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Underground > Comic Books >

The Martian Manhunter

22:33 / 14.04.06

Sorry if this is a bit scrabbled, but I'm tired and still thinking this through,

The Martian Manhunter seems to be, for me, the model that, like, say, Spider-Man for Marvel, serves as the reader-in to the DC Universe, the character that most serves as being the "us" in that world. May not seem it at first, someone who has almost all the power of Superman, but he is the everyman character (shapeshifter) his weakness is primal (fire) he is the truest outsider in the DCU (unlike Superman, who he shares the 'last son of..." mantle with, he has less intergrated himself into their world, so is always looking in).

It was partly thinking about this and partly the Sandman thread that got me thinking about how MM serves as a bridge not only to our world, but also to Vertigo. There have been characters that have popped up in both universes, Zatana for example, but the MM seems to make the most sense existing in both. In a simple way there is something more spiritual and adult in the character that ties in with Vertigo's style, and for the most part his series seem to be Vertigo style books (the Mark Badger illustrated JM Demattis mini in the late eighties early nineties was pure horror, followed by a Sandman: MT style detective story in the prestiege mini that followed). His appearence in Animal Man made perfect sense.

Anyway, he seems to be the character that marries these two fractions of the same unvierse together in the most seemless way.

Thoughts?

Are there other characters that serve this purpose for you?

Would a Vertigo MM book work?

23:30 / 14.04.06

It could work. I could actually see MM working as an exploration of one of Grant's favorite themes, that of "fluidity of identity". While we've seen his "true form" on occasion, most of his appearances have _literally_ been "flesh suits"... forms he's taken to fit in among others.

His telepathy also lends itself to exploration... in a society of telepaths, it must be very hard to wear the kind of masks we use every day.

02:06 / 15.04.06

I'll tell you how to make a good Martian Manhunter comic.

1. Get Peter Milligan to write it.

2. Get Doug Mahnke or Norm Breyfogle on art.

02:08 / 15.04.06

Word.

06:51 / 15.04.06

Bill of R - I read mario's post before going to bed last night, and automatically thought of Milligan, considering how much talk has been going around about his writings of the concept of identity etc. Plus Breyfolge - beautiful.

I tried to think of something, but was too tired, and couldn't get past something along the lines of him shifting out of the DCU and more into the Vertigo universe, where heroes aren't on every corner, and it's more supernatural foes and murders, and him becoming a kind of James Ellroy Budd White meets Kolchak the night stalker kind of character - effectively the strongest person in town, but not seen as a hero because the idea is so alien (no pun etc) to that universe, so he spend more time in disguise and sluthing. But as I say I was tired so not that great an idea, and the whole hero in another universe has just been done in Captain Atom. meh...

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

06:57 / 15.04.06

Yeah, a Milligan Martian Manhunter series could potentially be divine. The concept of J’onn having a collection of hundreds of secret IDs, some of whom are pet cats could be incredibly fertile soil for Milligan goodness, and that’s before you even get to Mars, or the telepathy or any of the other things Milligan could have a lot of fun with. I wouldn't necessarily want to see the book published under the Vertigo banner as things stand though, J'onn's status as being simultaneously the heart and soul of the mainstream DCU universe and an outsider to it would I think be pretty badly compromised by the ridiculously low amount of interaction DC currently allow Vertigo books with the rest of the universe. Better to keep him in the kind of very nearly Vertigo territory most of his series have taken place in to date, which personally I feel is an area sadly not tapped nearly enough these days.

miss wonderstarr

08:09 / 15.04.06

Another vote for Milligan, but on a different count: because Milligan is good at, and interested in, writing "queer" identity. (Enigma, Shade, maybe also Rogan Josh, Skin, in terms of body shape ... in a way, all his work with McCarthy is... "aesthetically queer" in its spilling out of and subversion of comic boundaries... I shall pick up on this rambling later.)

Darwyn Cooke, I think, picked up on J'Onn's outsiderdom and alienness in 1950s America, in "New Frontier". That would seem a good way in, to me. J'Onn as an excessive, subversive figure who transcends and transgresses human categories of ethnicity and sex. Those boundaries mean nothing to him as a Martian. They're just another disguise, useful for the connotations he's learned that they carry for humans (I believe he became a stereotypical-curvy cheesecake woman in one story - "The Nail" maybe - as a means to an end).

