Animal Man #15
“The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”, September 1989
Credits:
Grant Morrison [writer]
Chas Truog [artist]
Doug Hazlewood [artist]
John Costanza [letterer]
Tatjana Wood [colorist]
Art Young [associate editor]
Karen Berger [editor]
Brian Bolland [cover (uncredited)]
Front Matter:
Cover:
The cover depicts the character Dolphin attempting to rescue a harpooned adult dolphin and a younger dolphin, with Buddy observing the struggle. There is a human-made underwater structure seen in the bottom-right corner. This cover is closely based on the cover of Showcase #79 (Dec. 1968), illustrated by Jay Scott Pike – the issue that introduced the Dolphin character. [see the annotation for Page 10 for an image of that cover].
Inside Cover:
The ‘DC Checklist This Week’ section includes the following description of Animal Man #15: “Animal Man teams up with Dolphin and the Sea Devils to stop the dolphin slaughter in the Faroe Islands.”
Story:
Page 1
The skin of the dolphin’s world (mentioned a few times in this issue) is what we would call the surface of the ocean. Morrison tries to provide the dolphin with a language that is understandable to the reader but filtered through the dolphin’s experience of the world. This technique is not successful, however, when words like “polar” are used (which is arguably a human concept) and it’s clear that the dolphin is communicating on an anthropomorphic level (the animal is being ascribed human attributes).[1]
Page 2, panel 4
This is apparently the same Dane who called Buddy’s house in the last issue and left a message with Ellen.
Page 3, panel 4
Dane is Dane Dorrance of the Sea Devils, and an ex-member of the Forgotten Heroes with Buddy. Dane first appeared in Showcase #27 (Aug. 1960) [pictured] as an underwater explorer. When searching for treasure, he meets a number of other divers: the actress Judy Walton, her brother Nicky, and brawny Biff Bailey. After defeating an underwater monster they decide to form a partnership. They name themselves Sea Devils after a film production that Judy is trying to be cast in. Dane later meets Buddy in Action Comics #552 (Feb. 1984) when they and several other heroes are brought together by the Immortal Man to destroy some pyramids that are being used to disrupt time. The Immortal Man’s group is later named the Forgotten Heroes.
Page 5
This is the title page. The title is a reference to the idiom “between the devil and the deep blue sea”, referring to a precarious situation. According to The Sailor’s Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms (1867), the “Devil” refers to part of a ship, though it’s not clear if that term pre-dated the first recorded usage of the phrase in 1637[2].
Art Young’s job title has changed from Assistant to Associate Editor.
Job Number: G-5034 appears within the indicia.
Page 6, panel 4
Biff Bailey is also an original member of the Sea Devils, first appearing in Showcase #27. The Faroe Islands are in the North Atlantic Ocean, a roughly equal distance from Scotland, Norway, and Iceland.
Page 8, panel 1
Dolphin drive hunting occurs in many places of the world, with the annual dolphin slaughter in Taji, Japan being made (in)famous by the Academy Award winning documentary The Cove (2009). At around the same time as this comic issue was produced, the actor Anthony Hopkins lent his voice to a short animated Public Service Announcement by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society about these activities in the Faroe Islands:
Some mainstream awareness of the Faroe Islands slaughter was raised by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), who interfered with and documented the slaughter in the summer of 1985 as part of their first campaign as an organisation.[3]
Page 8, panel 2
Various tools and weapons were used to kill the cetaceans. Harpoons and whaling spears were banned from 1986, but “hooks and ropes and flensing knives” would have been used, with the general aim being to pull the animals ashore and then sever their spine to kill them quickly.[4]
Page 8, panel 5
I haven’t been able to find anything online to support this gruesome claim about the fetuses being distributed to children, though there are plenty of reports and images of fetuses being cut from pregnant dolphins.
Page 9, panel 4
Most of the cetaceans killed in the Faroe Islands are pilot whales and Atlantic white-sided dolphins: both are species of dolphins. The dolphins depicted in this issue look more like bottlenose dolphins, which have a longer snout, and these are also often killed in the hunt. The whale shown in this panel might be a humpback whale.
