When I started my first Martian Manhunter fan page back in the '90s, I wanted to have a rogues gallery section without using the generic "rogues gallery" handle. Thus: Vile Menagerie. I stocked it up with the villains I knew of that had fought the Manhunter, which is to say a bunch of Justice League adversaries from the '80s & '90s. As I became better informed about the Alien Atlas' history as a solo hero, I was embarrassed by the more tenuous inclusions, not to mention keeping out villains I had personal biases against. While the results will not necessarily be binding, I wanted to open up a series of polls to get reader responses to which individuals popular opinion favors keeping or ditching as representative of the evils devoted to bringing down the Sleuth from Outer Space. While comments are welcome, the main concern is, if you put all the guys who ever fought J'Onn J'Onzz on a Survivor style island, who would you cast out as not belonging to the group? Who is too much of a [BLANK] villain? Who is the weakest link? That sort of thing.
Our first candidate is a fellow who would likely enjoy such a game, Despero. The alien tyrant was created to battle the Justice League of America in their first eponymous comic book. While the Martian Manhunter was on that team in their first two battles against Despero, he was in no way a "spotlight" member, with the Flash specifically being the primary hero of their first encounter. J'Onn J'Onzz wasn't around at all for Despero's third appearance, either. However, Despero next kidnapped J'Onzz and forced him to play a game imperiling his former teammates, threatening the lives of everyone on Mars II to extort cooperation. One might take that personally. His fourth defeat and imprisonment (by Martians!) led Despero to cast himself into the Flame of Py'tar, disintegrating and reintegrating into a new, more deadly form. The Martian Manhunter was one of three members present who had faced Despero before, and was the only member still around during Despero's most famous rampage against the JLI in 1990. The Alien Atlas and the JLI fought Despero again a couple of years later, enslaving him to the will of the robot L-Ron, and forced Despero to physically serve as a member of the Justice League Task Force for two years. Following that group's dissolution, L-Ron struggled to contain the psyche of Despero, who fought Supergirl and Young Justice. Despero actually possessed Martian Manhunter briefly during one of those episodes.
Most of Despero's appearances in the new millennium have not involved the Manhunter. J'Onn J'Onzz was tied up in a story arc in Superman/Batman that involved a Despero scheme, and the Kalanorian seemed particularly intent on lashing out at the Alien Atlas during one of the last JLA arcs. That said, the Martian Manhunter has only ever beaten Despero once through his own power, has otherwise tended to be a punching bag for the Kalanorian, and hasn't faced the despot in six years. It has been argued that Despero is a Justice League villain who just happens to face Martian Manhunter as part of that unit, and it is true that J'Onzz has never faced Despero outside of the direct influence of the League. Given his increased visibility in recent years, Despero could also be argued as being a greater DCU villain, popping in books as diverse as Booster Gold and Trinity.
Cast your own vote on the matter in the sidebar. Results will be noted in the comments, and perhaps mentioned when the next candidate comes up on... SurVILEvor Island!
It's been five years and one month of The Idol-Head of Diabolu, and I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired. Actually, I strongly suspect you're pooped, too. As of this Monday, I haven't gotten a comment on a post since last Monday's. While I'm proud of the quality and heft of the individual posts that made up our anniversary month, it took a lot out of me to write. I've visited sites and blogs whose output eventually swelled to the point that I didn't have the stamina to read them anymore, and I'd rather that didn't happen here. We'll probably launch into Halloween on the Menagerie Isle tomorrow, but for today, take a breather and maybe peruse the previous month's links...
After spending almost all of the two weeks of voting at 100%, one contrary choice landed Triumph at 90% favorability as a Martian Manhunter villain out of ten votes. Jeez, the guy can't even catch a break at being absolutely demonized.
Rott should have made for a short and sweet entry in the SurVILEvor Island series, but there's just too many scabs to pick. Basically, antebellum negro slaves performed voodoo to make an Eclipso diamond thingy to kill their master, which created a demon that grew ever more powerful over the centuries by drawing strength from the darkness in their Black Person hearts. This was the idea of the honky that created Booster Gold. White men from Ortonville, Minnesota should not write stories like that. It's unseemly, not to mention convoluted and inane.
Let's break this down. First, why do expatriate Africans always practice voodoo? It's the same deal as Native American and Jewish mysticism. If these guys could create golems and magic gems and stuff, how come soulless white thugs still end up killing/enslaving the hell out of them? Who saves their God Mode code until after their weapons cache is down to a pocket knife so that you have to kill all your enemies in the most tedious manner possible? You don't see Japanese comic book people, who all know martial arts, doing that stuff. Every Japanese man, woman and child was a super-stealth ninja assassin who could glide on air currents until World War II, which is why we had to drop the bomb on them, and even then they just harnessed its power to grow Ultraman to combat Godzilla. Only Japanese-Americans went to internment camps, because they were technically Americans, who don't have any special powers that don't involve being such dirty cheats that we still manage to overcome magic crap like manitou spirits with smallpox blankets. Point being, if you're going to open up a big 'ol can of creepy crawly worms, you'd best have set aside the time and effort to bait fish.
Fourth, did Dan Jurgens consider that by making Rott control the Manhunter/Bloodwynd, he invalidated the first year of Bloodwynd appearances and rendered him merely "the Black Martian Manhunter clone?" Was it his idea to diversify the League, or perhaps to recast Martian Manhunter with a black alter ego? Was Bloodwynd initially intended to be a standalone character, or just a device that became a separate character by semi-popular demand? Was the whole thing dreamed up by editorial and forced on him? Was Bloodwynd's origin so full of plot holes and political incorrectness because it was hacked together as an afterthought, or perhaps outright authorial sabotage?
Fifth, like his counterpart Bloodwynd, we never really find out what the hell this guy can do. This story made a point of explaining away everything Bloodwynd had done as creative applications of the Martian Manhunter's powers, and the character wasn't redefined to a substantial degree afterward. Rott brought heroes into the Blood Gem where they either had no powers or were neutralized by his situational partner, Weapons Master. When Rott escaped, he wielded the power of the Blood Gem against non-powered humans and a notably diminished Martian Marvel. He's big, he's probably strong, and what? All we know is that whatever power Rott did have was taken back by Bloodwynd, which I guess establishes that Bloodwynd has the power to keep undefined power from Rott, so he's got that going for him.
Finally, Rott has no personal enmity toward J'Onn J'Onzz, nor does he contrast all that well conceptually. He doesn't appear to have any plans beyond getting loose from the Blood Gem, which is a bad thing only because he's an ass and goes about it in a rude way. Rott is apparently some vague combination of the restless soul of an especially nasty slave owner and the dark parts of the souls of the descendants of his killer. He's mostly white, but has some African features, which could have been a subtle twist in a Milestone book but just confuses things in DC black & white. He also looks like a mythical ogre. Jacob Whitney probably didn't have to deal a lot with immigrants, and J'Onn J'Onzz wasn't part of an oppressed/slave race like Jemm. I guess there's the supernatural versus science fiction aspect, in which case Rott can go to the back of a long line of better candidates (Korge, Diabolu, etc.) and that's more of a Superman thing besides. It didn't help that Rott is the generational foe of Bloodwynd who targeted the Ray and tussled with a bunch of other Leaguers. Rott screwed-up J'Onn's intended sabbatical and kept him out of comics for a period of time in which the Alien Atlas was supposed to be out of sight anyway. He feels very tangential to the Sleuth from Outer Space narrative, and as such, seems unsuitable for the Vile Menagerie.