At the same time, J'Onn is always in disguise and hiding his true self, the less appealling, less humanoid Martian side with the Easter-Island head, rather than the noble brow. Maybe it's a release for him to let this out when he's alone. (Wouldn't he feel able to do it in front of Superman, Green Lantern, colleagues who've toured space and surely seen more extreme exotica?) Maybe it's starting to pain him, emotionally at least, to keep squashing his alienness even when mixing with superheroes.

I think you could do a lot there with "passing" and "masks", having to conceal and repress the one physical form that's true to him while he takes on all these other shapes - his own "alien-lite" face to be accepted by others, and a multitude of disguises to manipulate human response.

Anyway, returning to the above, Milligan's "Skin" is about bodies that don't fit the norm, and adapting to fit a culture where yours isn't acceptable, so it confirms Milligan as a guy with, I think, interesting thoughts pertinent to this concept; I would also like to see McCarthy on the project to depict J'Onn's transformations, his hallucinations, fantasies and Martian dreams.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

08:26 / 15.04.06

You know on a certain level damn this thread! Yesterday the fact that there wasn't a monthly Milligan Martian Manhunter book on the stands wasn't at all a problem for me. Now I just feel a gaping hole in my comic book buying habits that only a book which sadly doesn't exist can possibly fill.

miss wonderstarr

08:30 / 15.04.06

You know there's those All-Star Challenge threads, where amateurs with tons of talent come up with full-fledged concept treatments for new comics: maybe there should be another workshop where people write (and others illustrate) titles like the Milligan Martian Manhunter.

12:44 / 15.04.06

Gimme a couple of days to think about it, and I'll give you an All-Star Manhunter pitch.

15:47 / 16.04.06

You might want Milligan but you're getting A.J.Lieberman. There's prolly a moral in there somewhere.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

17:13 / 16.04.06

Hmmm, never read anything by the guy. Is having him on Martian Manhunter a very bad thing then? I mean obviously it's going to be a very bad thing as compared to having Milligan do it, but is it a very bad thing in and of itself?

Haus of Mystery

18:53 / 16.04.06

Milligan on the Manhunter? Hmmmm. Not my first choice. He's not always so great with other people's creations. Don't get me wrong, I'm an old skool Milliganite, but I feel other writer's could do J'Onn J'Onzz more justice.
Anybody read 'American Secrets' from years ago. To my mind that was the best handling of MM to date. It had everything; beatniks, Castro, fixed Quiz shows, Aliens, rock'n'roll, suburban lizard creatures, and the big green bean himself in all his taciturn glory.

A woefully underrated book.

14:52 / 17.04.06

Is Leiberman bad? Harley Quinn and Gotham Knights both got cancelled whilst he was writing them and Bat Books never get cancelled.

I've found his work to be pedestrian at best. In the Hush Retruns collection there are retellings of the Killing Jokes Red Hood flashbacks (The Joker sits by a fireside telling the story to The Penguin and The Riddler) and another that retells the origin of Prometheus. Apart from the framing sequences we leatn nothing new, there's no interesting narrators perspective on stories already told. For 22 pages he simply retold somebody elses story.

Anyway I'll still be buying a few issues because it's J'onn, though I'm not optomistic. I'm the person that liked the Ostrander/Mandrake series and think it deserved a stay of execution though. Failing that DeMatteis should have another stab, preferably with Giffen this time.

There's an upcoming dollar comic with half a dozen short stories showcasing new series so at least it won't cost too much to get a taste.

17:27 / 17.04.06

The Lieberman series is only eight issues - so who knows. I haven't read anything by him. I couldn't get into the Ostrander series, but really liked the DeMattis mini and the American Secrets prestiege mini.

