The Vile Menagerie: THE OSPREY

You want to know about this character? So do I! I read through back issues and the web, and only came up with a one line biography for my trouble. Darn it, I'll at least quadruple that effort!

For some reason, Mark Waid wrote several team books around the time of Zero Hour, going so far as to create dramatic new line-ups and status quos, only to abandon the titles to other hands within a few issues. Such was the case with Justice League Task Force, for which he wrote only two scripts featuring the book's final group constitution on his own before co-writing another pair with Christopher Priest, who then finished out the series' run. Waid introduced a new villain in his last solo issue with Sal Velluto and inkers Jeff Albrecht and Romeo Tanghal. The Osprey seemed to be intended as a nemesis for the Manhunter from Mars, but the accompanied image notwithstanding, never got off the ground. The character looked very cool, and even rated his own logo. Personally, I've always wondered if maybe Glenn Gammeron became what The Osprey was intended to be, but I expect somebody would have to ask Priest about that. Below are his only lines ever.

First Appearance: Justice League Task Force #17 (November, 1994)
Quote: "'Green Guy'? J'Onn...here and gone. Seems I'm forever a step behind you, J'Onzz. That will change. Soon, you and your Task Force will be the first to know the fury of--The Osprey."

Beyond that, the only background lies with the word itself. The osprey is a bird of prey with colors that run toward black and white (with blue & brown in the mix.) It is medium-sized, a fish monger, and is found on all continents except Antarctica. The raptor is highly adaptable to different environments, so long as they are near enough to water to provide food. Said bird also inspired the V-22 Osprey, a troubled U.S. military project dating back to the mid-80's. This osprey is the first helicopter with both VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) and STOL (Short Take-Off...) capabilities. Basically, it can work as either a long-range turbo propeller aircraft or a standard chopper.

House of Mystery #168 (July, 1967)

"It's triple trouble for the Manhunter from Mars-- on temporary leave from his identity of Marco Xavier-- when he challenges the awesome might of one of his most dangerous and perplexing foes, the mysterious and unpredictable visitor to our world, known as... Thantos-- the 3-In-1 Man!"

"Woodsville was always a quiet little town until that unforgettable day..." Thantos, a towering pink pinhead with three eyes and a unibrow, was something of a callback to the Idol-Head days. At the urging of gangsters he'd associated with, Thantos used his brain pan to drill his way inside a bank. Zook happened by, and melted the getaway car intended for Thantos' human cohorts to split with a hundred grand. No problem, as Thantos just picked them up and flew away.

Vulture had been laying low, so when Marco Xavier heard about the unusual robbery via his short-wave radio, he decided to cross 3,000 miles of Atlantic to check it out. Or rather...
"O-o-o-o-o! If--if only Manhunter here--!" moaned Zook in his sealed mountain hideout. "He is here, Zook!" J'onn J'onzz announced as he passed immaterially through the wall. "Manhunter! You hear about alien crook, so you come?!"
"Right, Zook... And I figured you might like to join me in some real, live action--Just like old times!"
Ah, for the good old days... when dialogue like this didn't sound totally queer.

A radio bulletin announced a sighting in Midvale, so the extra-terrestrial twosome made off. "Looks like that bozo already did his dirty work-- in Midvale Museum!" Really? Those custodians won't even let me take pictures whenever I go. "He spotted you Manhunter-- and he not look very scared!" Thantos bored into Manhunter with his big head (and I'm not sayin' nothin'!) The Martian Miracle Man hit on Thantos, who suddenly split into three duplicates, and Zook let out such an "EEK!" The Alien Atlas determined, "I'll just have to take him-- one at a time!" The Secret Visitor from Mars leapt to embrace Thantos' #1, who went "POP!" on contact. The Master Earthbound Detective went for #2, who immediately popped in his hands. J'onn J'onzz frustratedly exclaimed, "This is getting monotonous!" Zook declared that the third Thantos had gotten away, but Manhunter reminded him, "Have you forgotten your ability to track bodily vibrations with those amazing antennae of yours?"

I'd like to take a moment to fan cast this scene for film: Tom Cruise as J'onn J'onzz, Anthony Edwards as Zook, and an airtight performance by Val Kilmer as Thantos, the "3-in-1 Man." Mee-ow. Or you know, Katie Holmes' hair has been pretty similar to Zook's lately. You be the judge...

As another aside, what is it with Manhunter villains? Why can't they ever just shoot rays out of their eyes, or something? These guys have more powers than J'onn ever uses! As I've mentioned, Manhunter has to employ his intangibility to enter his sealed cave hideout. Why couldn't he ever use it in a case? Invisibility? A rarity. Elasticity? Ditto. I mean, you'd think J'onn was nothing but flight, masquerading, and Martian Muscles. If you've got it, flaunt it baby!

"What's wrong, Zook?"
"Not know, Manhunter! It not working for some reason! ...M-maybe his vibrations too different from human kind!" Don't judge Zook-- don't you dare judge Thantos' strange vibrations! Zook remembered that he could track the crooks who worked with Thantos, and guided the Sleuth from Outer Space to an isolated area. "Tense seconds later, Manhunter's acute Martian Hearing penetrates the shack..." J'onzz learned Thantos was stealing worldly goods for the crooks in exchange for other items he needed to locate in order to remain on Earth. "Hmm... so Thantos, whoever he is, doesn't have much time left! Well, from the sound of things, neither have I!"

Manhunter burst in on the hoods, but one reached for a gas lamp to throw at him. To avoid having his weakness exploited, the Alien Atlas picked up a thug and tossed him head first at the noggin of the grabby gangster! Considering that real world physics sez that would break both their necks, J'onzz doesn't have to do much else to get the remaining goon to spill his guts. "And now, buddy-boy-- start talking!" Manhunter learned that Thantos only had twelve hours left to collect the items he needed to come and go from Earth at will. "Right... Zook-- let's tie these hoodlums up and hide the loot! We can turn them in after we take care of Thantos!"

