Brightest Day #6 (Late September, 2010)

Big Hendy Park, California. A feminine Green Martian with a contorted, conflicted form and multiple faces speaking to themselves spied on a couple lounging by a stream in the forest. "Her life smells so wonderful... her youthfulness simply intoxicating. All the psychological and physical experiences she has yet to encounter can be mine... I want them... I need them..."

"Enough! You have more important things to think about. This may be your last cycle before it passes away forever. J'Onzz is back among the living, and he is the last one. Do you really think now is the time to disappear-- submerge yourself inside their meat again?"

"But I am still so empty-- all those years of loneliness-- a lie of the mind to stay sane--"

"Now is the time to rise and do what the core of your being demands-- you must be fulfilled."

"And I will be. Buy if I can't have these lives at this moment, then I'll simply take them."

"Since your last submersion there's been the appearance of another. Someone who may capture his attention-- before we do."

"That won't happen... because I'll pay her a visit." This twisted creature set off in flight, having decapitated the young man and crushed the skull of the lady.

Denver, Colorado. The remains of Professor Erdel's laboratory. The Sleuth from Outer Space sought clues about the serial killer he was pursuing, but was soon more concerned when every hint of flora that he came into contact with immediately died at his touch. Taking flight, J'Onn found an adorable squirrel in a tree, and was relieved to find that it could survive contact with him, "By the grace of H'ronmeer..." The Manhunter from Mars next visited the Still Zone, activating the White Martian mothership, via the prime codeword "T'ann T'anzz." All remained in stasis, with security at full power. On to Gotham City, where he worked with Oracle to view autopsy photos and hack into secure databases for deeply buried computer files. The authorities hide the details when metahuman involvement is suspected to suppress public unrest and as a comfort for families who find greater peace in more mundane causes of death. Hence, this alien killer could go largely undetected, outside specialized agencies who may secretly be in pursuit.

Detecting a "nagging familiarity" to the killer's m.o., the Manhunter reached out to the Teen Titans, with Superboy reporting that M'gann M'orzz was on "walkabout." In the Tanami Desert, Australia, J'Onzz found Miss Martian's getaway pad, the heroine herself brutalized. Dangling in a downward recline, covered in purple blood, half in White Martian and half Miss Martian form...

"Dead Zone" was by writers Peter J. Tomasi & Geoff Johns, with art by Patrick Gleason & company. Following a two month absence, Martian Manhunter(!) was the David Finch cover-featured star, with an altered version of his 2006 logo. The splash page is glorious, certainly one of Gleason's best images of Manhunter and overall.

Brightest Day #3 (Early August, 2010)

In the Antimatter Universe, White Lantern Boston Brand created hard light power ring constructs of the recently resurrected to fend off the Anti-Monitor. Just acknowledging the cameo.

In Pearl River, New York, at Rockland County Morgue, J'Onn J'Onzz observed the flayed bodies of the massacred family. Finding a dog hair on their clothes, he tracked their absent family dog to the Rockland County Animal Shelter. In its memory, J'Onn saw a corrupted Martian figure stripping off the skins of the family members. He then took the dog to keep Melissa Erdel company, having wiped its memory of the trauma.

"Revelations" was by writers Peter J. Tomasi & Geoff Johns, with art by Patrick Gleason & company.

Brightest Day #2 (Late July, 2010)

In Pearl River, New York, a brown-haired slim housewife prepared dinner for her husband and two children. She became fixated on a GBS news report on the recent resurrections of heroes like Aquaman and Martian Manhunter, shown on the television screen. Absentmindedly pulling a ham out of the oven bare-handed, the mom announced that dinner was ready. The rest of the family were playing a Rock Band-style video game, and wanted to finish the current song. The mom then swiftly, brutally murdered "her" family with objects on hand, before pulling the skin off her face to partially reveal a pale, craggy monstrosity with jagged teeth fully on lipless display.

The exact same scenario had played out in the previous issue, where a Black man working at a fish market was triggered by news of Aquaman's return, and murdered everyone at the shop with a knife. For a moment, especially with the TV shot of Aquaman, I thought the writers might have been playing at some sort of mass hysteria event related to Blackest Night that obfuscated the exact triggers/targets. But then I remembered that the man was revealed as Black Manta at the end of the issue, and the woman hissed J'Onzz's name after her homicidal episode, so their individual obsessions were never in doubt. They were just repeating the exact same gory, exploitative plot element in unrelated circumstances. Or put simply, writing poorly, which can happen with fatigue toward the end of a biweekly group collaborative maxi-series, but a severe warning sign on the third issue out of 25+. The exact murder weapons were an electric slicer, drum sticks, and a toy guitar/game accessory, in case you were curious.