18:39 / 17.04.06

The mini series was prolly the best thing Gerard Jones wrote solo, though that history of American comics he wrote in the mid nineties wasn't bad.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

18:39 / 17.04.06

I enjoyed the Ostrander series as well, the Mandrake art probably played a big role in this, but as far as I’m concerned Ostrander’s occasionally presumably brain spasm induced bits of stinking bad dialogue aside I think the guys a fairly decent writer, if a little unoriginal. He’s no George or Peter but he can string together a readable story and comfortable sits as one of the better second division writers about for my money. Mind you the fact that aged 10-12 Shiny really loved the Ostrander/Mandrake Firestorm probably skews my opinion of the team quite a bit. It did seem for a while in the eighties and nineties that with DeMatteis, Ostrander and even Gerard Jones that DC were determined that J’onn should be handled by good but not great writers. Still despite the fact a lot of us know a heck of a lot better I suspect that Milligan probably has about the same level of status and acclaim I in the wider comic book buying world as those guys, so maybe it’s something DC might consider one day.

18:48 / 07.06.06

He's about to get his own book, written by the not-very-good former GOTHAM KNIGHTS writer, A.J. Lieberman (who used Hush like crazy and managed to make him even worse of a character). J'onn will now be all dark and distrustful and have a cone-shaped head. With ridges. And a weird new costume.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

15:19 / 12.08.06

Did any lithers pick up the first issue of the new Martian Manhunter series? I was tempted, but from what I hear elsewhere on the net I'd probably have hated it so I resisted. Still I value opinions here an awful lot more than 'elsewhere on the net', so I'd like to know what lithers thought.

17:19 / 12.08.06

I'm not impressed. With all of his potential, the best they could come up with is "J'onn discovers humans are bastards".

The most annoying part? J'onn is confronted by a crowd that doesn't recognize him as a member of the JLA... and doesn't even think "Gee... maybe if I shapeshifted to the form that's known all over the planet, that might help?"

And the less said about his new "Skrull-chin" the better.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

18:59 / 12.08.06

Cheers. Sounds like pretty much what I'd figured. I'm glad I glad I resisted now. It's a shame, as we've already established in this thread Martian Manhunter is easily one of the most potential packed characters DC has. Oh well maybe next time.

19:10 / 12.08.06

Well to be fair he does think that...but decides not to do it out of spite. Hmmmm. That doesn't make it any better does it?

It was pretty poor for a first issue, and depended too much on the reader being familiar with the teaser story. J'onn becoming a hard, distrustful bastard just seem wrong to me, contrary to everything we know about him. Still...it'll be ignored and forgotten sooner than a simili would be handy here.

19:26 / 12.08.06

I'll admit that I skimmed that bit. But that makes it worse.

Shiny: Well Over Thirty

19:31 / 12.08.06

Ew. So J'onn's spiteful now. I honestly can't think of one DCU character of whom that ought to be less true. I'm actually beginning to get quite glad I'm broke at the moment because otherwise I would have bought this book.

13:30 / 13.08.06

Yeah, I'm regretting buying it. Two reasons - One : I didn't like it and Two : I don't have the willpower to drop it until I've tried again.

02:07 / 16.08.06

The issue was OK, although it relied in part on the reader having read the BNW preview short story.

All told, this felt somewhat awkward and structurally forced. John's attitude is intriguing as is his new look. I'll give this another issue to hook me.

Jared Louderback

03:34 / 17.08.06

This is so bad. I don't understand how someone could take something as awsome as the Martian Manhunter, and make it so... bad. It must an Illuminati plot.

21:47 / 19.12.06

Just read the American Secrets thing the other day - i liked it. Gerard Jones did some nice things with 50s americana there, though the whole thing boiling down to an alien fungus mind-control conspiracy wasn't so great, nor was J'onn's rejection of the other martian's offer to recreate Mars - that could have been drawn out a lot more for better conviction and motivation.

I did like the ending, though - it's not fixed, but it's on its way to being fixed. And the "He's a martian. I'm a beatnik." thing was nice too.

And the MAD Magazine/Bill Gaines subplot was nice, too.

I thought Darwyn Cook's interp. of MM in New Frontier touched on similar themes - maybe cos they were both set in the fifties?

There are so many characters out there now who at one stage I'd've said I'd love to write comics for, but of late they've been retconned and reinvented so much that you'd have too much trouble sorting it all out, esp. since the latest reinventions are all so naff: blue beetle, martian manhunter, red tornado...