2022 Pop Culture Power Show Mongul Commission by Angel Medina

I've been a fan of Angel Medina since his run on Dreadstar with Peter David in the late '80s, and I first got to have a long chat with him at San Diego ComiCon in 2000 (which led to a misadventure at the 1970s Black Panther panel, but that's another story.) There was a long gap before again making his acquaintence, but he was a regular at a small show out of Stafford, Texas; that died and was reborn as "Pop Culture Con." I've seen him a couple times at those, one just last month, plus Fan Expo Chicago in 2023. Most times, I try to pick up something from him, because I'm still enthused about his art. I've mostly gotten away from Martian Manhunter related commissions, but Medina has a long history of working with Jim Starlin and his cosmic creations, particularly Adam Warlock & Thanos (via The Infinity Watch.) I've devoted a disproprtionate amount of space to Mongul the Merciless on this blog for a rather modest connection to Martian Manhunter, but he's one of my favorite DC villains. I only have one other piece of Mongul art, so I could justify another, especially from such an obviously appropriate creator!

Angel Medina Gallery

• 2023 Fan Expo Chicago JLA JAM Black Canary segment by Angel Medina
• Hellcat, Captain America, & Thanos

Amazing Heroes #156 (January 1st, 1989)

Amazing Heroes remains my all-time favorite industry magazine, despite (okay, partially because) being printed in comic book dimensions (while costing 3-4x as much as its subject averaged) and my only having bought a few editions while it was still being actively published. In fact, I've been actively working on an (economical) set for a while now, and my gaps continue to narrow. I have a lot of contempt toward Wizard specifically, because I saw the negative impact it had on the industry in real time, including its lowering of the overall discourse with hype and crass humor. But also, because I had a basis for comparison to much better magazines, including Comics Scene (even pricier for less content and way too much animation/media coverage, though still more value than the Wizard ilk.) A lot of it was just down to timing, since first generation comics fans were still active and vital at midlife, while the Boomer and Gen-X writing staff had collectively experienced all that North American comics had to offer up to that point. It was still possible to collectively know "everything" about what was available to their audience. Further, it spun out of The Comics Journal so that they could go full fart-sniffer about capital-A "art" releases. So you had a bunch of over-educated liberals getting out from under being brow-beaten by the Gary Groth crowd, but still took mainstream comics seriously enough for literary analysis, and the perspective of having read more ambitious and underground work. There's a reason why so many of its contributors went on to luminous careers of actually creating their own comics.

For instance, Don Rosa was essentially their version of Bob "The Answer Man" Rozakis with his column "Info Center," before succeeding Carl Barks as the Eisner-award winning chronicler of DuckTales. Because he knew his stuff and communicated it well, instead of taking cheap shots like drunk Tony Stark jokes at every opportunity to fill space between price guides. And again, that multi-generational knowledge base would allow for a segment explaining that the original "Manhunter from Mars" was Roh Kar, not J'onn J'onzz. This was a time before ready, widespread reprints, and there were no databases to access this type of obscure information. The oldest Overstreet I have is the 21st edition covering 1991-1992. There's a line under Batman #78 noting "Roh Kar, The Man Hunter from Mars story-the 1st lawman of Mars comes to Earth (green skinned.)" So if you could find that line in a 548-page book of tiny print, regarding a book that hadn't carried the J'onn J'onzz strip, you'd have the barest idea that there was a so-called "Golden Age Martian Manhunter." You could also score a mint copy for $300, which is less than a CGC 1.8 on eBay as I type this. They're asking $1,645 for a 6.0. The best time to invest really was thirty years ago.

Anyway, I learned about Roh Kar from U.S. Navy Commander Adam Benson on the DC Message Boards a quarter century or so ago, because I didn't have this particular issue of Amazing Heroes to educate me. But having read the actual story many times over at this point, what I'm most interested in was how they got that Silver Age Manhunter image in there. Presumably they photocopied a comic that they had a copy of (clearly not Batman #78,) since J'onn is clearly covered in Ben Day dots,) so I figure they then went around that figure with liquid paper to white out the background. This sort of thing got so much easier once the Showcase Presents came out. Anyway, it's nice that a relatively minor character like the Sleuth from Outer Space got any kind of attention in a forum like this, likely because at least one staffer was probably reading the original Batman stories that the Martian Marvel was backing-up.