In Denver, Colorado, J'Onn visited the grave of his "old friend," Saul Erdel, whose headstone read "TEACHER AND EXPLORER." In Post-Crisis continuity, the nature of J'Onn's relationship with Erdel has remained contradictory and unclear, though generally Erdel still dies almost immediately after encountering the Martian. Manhunter ghosts his way though the ground into Saul's coffin. Erdel's emaciated, near-skeletal hands were laid across his chest, left clutching photographs of Saul and the unidentified woman from the vision, dressed for the lab. The back of one read, "Me and Dad at the lake." So was it a lab at a lake, or a lettering error? The Sleuth from Outer Space swiftly located the now elderly woman at Mount Hope Senior Home. The blue-eyed woman identified as Melissa was in a wheelchair, where she liked to stare out her window toward the stars, and she had a large outwardly branching scar at her right temple. J'Onzz took the form of her father, whom she still remembered, even though she now routinely forgot a great many important things.

On a moonlit flight, Melissa was willing to tell her story, if "Dad" could just help her remember. "I remember when you first showed me the stone tablet you found in the ancient ruins of that Aztec temple when you were a boy... I can still hear the wonder in your voice when you told me the same bedtime story every night of how space travelers from the red star once visited our planet and helped an ancient people survive and thrive. Once you had it translated it became your life-- our life-- and I was glad Mom left-- She never understood what we were trying to do-- All she saw was an obsession-- and all we saw was the future... but the future was pain... and horror. We should have run, Dad. We should have run as fast as we could. But we didn't. Because intertwined in all our fear was hope... Hope that somehow peace and understanding would win that terrible night. But it didn't. All our dreams of reaching out to a new world... only put our in jeopardy."

Oh-- I thought we were introducing a mystery that would play out over the course of the series, not creating a brand new character to insert into Martian Manhunhter's origin so that she could give an exposition dump in issue #2. Gee, I hope that doesn't mean that with all that extra space, the story won't devolve into a bunch of meaningless screaming and violence where the mystery could have gone. Also, mom was right, actually. Let me break down that mess of run-on sentences and misused dashes. Saul Erdel was apparently such a privileged white boy that he was able to steal a square foot of stone artifact from a Latin country that seemed to confirm the existence of aliens via a crude rendition of a cone-headed Martian wearing the classic Manhunter costume. After somehow translating the language of a presumed millennia-dead people from a planet away via mid-20th Century science, it was determined that this alien played into debunked racist theories of non-White civilizations being reliant on extraterrestrials for their noted achievements. Father and daughter wasted their lives trying to make contact with an alien race not recorded since at least 1521 A.D., and their "success" was to unleash a body horror creature onto their world that was all twisted limbs and jagged teeth. Despite presumably being the same alien that massacred their own "family," this first contact involving elongated and grotesquely enlarged appendages applying throat chokes and tossing the Erdels around like rag dolls, but they survive intact and barely bloodied. Maybe they'd also made a scientific breakthrough in the field of plot armor? Worst of all-- Saul brainwashed his little girl with Chariots of the Gods fanfic on nightly repeat? Mom should have called CPS on the way out.

"So you had a new mission, Dad. A new obsession. And I hated you for making me hide in the shadows and not allowing me to be part of it. I remember when I asked you why in the world you would try something like this again after everything that happened. A sad smile crossed your lips, Dad, and all you said was: I'm a scientist, Melissa, and science is built on the foundation of failure. How could I not try to right a wrong? And then one night, there he was. Standing before you-- before us-- the same type of being we saw etched into the ancient stone tablet. The one I would learn years later is called J'Onn J'Onzz, the Martian Manhunter. He was going to be our savior-- deliver us from the evil we had unleashed. I didn't see the cyclonic power generator arcing from behind the door... but you did. I still hear your scream every night, Dad, just as I can see the flash of the explosion that blinded me for weeks... along with a piece of the transporter console that left it's mark on me forever."

Albert Einstein was also a scientist, often attributed the quote "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." For instance, unleashing an alien xenomorph, shrugging, then tapping on another egg in hopes you'll get lucky and find a Kryptonian instead of a facehugger in that one. Writ large, it would also apply to revising Martian Manhunter's origin as a way in for new readers instead of telling, I dunno, an actual new story? We're not all Melissa Erdel over here. Also, notice how I put those little two-finger wave things on either side of phrases in which I'm directly quoting someone? Might want to try it sometime. One of my particular writing quirks is overly long sentences, arguably in need of better structure or truncation, but it's a conscious stylistic choice on my part. This reads like a child all sugared-up on Pixie Stix whose every sentence is a paragraph of nonsense. How exactly was Erdel "protecting" his daughter by having her in the same house where he's trying to manifest an opposite number against SIL from Species, in line of vision so that she could be blinded, and less than a stone's throw distance because an actual chunk of debris flew into her brain? Saul tackled J'Onn to "save" him from the explosion, but forgets to tell the Martian in a lab ablaze, "Oh hey, can you do me a solid and make sure my adult daughter gets out of here safely?" I assume that her childlike recollection is from the brain damage, and that she was not in fact a teenager imperiled and disabled as a result of her father's negligence.