"But where we start looking, Manhunter?"

"Fortunately, there are only two other museums in this area that contain what he's looking for... the one in Centerville-- and the other in Fairlawn! And since time is precious, Zook-- we'll split up!" Zook reminded Manhunter not to strike Thantos, or there would be three where one once stood. I grew up in the barrio, and the same thing was true there. Say, isn't "Thantos" just "Santos" with a lisp? Is this all gay subtext, or a meta-commentary on illegal immigration? All these "Thantos" keep hopping back and forth over the border, pillaging our wealth and culture! The U.S., a nation of immigrants, trying to keep "Thantos" out of a land we know isn't truly ours to begin with. Scipio is right, Jack Miller really was a brilliant author disguised as a hack!

J'onn confronted Thantos at the Fairlawn Museum... "Put that stuff back, Thantos!"
"Make me!"

No wait, Miller was a total hack. Then again, J'onn rushed to embrace Thantos, his verdant lime face nuzzled against Thantos' yielding belly. Their legs interlaced, Thantos smiled and gave a thumbs-up to unseen voyeurs to their unspoken desire through the fourth wall. "Ha, ha! You fear to exert too much force-- for fear you will make me separate into 3 again-- enabling my other 2 selves to fetch what I'm after!" Oh, there'll be some fetching all right, and possible felching as well! In J'onn J'onzz's innermost thoughts, "I won't admit it... but he's right! Great Stars! He gave me the slip by turning tiny!" Oh J'onn, it wasn't you, it was him. It happens to everyone at some point. Don't make a big deal out of it.

Thantos had revealed what a tiny little man he could become, and slipped out of the Manhunter's grasp. The Martian Marvel wouldn't let him go just like that-- he chased after tiny Thantos, and held him in both hands. Thantos declared, "You move very fast!" It's true-- heart first, head much too late.

"Just then, a familiar voice rings out... Manhunter! I-I just see Thantos in Centerville Museum!"
"You wha-at??"
"Y-yes! I--I guess Thantos separate first-- sending other selves to different museums before we even catch up to him!"

Not that I don't admire Zook's deductive reasoning, and maybe I'm just reflecting a Post-9/11 mentality, but the "other-dimensional pet's" broken English suddenly seems a bit... ethnic. Short guy, dark hair, bronze skin, always naked... he's a little cabana boy, isn't he? Jack Miller just raped my childhood. Or some Silver Age guy's childhood. I'm not nearly old enough to have read these things before I had a disposable income of my own.

"Exactly, my friends! The final victory is mine! You see-- with my other selves joining me, I will now possess in the combined pouches all of the ingredients which, when properly mixed, will enable me to visit your world at will! My time has elapsed.. but I will brew the mixture in my own world! See you very soon!" You see what immigrant amnesty gets you? Drug runners with green cards! At least according to Jack Miller!

Once the Thantos vanish ("la Migra Marciano!") J'onn confided in Zook that he had swiped the Fairlawn Thantos' pouch when he first wrestled him. Without the final ingredient, Thantos wouldn't be coming back. "Manhunter--You a living wonder!" And you, Zook, are a brown-noser-- but we love you anyway. Just not like that.

Martian Manhunter Special #1 (1996)

This book was produced by writer Paul Kupperberg, penciller Mike Collins, and four inkers. It also featured ten pages of pin-ups, of which only one depicts the Manhunter, and in a group shot no less! Everything about this comic, down to the vague setting, fairly screams "inventory story." Each chapter even featured a recap, as though it were intended to be serialized. The creators were regular contributors to Justice League Quarterly, so I believe this material may have just been repurposed when that series was cancelled. All in all, an inauspicious outing, though much can be read from it in hindsight.

As revealed in expository bricks surrounding the first page, J'Onn J'Onzz just up and decided to fly to the planet Naftali in search of an ancient wandering holy man named K'rkzar. He hoped the traveler had perhaps run across other surviving Martians, and just happened to arrive just as K'rkzar was planning to announce the all-encompassing religion he has formulated over centuries spent in seclusion. Holy war was brewing, drawing the attention of the Darkstar Chaser Bron to quiet things down. After J'Onzz helped Bron stop bloodshed when one religious sect attacked another, the Darkstar was authorize by his Controllers to deputize the Martian in this matter. Together, they tracked down one of K'rkzar's priests, Bruaka, the only being who knew the holy man’s whereabouts. The trio was soon joined by other, humanoid deputies sent by Naftali law enforcement to protect Bruaka from armies of assassins. They included Trypper, a brunette who could open time/space warps; Shadowdance, another female who could manipulate darkness; and Ambush, a male who could decipher the workings of weapons and other machinery at a touch. The group took to outer space in their ship to search for K'rkzar, but were hounded by attacking vessels and the powerhouse called “The Prophet.” MM held off that dogma-spouting superman while his fellows appeared to make their escape, until their turned kamakazi on a pursuing battleship. "You're a killer who does the bidding of beings who cloak their evil and political manipulation under a blanket of false righteousness. You would have killed the people on that ship without a second thought--so keep your hypocrisy to yourself, Prophet...And pray whatever divine being does exist chooses to show mercy for your life and deeds."

J'Onn's comrades turned up alive, having piloted the ship to its explosive end by remote control. The alien detective figured out that Bruaka had been using the group under his command to act as a decoy, drawing the enemy away from K'rkzar, who was still playing possum on Naftali. Removing the guise of a simple derelict, the holy man gave a simple speech about how everyone should feel good and love one another. Big revelation there. J'Onzz flew off without ever asking the priest about his fellow Martians, nodding about the candy-coated truth in N'aftali's "message."

