[1] Created by writer Dave Wood and artist Carmine Infantino, Buddy Baker first appeared in Strange Adventures #180 (September 1965) and adopted the name Animal Man in issue #190.

In the late 1980s, following the slate-cleaning Crisis on Infinite Earths event, DC began employing innovative writers, many of them young and from the U.K., to revamp some of their old characters.

In the period that saw Alan Moore reinvent the Swamp Thing, Animal Man was reimagined by Scottish writer Grant Morrison.

Morrison wrote the first 26 issues of the Animal Man comic book, published between 1988 and 1990, with art by Chas Truog and Doug Hazlewood; Brian Bolland provided the covers.

Morrison made the title character an everyman figure living in a universe populated by superheroes, aliens, and fantastic technology.

The series made deep, sometimes esoteric references to the entire DC canon, including B'wana Beast, the Mirror Master, and Arkham Asylum.

Following Morrison's run, Peter Milligan wrote a six-issue story featuring several surreal villains and heroes, exploring questions about identity and quantum physics and utilizing the textual cut-up technique popularized by William Burroughs.

Tom Veitch and Steve Dillon then took over for 18 issues, in which Buddy returned to his work as a movie stuntman and explored mystical totemic aspects of his powers.

This event ran across the Annuals of the five then-Vertigo titles --- Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Black Orchid, The Books of Magic, and Doom Patrol—book-ended by two Children's Crusade issues co-written by Neil Gaiman, and starring his Dead Boy Detectives.

A brief run by Jerry Prosser and Fred Harper featured a re-reborn Buddy as a white-haired shamanistic figure before the series was canceled after the 89th issue due to declining sales.

He has been utilized in most of the recent DC company-wide crossovers fighting alongside other less-mainstream heroes, including Infinite Crisis and 52, the latter of which was co-written by Grant Morrison, as well as Justice League of America #25.

As part of The New 52, DC Comics relaunched Animal Man with issue #1 in September 2011 with writer Jeff Lemire and artist Travel Foreman.

Club writer Oliver Sava wrote that the "first issue of Animal Man combines family drama, superhero action, and macabre horror into a cohesive story that is unique, yet still true to the history of Buddy Baker".

After an apparently unsuccessful stint as a superhero, followed by a hiatus where he utilized his powers to work as a film stuntman, Baker decided to restart and make a career out of it after being inspired by the headline-making Justice League International; this is where his self-titled series begins.

Buddy joins the newly formed Justice League Europe and bonds with Dmitri of the Rocket Reds over the shared experiences of being fathers.

While away on a vision quest with Highwater, in which he learns the true nature of his powers and briefly sees the comic's reader, Baker's family is brutally murdered by an assassin sent by the corporate heads seeking to stop his environmental work.

Ultimately, Baker encounters his own writer (Grant Morrison themself), and the two share a conversation on the relationship between the creator and the fictional characters whose lives they write.

Next, after falling into a coma, Buddy finds himself in a strange alternative reality, which he correctly deduces is a divergent phase of existence and is then able to return home.

After an accident in which Baker kills the entire population of the San Diego Zoo, his wife takes their daughter to live with her mother in Vermont to avoid the media attention.

He occasionally lent his talents to various superhero groups, including the JLA and the Forgotten Heroes, and played a prominent role in the Swamp Thing's task force, the Totems.

[20] This marked the reappearance of Buddy in costume, and heralded his return to the mainstream DC Universe (although his Vertigo appearances were clearly meant to take place inside the DCU as well).

[22] Animal Man also makes an appearance in the Identity Crisis limited series, helping to search for the murderer of Sue Dibny.

Due to a malfunction of the Zeta Beam, which Adam Strange deploys to return the team to Earth, Animal Man, along with most of the heroes, go missing after Infinite Crisis.

In issue #37, moments after Starfire and Adam Strange leave Animal Man in space, Buddy comes back to life.

Animal Man must reach out to another life form to survive, and claims the abilities of a group of Sun-Eaters, including their homing sense.

He observes his wife from a wormhole in space provided by the aliens, only to discover that Ellen is seeing another man (though it is later revealed she only reluctantly went out with one of Buddy's friends).

Buddy's powers have been in a state of flux, not working at all at some times and manifesting strange abilities at others, such as creating a whirlwind or firing energy beams.

While he and his family are entertaining Starfire and Donna Troy, Buddy is approached by Mikaal Tomas and Congorilla, who ask him for help in tracking down the supervillain Prometheus.

Animal Man was summoned - along with the JLA, the Teen Titans and the JSA - by Batman to fix the Source Wall in anticipation of a forthcoming war across the multiverse.

Animal Man then assisted these teams in a cross universe battle to defeat Perpetua and Lex Luthor's Legion of Doom.