The Daily Planet employees started demonstrating sometimes lethal super powers. The Justice League, especially Batman questioned Superman's judgment. The Man of Steel blamed himself for Martian Manhunter's loss of powers, though J'Onn believed that with the team being targeted, "I think the results would have been the same" with or without him. Lex Luthor framed Superman for a pair of super-villain deaths. Porter's art got all blobby under the deadline crunch. "Facts" was by Marv Wolfman, Howard Porter & John Livesay.
The Atom determined that Superman had been bitten, and that it was possible his powers were being remote-controlled. Superman feared his mind might be next, and isolated himself. Martian Manhunter continued to stand atound in the background. "Lost" was by Marv Wolfman & Mike S. Miller.
Then Superman accidentally killed Lois Lane and exiled himself into space. A green Tom Taylor came in for a couple fill-in issues involving space battles with Sinestro that were so jarring I thought I was looking at the wrong book. Tony Bedard leaves and Wolfman drags things out on his own, seemingly losing the plot but figuring out more opportunities to work in the conceit of player-generated original characters. Eventually, the past and future cyborg Lex Luthors teamed up and reset the entire timeline so that nothing in the series happened. There are a few issues with extra nice art, but otherwise this was a waste of everyone's time. Sorry I bothered to cover this at all.
Here's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo by Black Lantern Martian Manhunter, during the reanimation of Boston Brand's bones. From Peter J. Tomasi and the antisemite Kubert Bros-clone Ardian Syaf, before he immolated his career with his own hatred.
Over time, Superman had become disheveled and aggreessive as his concern for Lois Lane and his captive friends grew. Then he and the Justice League were sent to battler nanite enhanced Arkham inmate. Superman was lured away by Lex Luthor, who promised that he'd broken away from Brainiac and made off with the bottled Daily Planet. Luthor needed help fending off Brainiac's enforcers, which is where Superman came in, and the Planet was restored. However, the Man of Steel was unknowingtly bitten by a nannite in the process. Back in Gotham, Martian Manhunter finally succumbed, left without powers and cradled by Wonder Woman in his natural form. Batman demanded that Superman adjust his priorities to protect the Earth instead of the Planet.
"Anarchy at Arkham" was by Marv Wolfman, Mike S. Miller, and Sergio Sandoval.
The Ünternet is some kind of VR world having to do with The Calculater and a dark web where super-villains can communicate with one another. Also Darkseid and Final Crisis? Whatever. The crook who took it over, Viktor Mikalek, "killed" virtual reality avatars of the Justice League, including Martian Manhunter. A VR version of Miss Martian (in an alternate costume) and other Teen Titans show up later. By Fabian Nicieza, Marcus To, & Ray McCarthy.
Lex Luthor lost multiple limbs and an eye. Blaming Superman, he was rebuilt as a cyborg by Brainiac. At S.T.A.R. Labs, Martian Manhunter was still in bad shape after what the nanobots had done to him. Sweating profusely and against medical advise, Manhunter tested his abilities, and registered his disabilities. No shape-shifting, intangibility, or Martian Vision, but he still had strength and flight. Superman seemed to advise him to stop there, promising to restore him after the nanites had "bottled" and stolen his other powers away. Regardless, when Oracle dispatched heroes to search for Brainiac around the world, "Martian Manhunter insisted on pitching in, so I gave him North Africa. So far, none of them has found any trace of Brainiac."
On Mars, J'Onn J'Onzz approached his pyramid home, from which he psychically "heard" and could be telepathically heard by the Green Martian female serial killer. So glad I can stop repeating that same series of descriptors when the Manhunter declares (silently) "...I am coming to end you, D'kay D'razz." Tomorrow, I'll have a post that touches on why the Sleuth from Outer Space isn't more popular. One reason may be that detective stories don't work if there is no real investigation and the mystery is solved through mind reading. This fellow Martian was on a killing spree since at least 1955, going completely undetected by our hero despite a retcon that it was the purpose for which he was brought to Earth. The White Lantern had to tell him to even start looking, and meanwhile, the killer is claiming scores of new victims while J'Onn is hanging out with dogs and squirrels, unable to even reconcile the evidence pointing to her being a Green Martian. He had to be confronted by one of her victims, herself a White Martian who only survived because of the White Lantern (no connection.) Rather than continue from there, the "Manhunter" surrender his agency to the White Lantern, got sidetracked, and only addresses the killer when she breaks into his home and opens her mind enough to reveal her name. What is J'Onn even doing in this story, besides killing houseplants and lasering his own hands off?
