Deus Ex Machina

by Grant Morrison

Written by Grant Morrison; Art by Chas Truog, Doug Hazlewood, Paris Cullins, Mark Farmer, and Steve Montano; Painted Cover by Brian Bolland This long-awaited third trade paperback completes the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 156389968X
• ISBN13: 9781563899683
• Release Date: November 2003
• Publisher: Vertigo
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.6" x 10.2"

Customer Reviews

Love this Character and this Series

I enjoyed this and remembered this from years ago and was lucky to come across it and collect and enjoy reading it and the great animation. Thanks Grant for writing these books!

ginormous goodness.

This is without a doubt one of the greatest graphic novels I have ever read. It serves as an incredible culmination of Morrison's Animal Man saga, following Buddy Baker's descent into his own personal hell, and his difficult journey back out again. The art is functional-- not bad, not great either, but that's all been said before. All in all a pretty amazing piece of work. Buddy is such a fundamentally GOOD guy, you can't help but care about what happens to both him and his family. It's smart, it doesn't talk down to you, and it happens to pull off some pretty amazing stunts by the last page. Give it a shot.

Morrison's metaphysical swan song to Animal Man

By the time you reach the mind shattering conclusion of Deus Ex Machina, the last volume in Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man, everything he set up from the beginning comes full circle. As Buddy Baker and the strange Highwater go out to the desert, Buddy makes a shocking revelation that will take him to Arkham Asylum to confront the Psycho Pirate; a villain boasting about alternate worlds that no longer exist. Before that though, tragedy strikes Animal Man at the home front in a way he never imagined, and it isn't long before he teams up with the Mirror Master to exact revenge. Just about everything that Morrison has set up from the beginning of his run is tied up here: from the erratic behavior of Animal Man's powers, to the mysterious yellow alien's purpose, to the identity of the apparition stalking his family. All of which reaches the long hinted at conclusion in which Morrison breaks the fourth wall. The art is still take it or leave it, but Morrison's inventive story more than makes up for it. Even all these years later, Morrison's brilliant, at times preachy, deconstruction of this minor DC super hero remains one of his best works, and here's the proof. All in all, if you've never read any of Morrison's Animal Man run, now is the time to give it a look.

Morrison at his best!

Grant Morrision wrote Animal Man (issues 1-26) from 1988-1990. I was in college during the time, and became a reader around issue 9. I quickly got back issues, though, because of the surprising strength of this series.This 3rd volume collects issues 18-26, and it wraps up one of Morrison's best series (the other being Doom Patrol 19-63). What makes this series outstanding is Morrison's usual trademark "weirdness"; however, unlike the "Invisibles", Animal Man and Doom Patrol have strong and symphathetic characterization-Buddy Baker and his family "seem real" even though this series is in part about the unreality of comic books. AM also has a particulaly strong and poignant ending-again like Doom Patrol.Issues 1-26 form a complete story- the series should have been allowed to end with 26: added issues in a sense were superfluous. Only later with Sandman (allowed to end in 1996) did DC learn when "enough is enough". To sum up: AM and DP represent Morrison at his magical best. Don't get me wrong, Invisibles, JLA and X-Men are entertaining. But I'm hoping he can pull out another white rabbit...