Martian Manhunter

• 1. Introduction

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  Martian Manhunter, whose Martian name is J'onn J'onzz, first appeared in Detective Comics #225, dated November 1955. Writer Joseph Samachson and artist Joe Certa created him for DC Comics. He went on to become one of the seven founding members of the Justice League of America, and he has returned to the team in many of its later incarnations. He is known for wisdom, a gentle character, and an idealism about justice that makes him a natural voice of reason. Yet the facts of his life have been rewritten again and again. Where did he really come from, and who died with his world? Why does a being with such vast mental power fear something as ordinary as a flame? And how does a hero stay kind after losing nearly everything?

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• 2. Detective From Mars

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  In the debut story, Dr. Saul Erdel builds an experimental teleportation beam and accidentally pulls a green-skinned humanoid from Mars into his laboratory. The Martian explains where he is from. Erdel replies that sending him home would mean recalibrating the beam's robot brain, a job that could take years. Then J'onzz unexpectedly uses his shapeshifting to take a human guise. The shock kills Erdel and leaves the Martian with no way back.

  Rather than despair, J'onzz decides to fight crime while Martian technology advances far enough to rescue him. He takes the name John Jones and works as a detective in the fictional Middletown, USA.

  Detective Comics #226 gave him precognition, and a rush of new abilities followed. Telepathy, flight, atomic vision, and super-hearing soon joined the list. Like the Silver Age Superman, his powers were loosely defined and grew whenever a plot called for them.

  Mars was not yet a tragedy in these tales. Nothing suggested the planet was dead or that he was the last of his kind. Martian technology and other Martians appeared often, including his younger brother T'om J'onzz. In Detective Comics #236, from October 1956, he even makes contact with the planet and with his parents.

  Charter membership in the Justice League came after J'onzz revealed his existence to the world and began working openly as a hero. DC Comics feared overusing its flagship characters, so in the League's early years he often filled in for Superman. Green Arrow did the same for Batman. The Martian and the archer launched the team-up format of The Brave and the Bold, and J'onzz appeared there once more, working with the Flash.

  The detective John Jones was apparently killed by the Idol Head of Diabolu, an artifact that generates supernatural monsters. J'onzz abandoned that identity, judging that this menace would take a great deal of his time. His feature moved to The House of Mystery, where he fought the Idol Head for several years. Soon after its defeat, he posed as Marco Xavier to infiltrate Vulture, an international crime cartel, and destroyed it in the final installment of his original series.

  His last mission of this first tenure appeared in issue #61, from March 1968. Superman had been cleared to be a fully active League member, and J'onzz's appearances dwindled. His solo series ended with The House of Mystery #173, dated May-June 1968. In issue #71, his people finally came to Earth for him, and he left to found and lead New Mars. For the next 15 years he appeared only sporadically in DC titles.

  Superman was teleported to New Mars in 1972. J'onzz briefly returned to Earth by spaceship in 1975 and made another trip soon after, which led Superman and Batman to fight beside him on New Mars. Three years later he is discovered playing cosmic-level chess with Despero, using members of the JLA as the pieces. In 1984 he resurfaced in the DC Universe for good.

  His return coincided with several members resigning from the League, which left an opening for him. He revived his John Jones identity, this time as a private detective, and had to explain a 20-year disappearance.

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• 3. Rewriting Mars

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  In early 1987, DC relaunched its struggling Justice League of America series under the plain title Justice League. Writers Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis teamed with artist Kevin Maguire, later joined by Adam Hughes, and added quirky humor to the team. J'onzz was present from the first issue, often playing the straight man in comic situations. The run also gave him a lasting quirk, an obsession with Chocos cookies, traced to Shazam's influence.

  The four-issue miniseries Martian Manhunter, published in 1988 by J.M. DeMatteis and Mark Badger, changed far more. It revealed that Dr. Erdel had not died. J'onzz's humanoid look came from physiological trauma and from his attempts to block out the death of his race. That look was a compromise between his true form and Erdel's mental picture of what a Martian should be. Later series used retroactive continuity, or retcon, to say that his real form is private, and that even on Mars the familiar version was his public face.

  The series also gave Mars a native name, Ma'aleca'andra. It is a nod to Malacandra, the name the inhabitants of Mars use in C. S. Lewis's novel Out of the Silent Planet. More painfully, J'onzz was now displaced in time as well as space. His race, including his wife and daughter, had been dead for thousands of years.

  During the 1990s he served in many versions of the League. At one point he joined under duress, disguised as Bloodwynd, a mysterious and powerful necromancer. J'onzz took on Bloodwynd's physical form, stand-offish manner, and magical powers, while the real Bloodwynd was trapped inside his blood gem. The League fought Doomsday during The Death of Superman. After Doomsday hurled J'onzz into a burning building, Blue Beetle discovered the merged identity. It emerged that J'onzz had accidentally bonded with Bloodwynd before joining the League. The two were eventually separated, and both kept their ties to the team.