So what does the Alex Forrest of the Red Planet have in mind? A candlelight dinner with a whole cooked turkey, white wine, and... a stacked pyramid of Chocos on a silver platter? I quit. This was a mistake. I never should have started this blog. Martians dining with cookies beside an open flame atop a transparent coffin? ████ you! ████ this! I'm out.
Just as I'm trying to reconsider, we learned that the ritualistic scarring on D'kay D'razz's body was the Martian symbols for love and hate. You know, like in the 1955 Robert Mitchum noir flop The Night of the Hunter, involving a preacher with the words tattooed on his knuckles? Who are you trying to kid? More like the Simpsons' Cape Fear parody with Sideshow Bob stalking Bart. I've seen both, but trust that this third time held no charm, just an exhausted groan. The single person I hold most responsible for Martian Manhunter's inviability as a solo character since his big breakthrough opportunity in the wake of JLA is Pete Tomasi, because whether as an editor or creative, his hand is always at play when it comes to stupid ████ like this. What is D'kay D'razz but Malefic with ████, and what is this story but repeating oneself and expecting different results? Dc Comics ran a fan poll while this book was running, and I recall the Manhunter storyline ranking at or near the bottom (I think the Hawks were the only competition.)
D'kay tried to seduce J'Onn by offering to carve on his own body, completely misinterpreting his "straight edge" aesthetic. D'Kay told her origin story, which again, only diverges from J'Onn's brother's in ways that make her the less interesting, and I used to call Ma'alefa'ak "Green Venom" in his prime. D'kay declared them "the two loneliest beings in the universe," and tried to beat J'Onn mentally and physically into submitting to her "love." D'Kay revealed that it was she who had sent the first psychic image of green hands choking Erdel, and that in connecting with J'Onn learned that the Mars which had tormented her was no more. So, they're both idiots. D'Kay kept trying to merge with J'Onn, and tried to batter him with images of his friends declaring him a traitor. The Alien Atlas rebelled, eventually pummeling D'Kay into the ground, then using his new White Lantern powers to revival all the lost souls of Mars. Predictably, this was actually a delusion created by D'Kay, masquerading as J'Onn's wife M'yri'ah J'onzz.
"All This Useless Beauty" was by writers Peter J. Tomasi & Geoff Johns, with art by Patrick Gleason & company. I didn't take time to mention that a punch of Pat's page were lousy, with wacky proportions and an over-relience on shadow. Obviously he perked up when the fake Justice League showed up, and his Martians toward the back were quite good, but I think the J'Onn/D'Kay stuff bored him. Same. Also, the Black Lantern Martian Manhunter simulacrum flew around. I dunno. Whatever.
In the present, the Justice League escaped the Watchtower to S.T.A.R. Labs, where J'Onn J'Onzz collapsed. A scientist remarked, "I thought Martian Manhunter was as powerful as Superman?" The Atom replied, "He is, but Brainiac hit him with something new. Nano-machines that steal superpowers. We neutralized the ones inside J'Onn with a powerful electromagnetic field-- but not before they stole his telepathy, intangibility, and heat vision." Oh, and they forgot Aquaman in a tank back at HQ. Hah! In the futurem Atom gpot killed and Batman joined the fray.
"Downfall" was by writer Tony Bedard, art by Howard Porter & John Livesay and Pop Mhan.
The Centennial Park Hero Award was being presented by Superman following the Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Man of Steel offers up a litany of heroes from sports, politics, first responders, the armed forces, "And, of course there are many metahumans I've battled beside... who are also worthy of such an honor." However, the award ultimately goes to Alex Monroe, a little boy disfigured by third degree burns over his face and much of his body while saving his siblings from a fire.
Superman in "Hero of Heroes" was by Kevin Grevioux, Roberto Castro, & Scott Koblish.