Page 9, panel 6
I think Morrison may have confused their argument here. Whales can stimulate plankton growth, with their faeces fertilising plankton blooms, though they also eat plankton. Plankton absorbs carbon dioxide and produces oxygen. To reduce CO2 levels, more plankton is therefore better, and whales help to achieve that. As an International Monetary Fund publication claims, “one whale is worth thousands of trees.”[5]
Page 10
Dolphin is another member of the Forgotten Heroes. Her earliest appearances were in Showcase #79 (Dec. 1968) [pictured] and Showcase #100 (May 1978), when she meets the Sea Devils for the first time. She lives underwater and has trouble absorbing oxygen when she is outside of the ocean for longer than 5 or 6 hours, but the reason for her condition is not explained until after her Animal Man appearances. After her Showcase appearances, Dolphin does not appear in comics again until she joins the Forgotten Heroes in 1984. In DC Comics Presents #78 (Feb. 1985), the Forgotten Heroes come across an ocean planet and Dolphin wonders whether that is her home, suggesting that she may have an extraterrestrial origin. Buddy last worked with Dolphin in Crisis on Infinite Earths #11 and #12 (1986).
Page 14, panel 6
The claim that dolphins will respond to an another injured dolphin is plausible. The drive to help another member of a pod seems to be a factor contributing to mass stranding of some whale species.
Page 16, panel 6
The name of the ship is Virgil, probably named after the Ancient Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, a fictionalised Virgil is Dante’s guide through the Inferno.
Page 24
While an angered Buddy left Ongur to die, Ongur is rescued by the dolphin whose family he murdered, as the dolphins reject the aggressive way of the “hu-men”. Kuzma argues that the dolphin “is the more consistent moral thinker”, adopting a Kantian ethical philosophy where a moral law like ‘do not kill’ is applied equally to all beings, in contrast to Buddy who adopts a more Utilitarian approach where the moral act is one that results in the least suffering overall.[6]
Back Matter:
Letters:
The letters are in response to Animal Man #11.
The writer of the first letter thought the glove on the cover of issue #11 might belong to Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare on Elm Street film series. Art Young’s response mentions that Buddy will understand the true nature of his powers in the coming issues.
The writer of the third letter thinks the aliens were a cross between the Scissormen (of Morrison’s Doom Patrol series, #19-#22, 1989) and the microscopic alien simians who are responsible for Detective Chimp’s super intelligence (from Secret Origins #40, May 1989). However, it’s unlikely that these were a direct influence on the story given that Buddy’s aliens first appeared in the 1960s.
The writer of the fourth letter heaps praise on the series, especially the blending of normal situations and weird concepts, commenting that “it’s [the] grounding in suburban family life that makes the really outré stuff work.”
References:
[1] Mahmutovic, Adnan, et al. “Ecce Animot: Or, The Animal Man That Therefore I Am.” ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, https://imagetextjournal.com/ecce-animot-or-the-animal-man-that-therefore-i-am/.
[2] Martin, Gary. “Between the Devil and the deep blue sea.” Phrase Finder, https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/between-the-devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea.html
[3] Lonsdale, Jennifer. “Faroe Islands whaling and the birth of EIA’s first campaign.” Environmental Investigation Agency, 21 Aug. 2024, https://eia-international.org/blog/faroe-islands-whaling-and-the-birth-of-eias-first-campaign/. Thank you to contributor Jesse for the insight.
[4] Olsen, Jústines. “Killing Methods and Equipment in the Faroese Pilot Whale Hunt.” NAMMCO Workshop on Hunting Methods, Nuuk, Greenland, 9-11 February 1999. https://nammco.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/doc-6-killing-methods-and-equipement-in-the-faroese-pilot-whale-hunt.pdf
[5] Chami, Ralph, et al. “Nature’s Solution to Climate Change.” Finance & Development Magazine, Dec. 2019. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2019/12/natures-solution-to-climate-change-chami
[6] Kuzma, Andrew. “The St. Francis of the DC Universe: How Animal Man Makes the Case for Pluralism in Animal Ethics.” Theology and the DC Universe, edited by Gabriel Mckee and Roshan Abraham, Lexington, 2023, p. 167.
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