As you may have noted from my synopsis, the story is a mind-numbingly dull 48-page exercise along the lines of, well, any other 48 pages ever written by Kupperberg. Collins’ art is as consistent, and approximates the banality of the script, as best as possible with all the additional hands. Just in case you managed to keep your eyes open through, Lee Loughridge provides so few color variations within a muddy, limited pallet that at times its like reading a yellowed copy of a black and white comic. This “effort” should be a source of pride for no one. On the other hand, the Prophet was created as a Superman caliber potential nemesis with an interesting hook. The religious leader Paral is fairly well designed, for what amounts to a reptilian take of the Lord High Papal. This first Martian Manhunter Special featured a much reprinted cover by Howard Porter in the style he would soon employ on the Morrison “JLA” relaunch. Finally, J’Onn J’Onzz just happened to go off in search of missing Martians just before a whole mess of them turned up in the aforementioned and extremely well received Morrison/Porter “JLA.” Is there a hidden connection here to that series? I’ll have to reread “New World Order” to find out, though probably not, but I need some justification for having read this tripe more than once...

1966 Comic Book Foldees Card #15 (Topps)

This may well be the first ever "Martian Man Hunter" toy. I use the term very loosely, as this appears to be the epitome of the "inaction" figure. You can a) fold the card into "amusing" mix-and-matches between J'Onn, a "Loud Singer" or (oddly appropriate) an "Indian Chief." Alternately, just cut him out of the sheet, and he stands up! Yep, standing there, just like in real life! Just standing away.

You've got to remember, this was a simpler time-- before all those MTV video games, kids kept busy playing coke bottle cap table hockey games wearing freshly painted paper pirate hats. And they had cardboard foldees! Those were the days. Yes siree!

The spawn of the "greatest generation" were poor and gullible. No more questions. Move along. Now.

Further information from Jeff Allender's House of Checklists:

"Notes: This series of 44 cards folds out to a size of 2-1/2" x 4-11/16": "Make
9 Funny Pictures with Every Card". A larger (folding out to 3-1/4" x 6") set
was produced later, without card #44 or the wording "Printed in U.S.A."
after the Topps copyright mark. Thanks much to Mike Kooiman for the list!"

A European version was available from A&BC Gum of the UK in 7 different languages: Dansk, Finnish, Swedish, Norway, German, French and Dutch.

I'd like to know who was responsible for the art on these. The two I've had the chance to look at resemble Steve Ditko, but I suspect that's just wishful thinking...

UPDATE: The cards were by Wally Wood.

Superman: The Doomsday Wars #1-3 (1998)

The Manhunter from Mars confirmed, "The distress call from the Georgia authorities was certainly warranted. Whatever tore through this area would present a formidable obstacle for any ordinary police force." Quite an understatement, as Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, Plastic Man, Wonder Woman, Huntress, Flash and Orion surveyed considerable damage to the landscape. A tanker truck suddenly flew through the air in the League's direction, so Manhunter immediately took charge. "Flash. I want a reconnaissance report..." Flash promptly complied, but was shaken before he could give a telepathic reply. Shortly thereafter, Manhunter dangled limply by his cape from a shard of debris, with all but Orion and Huntress having fallen before, as J'Onzz had put it mildly earlier, "Someone who presents a challenge."

The Martian Manhunter thankfully came to at that point, noting, "I don't believe I've ever been hit so hard in my life. I was protecting a bystander, and I was hit before I could use my phase power. Where's Orion? I've lost my telepathic link with him... This isn't a fight. It's a war." J'Onn J'Onzz flew into combat while the League regrouped, Orion confessing, "Legs... too weak to stand..." Wonder Woman complained, "Bad enough Superman doesn't respond when I call him! But J'Onn shouldn't have charged off alone! The League should function better than this. Must be because we're not used to being beaten so badly!" Doomsday had come again, and it wore a battered Martian on its shoulder spikes like a trophy.

Wonder Woman launched into an ill-fated attack. "I never, ever thought I'd see anyone do that to J'Onn. You must have found some way around his phase powers! ...Strategic fighting such as this is far beyond your capac--UHN! How--? J'Onn himself tried to contact you telepathically but found nothing there! There should be no sense of reason... no... mind!" Doomsday replied, quite eloquently, "My own mental defenses barred your overconfident friend from the truth."

Earlier in the narrative, Brainiac had appeared to have been killed in a final battle with Superman, but he had instead been gravely injured, requiring a new body. Coluan time-travel technology had allowed Brainiac to save Doomsday from destruction at the entropy point after the events in Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey, and the villainous mastermind's intellect now resided in the behemoth's form. Trapped in customized restraints, the League were mostly unable to come to Superman's aid upon his arrival on the scene.

With some help from Aquaman, the Man of Steel foiled Brainiac's plan to turn Earth into a new Colu, using Psi-Blockers from a previous encounter to drive the telepath from Doomsday's mind. Superman then lured Doomsday into a JLA transporter tube, which teleported the monster to the moon.

Rescuing the League, Superman joined his team in battle. Although Green Lantern initially followed Martian orders, the Manhunter stated (while forcing Doomsday onto his back with a suffocating fist to the throat,) "Easy, Orion, Superman has a plan in mind-- and we would do well to follow his lead." Superman thought to himself, "One minute. That's about all I need. Harder than it sounds. Even for Orion and J'Onn, lasting a minute against Doomsday-- is practically impossible." In that time, the two Leaguers held their own, until Superman managed to divide Doomsday's form between four active transporter booths. "Never more than 25% integrated, unable to think or free himself." Manhunter immediately saw a flaw. "And if someone should try to take Doomsday?" Superman promised he would automatically be teleported, "to a location only I know of."

Dan Jurgens provided story and art, with a nice Image veneer by inker Norm Rapmund. I wonder if Jurgens' constant trampling of all DC super-heroes to show how much better Superman was than all of them combined played into his inability to maintain his profile at DC after the entire Superman line had a forced creator turnover?

Fifteen Years Later...

