1985 Martian Manhunter Fan Art by Carl W. Taylor

I opted out of posting last Monday because 1) the holiday, 2) all my fellow wypipo hijacking Martin Luther King Jr. for their own ends, often while promoting other wypipo stuff, and 3) because the podcast I was editing was trying to kill me. A week later, and I'm not letting the edit get too nuts this time, so I can actually get something done on the blog. Anyway, I'm always thrown when I see evidence of Martian Manhunter having a fanbase before his return from limbo in 1984 for the Justice League and Super Powers. Obviously somebody was reading his Silver Age strip and the odd reprints, but he made so few appearances after 1969 that common assumption would be he'd missed a generation of readers (that included Brad Meltzer *spits in general direction.*) I have no way of knowing how old the artist was in 1985, when he sent this piece in for publication to the letter column of Amazing Heroes #81. Maybe the Kirby stylings were vintage, rather than reflecting The King's work in the Super Powers tie-in mini-series that reflected the Manhunter from Mars' inclusion within the toy line?