At the abandoned Casino Riviera, the new Faceless asked an oozing green mass on the floor, "Who the hell is J'Onn J'Onzz? Or is it Rita Gonzales today? Or perhaps Albert Schmidt? Who is it you see when you look in the mirror? What is left when your body can hold no form? Do you know? Does anyone?" Most of the story is devoted to J'Onn's absence of self, a partial refutation of the Ostrander series where the multitudes of assumed identities and dutiful time spent with the League are a distraction from the Martian's inability to move past the death of Mars and fully manifest a true, evolving self while living on Earth. Meaning he's been spinning his wheels since at least the end of the Giffen DeMatteis JLI in 1992.
Faceless sent Professor Hugo to fetch the "naplam blood," but the Alien Atlas nigh-instantaneously pulled himself back together, turned invisible and intangible, flew across the room, then stood in place in solid form so that Arnold could bump into him. Just so's you know that none of the villains ever stood a sliver of a chance. The Manhunter then orders the fledgling Vulture chicks to run in their highly reflective featureless golden masks that couldn't ever be confused with the Helm of Nabu. While bashing the adult Vulture committee and Faceless, the Sleuth from Outer Space noted that he'd bested the neuron scrambler by moving his brain to his tongue, biting it off, and reforming. I wasn't on Twitter (more later,) but if the message boards were still up, I could have audibly heard the cries of "overpowered."
After the initial defeat of Vulture, they spent years rebuilding, watching Manhunter from the shadows to eventually exploit some weakness. Because J'Onn only ever lived a ghost of a life, he supposedly had no loved ones to imperil, so that his only vulnerability was his amassing of foes in the years since. So Vulture exploited that by enlisting... only the ones from the old Showcase Presents economical black & white reprints... and Dr. Trap, I guess. Oh, and Faceless is just some guy, I think? A lot of the male characters from this strip look enough alike that it could maybe be that researcher guy at the police station from an earlier chapter, but they make a point of his being "no one," so probably not. I don't care enough to check anyway.
"A Face in the Crowd: Part Six" was by Shawn Aldridge and Adriana Melo. I had the option of covering the penultimate and final chapters of the Martian Manhunter serial more or less back-to-back, but wanted to give each installment room to "breathe." Then I got into a fight with a bot on Twitter, who then locked my account, and I refused to budge on anything related to the matter for two months. I was so sick of everything that I was thinking of scrubbing the entire Diabolu Frank identity and moving on with my life. I'm still probably going to delete the Twitter account and just fold any further promotion of this blog into the Rolled Spine Podcasts account, but one of the things I wanted to do first was completing the coverage of this serial.
The other reason I held out was because this story wasn't very good. As fan service, it made me very happy to see so many moribund concepts foundational to J'Onn J'onzz's original solo strip finally recognized and deployed in modern continuity. I believe that I already referred to this story as the Alien Atlas' "Hush," which sucked as a narrative but sang as a showcase for Jim Lee to draw Batman characters. Except Melo isn't Jim Lee, and the art takes a tumble in quality on the final entry. By burning through the old rogues in rapid succession without offering much in the way of revitalization, it simply reinforces the notion that they are disposable and unworthy of further consideration. Any future writer is robbed of the opportunity to shock an audience that "X" has returned after half a century-plus, deadlier than ever. "X" already came back in that Action Comics serial, and they accomplished squat.
I'm used to being disappointed by Martian Manhunter stories, robbing me year after year of motivation to continue blogging and otherwise championing the intellectual property of a soulless, clueless corporation for no reward whatsoever. It was nice to see the familiar faces and names dropped. Wasn't much else to it, however. Also, the part where he forms a fist in the middle of his chest to throw a punch? Blech.
You may recall that Ryan "Count Drunkula" Daly of the Black Canary blog 
Essentially, Hugo's origin and reason for existence was tied to Gotham City. When he reappeared in a later issue of Detective Comics, these same origins were revisited. After a brief escapade in Middletown, the Martian Manhunter turned Hugo over to Batman at the end of the guest appearance. J'onn J'onzz basically acknowledged the Dark Knight's ownership of Hugo. The only reference book the character has ever appeared in was 1976's The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes, Volume 1: Batman by Michael L. Fleisher, although he was minor enough to be misidentified as Professor Hugo Arnold (which was not corrected in the 2007 reprint edition.) His last appearance anywhere was a 2010 issue of DC Super Friends, where he was modeled after his first appearance and fought Superman and Aquaman.
On the other hand, the Wizard of a Thousand Menaces made three appearances in the Manhunter from Mars strip running in House of Mystery from 1965-1967. Hugo was visually revised from being squat with brown hair to tall and lean with black hair and distinctly different facial features. Despite Hugo remaining mobile, he managed to run into J'onn J'onzz in entirely separate locations, once on a different continent. Unlike Batman, Hugo actually sought out the Alien Atlas in one instance for revenge, and featured into a total of five encounters. Despite his ties to Gotham City, Hugo has had no recorded stories there since his debut. Professor Hugo was the first villain to face Martian Manhunter in a solo adventure more than once, and in fact did so four times before 1966, when the Martian's next ongoing adversary was created in the form of Mr. V. Hugo has also battled J'onzz's sidekick Zook four times more than he ever has Robin the Boy Wonder. Where Professor Hugo is an insignificant and forgotten one time Batman foil, he's one of the most memorable Martian Manhunter adversaries of the Silver Age. Which is more important, where Professor Hugo started from, or where he went afterward?