I made an internet friend on the DC Comics Message Boards in the late '90s. Embarrassingly, you can still dig up some of our interactions on the Wayback Machine. In the year 2000, after he'd also become a mail order customer of my shop, paid for me to attend the San Diego ComiCon in a generous act involving a lot of other folks he knew virtually. We were probably something of a lifeline for an isolated ex-pat comic book fan in a foreign land with money to burn. He'd visited me once before in Houston, but I think it was during the San Diego trip that he gave me a CD. He'd used a then-novel softwear called a spiderbot to record my host of WebTV fan pages, collectively known as Martian Manhunter: The Rock of the JLA, and a bunch of other turn of the century fan material that it had offered links to and from. I still have it in an AOL DVD case somewhere, but when I went digging around for it just now, it wasn't readily available. Unfortunately, at the time the pages were in a state of disarray, with a number of images removed, never to be replaced. Still very grateful to have that artifact in my possession, presumably, I hope. We fell out of contact after I closed my shop, and soon after cancelled my WebTV subscription after getting an actual computer. I'm pretty confident those pages were immediately taken down, and MSN shut down the service in 2013. I tried checking the html address on the Internet Archive, which claims to have taken captures of it between 2000-05, but nothing actually comes upon. Might as well be another epoch.

I stumbled upon The Aquaman Shrine, a daily devotional blog, and thought I could bite the format while repurposing old material from the defunct WebTV pages. Never really got around to cannibalizing much. It's a pain in the ass to navigate the old Shrine as large pieces of it have been worn away with time, but there's thankfully still an "established 2006" badge to carbon date it. It's chief architect, Rob Kelly, turned over access to the Shrine's Twitter account to an unscrupulous individual who proceeded to steal it from him and change the locks. He'd also found a deeper love in podcasting, still producing several weekly shows to this day, and stopped posting to the blog a little less than five years ago. His podcasting partner, The Irredeemable Shag, was inspired by the Shrine and my own Idol-Head of Diabolu blogs to create Firestorm Fan. Like Rob, he hasn't posted to it in years, preferring podcasting. I started daily posting on September 1, 2007, never wholly managed to see that intent through, though I did manage 365 posts a year overall until giving out near the end of 2014. How many things have you more or less steadily maintained for seven straight years? It's no picnic, and obviously my efforts were less than stellar in those final months. I think the only member of our "Justice League Blogosphere" peer group to survive the (week)daily grind in Dr. Anj at Supergirl Comic Box Commentary, with twice my longevity at FOURTEEN years and counting.

What I can still say is that a decade & a half later, the blog isn't dead yet. I averaged six posts a month in 2015, 4 in 2016, 3 in 2018, merely monthly in 2019, and a couple or three a month since. I'm only averaging biweekly this year, though its more like runs of weekly posts followed by weeks/months of neglect. Given that Photobucket has finally all but given up on profiting from me, and mostly refusing service on my uploaded images, I though the anniversary would be a good month to clean up some old pages and offer a bunch of daily(?) "best of" re-posts until I lose interest or get squeezed by my own podcasting duties. I'm not sure why anyone is still here, given how long its been since DC has had a consistent, appreciable direction for J'Onn J'Onzz. I've recently been in the process of revisiting the early comics of my own Martian Manhunter fandom, in the wake of the 1996 JLA revival that inspired the WebTV pages. Maybe we're all just getting old and want to look back fondly on our perhaps wasted, largely unrealized and reciprocated affections for comic books and their heroes. We all probably should have made more productive use of our brief lives. But hey, I'm right there with you, and happy with whatever small remaining company I can keep in these parts.

More Maudlin Self-Mythologizing by Diabolu Frank

• Five Years Later...
• 4th Year of Diabolu
• Five Years After Five Years Later...
• Twenty Years Later...

Darkstars #30 (April 1995)

The Martian Manhunter was contacted by his Justice League colleague Wonder Woman, who had spotted something landing on Mars while on monitor duty. Imagine his horror when he saw Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) and Darkstar (Donna Troy) "...frolicking on the graves of a venerable old race." J'Onn tackled the startled couple, already addled from a previous encounter with Darkseid's son Kalibak.

Once the dust settled, J'Onzz told the duo, "Believe me... I have no great desire to be here. My memories of this place are anything but joyful." Perhaps that's why he was so irritable on this adventure, which led the three heroes to track down the uninvited spaceship that first caught the Amazing Amazon's attention. It belonged to "The Syndicate," an interstellar criminal operation often at odds with the Darkstars. "...They've razed an entire quadrant of my people's dwellings... Clumsy fools. Don't they know what they're destroying? This is all I have left! All my people ever wanted was peace... and it eludes them... even in death." The Manhunter launched into the hoods, but was repelled shortly thereafter by an energy cannon. Donna chided, "Damn it, J'Onn-- I never thought I'd be the one telling you to chill out. These syndicate-types aren't your garden-variety space goons. They pack a punch." Under Darkstar Troy's leadership, the group brought the Syndicate's operation down.

This was the first true meeting of J'Onn J'Onzz and Kyle Rayner, discounting passing glances during crossovers. At first, the Martian Manhunter questioned the new Green Lantern's courage and penchant for jokes, comparing him unfavorably to Hal Jordon, but acknowledged "I stand corrected," as the mission wound down. For Kyle's part, while he related to J'Onn's survivor's guilt after the death of his girlfriend, he still felt J'Onn was too tense and unfriendly. "Even a Martian's got to let off steam now and then. Doesn't he?" Manhunter departed with a curt, "My method of relaxation is my own business-- just as this Syndicate installation is yours. All I ask is that you remove them as quickly as you can. I don't relish the idea of coming back here." As for Darkstar Donna Troy, "J'Onn's not half-bad once you get to know him. Remember, this was his planet once--before his people were wiped out. I think he feels the weight of all those ghosts."