Even here, Melissa was still entirely concerned about the comfort of her dying father, left to wonder what his final words were. The reader is not so deprived. "... forgive me... for taking you from your home... needed someone to save us... save us from my arrogance... my recklessness..." Not "my baby-- she's still in the fire! Save her!" Not "I brought you here to fight a horrible creature that I accidentally ripped from your planet, if you don't mind looking into that, once you get settled." Not even, "so, like, what can you tell me about those Aztecs." At least he didn't specify that he wanted the Leonard Cohen and not Jeff Buckley version of "Hallelujah" played at his funeral service. That would have been selfish, and also, not the broad preference of any potential mourners of this nutjob shut-in. Anyway, Melissa still expressed gratitude that her father "protected" her from his experiments, rather than plainly ruin her life like what we saw, and she was proud that he'd delivered the Martian hero that would presumably confront their mistake (after a decades long unchecked and undetected rampage of uncounted carnage,) hopefully before she died of old age?

"Nuclear Options" was by writers Peter J. Tomasi & Geoff Johns, with art by Patrick Gleason & company. Yeah, nuclear options are indeed looking good at this stage. "Stop me before I retcon again." The art was much better this time, more in line withn his excellent, undervalued Aquaman run.

Brightest Day #1 (Early July, 2010)

At the northern polar cap of Mars, J'Onn J'Onzz delivered a lake's worth of frozen water, source unknown. Using laser vision, he melted it, and saw the first sprout of flora. Then he was struck by sudden psychic pain that caused him to partially shapeshift back into Black Lantern Martian Manhunter. J'Onzz saw a vision of himself choking Saul Erdel, while a young blond woman lay unconscious on the ground near their feet. Recovering, J'Onzz attested that his vision was not what had happened when he was teleported to Earth. Assuming that the vision had to have originated as a singularly focused psychic flash from his adopted world, J'Onn began the flight to Earth to find this girl he had seen...

"Second Chances" was by writers Peter J. Tomasi & Geoff Johns, with art by Patrick Gleason & company. While I was pleased that J'Onn had made a swift return from his stunt death, as he settled into his narrative within the quasi-anthology, I found the direction wanting. I had really enjoyed Fernando Pasarin art in the initial shared section with the Green Lanterns in #1, only to be succeeded by Pat Gleason delivering some of his worst art to this date. I guess someone felt the need to reenforce J'Onn's ties to Earth after the Coneheadhunter offered a brief and mostly overlooked reembrace of his Martian identity, but I don't think the fandom needed this. Given the state of Earth even then, wasting vital resources on Martian nostalgia just made J'Onn look foolish, and spun his narrative wheels at a point where he desperately needed traction.

Brightest Day #0 (June, 2010)

Following his resurrection, J'Onn J'Onzz returned to Mars, intent on reviving the planet of his birth. He had discovered a deep aquifer, and was intent on nurturing it. He also used his laser vision to claim a cabochon to wear on his chest piece, a symbol of his renewed connection to Mars. His pyramid home was visited by Green Lanterns Guy Garder and Hal Jordan, the former delivering a large stash of Chocos and milk. J'Onzz explained his plans to his comrades, who were surprised by his newfound optimism, and his continued commitment to Earth. While upset that his family had not returned with him, he was yet heartened by the revivals of Arthur Curry and Barry Allen.

"Carpe Diem" was by writers Geoff Johns & Peter J. Tomasi, with art by Fernando Pasarin & company.

2023 Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 Silver Age-style homage commission by Kerry Callen

I'm trying to wrap up podcasting business after having spent the holiday weekend driving to and from a convention, so I wasn't sure about the if & when of maintaining my scant return to weekly podcasting. Gathering social media for the podcast, I stumbled upon a tweet that would serve for today, a U.S. holiday devoted to the fallen in battle.

Here is a little-seen DC house ad from 1970. Created by an intern fired after only two months. However, his original concept endured and became an ACTUAL series in 1985. Or, maybe it's merely my latest commission. If so, I should have picked a specific artist and aped his style.

For more, check out Kerry Callen Does Stuff!

