Carnivores rule the DC Universe
I felt so bad for Buddy Baker in Justice League of America #24. The vegetarian Animal Man, who’s been having enough problems with his powers lately, inadvertently chowed down on a chicken leg. If Grant Morrison were dead, he’d be rolling in his grave, since he’s not (thankfully) I’d imagine he’s rolling in his snazzy designer suits. I considered writing something about that incident but I let it slide. However, I could not remain silent when yet another DC vegetarian went down. Down into a bowl of chili.
Ellen shops at the Ren Faire chicken leg store.
Green Arrow/Black Canary #13 focuses mainly on Speedy and Dodger going out on a date but we get a glimpse of Connor’s first day back at home after having been kidnapped and experimented on by Doctor Sivana. He’s still sort of out of it which is to be expected, he was in a coma for a while. He finally comes out of his room and tells Ollie and Dinah he’s hungry. That’s a good sign, right?
Ollie never taught Connor to use his napkin. Oh wait, he was an absent father.
Wrong. Unlike Buddy, who it appears is being played with by Anansi, Connor has no memory of ever having been a vegetarian. Or a Buddhist. Or an archer. Or a crime fighter. Hmm, ok, it seems he’s got a lot of stuff to work out. Plus we also found out he’s got some new healing powers when his foot was impaled by a carving knife. We’ll check back in with him later.
Now, I’m not a vegetarian (although I don’t eat red meat) but two vegetarian characters eating meat within months of each other does strike me as odd. It’s probably just a coincidence but I know several vegetarians/vegans and they get a lot of flack from others about their convictions so I’m here to stand up for the Comic Vegetarians! Stop making them eat meat! While you’re at it, try and keep the lesbians in the DCU from having sex with men. Just putting that out there.
Oh yeah, I don’t think they’re trying to make him non-vegetarian. He only did it because he was being controlled.
I thought the chicken thing was your basic shock ending. Everything was explained, so it will probably go back to the way Morrison had set it up.
Having said that I can see why people might be a tad put out that such a change would be made.
As far as the Animal Man thing goes, it is simply a commentary on the recognition that his history has been altered. Morrison did this to a better effect in his 26 issue run on Animal Man back in the late 1980s,
I bought those when they originally came out and recently had the pleasure of rereading them a couple months back. In it, Morrison even makes mention of the fact that he somehow turned from a meat-eating, crew cut sporting single guy to a thirty year old vegetarian with a wife and kids.
It was all part of AM’s growing awareness that he was a comic book character.
So what McDuffie’s doing in JLA is not something that hasn’t been done before. Not to say that I’m not enjoying it, mind you. Just saying that he is simply following a…tradition, I guess you could say.
Ok that definitely sounded familiar so I looked it up and found this:
“According to the 2007 miniseries, Connor Hawke: Dragon’s Blood, Connor has possibly received some measure of immortality, enhanced strength, and speed by bathing in the blood of a dragon. However, no mention of this has been made since the mini-series.”
In this issue though it seemed a surprise to all of them that he could heal and he also wasn’t feeling any pain. So it could be related, it could not.
And duh, don’t you know here, there’s no such thing as being too geeky?
Curse me for being too geeky….there actually was a story where Connor bathed in the blood of an immortal dragon and picked up an extra healing ability. I thought they decided to ignore that though, and who knows this may be a new sub-plot completly unrelated.
Yeah, they sorta know what’s messing with AM and Vixen now but it hasn’t completely been explained yet. Yes, unfortunately Martian Manhunter is dead. :(
Things that make you go hhmm…I wonder Was’ Up? An entity mucking with the heroes’ minds? The one character who could find out is dead, isn’t he? Martian Manhunter? Or am I wrong? I like Animal Man as a character, could care less about Grant Morrison’s take on him or Morrison in general (my op.). I wish they’d change Animal’s Man costume, but I digress. Now I gotta pick up JLA. Blast it.