Exobytes continued to attack the Watchtower. "J'Onn's barely recovered and he was only attacked once." Aquaman couldn't stand unaided after two. Soon, life support was down, and everyone was headed for the transporters. Also, one-armed future Atom did a bunch of stuff with also future Lex Luthor, in the future, 'natch.
"Three Minutes" was by writer Marv Wolfman, Mike S. Miller, Adriana Melo, and Norman Lee.
No, you didn't miss an issue, but J'Onn J'Onzz misses several! The Sleuth from Outer Space appears in something like 16 of this book's 25 issues, with multi-issue gaps during periods where they really shouldn't. Like being trapped in a delusion created by one of his enemies, for instance. Also, when Deathstorm recreates Black Lantern Martian Manhunter and other corpsemen with a Lantern Battery or something. And readers are like, "oh no, are the heroes going to ban together to stop them?" And the creators just sent the Black Lanterns into space for seven issues, with a one panel acknowledgement that they're still out there. Rather than waste a week in October to such a paltry post, I just dropped it early into September's schedule. The actual story resumes Monday.
"Easy Come Easy Go" was by writers Peter J. Tomasi & Geoff Johns, with art by Scott Clark & company. Don't it, though?
Confession: I've had lengthy hiatuses from blogging over the years, and at some point I kinda forgot that comment moderation was a thing? And that point was several years ago? So I'm going through all my blogs trying to read and approve everything that isn't in Hindi or advertising "enlargement" by non-Martian means. Sorry to everyone who had a question or wanted to buy something off me or whatever, and especially Kevin in New Orleans, who got caught in the flypaper most often.
To justify this public announcement as a blog post, here's some recommended Reddit reading, with light commentary.
The poster's premise is mostly that J'Onn isn't represented as powerfully as his stats suggest, which is a common complaint often addressed here over the years. Just the nature of being a third-stringer in Superman's shadow. Like most DC heroes, he needs a solo spotlight to shine without other, better known heroes around. Also-- get mad-- he's never had a compelling series. No Moore Swamp Thing, Miller Daredevil... hell, the team of Ostrander & Mandrake had a definitive run on The Spectre, not the Sleuth from Outer Space. Since 2006, every attempt has been a deconstruction/radical revision. How do you break down a character never fully constructed in the first place?
Second verse, same as the first. The Alien Atlas looks so good on paper, but that paper is typically a back-up strip or team book, and the talent hasn't really been there on solo projects. People, myself included, fall in love with the potential of the character, but various factors prevent it from ever being realized. I mean, his main home has been Justice League books, which has a far more dynamic premise, and even the JLA have had long fallow periods. And even individual Leaguers of much greater cultural relevance like Wonder Woman and Aquaman have struggled for far more of their careers than they've triumphed.
Nobody mentioned The Vile Menagerie as a resource, preferring the broad net of the DC Comics Database. Human Flame, Mr. V, and Ma'alefa'ak came up the most in comments, in that order. I think the recent Action Comics serial helped with that.
This one was painful to me because it was all the most obvious stuff in abundance, and a lot of it bad. Think we could maybe highlight some key stories in the three year runs of JLA or the 1998 Martian Manhunter series? Chester Molester won't get a royalty if you dig American Secrets out of a dollar bin, and J'Onn is the main character. The New Frontier is largely indebted to it, as well as "The Origin of the Justice League-- Minus One!", Secret Origins #35 and "The Man I Never Was". But then, nothing from before 1988 qualified for the primary referenced list.
Because he doesn't sell, and modernity demands greater representation. My question is why do they ever add more dudes to a team with only one woman more often than not? If you need a Black guy, maybe remember John Stewart is the best Green Lantern, instead of trying to make Cyborg happen again? And SNS, Captain Marvel should never be on this team. Can we have another viable super team in the modern DCU besides JLA and Titans?
Because it fits the othering text of the character, we all want him to have a James Earl Jones caliber basso profondo voice, and it's one of the only ways to get a brother a job without a freakin' fan riot.