Aquaman #1-2 (February-March, 2003)

I continue going through the pile of comics that I got solely for blogging purposes-- left unbagged and otherwise unfiled for decades, now finally getting written up and written off. I figured the first issue of a new series with a small Martian Manhunter cameo would be a good opportunity to get in and out, quick and easy. I knew that I had long ago covered JLA: Our Worlds At War, where Aquaman went missing and was assumed dead, so I at first thought this issue would pick up from there. Actually reading the issue, I was quickly reminded that no, Aquaman had actually come back in a lengthy JLA arc, and I dreaded having to start reading and covering that instead. Then I reminded myself-- no, this is the debut of a new series, and it damned well should get me up-to-speed and draw me in on its own.

Well... no. I mean, I got the basics. Atlantis had been drawn into something called "The Obsidian Age" with some bad juju. Aquaman had to re-sink Atlantis to save it in some unclear capacity, as well as the JLA. The Atlanteans had then decided that their former king had ruined everything and betrayed his people for his true friends, and therefore must die. DC's Atlanteans (or actually Poseidoneans, as Aquaman actually presides over a domed city-stated, not the full continent) have always been a murderous and superstitious lot, prone to attempting to kill little babies and young children over their having the wrong colored hair or eyes. Their turning to regicide is on-brand, including the involvement of Vulko, who is basically Aquaman's Alfred if Alfred substituted being openly catty with constant outright backstabbing. Aquaman being in any way associated with this lot makes him look worse.

Guided by Mera, Aquman's crazy ex-babymama (before her Geoff Johns glow-up,) the Atlanteans busted Aquaman's Justice League signal and harpoon hand. Through sorcery, they were able to all ocean life against Aquaman, rendering his telepathy useless. Certainly not against the *snort* barnacles that bound him to a surface rock until he died by desiccation. Around this turn of events, Aquman was seeing flashes of his past that would be obtuse to anyone not well versed in at minimum a half-dozen Peter David written comics from a decade earlier (across a volume, a mini-series, and an annual, no less.) There's no in-depth captions or editor's notes elaborating on any of this, just an aggressive indifference to any potential new readers no arriving directly from JLA. Most of the rest of the issue is Aquaman breaking loose of the barnacles, continuing to be driven away from the sea by the Atlanteans, and most unintentionally funny, being swarmed by crabs. At least, I think it was unintentionally, rather than a piss take. Don't get me wrong, if this were happening to Capt. Storm or some other normal human protagonist, it could be harrowing. In a super-hero comic, it turns Aquaman into a clownfish.

Near death, in Ireland of all places, Aquaman tosses his useless spearhand into a body of water, and it's caught by... The Lady of the Lake?!? Because King Arthur, see, like we haven't been down this road before. Never so incompetently, though, as I don't think they actually refer to Aquaman as "Arthur" until going full Arthurian. So the Lady of the Lake not only heals all of Aquman's wounds with the water of The Secret Sea (I guess,) but she also gives him a bracelet that allows Aquaman to form a... water hand? They make a point of saying he can make it solid enough to grab things and such, plus he eventually has visions in the palm of it, but nobody's impressed with a water hand, dude.

As for the cameo, the Manhunter from Mars caught a bit of Aquman in the "JLA neural net" during the Sea King's semi-failed telepathic call for help. J'Onn J'Onzz was flying around the general area, while also having a psychic exposition dump with Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman... on page 20, way after the reader I either figured it out and stopped caring. And again, it's too vague to qualify as useful-- mostly just restating what we already knew instead of expanding upon it. Mostly, it just absolves the JLA's absence by stating that he wanted to deal with his (murderous) people on his own. By the time the Alien Atlas locates his teammate, Arthur is relating the Arthurian developments like we hadn't already read that part. This continued into the second issue, where J'Onn got some clothes and credit cards for Arthur, while they sniped at each other over who was the most stand-offish or least likely to stay with the Justice League. Aquaman then goes on alone on some meandering adventure involving captaining some old man's boat through a storm, using his water hand for magic CPR, fighting those Atlantean stormtroopers a little, and weathering a police investigation. Or something. I checked out four pages in, when the cameo stopped, but after another dumb dream sequence that alluded to stuff I didn't care about.

"Castaway" and "To Die by the Light of the Sea" were by Rick Veitch, Yvel Guichet, and Mark Propst. The writer seemed inclined toward Silver Age cheese, but lacked the chops of Silver Age revivalists like Morrison and Waid. The art was fine, but I had to actively remind myself that it wasn't by the same art team as did the JLA arc. The year that this lasted yielded few waves, but the book would pick steam in the second year under another Mahnke-indebted creative team and the premise of "Sub Diego."