Blackest Night #8 (May, 2010)

White Lantern Thaal Sinestro wields significant power, but is not adept in playing host to the Life Entity, and is unable to fully reckon with what Nekron is capable of. The united Lantern Corps struggle to present a united front against the onslaught of the Black Lanterns. Larfleeze battered Lex Luthor and reclaimed his Orange Lantern. Martian Manhunter slugged Hal Jordan while seemingly leading the charge of the Black Lanterns. Hal ringed up a facsimile of the kinder, gentler J'Onn J'Onzz to find him... or rather it... off. Then Jordan makes a connection to the... er... White Power Battery, and uses it to sever the post-resurrected heroes' connection to Nekron, making of them a White Lantern Corps. Through this energy, they next resurrect William Hand, and then the Anti-Monitor, whose corpse had been serving as the Central Power Battery of the Black Lanterns.

White Lantern Power Rings began flying about, homing in on Nekron's lieutenants. "Let there be light." Twelve more were resurrected through its power: Osiris, Jade, Captain Boomerang, Firestorm, Hawk, Professor Zoom, Maxwell Lord, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, and Deadman... and J'Onn J'Onzz of Mars! Lovers are reunited, while Superman's reaction is more subdued. "J'Onn! You're alive!"
"It appears so," he confirmed with a grin.

Nekron had disintegrated, and various players made moves before dispersing. There was still a great mystery as to why this particular dozen had been returned to life, but that would be answered another day. For now, at least the blackest of nights passed into a new dawn. "Blackest Night" was by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert, & Joe Prado. These poor guys had to draw so many crowd scenes of dozens, if not hundreds. That they finished on time and at this level of quality is a minor miracle. The mini-series definitely ran too long and went several turnabouts more than it should have, but I love mixing super-heroes with horror. To keep an event of this scale broadly readable and consistently entertaining marks it as one of the greatest crossover events of all time.

As an aside, Joe Prado referenced coming up with fourteen different costume designs for the revived Martian Manhunter, involving notes from the entire creative crew, in a "commentary track" for the book. As longtime readers of the site know, I've tried dozens of variations my own self, so I feel his frustration, and then his suit gets pitched after a year or so. Cannopt win.

Blackest Night #4-7 (December, 2009-April, 2010)

Despite being a Superman-level space zombie powerhouse, Black Lantern Martian Manhunter was mostly sidelined for the second half of the mini-series event. I believe that he is only in one panel of #4, and completely absent from #5-6. The story began to expand outward into the greater DC Universe, with more personal interactions between living characters and the undead who torment them. A gigantic central Black Lantern Power Battery manifested on Earth, followed by its representative entity, Nekron. Ringbearers from across the emotional/color spectrum banded together, including Green Lantern Hal Jordan, Sinestro, Star Sapphire, the Red Lantern Atrocitus, the Blue Lantern Saint Walker, Indigo-1 of the Indigo Tribe, and Larfleeze. Their energies combined into a white light that was the only clear method of destroying the Black Lanterns. Earth's heroes also banded together to combat the threat... to their peril. Black Lantern Batman rose, and with him a wave of contamination of currently living metahumans who had previously resurrected, making Black Lanterns of Wonder Woman, Superman, Superboy Conner Kent, Kid Flash Bart Allen, Green Arrow Oliver Queen, Troia, and Animal Man.

The recently revived Jordan and Barry Allen Flash managed to evade this compromise, although when a group of Earth heroes took on spectrum rings, Allen became a Blue Lantern. Wonder Woman was restored by a Star Sapphire, Lex Luthor went orange, Mera saw red, the Atom turned into a shrinking violet, and The Scarecrow turned yellow. Luthor soon came to covet the other rings, but was fought off, then the majority of the actual ring corps made landfall. It was finally revealed that what had drawn everyone to Earth was a Life Entity buried within it, representing the ultimate combined energies, and the target of Nekron. In the face of mortal peril, it briefly conscripted Thaal Sinestro to be its White Lantern.

"Blackest Night" was by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert with Joe Prado.

Green Lantern #51 (April, 2010)

Another gross guest spot for Black Lantern Martian Manhunter, this time on the final page of a Blackest Night tie-in where Parallax takes back control of Hal Jordan. The Spectre teams-up with a bunch of emotional spectrum ringbearers to deal with that, but absence a soul, he's handwaved away by Nekron. After months of absence, J'Onn J'Onzz's reanimate corpse joins other front end Black Lanterns in standing by their master as the final battle commences. "Parallax Rebirth Part Two" was by Geoff Johns & Doug Mahnke.

Podcast- War of the Worlds, 1984

Episode #37

Look for us on iTunes, Spotify or directly download an art-tagged MP3 from the Internet Archive

Martian Manhunter in...