Well, you're starting from a logical fallacy. J'Onn J'Onzz co-founded the team in 1960 with four other heroes, so he arguably has dibs over Superman and Batman, much less Cyborg, who only joined in 2010. Cyborg is most popular as a member of the Teen Titans, and his inclusion in the JLA has always felt forced, especially when he's treated as a founding member. Something similar was done with Black Canary, but she was still the second or third heroine to join the team in the 1960s, with ties to their predecessors in the Justice Society. Like Martian Manhunter, DC keeps trying and failing to make Cyborg happen as a soloist. However, J'Onn has often been considered the heart & soul of the League, where many see Cyborg as checking a quota box. J'Onn was a constant in the League's darkest hours, but he's mostly absent nowadays specifically because Cyborg took his slot, so it's especially galling. I personally think both characters should be excluded from the team until they have a single solitary successful series. It's basically the same argument as when the Supreme Court struck down racial consideration for college, and people decided it was time to stop allowing legacies as well. Let themn both in or take them both out.
"Gentlemen, I'm afraid your argument just became moot. We no longer have to take the fight to Brainiac... because Brainiac just brought the fight to us!" The JLA satellite was assailed by nanites and Brainiacs robot enforcers. Martian Manhunter saved Firestorm from the former with his laser vision. However, the robots were swiftly able to adjust to the Manhunter's invisibility, then infested him with nanites, with other heroes pained by his maintained telepathic link. Forestorm and Hawkman carried J'Onn to the infirmary. Oh, and in the future, The Ray lost his right arm to treachery by a revenge-driven Lex Luthor, as you do.
"Strike Force" was by writer Tony Bedard, pencils by Howard Porter & Adriana Melo, inks by John Livesay & Norman Lee. Nothing says consistency like alternating creative teams between issues in a continuing narrative. Also, that they're both meandering slugfests.
The main reason why I didn't cover this maxi-series in 2010 was coordination. I was still trying to maintain multiple irregularly updated blogs that had ties to the comic, as well as the daily Martian Manhunter one. The prospect of juggling biweekly Aquaman posts for my Justice League Detroit blog and maybe even trying to rope-in Shag's Firestorm Fan or even Luke Jaconetti's Being Carter Hall, with anything else left to DC Bloodlines? Big old "nope" on that. But also? Kind of a hot mess. Portent portent portent. The book was always promising to tell a major story without actually doing it, and then the New 52 happened and nothing was carried over but the Aquaman creative team. This issue is full of Firestorm content that will not be reflected in the rebooted universe, and in fact the entire story ends on an unresolved Nuclear Man cliffhanger. Even if I was waiting for the book to wrap so that I could cover it comprehensively, the damned thing doesn't even have an ending, so what would be the point?
Thirteen years on, I don't remember why Alvin Rusch and Martin Stein entered the Firestorm Matrix, or what Deathstorm's goal was. When the villain takes control of the White Lantern, and uses it to recreate the Black Lantern versions of the twelve characters resurrected in Brightest Day out of thin air, I don't know the how or why. I checked a couple of online resources, and neither explained it. I could actually reread the comic I still own a physical copy of and paid something like $2.99 for. I have all the issues, and the story runs through many of them, so I could go through them all to inform my writing. I just don't want to. I look at late life Scott Clark hacking his way through a double page splash swipe of Ivan Reis' instantly iconic "LIVE" gatefold tetratych for a forgettable shock value space filler full of rudimentary Photoshop effects and I simply do not want to invest any more than the bare minimum to acknowledge this thing's existence in Martian Manhunter continuity.
Meanwhile, the actual Manhunter flies unaided from Earth to Mars. I guess? A page is wasted showing his fly really fast away from one planet, through satellite debris, and toward another planet. That's 232.43 million miles in a span of days? Hours? Minutes? Just stupid fast in a way never demonstrated in actual stories. Upon reaching Mars, J'Onzz found his pyramid home surrounded by a Black Lantern icon-shaped instant forest in another two page spread with one word on it. I hope DC wasn't paying the writers a full rate.
"Father's Day" was by writers Peter J. Tomasi & Geoff Johns, with art by Patrick Gleason & company.
In a parody of the "Grounded" extended story arc, Bizarro decided to isolate himself on Bizarro World and refused to learn anything. Eventually, the other heroic Bizarros threw him a parade, ruining everything, and prompting Bizarro to leave for Gotham City. "No Go Away Glad, Just Go Away" was by Steve Horton and Dan McDaid. The writer went on to do another book about an alien, Bowie: Stardust Rayguns & Moonage Daydreams, which he was hawking when I was at FAN EXPO Chicago this year. I'll tumble on it at Half Price Books one of these days.