"To Wake The Dead!" was by Michael Jan Friedman, Mike Collins, and Ken Branch. Collins would of course return to J'Onn J'Onzz in Martian Manhunter Special #1 (1996). No love for the Alien Atlas on the cover, where his guest appearance went completely unacknowledged.

Green Lantern #87 (April, 1997)

Green Lantern Kyle Rayner can't believe that he's seated in a meeting with the new Justice League of America inside their new lunar base. Electric Blue Superman doesn't look the part, but he's still the Man of Steel, while Wonder Woman is the ultimate warrior he'd met in Gateway City. The Flash is closest to Kyle's age, but has many more years of experience, and never hesitates to remind Rayner of it. Batman barely shows up to these things and the tragic loner Aquaman barely more so. "Batman... gives me the creeps. He could probably wipe up the floor with the lot of us... J'Onn J'Onzz, the Martian Manhunter. He spooks me even more than Batman... Aquaman's surly if he's in a good mood, and Batman's just plain frightening. But at least they're both human. At least I think Batman's human. J'Onn's... not. And the green skin and that brow aren't what's alien about him. He seems so detached... cold. That Martian mind meld or whatever it was when we fought Know Man, that wasn't a lot of fun either. Don't get me wrong, I respect J'Onn. Incredible strength, shape-changing, invisibility, telepathy. He's really the next best thing to Superman, and he's been a hero forever. He just gives me the willies, that's all."

Green Lantern was stuck at the Watchtower after everyone else left to receive orientation from the Manhunter on facility operations. "Man, how much am I not looking forward to this?" Kyle tries to make awkward conversation, but "What do you say to a Martian?" Bringing up that he's a Martian? "I believe we're both aware of my heritage." Kyle figured J'Onn thought he was a dolt and entered a shame spiral that was blessedly relieved by the triggering of a long range scanner. A space craft larger than the island of Manhattan had dropped out of warp and begun firing a beam at Earth. Kyle initially didn't want to drag the rest of the just-departed JLA back, but the matter was rendered moot when communications were jammed. The ship was terraforming Southern California, where Kyle's mother lived, so he was in a hurry to address the ship. Likewise, the ship swiftly zapped the pair of interlopers.

"Maybe I'm a little more comfortable around Wally or even Supes, but being paired up with J'Onn has its advantages. His telepathy is better than AT&T in this void." The heroes' uncoordinated attacks dealt only incidental damage, so J'Onn recommended a more strategic approach. "Your ring allows you to be more adaptable than I. You concentrate on getting inside the ship... I'll provide what distraction I can. Listen to me. The last time I trusted a Green Lantern, an entire world died. Don't fail." Kyle refused to allow another Xanshi to happen, though where his confidence that he could avert one when John Stewart couldn't comes from, I'd rather not guess. The Green Lantern made his way into the ship expecting to confront an alien horde, and so is unnerved to find a single long dead extraterrestrial, seemingly by its own hand.

Startled when he was soon joined by the Sleuth from Outer Space, it was determined that the ship was entirely automated, and Green Lantern intended to blast the control panel with a replica machine gun before being physically deterred by the Manhunter. "...We don't know what effects disabling the ship's systems would have. Neither am I in the habit of destroying what I don't understand... And as you said, there seems to be as much organic component to this system as there is mechanical." The Martian Marvel was able to telepathically communicate with that element, learning the the ship was an ark carrying the seeding material to recreate the civilization that had perished on the long journey to find an appropriate substitute world. Luckily, John Stewart had told Kyle about a more suitable planet than Earth... called Mogo. "So what do you say, J'Onn? Not a bad first mission for the last Green Lantern and the last Green Martian." The Alien Atlas concurred, "In fact... quite fitting."

"Last of Their Kind" was by Ron Marz, Tom Grindberg, and Romeo Tanghal. I had to check several times to make sure that I hadn't written about this comic for the Idol-Head blog. I did a post linking to the late Shawn Engel's Just One of the Guys Podcast Episode #87, and I know I did a brief synopsis on my old WebTV page, but somehow never here. This was another early instance of my buying a comic book specifically for the Martian Manhunter logo on the cover, but it had more resonance than his slightly earlier Aquaman appearance. Arthur had used his long time association with J'Onn as a utility or plot device, where this story was specifically about how rookie hero Kyle Rayner related to the veteran J'Onn J'Onzz while trying to settle into his new team situation (having briefly served with The New Titans.) Despite having read Justice League titles off & on since the JLI period, including the final couple years of the previous incarnation, I very much appreciated the story's embrace of the new. For the first time, I felt like I was reading a "real" Justice League series, and despite being a young and not entirely accepted legacy, that "last" Green Lantern represented an icon that belonged in a revived comic book pantheon pantheon that included the Manhunter from Mars. Since the Detroit years, J'Onn had been treated as a mentor to younger heroes, so it made sense for Kyle to be shown under his watch. Kyle represented a revitalization of the Green Lantern brand that was legitimized by association with the JLA, while restoring his connection to both the icons and a more commercial newer hero allowed the Manhunter to gain a relevancy not really seen for him before. The story itself wasn't anything special, but it indicated a direction of welcome renewal for the World's Greatest Super-Heroes.

Adventures in the DC Universe #1 (April, 1997)

The Batman & Nightwing villain Blockbuster was attempting to steal millions of dollars worth of gold from the Denver Mint, and despite having been forewarned about the Martian Manhunter, was caught off-guard that the "treacherous alien" could turn invisible. J'Onn J'Onzz tried to cart the big brained brute back down into the tunnel he had dug underneath the mint to prevent his doing any more harm. Blockbuster fought back, unintentionally trigger a gas explosion, into which the villain vanished. The alien fought off his fear of fire to douse the flames by breaking a water main, then pondered Blockbuster's fate. Elsewhere, Flash's foe Super-Gorilla Grodd pulled a similar mid-heist disappearing act, as did recent Aquaman adversary Major Disaster, Superman scoundrel Parasite, Wonder Woman wretch The Cheetah, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner devil Dr. Light, and another Batman baddie, the Scarecrow. The JLA convened at their moon base, and the Caped Crusader traced satellite transmissions related to the vanishings to a location in the desert of the southwestern United States. The JLA crashed their cavernous base and easily overwhelmed the evildoers. However, a mysterious mastermind in an armored mech known only as "Cipher" easily downed Manhunter, Superman, and Lantern with weapons exploiting their weaknesses. Batman directed the JLA to victory, but when the allied aliens ripped open the armor, "He must have teleported away! The suit's empty!" Aside from a bomb to be evaded, that is. The League was left with a mystery, and their foe a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses...

