This is an analysis of the character Red Mask I intend to turn this script into a video later down the line because this character deserves more attention. Below is a transcript of my writing.
Red Mask made his first appearance in Animal Man issue number 7 written by Grant Morrison and penciled by Chas Truog with Doug Hazelwood. The issue starts with Animal Man calling his son after landing in a city that has been partially destroyed due to an alien invasion (it was a DC event at the time), which is the least important thing about this issue. The really strange thing is these weird retro, robots appeared out of nowhere and started terrorizing the town. Although, they have the durability of cheap plastic. Buddy decides to find the source of these robots and finds a man about to jump from off a building. This is Red Mask, an old supervillain who won these robots from a poker game. He tells Buddy his origin, wandering upon a strange meteor that gives him a death touch, which he accidentally kills his dog with and causes his wife to leave him (fucking depressing if you ask me).
The only thing to do with such destructive power was to become a supervillain because why wouldn’t you, even named himself after a Poe story. He fought the forgotten superhero Captain Triumph from Quality Comics with his partner, the Veil. Flash forward, the Veil goes insane and Red got a lung disease that started killing him so he decided to have some fun he dies. Buddy attempts to persuade Red to not take his own life because “he doesn’t seem like a bad guy,” even though Red self-identifies as a villain. Buddy says that having a TV spot would be a better way “to go out with a bang”. Red seems convinced, but after Buddy leaves Red jumps from a building. Thinking he can fly, the last thing we see is his body lying on the ground. Okay technically we see Buddy fly off and lose his powers after he takes care of the rest of the robots, but the death of Red Mask is a much more powerful image to end the comic on and sadly Morrison was still tied to the invasion event. So Red Mask, literally nothing has been said been this guy, which makes some sense given he was part of a tie-in to a DC event nobody talks about nowadays. This guy does not really amount to anything compared to the Crafty Coyote, a character who foreshadowed the ending of Animal Man and holds way more thematic resonance…or does he. Like I said before the events of this story are so detached from the entire invasion event, so it could have easily functioned as a regular issue in the Animal Man story. Red Mask provides an interesting contrast to Buddy’s character.
To start let’s look at their costumes. Buddy’s Blue and Orange outfit sometimes darker depending on the artist are contrasting colors that make the full skin-tight suit pop. The most notable thing about his costume is his goggles/glasses things, but that is it. Sometimes they would even add a jacket to give it more visual variety. Kind of makes him look like a background character, not all that important. On the other hand, Red Mask’s costume is visually loud, to put it bluntly. Bright Red and Yellow, not the pleasing to the eye, it’s actually quite garish and a helmet quite reminiscent of the red hood design, for the Joker. The upturned cowl fits his character quite well. It fits the Poe motif and gives him some gothic Dracula influence, another character that kills victims in a bloody fashion (a bit like the red death too). An understated hero to differ from the character with a “bold” presence. This is small stuff compared to the big contrasts later on, but it is worth bringing up as a small aspect that enhances the overall whole.
The most notable similarity is that both men are out of their own time. For context, Buddy was created in the 60s, one of the many characters to come out of the wonderfully wacky time in comics known as the Silver Age when Batman fought rainbow monsters and Marvel comics came into their own. If it wasn’t for good ole’ Grant bringing this character out of obscurity (much like a few other British madmen did earlier), this guy would have been lost along with every other odd character created during this time, permanently stuck in comic book Limbo. Now, Animal Man wasn’t the only one rescued from Limbo, Morrison reintroduced B’wana Beast during the first arc of his ongoing series. Morrison took his character in a logical direction, the guy who is empowered by animals ends up going after those who mistreat animals. It is reinventing a character made during a different time to fit into the “modern” age of comics.
However, whereas B’wana Beast was a disgruntled hero who changed Animal Man’s ideology, Red Mask is a villain who was shaped by a “heroic” incident in the worst way possible. This is the second connecting thread between these two characters. A story told many times in superhero fiction one ordinary person (both of them hunters) has a chance encounter with the extraordinary that gave them powers and change their lives forever. Red was forced onto his path because of sheer cosmic misfortune. While a modern creation in the 1980s, Red Mask’s crime spree took place in the golden age when characters were more one-note then they were today. This superpower (or one could say a curse) stops him from living a normal life, even though Red is not an actively malicious or egotistical person. What Morrison does here is taking a golden age supervillain of his own creation and puts him into a modern setting. When his career died down and new supervillains showed up, he was left in the dust. “If only like he learned how to fly”, he laments, but in reality, he wouldn’t have been a villain. It is what makes his end all the more depressing, its the result of a man who can’t change his fate. Too old to live and accept Buddy’s help only left to hold on a dream of flying, a symbol of freedom from his life. Nobody to limit you or tell you who can be. Sadly it did not end that way.
Now in isolation, this would still be a good tragic story of a good guy sent down a destructive path, but this is not where it ends. As revealed by the ending, every tragedy, character action, and story beat was planned out by Grant Morrison. While a “no duh” to us as readers, the realization to a character in that fictional universe would be a shocking revelation. Now if you’re crazy enough you might treat everything like a gigantic joke, but to everyone else, realizing you have no free will would be distressing. This is what happened to Buddy. In a quest to get his family back, he crossed the threshold of continuity into comic book limbo, where old forgotten characters go when not in print. Buddy comes across Merry Man, an old comedic hero who serves as his guide, he remarks how some of these characters will never come back because they are too ridiculous. They are just forgotten, no place for them in modern comic continuity. Now back to Red Mask before he jumps, he remembers an old man who made his suit before he passed on. “That’s just history for you,” He remarks, but his expression tells a different story. He doesn’t make eye contact and stares down, this was a person who might have been a friend. He is the only one who knows about this in the entire DC continuity. With his death, all the people he knew are lost to time. Characters we the audience never got to know. Grant cares about these characters because he had Merryman go on the lost character tangent in the first place. Furthermore, the panels jump to a computer screen to show him typing, which became shorthand for Grant’s authorial voice. He wants us to feel empathy about the characters out of continuity and the one supervillain who came out of nowhere with his own story. It’s lost history never able to be recovered.
At the end of the road of forgotten characters and Mr.Freeze (seriously one good cartoon rescued this guy from obscurity), we find the evil mastermind, Grant Morrison. They have a conversation about grappling with loss and the nature of Buddy being a fictional character. In the end, Grant decides to give Buddy his family, back saying that he has to be more kind than cruel. Now thinking on this, it was weird that Grant only saved Buddy’s life when he hurt more characters: there was obviously Red Mask, but also Crafty Coyote (the first character in the comic to rebel from his creator and was tortured), and Psycho Pirate who literally vanished into thin air and had to be put back into continuity by editorial. Hell, I could say the real tragedy of Animalman was these characters that Grant forgot to give a happy ending to them. However, on closer inspection, this fits the themes of loss I previously brought up. Grant can bring back Buddy’s family, but it would be disingenuous to undo every story beat. He mentioned how his family cat died after she was three years old. After he gave Buddy his happy ending, he went to signal his old imaginary friend, but there is no signal back. The comics end on the night sky, with the street empty and nobody around. This last chapter tells us why Red Mask and the other characters cannot come back. We need to empathize with Grant’s loss. The loss of childhood, the loss of old characters, the loss of animals, and our own loved ones. To appreciate everything you have, before it is all gone.
