CBR's 2025 “The Best Martian Manhunter Storylines, Ranked” by Maxwell Pishny

My first real engagement with the internet was on a WebTV that my best friend Illegal Machine and his brother had gotten, and one of the first things I did with them was search for Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter content. A year or so later, I got a WebTV of my own. Inspired mostly by fatigue from repeating the same Martian Manhunter information constantly on the DC Message Boards, usually on versus threads, I started building my first Martian Manhunter fan pages. I think it was the third or fourth such page on Web 1.0, and the skeleton of the Angelfire one is still out there. Mac introduced me to Comic Book Resources around this same time period, via Steven Grant's Master of the Obvious opinion column. It became a daily haunt for me-- my primary source of comics news and workday distraction. It was where the world was introduced to Gail Simone, and a rare space where I could indulge in my lettering nerdiness with Augie De Blieck. There are plenty of blog posts here where I made a mountain out of a molehill over some minor nitpick of a Brian Cronin piece or what have you.

Cronin's one of the only old guard still left at the modern CBR, which congratulations, has finally overtaken Cord Blood Registry as top search result for those three letters. I'm not sure how, besides paying Google to game it, because I don't know anyone who still goes there. After founder Jonah Weiland sold out to Valnet and deuced in 2016, there was a sharp and steady decline. I don't think any of the old columnists are around anymore, and they don't seem to have found any replacements. There's just this constant churn of press releases, clickbait, and listicles. I'm not entirely above that sort of thing, which is how I tolerated Newsarama for a while after I dropped CBR. It's specifically that CBR is an obvious content mill, farming engagement through know-nothing nobodies and maybe ChatBots? It's such cynical, no-effort crap that it's not even worth passing across most people's eyes.

In answer to what I'd assumed would be a rhetorical question, I guess Mac still gets over to CBR from time to time, because he sent me the subject article with the demand that I preemptively "CHILL." I've been known to go H.A.M. on this sort of thing, and I do wonder if that's had a chilling effect on Martian Manhunter media coverage. If so, and I've had any hand in keeping this sort of piece from getting drafted, I feel like I've done a good job. This kid's only been with CBR since November, filling two pages worth of top 10 lists and only the most basic takes. His "About Me" page is longer than some of his articles, and he insists on "over two decades obsessed with all things superheroes and comic books," which from his profile picture suggests improbable in-utero consumption. He's currently working on reading every Batman comic... since 1986, which hits different when your contemporaries did that in real time.

Some of you are probably thinking, "aww man, Frank, why do you have to be so mean? Why take personal shots? Why do you have to make your bad day somebody else's?" To which I would humbly reply, shut your piehole. You want some of what he's getting? But also-- it's a top 4 list. The bare minimum is a top 5 list, and I will not accept shrinkflation in my @#$%^%# listicles as anything but a sign of contempt for a subject that I'm notably sensitive about. I could do a top 5 Elongated Man list off the top of my head, and I could give a rat's patootie about Ralph Dibny. Identity Crisis, 52, that European mini-series with the Parobeck art, the first appearance, and the one where he marries Sue. I haven't even read most of those-- I just rattled off the first things that came to mind without research. This article's writer can't do that, because he doesn't have the age and experience, which if fine. I hope he's getting paid with more than exposure to type "best Martian Manhunter stories" into a search bar and crib something together out of the results, with maybe a personal preference thrown in for flavor.

If you're not a total schmuck, just to cover your bases, you at least pick an origin story. The lowest hanging fruit would be "The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel" from 'Tec #225, but you could just as easily go with the Secret Origins retcon, or the 1998 Martian Manhunter #0. He went with Martian Manhunter: Identity, the 2019 12-issue maxi-series. Maybe he's right? I only got a few issues into it, realized that it wasn't for me, and bailed. I'm old now, so I don't have to force the latest tedious retcon on myself. You can tell me if I'm missing out there. Yes, you have permission to speak now.

That was the #3 spot, of four. In the final quarter was 1996's JLA: New World Order, which launched the blockbuster Morrison/Porter run. It's one of the great Justice League stories, which launched my favorite period in the book's history, and DC's biggest franchise of the '90s. J'Onn J'Onzz is barely in that story. Spoiler-- it's secretly about Martians, and so as not to tip his hand, Morrison sidelines the Manhunter for most of the arc. Waid & Hitch did an arc about these same characters a few years later that does foreground J'Onn, but that didn't make the cut, and the Midsummer's Nightmare mini-series that immediately preceded JLA was what made me a fan of the character. So close-- still a bitter failure for this list.

The #2 slot went to Starlin & Mignola's Cosmic Odyssey, which has some really memorable moments with Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern John Stewart. It's a 226 page, four part prestige format mini-series from 1988. I think the Johns may have speaking parts on about a dozen pages. They're in the penultimate positions of a 9 character line-up on the cover, flanked by Bug and Orion. I guarantee you the kid's Batman reading project has gotten to 1988, and he though J'Onn was cool in this, and that's why he cobbled together this top 4 list. Too bad he hasn't gotten to the actual Martian Manhunter mini-series with an actual Martian Manhunter story from that same year, or if I'm being perfectly honest, his much better appearances in Justice League International from the same period. You could have said "Moving Day" and no one would have said "boo" back.

His top pick out of all the Martian Manhunter stories was the "Revelations" arc from the 2000 Ostrander/Mandrake series. I had serious misgivings about that book, despite affection for the same creative team's Grimjack work, with a paper trail going back to the aforementioned DC Comics Message Boards that the kid may have perused while in the womb. No? Yeah, that's probably best. Anyway, despite my grievances, I know a lot of people who hold that run in high regard. Generally speaking, I think that they prefer "Son of Mars" and "Rings of Saturn," the two arcs DC bothered to collect into trade-- initially for intentional audiences, and decades later domestically. "Revelations" does have its fans, particularly the JLI Choco homage with Doug Mahnke art, but I don't know any that actually prefer it to the real JLI stories.

So that's it. The kid did about 1300 words for CBR, and I gave back about 1200 in reply. I hope it was worth it to him, because it sure wasn't for me, and I won't be linking to help him panhandle. Nobody ever gave me a dime for this toil, but I still have enough personal integrity to give you more than the top four Snapper Carr stories (the debut Starro story, the one where he betrays the team to Joker, any two stories from Peyer/Morales Hourman, and if that doesn't satisfy, the Blasters Special?)