• Justice League of America #228 (July, 1984)
• Justice League of America #229 (August, 1984)
• Justice League of America #230 (September, 1984)

We enjoy dialogue on the red planet, so here are our non-telepathic contact options:

• Tweet host Diabolu Frank directly, or probe @rolledspine as a group.
• Email Diabolu
• If the main Idol-Head of Diabolu blog isn't your thing, try the umbrella Rolled Spine Podcasts.

Justice League of America #230 (September, 1984)

The breathable air was sucked out of the environment within the JLA Satellite. Bel Juz convinced The Marshal to have his warships destroy the space vessel that caused the explosive decompression aboard the satellite before it could get too close... and Martian Manhunter could be positively identified, to prevent his potential martyrdom. Hunter Commander J'en overheard their conversation while eavesdropping aboard the command ship "The Vengeance," but could only look on in horror as her former lover seemingly died a second time before her eyes. The Hawks' Thanagarian Star Cruiser had been completely obliterated by laser fire, leaving no trace. The Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Konstantin Chernenko, swayed President of the United States Ronald Reagan to deploy their combined nuclear capabilities against the Martian armada. Nine key international military bases had already been leveled by the invaders. All was lost.

Well, about that. As demonstrated by J'onn J'onzz before his departure, the League had specialized space suits aboard the satellite that allowed the heroes to use their powers while protected from the ravages of space. The League ambushed Martian troops that explored the disabled satellite. Hawkgirl and Hawkman had maneuvered their ships' warp drive to evade fire and retaliate. J'en wielded her credentials and the stun setting on her pistol to take out three members of the Soldiers of the Red Brotherhood. Stealing a scout craft, she found that J'onn J'onzz had once again been miraculously thrown clear of his ship before its destruction.

When roused, the Sleuth from Outer Space was relieved to learn that the full attack upon Earth had not yet begun, and that there was yet time to stop The Marshal. J'en still believed in her leader and their mission, drawing her pistol on J'onn, who despite no outward resistance insisted that she would have to kill him. Tearfully, J'en let go of her quest for Martian glory, as well as the grip on her laser. Just as the Hawks prepared for their final stand, The Marshal placed his order. "This day, we will write in fire on the pages of Martian history. Technician, open a channel to the entire fleet-- I wish to speak to all my warriors."

This was the moment the Manhunter from Mars, having made his way aboard The Vengeance, had been waiting for. The challenge of a duel, before the entire Martian force, who could already plainly see that J'onn J'onzz had not fled like a coward, as their commander had claimed. Bel whispered, "The eyes of the fleet are upon you, my leader! Kill him now, prove him a weakling, and you are untouchable!" The Marshal literally ripped off his shirt and assailed the man he'd framed as a traitor. Despite his genetic enhancements, the Marshal struggled against his foe, and used an invisibility technique outlawed for a millennium in duels of honor. Bel insisted, "What matter? The Marshal is above the law!" After more blows were traded, the Marshal tried to two-handed choke J'onzz to death, but the Alien Atlas picked him up by the midsection and smashed the militant head-first into equipment, leaving the Marshal out cold. Bel Juz defied this result, grabbing a pistol from a soldier with the intent to kill J'onzz herself. However, Firestorm had recovered from his last brush with Martian muscle and pursued the Manhunter, only to use his powers to save J'onn from Bel's blast.

J'onzz ordered the armada back to Mars II. The Soviets and the U.S. stepped back from probable nuclear winter. All seemed to be right, except the fleet would be leaving short one Martian Marvel. As Aquaman observed, "His people don't want him... His presence would be a constant reminder of their humiliation... J'onzz showed them that they'd sold their hearts to a madman and coward. The Marshal betrayed their faith in him... but J'onn J'onzz forced them to face reality... and that's something a nation can never forgive...

"The Concluding Chapter: War of the Worlds 1984: Part Three: Blessed Is the Peacemaker" was by Gerry Conway & Alan Kupperberg. While not as embarrassing as to be defeated by the slighest hint of a flamable, the Martians regardless proved pushovers when faced with non-powered heroines in fetish gear kicking them really hard in weightless space. I still like this story, and love the Patton/Giordano covers, but the illogic and mere lip service paid to stakes make it fold before the slightest critical analysis. None of this material makes it into Post-Crisis continuity, so my buzz over the observance for Bronze Age Martian continuity is further harshed by none of this having "happened" in canon going further than a year out.