At a time of grave crisis, the world's greatest heroes banded together to combat evil. The name of this team... the Justice League of America. Other heroes joined this group... other champions. The roll call changing year by year. And of late the roster has shifted yet again...
"Shadow Warriors" was by James Robinson, Brett Booth, and Norman Rapmund.
In the first ever sweeping revision of Ray Palmer's origin story, which was itself immediately forgotten (not unlike the Atom himself) in the sweeping revision of the DC Universe that was the New 52, we get a splash page for the Tiny Titan's time with the Justice League by Jeff Lemire, Mahmud Asrar, & John Dell.
Here's a tiny J'Onn cameo from a JLA/JSA meet-up, which Princess Diana recalls as she gets pressed into a fight with Power Girl. By Gail Simone, Chris Batista, & Doug Hazlewood
I wasn't super impressed with most of the entries into CBR's The Line it is Drawn: Comic Characters on Famous Album Covers, although it was far better than the truly awful Unlikely New Avengers Lineups from the following week.* I mean, there were two versions of the Fantastic Four doing Abbey Road. How much more basic can you get? Also, actually published comics often do this shtick nowadays, so where's the novelty? Rod Allen, who seems to be a current star contributor to this project, bucked the trend with two actually good ideas. One was Flamebird doing Taylor Swift's 1989, which was inspired and well executed. The other was just cute, taking the abbreviation of the lighthearted Justice League International as a cue to interpolate with similarly abbreviated infamous gangsta rappers whose full name I can't use on a PG-rated blog. J'Onn stands in for Ice Cube (I figure he's more of a Dr. Dre, but the placement is preferable) while Booster, Ice, Fire, and Beetle fill in the rest. They trimmed out a member for this composition, and I think having Guy Gardner pointing his power ring at the viewer Eazy-E slot was a missed opportunity, but still a fun piece. Check out Rod Allen's Instagram for more.
*It wasn't (entirely) the artists' fault, as they were at the mercy of some really stupid, trying-too-hard-to-be-difficult reader suggestions. Admittedly, I'd just texted a joke to my friends about how every Marvel character plus Beetle Bailey and Heathcliff had been Avengers by this point. Kind of hard to parody a concept long committed to self-parody.
In the future, Power Girl was at the forefront of the surviving super-heroes begrudgingly working with Mech Luthor against Brainiac, the "interesting" story. In the present, Batman questioned the wisdom of Superman's plan to rescue the Daily Planet, and whether he would choose the same course if his wife wasn't in the building. Superman got in his face, scowling "You dare--?" So yeah, the prototype for Injustice, without the saving grace of platforming Tom Taylor. Oh, J'Onn was seated at the meeting room table in the present.
"Betrayal" was by writer Marv Wolfman, artist Mike S. Miller (yes, that one;) pencils by Adriana Melo, and inks by Norman Lee.
Sung to the tune made popular by The Music Explosion, I'm going to call this a "Little Bit o’ Jones." When Jimmy Olsen went missing, Perry White visited his apartment, finding framed photographs of super-heroes, including the Manhunter from Mars. By Greg Rucka, Eric Trautmann, and artist Pere Pérez.
The DC event of the year begins, coinciding with the release of the wildly anticipated DCU MMO! Get ready for the ride of a lifetime with this immense, 26-issue biweekly series!The Lex Luthor of a post-apocalyptic future scrambles to escape Brainiac's invasion of Earth, but he must gather an army to stop the invasion. Who will he recruit? And in the present, Brainiac's first assault on Earth has begun, which recaps the incredibly rare DC UNIVERSE ONLINE LEGENDS #0! Comic book legend Marv Wolfman joins fan-favorite writer Tony Bedard and artist Howard Porter to tell the ultimate DC Universe Super Hero tale of good versus evil!
