Today on Current Issues we talk about the most recent comic book run of DC Comic's most underrated Justice League member, The Martian Manhunter. With his popularity being spawned in "Justice League: The Animated Series", having a small appearance on "Smallville" and being introduced into "Supergirl", now is a good time to see what DC Comics is planning to do with this long-standing superhero. Let's dig right in.
Writer: Rob Williams
Penciler: Eddy Barrows
Inker: Eber Ferreira
Colorist: Gabe Eltaeb
The Martian Manhunter was created by Joseph Samachson and Joe Certa in "Detective Comics #225" in 1955. His tale began with a back-up story called "The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel", a story in which a scientist named Saul Erdel tests out an experimental teleportation device and accidentally teleports a Martian named J'onn J'onzz to planet Earth. Erdel-shocked by the sight of this alien-dies of a heart attack and J'onn must stay on Earth until Martian civilization has created technology to retrieve him. Originally, J'onn was a displaced alien capable of contacting other members of his race. His early popularity got him a spot on the very first version of The Justice League, cementing his place in the DC Universe. In 1998, the backstory for The Martian Manhunter was changed to include more tragedy. We learn that J'onn had a brother on Mars named Ma'alefa'ak who misused his Martian powers of telepathy to "mentally rape" J'onn's wife. For his crimes, The High Council of Mars wiped his memories of these actions and repressed his psychic powers, causing Ma'alefa'ak to believe he was simply born without telepathy. Feeling outcasted by his people, Ma'alefa'ak unleashed an ancient Martian plague that set every Martian capable of telepathy on fire. J'onn watched as his wife, his children, and every member of his race burn to death before being teleported to Earth by Erdel's experiment. Ma'alefa'ak would roam Mars for years before learning J'onn survived, while J'onn would mask his psychological damage by creating a human identity on Earth, John Jones, and becoming one of Earth's greatest heroes. Despite his trauma, The Martian Manhunter has been a wise and compassionate ally to Earth's heroes, landing significant roles as a mentor and as a solo superhero. It is because of his ability to move on from his people's death and strength in adopting Earth as his new home that readers and viewers everywhere can find greatness in this character.
Rob Williams plans on retooling the backstory of this character. As of now, The Martian Manhunter has been more downplayed as a hero and this book explores his new backstory. This story establishes that J'onn J'onzz has been lying about his past and desires to kill himself. Which he does. However, even with J'onn dead, we meet other characters who carry the book. Each of these characters turn out to be a part of J'onn split into different personalities. Martians are capable of both shapeshifting and telepathy, so its implied before rejecting his "original purpose" and killing himself, J'onn created physical beings with fabricated memories to act his back-up life. The characters in questions include a New York police officer, a disabled teenager, an international thief, an elderly man, and an eccentric alien named Mr Biscuits. These five parts of J'onn are hunted down by beings known as White Martians. Before this book, The White Martians were a feral subspecies of Martians who sought to destroy their green counterparts, but for this book it is implied that after the green Martians were wiped out, the White Martians captured J'onn and planted him on Earth to be their secret weapon. By killing himself and subconsciously leading his five other personalities into a Martian spell-circle on Earth, J'onn orchestrated the revival of the Martian race by slowly erasing the human race from existence. Now with J'onn revived, he must battle his five personalities, decide which planet he wants to save, and face his brother Ma'alefa'ak and the White Martians.
Taking this new origin into consideration, it instantly bothers me how quickly Williams complicates things. Anyone who knows me knows I hate it when writers feel the need to add a complex layer to a simple backstory. A great example is Scott Snyder's "Zero Year" which was a year long Batman origin story. Snyder is admittedly one of the greatest Batman writers of our time, but I believe Frank Miller wrote a better Batman origin story with "Batman: Year One" in four issues. This is another case of that. A Martian kills his entire race out of spite, one survives, comes to Earth and channels his pain into defending the people of his new home. It's like Superman, but darker. Removing the need to actually make Superman darker. With a backstory like that, it'd be so much simpler to just do a story about J'onn coping with those events. Instead, Williams sought to create an origin that sounds more like science fiction movie. An honestly, I don't even dislike this plot. I like the concept of aliens invading Earth by disguising themselves as humans, I like the idea of Mars being revived by sacrificing Earth, my favorite idea by far is the concept of J'onn creating five different people out of himself to maintain his presence without being alive. That is so cool! And it makes total sense with his powers, Martian Manhunter has always been an overpowered character-he has most of Superman's powers, plus telepathy, telekinesis and shapeshifting-so splitting himself into five people with preconceived lives is genius. I always like when characters literally split themselves into separate beings. Reminds me of Piccolo from "Dragon Ball Z". Oh! Martian Manhunter vs Piccolo! Still, I feel that this story could've been told less complicated. I mean, most of what I've put together as the plot synopsis is based of educated guesses of what I've been reading. Sometimes I've had to reread a few panels to get an understanding of how and why something is happening. That's not to say the plot is too cluttered, but that the plot could've been told more straight-forward.
The art by Barrows is perfect for the story being told, it's very grotesque when dealing with the grotesque and flattering when dealing with the flattering. What I mean is, Barrows is the kind of artist who doesn't set a middle-ground for important moments. If he draws an alien monster, it's going to look gross and scary. If he's drawing an innocent little girl, you're going to want to pat that kid on the head and tell her to have a nice day. He's excellent at creating expressions, so much so that by taking a character's face out of context you can completely understand what they're feeling, it's great for a title like this to get an artist who can juggle humans and aliens with such perfection. Ferreira and Eltaeb's colors are really nice too. The colors are bold and not at all muted, for a title like this it's nice to see vibrant and expressive colors weren't expelled from its creation. The colors on J'onn himself have never looked better together. Cold and shadowy blues, popped out red, and most "this is an alien" shade of green I've seen in a comic.
Overall, I'll continue reading this book to see what Williams does with J'onn. I may be a loyalist to the origin prior, but I'm not going to ignore a good science-fiction thriller. Even if you prefer the old version, this is probably the most professionally done Martian Manhunter story in a long time. It really puts him back on the global scale and matches his adventures up to those of Superman and Batman. I look forward to seeing the story and characters develop!
Thanks for reading!
MARTIAN MANHUNTER VS PICCOLO, 2016!
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