Justice League of America #229 (August, 1984)

Probably more sore about being manhandled on the Martian Marvel's previous visit to Earth during his JLofA tenure than because of legitimate concerns, Firestorm let J'onn J'onzz know he would be keeping an eye on him in the event of a double-cross. "If you believe that, we have nothing more to say." The Martian invaders had destroyed most of a space shuttle orbiting the planet, and the pair of heroes were dispatch to address the remains. Too weak to control the nose cone where three surviving astronauts hid, the Nuclear Man cursed the Martian for imperiling them, but managed to salvage the attempt with his matter restructuring abilities. Upon return, Firestorm was still finger-pointing, and Zatanna chastised him for it. The Thanagarians vowed to stand by Earth until the end, and when military police showed up to round up all "ETTIES," Firestorm's defense showed that his prejudice didn't extend past J'onzz.

Then-President Ronald Reagan apologized to Aquaman for the incident, and explained that world leaders were intent on pushing back against the Martians. Both men bemoaned the unexplained absence of Green Lantern, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and Superman, a too-common recent trend. Elongated Man reported that one silver lining was that he was seeing people around the world unite as one against the extra-terrestrial threat.

Aboard his warship, The Marshal expressed his confidence to his lover and confidant, Bel Juz, in her first appearance in a dozen years (and second overall.) She expressed doubts... that the Marshal should have slain J'onzz already, and whether his bravado masked insecurity. When the U.N. Secretary* announced the world's rejection of the Marshal's terms of surrender via satellite television broadcast, the furious fascist admitted as much. The overall resistance was not a concern so much as the rival in their midst. "I had to send my personal guard after him... because too many of our warriors are still loyal to the J'onzz mystique... You know the man, Bel Juz. You recognize his charisma." Indeed, she feared her own betrayal of the Martian people would eventually be uncovered by the Sleuth from Outer Space, taking on the Marshal and encouraging his coup as a means of protecting herself... even if it meant worlds at war.

The Martian strike was swift and unprecedented. They had somehow managed to accumulate hundreds if not thousands of interstellar attack craft with invisibility, allowing them to ambush the Hawks' Thanagarian Star Cruiser, the JLA Satellite, and numerous key cities around the world simultaneously. Terrestrial weapons were useless, and the League's base was left shattered. Challenger, in golden battle gear, boarded the remains in search of survivors. There were in fact no casualties, and though the robotic Challenger battered Aquaman, its was taken out by a single "wall-smasher arrow." Firestorm still distrusted the Manhunter, and took out a trio of actual Martian invaders while searching for him. Finding J'onzz donning a spacesuit, the Nuclear Man assumed the Alien Atlas was abandoning his allies. Silently swatting the nuisance aside, the Manhunter climbed into a League spacecraft, fired upon an exterior wall, and flew off. Firestorm was left to fend for himself in the ensuing explosive decompression.

"War of the Worlds, 1984: Part Two: Bitter Ashes" was by Gerry Conway, Alan Kupperberg, & Pablo Marcos. Going back to his underappreciated Blue Devil run, Alan's been my favorite Kupp-brother, and a welcome relief from Tuska. It's still jarring how completely Challenger was redesigned from one issue to the next, but I'd assume the second pass was closer to the desired vision. Maybe The Marshal had a point about needing to take over, since the last time we were on Mars II, his people were still living in tents waving swords, and now they have an entire armada? As for J'onn's pronounced charisma... I wish that had been present enough in any of his solo series to have kept any of them going for longer than a few years. I do like this story, especially its rare care for Mars II continuity, but it needed more room to actually demonstrate the Martians as the threat they're spoken as. Plus, all those Marshal monologues undermine the attempt to create any doubt in the reader's mind about the Manhunter's loyalties.

* Technically it should be the Secretary-General, who in 1984 was Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, although perhaps they got confused and thought it was his eventual successor, Kofi Annan?

Justice League of America #228 (July, 1984)

In 1961, Vostok 1 orbited the Earth. A dying Mars took no notice.
In 1963, Project Gemini yielded the first Terran spacewalk. "On Mars, a grim decision is taken... and a once-great race prepares for a strange exodus..."
In 1969, Apollo 11 landed on Earth's moon. "On Mars, as before, no notice is taken... for now, no one is there."
In 1976, Viking 1 lands on the Red Planet... "conforming some scientists' fear that Mars is, indeed, a dead world."
In 1984, an abandoned and neglected Viking 2 found new life on Mars, or rather was found by it.

After an effective two-page build up, the action began, as J'onn J'onzz piloted a wounded spacecraft toward the blue world that was once his home away from home. Two of The Marshal's Hunters were in pursuit, but by seeming sheer will, J'onzz managed to maintain his lead. Hunter Commander demanded that the traitor be stopped before reaching his allies, and despite the love they once shared, Hunter Two privately vowed to kill J'onzz to this end. Aboard the Justice League of America Satellite, Aquaman was the first to detect the approaching vessels. Black Canary, Green Arrow, Red Tornado, Elongated Man, Firestorm, Zatanna, Hawkman, & Hawkgirl were swiftly called into action. Barely missing collision, the JLA followed the invaders down to terra not-so-firma. His ship destroyed by Air Force missiles, J'onn J'onzz splashed down in the waters near the Statue of Liberty.