In a classic example of "nobody actually cared," I had a smidge of difficulty finding a synopsis for this issue, which I myself will never read. So, I throw up the solicitation copy, before it gets lost to an indifferent internet. From what I read, this was supposed to be a weekly 52-style effort, but cooler heads prevailed. Running simultaneous to Brightest Day and Justice League: Generation Lost, DC really didn't even need a third fortnightly, yet here is the least regarded of them. Manhunter, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman helped battle Brainiac in his first(?) attack on Earth in the present day, because J'Onn was too dead to be of help in the future setting. It just occurred to me that means any further appearances in this story will probably be drawn by not-Howard Porter, who helped reintroduce the character to a broader audience in JLA. Like this series needed another strike.
"Control" was by writer Tony Bedard, pencils by Howard Porter & Adriana Melo, inks by John Livesay & Norman Lee.
Here's the bad news: a horde of aliens is living undercover on Earth, and they're smuggling weapons off-planet to fuel an interstellar war! Here's the good news: two of Earth's most powerful heroes are on the case, and one of them is the finest cop in the galaxy, Green Lantern! But here's the bad news again: the other one is Plastic Man. Sorry, GL. This is gonna be rough…
Just from flipping through the book, it looks like evil space duck frame Eel O'Brian, and for some reason despite their having no connection to one another that I can think of, asks Hal Jordan to help clear his name? Or maybe the ducks are space cops and there is someone else doing the bad stuff? I don't care. I've never known Marv Wolfman to be a funny writer, and I sure don't see Brent Anderson as a comedic artist, plus I hate when Plas is played for laughs. All I know is that Brightest Day-period Martian Manhunter has a one-panel cameo on a viewing screen, so there.
In a brief cameo, Martian Manhunter is seen in a number of images manifested at Vanishing Point, where Skeets offers Booster Gold a montage of temporal manifestations from his time serving with the Ted Kord Blue Beetle as members of the JLI. By Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund.
In a flashback to the funeral of the Ted Kord Blue Beetle, it is noted that Booster Gold arrived last, while Superman and J'Onn J'Onzz went first with eulogies. On Booster's turn, he looked out at the mourners, and couldn't find the right words to say. He's been comforted by Princess Diana on his way in, and wanted to thank Wonder Woman for killing Maxwell Lord, the man responsible for uniting and forever dividing the Blue & Gold. How could he speak to Ted unrequited love for Barbara Gordon, or how he'd liked Guy Gardner despite his very Guy Gardnerness? But Booster especially resented Batman, Superman, and Martian Manhunter looking down their noses at Ted. "Like he wasn't good enough to be in their new, 'oh-so-superior' Justice League?" Ultimately, Booster left without saying anything.
"Dead Ted, Part I of II" was by Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund.
Despite only taking up about half the page count, more of the story around the Martian Manhunter/Green Arrow was told in the quasi-anthology than in Ollie's full solo comic. J'Onn J'Onzz flew to Star City at the urging of the White Lantern to visit the White Lantern tree in the White Lantern-created forest. Direct contact caused some sort of allergic reaction, with his Martian body swelling out of control, becoming nigh-unintelligible, and involuntarily blasting laser vision with such force that he shot off his own hands. It's played as body horror, but all I could think of was the time Gunfire accidentally exploded his own butt with his New Blood powers.
Elsewhere, the female Green Martian serial killer that still doesn't have a name has spree killed an entire grocery store full of people, stuffing corpses into freezers while pushing a shopping cart while inane sales announcements straight out of Dawn of the Dead play on an automated loop. The bid to be the most horrible horror to ever horror with a horrible horror of a villainess again dips deeply into unintentional parody. It was hard to read the panel where she inspects jars of baby food on account of my eyes rolling.
Green Arrow engaged the hulking green monster laying waste to his forest, while the White Lantern let loose with pages and pages of contradictory statements, recalling the worst excesses of '80s Chris Claremont with any of the intentional affect. At least the '80s X-comics would use the psychic plane to (temporarily) resolve internal/external conflict, where this is just spinning wheels for another fortnight until the writers can figure out there endgame. At least J'Onn's psychic trauma also impacts upon the serial killer, so that their first "confrontation" is a future vision of battle over the physical and emotional fate of the characters and their native Mars. Stifling a yawn. This was actually the first time the killer was made aware that J'Onn had restored a pale semblance of life to their homeworld, and her interlude ends with a statement about the way to a man's heart being his stomach while looking at a large display of Chocos. Maybe the North American comic book market should die after all?
