DC's Young Animal

DC's Young Animal was a "pop-up"[2] imprint of DC Comics started in 2016.[3] It was developed in collaboration with Gerard Way, an American musician and comic book writer, author of The Umbrella Academy. Its main focus was to relaunch characters and settings from the DC Universe in stories for mature readers, done with a more experimental approach than DC's primary line of superhero comics. The line was overseen by Vertigo group editor Jamie S. Rich and executive editor Mark Doyle.[4]

Gerard Way said that a shared theme of the Young Animal comics is "relationships between parents and children". Other themes he has cited are alienation, fame, change ("self-actualization and becoming something else"), as well as bullying, teenagers and drug use (in Shade, the Changing Girl), and eventually "a lot of personal stuff for me in Doom Patrol that deals with mature themes".

Titles

Shade, the Changing Girl – by Cecil Castellucci and Marley Zarcone [7] – is a continuation of the earlier Vertigo series Shade, the Changing Man. Here, an alien is obsessed with a discontinued line of missions to Earth undertaken with a "Madness Cloak". After taking the cloak, she becomes stuck on Earth in the body of a female high school bully who had been in a coma after nearly drowning in a lake.

Mother Panic – by Jody Houser and Tommy Lee Edwards[8] – is about Violet Paige, a young celebrity who seeks revenge on her privileged peers under a secret identity in Gotham City. She is often monitored by Batman and the Bat-Family.[9]

Doom Patrol – by Gerard Way and Nick Derington[10] – is another series from DC featuring freakish superheroes. The protagonist is Casey Brinke, an EMT who can only remember impossible things from her childhood. She is introduced into Dannyland, a seemingly impossible place that has the answers to her past and her future.

Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye – by Jon Rivera, Gerard Way, and Michael Avon Oeming [11] – is a revival of an obscure DC character, the underground explorer Cave Carson. Twelve years after retirement, Carson joins his daughter Chloe in adventures, stealing his old digging machine and setting forth on a wacky adventure involving cults, mushrooms, and Superman.

Bug: The Adventures of Forager – miniseries by Lee Allred, Michael Allred, and Laura Allred [12] – is based on the 1970s Jack-Kirby-created character Forager.

Eternity Girl – miniseries by writer Magdalene Visaggio and artist Sonny Liew[13] – began as a result of the Milk Wars crossover event. Caroline Sharp, a former super-spy, possesses the power of eternal life and seeks to end the universe in order to terminate her existence. Themes of depression and existentialism were explored throughout the 6-issue series.[14]

Collapser – by Mikey Way and Shaun Simon.[2]

Far Sector – by Nora Keita Jemisin and Jamal Campbell[2] – is a 12-issue science fiction murder mystery. This story features a newly-introduced Green Lantern, Sojourner Mullein, far from Earth. It was nominated for the 2021 Eisner Award for Best Limited Series.[15]

Shade, the Changing Woman – by Cecil Castelucci and Marley Zarcone – a follow-up to the Shade, the Changing Girl.

Cave Carson Has an Interstellar Eye – by Jon Rivera and Michael Avon Oeming – a follow-up to Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye.

Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds – by Gerard Way, Jeremy Lambert, and James Harvey – a follow-up to Gerard's run of Doom Patrol.

parent	DC Comics
founded	2016
defunct	2021
keypeople	Mark Doyle (executive editor) Jamie S. Rich (group editor) Gerard Way (curator)‡R1R‡
publications	Comic books

History

Titles

Collected editions

External links

References