Aquaman dove in to investigate, but was brushed off by an escaping figure from the wreckage that he was able to recognize through telepathy and a scant vision before it turned invisible. "...an old friend... who seems to have turned into an enemy..." The Leaguers had presumed that he was still with his fellow survivors in another star system, resettled on "Mars II." Speeding away on some unknown mission, an overzealous Nuclear Man tried to steam the Martian out of the water, only to be chastised by the fairer Winged Wonder. "J'onn's our friend, Firestorm. Something's driven him to act desperately-- but he's still our friend!" Hawkman surmised that he had been running for days without food or sleep, and even without the hotfoot, J'onzz soon collapsed into Shayera Hol's arms.

Jones was taken to the United Nations to recover, where the disbelieving U.N. Secretary heard the League's tales of Commander Blanx causing the Blue Flame of Mars to rage into an inferno that rendered the world uninhabitable. J'onzz explained that three Terran weeks earlier, he had determined the true fervor of the Red Brotherhood, a nativist, fascist collective of mostly young militiamen seeking to abandon their subsistence existence on Mars II to return to their home planet. Months earlier, a masked ally named Challenger had found an destroyed the Viking 2 rover on a pilgrimage to Mars, and the charismatic genetically-engineered militant leader The Marshal would use its intrusion as pretext for an invasion of Earth. So convincing was he that even J'onn's lover J'en had her simmering anger weaponized towards a successful takeover big against the current government within the week. Forewarned by his investigation, the Sleuth from Outer Space evaded the imprisonment and death that befell resistors, and managed to escape in a scout ship.

Shortly after recounting these events, a warship appeared outside United Nations Plaza, and Challenger emerged. This being offered to accept humanity's surrender, so that they could be interned in camps for a single generation, as a sign of Martian mercy. The Manhunter from Mars called out this plot of slow genocide, but was in no condition to resist at this time, as Earth was afforded one day to answer to the Marshal's terms...

"War -- of the World?" was by Gerry Conway, George Tuska, & Alex Nino. I've often written that DC Comics house ads featuring the covers to this debut and the final issues of this arc were among my first, in not the first, exposures to the Alien Atlas. You should have no doubt that I wish the interiors matched those glorious Martian images rendered by Chuck Patton and Dick Giordano, but I was still happy with the initial chapter of the tale that, as announced on the cover, brought the Manhunter back to comics!

Martian Manhunter in Lazarus Planet (2023)

While there was a part of me that wanted to continue with Bloodwynd material after Black History Month, just to finally close that long dangling thread, at a rate of one post per week, it would still take up another few months... maybe even the rest of the year. That would rather strain the parameters of this blog, not to mention my interest in the concept. Reader dissapointemnet (don't ask me to spell or pronounce that Ctrl+C/+V) asked last week about covering a recent Martian Manhunter story which felt like a nice pivot point, but I lacked context. I pretty much gave up on the DC Universe during the New 52, aside from a tiny blip following Rebirth, and didn't even bother to collect or fully read the 2018/2019 Martian Manhunter maxi-series (bought the trade only.) When I became estranged from Marvel Comics in the early '90s, I continued to read all of their monthly solicitations as an informed retailer into the next century, but finally gave up on that sometime before the 2010s. With DC, the estrangement began in earnest sometime after Infinite Crisis/One Year Later (I quit 52 halfway through,) but I think we were well into the Rebirth period before I finally opted out of reading the DC solicits, or as Grandpa from The Lost Boys might have put it, my TV Guide. I just stopped caring about the ebb and flow of that universe, and even a stab at creative writing that saw me try to catch up was abandoned more than a year ago. Lazarus Planet has been well reviewed, but it's also a weird mash-up of super-heroes, Vertigo, and Chinese lore that's daunting to wrap my brain around.

As I understand it, current Robin Damian Wayne has been mucking around with his mother's side's resurrection apparatus, some monstrous entities got involved, Batman got possessed by one, and a volcanic eruption of the Lazarus Pits caused alien parasites to gene bomb an underworld. Or as less of a geek test, a plot device gave DC editorial an excuse to muck around with people's powers on a grand scale to mine crossovers and spin-offs. And because a good chunk of the readership hate anything magic or related to China, the Batman Family get shoehorned in to force feed it to that lot. Also, they continue to push the entire discipline of inking over a cliff by shooting directly from the pencils to turn everything into a washed out muddle, and inflict a bunch of excess text on the audience by crediting nine different artists for variant covers that they (hopefully) only bought one of. But I'm not bitter.