Green Arrow finally used his 6 in Detective skill to determine that the large green shapeshifter who was trying to say Ollie in a moaning drone was in fact his long time Justice League teammate. While J'Onn shifts through several Earth identities, one seemingly to remind readers that the scripter used to edit the '90s Martian Manhunter series, and is therefore my personal millstone, the Emerald Archer finally separates J'Onn from the White Lantern tree. The Manhunter's recent tendency to kill everything flora kicks into overdrive, so that Ollie has to first drag and then help J'Onn run through a swiftly collapsing forest. I mean, J'Onn is pretty near invulnerable and Ollie is probably acrobatic enough to dodge a few falling trees, and for some reason there is no active fire displayed, so I'm not sure what the hurry was, beyond forced drama. Also, the art quality is collapsing faster than the forest itself, exploiting silhouettes and colorist Peter Steigerwald to cover from some shockingly substandard work. There was a time before comics was a subsistence field that turning in this level of work to a major publisher would have seen an artist fired and blacklisted, is what I'm saying. "Shoddy" would be a compliment.
Once the pair exit the forest, it was immediately restored to full lush health, and Manhunter's powers restored once past the "telepathic black hole." Thank You Mario, But Our Princess is in Another Castle, and This Isn't the Forest to Arson. Despite virtually every Silver Age story hinging on J'Onn's inability to reach Mars, the Manhunter expresses intent to break off his investigation to return home, seemingly under the assumption that the female who had been trapped on Earth for longer than J'Onn would somehow also be going there soon, instead of just brutally murdering more humans for cheap shock value. I'm remembering now why I quit monthly collecting after the launch of the New 52.
"Lost & Found" was by "writers" Peter J. Tomasi & Geoff Johns, with "art" by Patrick Gleason & company.
In this prelude story that was clearly created for digital presentation rather than print, in a bunch of big panels, Brainiac launched an attack on Metropolis. The Justice League, including Martian Manhunter, responded. Near the end, the Alien Atlas and other Leaguers arrived from the Watchtower, alerting on the scene hero Batman. Aquaman announced, "The cavalry is here!" Except he was on the Watchtower with J'Onn and Wonder Woman, so he was partially self-aggrandizing, not relieved. Inside a big Brainiac construct, they were zapped with some sort of electricity. Of the three, only Manhunter was back on his feet by story's end. "This is not over, Batman. Brainiac is sending these things all over the globe... more victims will be digitized and transported to wherever he sent those poor people. We must rethink our tactics if we ever hope to rescue them."
By Tony Bedard, Oliver Nome, Michael Lopez, & Livio Ramondelli. For a (for real) change, other major heroes jobbed for J'Onn. What witchcraft is this?
Here's another Martian Manhunter cameo, wherein the Tiny Titans request the use of the JLA's satellite base for their first Pet Club meeting, but the overabundance of loud, heavy livestock sees Green Lantern Hal Jordan deliver them to the moon, instead. By Franco & Art Baltazar
Today marks the sixteenth birthday of my Martian Manhunter blog, and besides getting out weekly posts for most of year fifteen, I've also been quietly putting together a modest slate of new posts to celebrate throughout the month of September. At least the weekdays. We'll see if I can pull together the weekends as well, but no promises. Anyway, I'm sure for anyone who visits here that it's hard to miss that this was a daily blog for many years, whereas there are quite a few wilderness years with next to nothing, and my investment in both J'Onn J'Onzz and DC Comics in general has withered with time. I have a stockpile of art commissions, more from slowly developing jam pieces over years colliding with blogging apathy than an actual plan, which I intend to get out there for the character's 70th anniversary in 2025. In the meantime, I piddle with covering material that I have physical copies of that I'd like to purge, and to keep the blogging seat warm until I maybe fully retire from this game after the big seven-oh.
Since I'll also be posting blog links on Twitter (forever Twitter, toadies,) my otherwise increasingly infrequent visits will ramp up there, but haven't yet. Randomly, Martian Manhunter was trending, at least in my timeline. There wasn't a particularly clear reason why this had occurred, so it's probably some for of tailoring to me (I did mention the scarcity of my log-ins,) but several of the tweets (I said TWEETS, Elon) got me to thinking. I used to do a lot of "deep thoughts" posts in the daily days about the essential nature of the character, what he means in a literary sense, or do his shared universe, and so on. Because of my disaffection, I haven't done that sort of thing in a long time-- arguably a couple of reactionary podcastepisodes, but probably something like a decade since any proper writings (I scanned back to 2015 before giving up.) But I have some thoughts that feel like they go beyond tweets, so let's see what we come up with.