The Justice League of America in "Now You See 'Em..." was by Steve Vance, John Delaney, & Ron H. Boyd. In the editorial material by Frank Berrios, Vance is introduced as a co-founder of Bongo Comics who designed several DC logos and wrote for Paradox Press' Big Book series. Delany was an animation veteran with credits including Flash Gordon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Savage Dragon who was looking for the creative liberty of... corporate comics? Boyd was a film school grad who had one of the longest run working on Legion of Super-Heroes titles. Despite being created as an intentional complement to the Batman and Superman animated series tie-in titles, they allowed Delany to indulge his own design aesthetic rather than hewing closer to the Bruce Timm school as Ty Templeton and Mike Parobeck had done on the short-lived Superman and Batman Magazine. However, like that magazine, Adventures clearly targeted a younger demographic with shorter, simpler stories. This one basically repeated the same plot in four segments of decreasing length, then three additional single panel summaries, leading to the final battle. It's nice that J'Onn got the second, and thus second-longest segment to introduce him to new readers. I preferred Delany's design to Timm's on the Manhunter, and I guess maybe Blockbuster was perhaps some sort of nod to Arnold Hugo and the Detective Comics run? As with Kyle Rayner and the hook-hand Aquaman, Adventures was aggressively rooted in then-modern comics continuity, perhaps to its detriment.

1997 Adventures in the DC Universe Promotional Poster

I was watching FOX on the Sunday evening of September 6, 1992 when the networked debuted Batman: The Animated Series, and either that night or soon after took to taping the broadcasts on long play EP-setting VHS tapes that I made crude custom sleeves to adorn (out of TV guide ads and other ephemera.) I had done the same thing for the early episodes of X-Men, (using trading cards and a Wizard magazine back cover ad,) and which I also recorded upon their debut, well ahead of the proper series' arrival. Wikipedia and the BTAS Wiki reports the show was launched the previous Saturday with "The Cat and the Claw: Part 1," with the second part offered on the following Saturday, but that's not how I remember it, so make of that what you will. These were the days when super-hero animated adaptations were still uncommon, and ones taking the material seriously especially rare, so I was enthused by any offering of familiar properties. I probably saw most of the first several seasons on FOX Kids afternoons. I thought it was a good show that captured the feel of the comics and sometimes bettered it, but also my interest in Batman began to wane, and I didn't find the noir-ish detective stories lent themselves to repeat viewings.

Superman: The Animated Series seems to have been much less loved, with "STAS" yielding no immediate search results in the way "BTAS" does. I was also over videotaping most super-hero programing by September 6, 1996, but I certainly watched the three-part origin "movie" upon its premiere on the Kids WB, though I don't recall it being on a Friday? I better enjoyed the Krypton saga than Batman battling Man-Bat, despite one of my earliest Batman exposures being a Power Record with Man-Bat. Aside from a period in the late '80s when the likes of "Year One" and The Dark Knight Returns reigned over all, into the early '90s as Batman Returns faded into Batman Forever, I've tended to prefer the Man of Steel to the Caped Crusader. Superman's cartoon was funner and more action-oriented, so I didn't mind as much that they ran a ton of repeats, especially since there were fewer episodes produced anyway. Regardless, I drifted away after a couple seasons.

Naturally, the next series was Wonder Woman: The Animated Series, but ha-ha girls stink go cry in your pillow fanboy. I'm writing this in the year 2022, and this world still hates women so much that the third leg of the supposed DC Trinity has never had her own cartoon series. Instead we jumped to Justice League, of which one of my best friends' girlfriends taped a few episodes off Cartoon Network for my broke ass, and I have still never seen broad swaths off. Instead, just as JLA was revitalizing DC fandom, a quasi-Timmverse series joined The Batman (and Robin) Adventures and Superman Adventures, this time "manifesting" a cartoon for DC instead of merely adapting...

Aztek: The Ultimate Man #10 (May, 1997)

The JLA have been graphically executed by the forces of Apokolips; the Flash's severed and bleeding legs particularly unsettling. "...the Martian Manhunter roasted alive" as Darkseid burns an American flag. Aztek explained what he would do in this situation, earning Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's approval at his handling of the three dimensional virtual simulacrum. "They're mentally-programmed by the Martian Manhunter... which is kind of freaky when you think how disturbing they are. I mean, he seems such a regular guy."

After the JLA title unexpectedly took off like a rocket, new readers flocked to the first new story after retailers started catching up with demand, #5, a one-off about a team recruitment drive. With both books sharing a writer, Aztek benefited from a creative overlap with a second lease on life after a critically regarded but commercially rejected title. To strengthen the connection, a rapidly ailing Professor Ivo, denied his immortality serum in prison, was brought to Dr. Curtis Falconer's hospital in the city of Vanity. Little of this was actually communicated to new readers, unfortunately, but context clues and modern wikis. Years into a lethal dispute, Ivo's Amazo android used the powers of the original Justice League to trap the JLA on the moon for a reckoning with his creator.

