Three years ago, Workman Publishing put out a novelty die-cut fanned reference pocket book for DC heroes. I ran the published advertisement for it, with plans to purchase it, but then was turned off when I saw the finished product. Our buddy The Irredeemable Shag sent me some scans for the blog, but for a while there it seemed like everybody and there mother was posting them, and mobs have never been my scene. So, I've been sitting on these all this time, but hey, it's year six, so let's get it in gear.
The image above is by Tom Mandrake, from the cover to Martian Manhunter #9. It was followed by a bunch of common, boring census data, but I liked a couple of bots:
WEAKNESS: PSYCHIC PYROPHOBIA (A PSYCHOSOMATIC PEAR OF FIRE THAT CAUSES HIM TO LOSE POWERS AND CONTROL OVER HIS BIOMORPHIC FORM)Boy, that sure went out of date fast. I do like "psychic pyrophobia," though. Then the biographical text kicked in, and it was such a nice summation of the John Ostrander series, I'm running most of it here.
AFFILIATIONS: JUSTICE LEA0UE OF AMERICA; THE OUTSIDERS
Believe it or not, there was once life on Mars, or Ma'aleca'andra, as its native inhabitants called it. For centuries, J'onn J'onzz was a venerated Manhunter, a peacekeeper not unlike police officers on Earth. He was happily married to M'yri'ah, and the two had a daughter named K'hym. The family lived in a modest home beneath the windswept Martian plains. But his domestic idyll was not meant to be. J'onn's twin brother, Ma'alefa'ak, loathed everything about Martian culture. He engineered H'ronmeer's Curse, a contagious psychic virus that responded to the species' innate fear of fire, producing psychosomatic stress so intense they literally burst into flames. The virus wiped out the planet's entire civilization, including J'onn's family.Boilerplate runs from there, though I did enjoy the reference to his time as the Bronze Wraith in 1960s Gotham City alongside the Justice Experience. I suppose the New 52 has removed the need for Cameron Chase to have not been born back then so that she wouldn't be pushing fifty today. Anyhow, that gives way to a concise nod to his founding the Justice League of America before offering a testimonial.
Forced to watch in horror as his wife and daughter burned to death, J'onn flirted with madness until he was accidentally brought to the Earth of 1955 by Dr. Saul Erdel, via an experimental transportation beam...
A man of great character and wisdom, he is the heart and soul of the team, and the only one to whom Batman will defer.As a coda, there's a comic book style caption that recounts the plot to Martian Manhunter #24, though they missed the coda within it that rendered the whole thing apocryphal.
Fandex
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