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While hunting as a teenager, he encounters a crashed spaceship which apparently endows him with his abilities. After an apparently unsuccessful stint as a superhero, followed by a hiatus where he utilized his powers to work as a film stuntman, Baker decides to restart and make a career out of it after being inspired by the headline-making Justice League International.
Through the series, Animal Man becomes a man of great compassion toward all creatures, an ardent animal rights activist, an environmentalist, and a vegetarian. Later, he finds his link to the M-field has been passed on to his daughter, Maxine, who is also connected to the animal kingdom. Although he wears a mask, he goes to no great lengths to conceal his true identity. A jacket was added to Animal Man's costume (so he could have pockets and a place to put his keys). However, this jacket was not a leather jacket: Buddy specifically discusses that he won't wear leather, he considers this immoral. Baker also becomes a staunch animal rights activist and goes on several missions with environmental themes.
During his further adventures, he experiences glitches with his powers. He is targeted for murder by a mysterious organization upset with his environmental work. A parallel story involves a pair of yellow aliens (described as "agents of some unspecified 'higher power'" that engineered the spaceship wreck which granted his powers) who are aware of the events of the Crisis and monitor Baker's actions. They are aware of "a second Crisis" coming which they believe only Animal Man can revert. They perform an unexplained "surgery" which extends his abilities.
Baker is demoralized, however, when firefighters are injured in a laboratory blaze started by activists he was working with. While away on a vision quest in which he learns the of the true nature of his powers, Baker's family is brutally murdered by an assassin sent by the corporate heads seeking to stop his environmental work. Baker tracks down the businessmen and assassin and kills them. While trying to undo his family's deaths with a time machine, Baker accidentally becomes warped through time and prevents damage to the continuity. Baker is sent back home and his family is restored back to life.
Buddy can mimic any abilities of any animal as a result of his encounter with a crashed alien spacecraft. He does this by either focusing on a specific animal near him, or, as he learned later, by drawing power from the animal kingdom in general (this enables him to even mimic animals that are extinct). The nature of these powers has been described in various ways, including the superficial "alien radiation" explanation of his early appearances, the reconstruction of his body by aliens with "morphogenetic grafts" at the cellular level, and currently, mystical access to a "morphogenetic field" created by all living creatures, also known as "the Red".
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