Prior, the Martian Manhunter chastised Flash and Green Lantern for bickering, and extended apologies for the absences of Superman and Batman. "As chairman of the new Justice League, it's therefore down to me to open the proceedings." Aztek's candidacy for membership was considered before Amazo's intrusion, and we would soon see the Falconer's "Ultimate Man" alter ego take a beating from the android. Relatively quickly, Wonder Woman realized that the Green Lantern energy bubble trapping the team might be vulnerable to the color yellow, as it was derived from Hal Jordan's power ring. Wrapping the Lasso of Truth around one hand, the Amazing Amazon shattered the energy sphere with a punch. The JLA made haste to Vanity, but when confronted, Amazo produced vials of the immortality solution. The game wouldn't be the same for Amazo if Ivo were allowed to pass.

Following several pages teasing aborted plotlines for the series, we returned to the JLA Watchtower, where Kyle questioned the rite being performed in the meeting room by a natural form Martian. "The Crimson Avenger was the first of our kind, Kyle. Conducting the ceremony before his costume is a sign of respect. Ritual must be observed. The Avenger also symbolizes an era when our secret words and handshakes were first employed in an age of spies and saboteurs. The bible written by the Justice Society serves us equally well in an age of science and shape-shifters." The candidate, Aztek, stated that he was ready. Batman and Superman made a one-panel cameo.

"A League of Their Own" was by Grant Morrison & Mark Millar, N. Steven Harris & Keith Champagne. I believe that this was the first book to slap the new JLA logo on a cover to boost sales, and though the print runs on this title were already abysmal, I bet the sell-through and reorders raised eyebrows. I know I pre-ordered mine on the strength of that gorgeous Steve Lightle cover, and I used a similar crop as that at the top of the post on my late '90s WebTV page. Getting into the interiors? Even post-bust, most DC titles could manage to get past their first year, so there were clearly problems here. The art simply wasn't up to major company standards at a time when stronger talents were hustling to find work, and the drab coloring did no favors. Morrison seemed to still be stuck in a Vertigo mindset attempting to create a stillborn "icon" for the DC pantheon, and this non-starter had to contribute to his protégée's eventual turn toward shock over awe. I know they did a collection a few years ago on the strength of the writers reputations, but I doubt there was any great groundswell around memorializing this project.

The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition variant cover by Ivan Reis

I still count the arrival of 1992's Superman #75 as part of my "childhood," but it's on that same sliding subjective scale of whether you consider Brett Kavanaugh an attempted rapist or just a "curious youth."* I'm basically declaring that I've touched base in a schoolyard game with my own mortality, pretending that any monumental date now three decades past doesn't mean I had to sidestep an open grave to get there. It's a little lie that I can still tell myself, though even I'm incredulous at the assertion. I officially stopped living anywhere but Texas past this point, and the anniversary is twice over any legal shielding for a felony here, plus the years needed to acutely recall the period. I am one of the olds, or in Ethan Hawke terms, “I’ve definitely made the turn from being an old young person to being a young old person.”

So anyway, I read a Newsarama article** that's clearly an unproofed first draft paraphrasing of DC's press release for the Generation X equivalent of a catalog relist for a story that wasn't that great in the first place. "The Death of Superman" was a morbid cash grab stunt that partially works as an indictment of the practice, with its threadbare story inching we(a)ekly toward an all splash page dudebro punch-out. What was supposed to be a reminder that DC was still around while drowning in Chromium Age excess got picked up by the media as the four color equivalent of the JFK assassination at the peak moment of comic book penetration of every urban and suburban area. Even then I was too jaded to fully buy in, but the hype was enough that the shady lady I was living with insisted that we travel to one of the many neighborhood comic shops to stand in line to buy a copy each of Superman #75. Quantities were limited, and I think we had to drive to Deer Park to find a shop that still had copies available to the public. When I caught a ride with my parents to go to the flea market where I had my pull box that Saturday, I was wearing the black armband. Unfortunately, the guy who ran the booth insisted that I buy my newly arrived Kelly Jones Sandman t-shirt before I got any comics, so I only had enough money for that and a spare copy of Superman #75 that I would soon trade in for store credit anyway (probably about $8 worth. Put me through college.)

I bring all this up because guys like Dan Jurgens (who takes a Stan Lee-sized portion of the credit for Jerry Ordway's tongue-in-cheek recurring suggestion at plotting sessions) love to tell you how many new readers this thing brought in, despite sales going off a cliff within two years and getting progressively worse with little abatement ever since. I'll admit that editorial and creative recognized the rising tide and offered the highly regarded "Funeral for a Friend" in the aftermath, but for many of us, Superman #75 was mostly a collection of pin-ups in a week starved for actual story. Also, the featured cover reminds readers that the Jurgens-created Bloodwynd was a separate character, despite Jurgens' own inadequate storytelling often leading online resources to assume they're one-in-the-same to this day. Also, despite my cynicism, I'm totally going to buy this stupid thing, if only to see Jon Bogdanove illustrate John Henry Irons again.

* It's academic because he's still sexually violating women with the full weight of the "Supreme" Court today. Go have a good cry at a Landry's steakhouse if you don't want to hear about it. You can't boycott what has only ever cost me money to begin with, and Martian Manhunter's story is about championing justice on this earth.

** I quit Comic Book Resources when they were forcing people to whitelist them to see articles, and stayed away because of their penchant for spoiler headlines. Newsarama is very lame, but the visual aesthetic is jazzier than The Beat and I don't go down any editorial rabbitholes, aside from mocking their moldy reheated listicles.

*** After nearly a quarter century of blogging, I still can't spell "separate" without spellcheck. Is it my accent?

JLA #5 (May, 1997)

At the Watchtower on the moon, Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman observed the "IF" entity on the monitor banks as it caused electromagnetic havoc on Earth. The newly electric blue Superman had attended Metamorpho's funeral with very few others, but now joined most of the League for a meeting. To combat accusations of elitism, the Man of Steel confirmed the intent to expand to a permanent roster of twelve to allow for new blood. Manhunter agreed, "...with reservations... We already have a long way to go before our current roster has even begun to function as a team. It's essential that we develop group tactics. Candidates included the then-current incarnations of Artemis, Damage, Steel, Supergirl, Hitman, Warrior, Green Arrow, Plastic Man, Aztek, and Max Mercury. An image of a seated J'Onn with his hands cupped on the meeting room table was statted in as he "considered" each candidate in turn, like the unintentionally destructive Damage, whose trial he had stood as a witness for a short time back. "We'll fix it. Next." Of this killer Tommy Monaghan, he simply requested, "...No smoking."