One suspect instigator is a tweet about how focusing on the alien aspects of Superman is bad for the character, and what people really want is a clean living Christian from Kansas, and pushback against that. Obviously I'm paraphrasing with bias, but it also reminded me of that moronic "objectively good vs. bad art" hot take that was going around a few days ago. Why yes, that clown does indeed have an excessive amount of Pepe the Frog images in his media section-- however did you guess? Was it the thread on Ayn Rand being one of those "good artists?" Of course my own preferences run toward highlighting Superman's alienness, as evidence by my devoting decades of my life to considering the main character to whom those qualities were transferred. The Post-Crisis Martian Manhunter has basically been the Silver Age Superman, and if he struggles to find a place at DC now, imagine how much worse it would be if Superman repossessed those aspects? But one of the main people arguing for the "Superman as immigrant" over the "blood and soi--" er, "nativist" take also made a reference to the importance of Superman's having Jewish creators reflecting their specific immigrant experience. Which absent the greater context, I mistook as referencing J'Onn J'Onzz's Jewish parentage. That gave me pause.
J'Onn J'Onzz's creation is credited to Joseph Samachson, the son of Russian Jews, but also Jewish Silver Age Superman editor Mort Weisinger likely had a major hand in that (especially given that the Manhunter from Mars name and basic premise were stolen from other creators, as was Mort's way.) The artist Joe Certa was credited as co-creator, and the etymology of "Certa" is ambiguous (Italian? Polish? Latin?) Those credits are largely moot though, because the driving creative force behind Silver Age Manhunter from Mars stories was Jack Miller, a noted Anglophile with a rather goyish name. If you go back and read those stories, they're a lot more farm boy than immigrant. In fact, it's hard not to see J'Onn as zealously acclimated. His initial WASP looks shift to something more stereo-typically Irish as his strip progresses, and his first major act upon coming to Earth was assuming the appearance and role of an authority figure. Not only is John Jones a cop, but J'onn J'onzz is too. So many '50s & '60s stories revolve around the Manhunter investigating newly emerging extra-terrestrials and forcibly deporting them. When his fellow Martians show up, J'onn has two modes: how can I use them to get off Earth, and failing that, how do I at least boot them off-world? As a white guy, there are terms for people who embrace the status quo and defend it to the detriment of their own people and country of origin, but I'm not allowed to use any of them.
Another possible trending provocation was speculation on several possible "starring" roles that Giancarlo Esposito might have discussed with James Gunn before the strike. He was Ryan Daly's pick. Not to be ageist, but 65 is a bit long in the tooth to be starting in that role, even if it's all mo-cap CGI. I'm not saying no so much as prove me wrong.
Yet another option, in a rare break from declaring his every move to be perfection, fans seem to willing to at least consider that Martian Manhunter's inclusion in Zack Snyder's Justice League was ham-fisted, ruined a pivotal moment involving Lois Lane, and is also a really lame stinger. I'll add that a lot of related tweets show images of the Snyder Manhunter and the Arrowverse Supergirl one, and man, when the CW outshines you, you're flying too close to Jossity.
Most probably though, the culprit was Martian Manhunter VS Silver Surfer (DC VS Marvel) | DEATH BATTLE! This is part of a popular YouTube video series produced by Rooster Teeth that pits fictional characters against one another. Since his introduction, Silver Surfer has been a top tier cosmic entity within the Marvel Universe, complicit in the destruction of countless worlds. Martian Manhunter is an amateur detective who has been known to cower in the face of candlelight. The Alien Atlas has an impressive power set that looks good on paper, but he's also a jobber who can't hold down a solo series and folds anytime the story requires a more essential JLAer to look imperiled. Wizard Magazine also did this one decades back, and the results were no more in question then. The video still does acommendable job of weaving a cogent narrative out of Manhunter's multitude of retcons, and is a love letter to his power potential.
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