Comic Title: Animal Man #5
Publisher: DC
Imprint: Vertigo
Cover Date: 1988
On Sale Date: September 27, 1988 Shipping Date September 27, 1988
Source: Direct Currents, #8

Shipping Date September 29, 1988
Source: Amazing Heroes, #149

Copyright Date October 4, 1988
Source: Library of Congress, Copyright Office 1988

Cover Price: $1.25
Page Count: 32
Editor: Karen Berger

Title: "The Coyote Gospel"
Pages: 24

Feature(s):
Animal Man (Post-Crisis)

Writer: Grant Morrison
Penciller: Chas Truog
Inker: Doug Hazlewood
Letterer: John Costanza
Colorist: Tatjana Wood

Reprinted In:
Animal Man TPB (1991)
Animal Man Omnibus HC (2013)
Animal Man by Grant Morrison 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Vol. 1 HC (2019)
Animal Man by Grant Morrison Vol. 1 TPB (2020)

Feature Character(s)

• Animal Man (last appearance in Animal Man #4; next appearance in Animal Man #6)

Supporting Character(s)

• Cliff Baker (last appearance in Animal Man #4; next appearance in Animal Man #7)
• Ellen Baker (last appearance in Animal Man #4; next appearance in Animal Man #8)

Villain(s)

• A truck driver (no further appearances)

Other Character(s)

• Crafty (a coyote; dies in this story; no further appearances)
• Carrie (a hitchhiker; dies in this story; no further appearances)
• Crafty's creator (no further appearances)

Synopsis:
A truck driver picks up a hitchhiker in the desert who is heading for Los Angeles. On the road, the truck strikes a coyote and drives away. The coyote survives and regenerates its damaged body.

A year later, the truck driver returns to the desert to hunt the coyote. During that year, his friend was run over by a truck, he lost his job, and his mother died of cancer. However, when the hitchhiker was killed, the driver blamed the coyote whom he sees as a devil.

He finds and shoots the coyote who falls off a cliff and is crushed by a boulder. However, the coyote survives it all including a dynamite blast which also injured the driver.

Animal Man is flying overhead and lands to investigate. The coyote hands him a scroll. The scroll explains that the coyote came from a cartoon universe where violence prevailed. He petitioned the god of that universe for peace. The coyote was sent to the real world to suffer in exchange for peace in his world. However, the writing on the scroll is unreadable by Animal Man.

The driver recovers from his injury and fires on the coyote with a silver bullet. The coyote finally dies in the crossroads with Animal Man looking on in confusion.