Where Dark Crisis (I'm already exhausted by the title alone) seems to have been the more classical (if perhaps largely irrelevant in the excessively grand scheme of things) crossover, Lazarus Planet feels like an old Marvel Age Annual on steroids, cocaine, and PCP at the same time. Aside from the Batman vs. Robin tedium and a two(ish)-part bookend series, this event is mostly a collection of short stories by a vast number of creative teams setting-up/previewing new directions for the DC line. I guess this is where Jon Kent gets his dad's (and Strange Visitor's) old electric blue look/powers, and where the decision to make Renee Montoya the Question that got reverse years ago de-reversed (can I quit yet?) There's a lot of the Maryest of Sues, Black Alice (trigger warning, come @ me,) and a mountain of ah-spaghetti hits-ah alla the walls (best/worst Chris Pratt Mario voice?)

In a huge, very 21st Century tell, a mash-up of Martian Manhunter and Doomsday that might as well have been generated by an art AI program (did Dream get a credit with all the variant cover guys) was used to promote the event, even though J'Onn J'Onzz barely appears in any of these books. In the core story, the Alien Atlas is simply adjunct to the Superman Family, showing up as part of a cavalry straight outta Metropolis.

In the March cover-dated, January-shipping one-shot Lazarus Planet: We Once Were Gods #1, Dan Watters and Max Dunbar had the thankless task of validating the gimmick image in a ten page story. A person of color (but indeterminate race,) Raphael Arce gained the ability to absorb people's pain from the Lazarus rains. Arce selflessly visits hospices to relieve all the terminal (exclusively white male?) patients at a Metropolis hospital. In a big reach, his proximity to the city has him absorbing the residual pain of the time Doomsday "killed" Superman, and that memory is enough for Doomsday to begin regenerating within the dude's body. Martian Manhunter tried to relieve the reliever by taking the Doomsday seed into himself, becoming the advertised hybrid for barely two pages. Arce then takes the Doomsday back from him, seemingly immolating into a hyperdense red crystal. "Crushed down into a psychic gem of blood and pain. He allowed his flesh to become this. Dense enough to absorb the living memory of Doomsday."

There's a bookend where Martian Manhunter likes to fly way up into the something-sphere (he still needs to breathe, I assume, but can also see the whole Earth from wherever he stops) and partake of a symphony of pain and pleasure down below that's supposedly better than music. In the end, he's explaining all this to Superman, his seeming immediate superior in the DCU these days. For all his powers, Superman can't pick up "The patternless patterns of emotion rippling on the surface of the Earth?" I'm right there with you, pal, and since when did J'Onn switch from Chocos to pot brownies? Anyway, the pseudo-poignant denouement offered by J'Onzz is, "There are no songs among them today."

The intent is unclear, but we can choose the yarnwall this as a set-up for a post-Infinite Flashpoint 52 Convergence Rebirth Infinite Metal Dark Crisis reboot of Bloodwynd, even though the exact phrase is never uttered. I'm not sure if Raphael Arce is Black/Hispanic/Both/Neither, though that was definitely some "Magical Negro" s---, and I have exactly zero (hour) faith that this will ever be follow-up in any way. YMMV.

Justice League Quarterly #9 (Winter, 1992)

So this is your basic temporal paradox. Booster Gold meets a homeless kid who he recognizes as a huge celebrity and Samaritan from his past in the far future. She died tragically in the 21st Century, so Booster helps her avoid an unscrupulous Hollywood type and reunite with her family. Her twin sister survives what was once an early death, and together they forge a brighter future. As a result, Booster mostly forgets both the runaway and her erased infamous fate.

That wasn't the temporal paradox that I was referring to, though.

The girl shines up real good for someone previously routinely mistaken for a boy, blossoming like a made-over nerd in a teen comedy. Everyone's jaw is on the floor when she *gasp* applies make-up and raids Fire's closet. Booster. Max. Beetle. Bloodwynd... who even requests an introduction. "Geralyn, this is J'Onn... Ted... Max. Send them your autograph--"

This story came out roughly the same month as Justice League America #69, the Doomsday tie-in where Blue Beetle is beaten into a coma right before seeing Bloodwynd transform into someone else while exposed to flames. Five months before Justice League America #74, where that form was revealed to be the Martian Manhunter. Maybe it was an accident, or at least written off as one, but Booster still outed Bloodwynd as J'Onn J'Onzz way ahead of it being anything but a Feudian slip...

"Tomorrow Belongs to Geralyn" was by Elliot S. Maggin, Dave Cockrum, & Jose F. Marzan, Jr. Quite the hoary lot in the '90s, and this was Cockrum's second story in the issue, so I'm sure the little fanboys were just thrilled.