eventually fell.

So both parts of Rotworld seem to be working along the same lines. They find survivors and find out their loved ones have died. Which really must suck. Oh hey you have been gone a year, the world ended, and your family is dead. But like I said in Swamp Thing, I just can’t wait to see the rest of Rotworld!

But I want to talk about something that bugged me about this issue and that is Animal Man knowing Constantine. Now it is not that fact that these two know each other but the fact that we don’t know how. I talked about this in my year review and it something that comes up between Karan, Drew, and I. This whole “Five Year” gap is really starting to bite DC in the ass. At first it seemed fine when it was just showing us how the Justice League met. But now it is leaving major gaps in the DCU’s history. So I mean how and why do Buddy and John know each other? DC took decades of history, picked out some of the bits, and smashed it into a five-year window.

So yes, Buddy and John know each other, but how and when did it happen? Who else knows who? It is starting to get to me.