A final interviewee made a grand entrance, and Tomorrow Woman thoroughly won over the League as she worked tirelessly for days to help minimize the damage caused by IF. Batman eventually determined that IF was from the 32nd Century, having escaped the control of the U.S. military after having been confiscated from the Lord of Time. An especially strong EMP pulse would be required to stop it, and Tomorrow Woman sacrificed herself to deliver it. Unbeknownst to the League, Tomorrow Woman was the creation of Professor Ivo and T.O. Morrow, with the intent that she would win the trust of the team before killing them telepathically. Despite the word "freedom" having been intentionally left out of her vocabulary, her rudimentary android soul had manifested the will to reject her programming and act to the good. Superman saw to her burial, while J'Onn and Diana apprehended the mad scientists.

"Woman of Tomorrow" was by Grant Morrison, Howard Porter, John Dell and Pat Garrahy. It was a cute one-off take on the old Red Tornado / Vision scheme, and despite a solid design, it was honored by keeping future appearances by the heroine to a minimum. I recently bought the DC Direct action figure on sale. Inaction more like, and I have no confidence that it will ever stand under its own power, but the sculpt was decent. The diaphanous skirt was a nice touch.

Aquaman #28 (January, 1997)

The trio met in a parking garage, each dressed in trench coat and fedora. "Are you out of your mind," J'Onn asked, possibly meant literally. Not long prior, Aquaman had set his former teammate afire with napalm during a tense encounter with the Justice League, and had since fended off an alien invasion without alerting anyone, then declared war on the island nation of Japan. Ultimately, Aquaman was probably not insane, though he was emotionally unstable in this period, and very angry. In this continuity, Aquaman had been abandoned to die as an infant, but had survived under the guidance of an intelligent dolphin named Porm. An adoptive mother to the hero, Porm was killed by the Japanese sea captain Kimon Tanaka, who soon entered into a vendetta with Aquaman that saw him become the cyborg villain Demon Gate. Backed by the Japanese Government and Raiden Industries, the only path to avenging Porm meant entering into a proxy war between Japanese sea vessels and the ocean life under command of King Arthur.

An ancient cybernetic organism had taken command of Aquaman's nation of Poseidonis, so Manhunter was needed to help the Sea King and his current partner Dolphin (note uppercase) to penetrate its defenses, both physical and mental. Aquaman broke and subjugated the entity to his will, and used the power of Poseidonis to intimidate Japan until the government turned Demon Gate over to the sovereign. The Sleuth from Outer Space was very unhappy to have been misused by Arthur once again. "Gods... the loneliness... so near and so far, for centuries... just wanting to be touched... loved... we've done a terrible, terrible thing this day." The Alien Atlas abandoned the crusade before Aquaman finally claimed Kimon Tanaka from his brother, who willingly shut down Demon Gate's cybernetics. Initially intent on executing the killer of his mother, after the sea creatures sought clemency in Porm's loving name, Arthur instead sentenced him to life imprisoned upon a deserted island.

"Setting Sun" was by Peter David, Jim Calafiore, & Peter L. Palmiotti. As I've mentioned too many times by this point, I had an interest in Martian Manhunter dating back at least to my purchase of his 1985 Super Powers Collection Action Figure, but my true fandom began with 1996's Justice League: A Midsummer's Nightmare #2. With the help of Mike’s Amazing World of Comics, I've come to the conclusion that this was the first new comic that I bought specifically for J'Onn J'Onzz after that point of demarcation. I was a big fan of PAD's, and so excited for his upcoming run on Aquaman that I sought Sea King back issues to prepare. Problem being, I very much preferred the prior work to David's frankly underwhelming and derivative approach. I dipped into his run here and there, but it never took, and I was especially disinterested in the issues drawn in this brittle style. There was absolutely no reason for me to pick this issue up aside from the guest appearance, and therefore it was my first step toward the level of fandom that would see my developing pretty much the primary hub for the character on the internet. It wasn't especially rewarding, as I was at a loss amidst the plots and subplots of an unfamiliar leg of the run, but I still appreciated the prominent cover booking for our favorite Martian.

Action Comics #1042 (June, 2022)

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.

Cops busted in to bag the perps, but the Manhunter bolts to spend the day hanging out with... Zook and Gwen from the museum? J'Onn commits to spending more time being himself with his... friends... like the little girl fan he just met and the random lady that escorted him to a crime scene? Like Harry Callahan at the end of the first of five movies spanning 17 years, J'Onn disposes of his police badge. Did we ever figure out which cop he was in the first place? And his throwing it in the garbage could have been a meaningful critique on police violence, which isn't a topic in this story, so treating it like refuse was merely circumstantial?

"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.

Also, like Ostrander, the writer calls something a Zook that has no real similarity to the Silver Age character named Zook. To continue an analogy, that's like introducing Stephanie Brown as the new Bat-Mite. One is a human girl and one is a super-powered otherdimensional imp. There's not a parity there, just mutual diminishment. The little girl by definition can't be the thing she's named for, and the thing that still isn't getting screen time is at best suffering a trademark infringement besides. You can't announce that we're getting a sundae and hand us yogurt. That's just not even what you said you were going to do. Yogurt isn't ice cream drizzled with hot fudge and sprinkled with chopped nuts... maybe some whipped cream and a cherry? Even if there's a little cherry at the bottom of the yogurt, who do you think you're fooling?

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.