  The 1992 miniseries American Secrets, by Gerard Jones and Eduardo Barreto, looks back at a previously unknown adventure. Against the backdrop of a changing America in the 1950s, the Manhunter is drawn into a murder mystery that rapidly escalates into paranoia and alien invasion.

  In 1997, Grant Morrison and Howard Porter launched a new JLA with J'onn J'onzz as a founding member. Its first opponents were a group of White Martians calling themselves the Hyperclan.

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• 4. Brothers and Foes

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  John Ostrander and artist Tom Mandrake launched an ongoing Martian Manhunter series in 1998. Low sales ended it after 38 issues. Ostrander established that J'onzz is the most recognized hero in the Southern Hemisphere. He keeps many secret identities, mostly outside the United States, though John Jones remains his first and primary one.

  Cameron Chase later exposed some of those identities, and he began to rely on fewer. In another incident, part of his psyche split off, took the identity of John Jones, and died. To honor that lost part, J'onn retired all his other human identities.

  The first issue also revealed a real John Jones, a human police detective murdered by corrupt colleagues. J'onzz took his identity to see an important court case through. He kept the form because his earlier law-enforcement training suited a life among humans.

  His parents on Mars were influential figures named J'ahrl J'onzz and M'yrnn J'onzz, and J'onn was their firstborn. Twins are rare on Mars, and Martian society believed twins were one being divided between light and darkness. Before the birth, his mother, a precognitive mystic, had a vision. One of her sons would save their people, and the other would bring about their destruction.

  J'onn grew up to be a respected law enforcement agent. His twin was treated as a pariah, and J'onn was the only one who loved and defended him. That lasted until the genocide of Mars turned the brothers into enemies and fulfilled the prophecy.

  The brother is Ma'alefa'ak, also called Malefic, who lacks both telepathy and the weakness to fire. In this series he poses as J'onzz, using his shapeshifting. He captures and tortures Jemm, Son of Saturn, and terraforms part of Earth to resemble Mars, a process called areoforming. The goal is to convince the rest of the League that J'onzz has become a sociopath.

  J'onzz clears his name and defeats his brother, even though an exploding spaceship destroys most of his body. He survives by transplanting his soul into his severed hand and sending it back to his home fortress, where the body regenerates.

  Other foes fill out his rogues' gallery. Despero murdered the parents of J'onn's protégé Gypsy and of his teammate Steel, and J'onn has handed Despero some of his most humiliating defeats. The White Martians are a warlike, polar-dwelling race that opposes the desert-dwelling Green Martians. Their leader, Commander Blanx, killed the Martian race in the continuity before Crisis. Professor Arnold Hugo began as a Batman enemy before becoming J'onn's first recurring foe. The first genuine supervillain he ever faced was the Human Flame, who wore a suit that let him project fire.

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• 5. Powers and Their Price

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  Aquaman once explained that his own telepathy just "pings" off J'onzz, a sign of how far the Martian's mind outstrips others. J'onn J'onzz is the most powerful telepath on Earth. He can control and affect even the Spectre and Doctor Fate. He has linked the minds of all superheroes at once, from the Moon to every corner of Earth. He has also scanned the entire galaxy to see whether anyone was not feeling a brief moment of transcendent bliss. He can read the minds of every inhabitant of Earth at the same time.

  Telepathy also lets him build realistic illusions, trace people, shut down minds, and manipulate memory. He has mind controlled the Joker and made him temporarily sane. He has controlled several White Martians at once, and he can shield those around him from telepathic assault. His own defenses have held against the combined might of several White Martians and against the Mageddon machinery. Telekinesis appears only rarely and is often forgotten.

  His body is just as flexible. He often grows an extra pair of arms to add to his strength. With Superman and Wonder Woman, he once helped move a third of the Earth. He has also destroyed a Moon whose gravity had been increased a billionfold. He can stiffen or soften his body, stretch his limbs, and shape parts of himself into blades. By changing his density, he can pass through objects or become extremely dense and harder to harm. He can also turn invisible.

  His eyes see across the electromagnetic spectrum, including X-rays. He can fire energy beams called Martian beams, whose effects have varied by decade from incendiary to concussive to disintegrating. He has nine senses, compared with a human's five, and so perceives more and more clearly. Training as a manhunter on Mars also made him an expert tracker and hand-to-hand fighter, as well as a master detective. Batman's file on him reads: "in many ways, Martian Manhunter is like an amalgam of Superman and the Dark Knight himself".

  Against all this stands fire. In his earliest appearances the weakness showed up only when he was in his native Martian form. Over time it hardened into pyrophobia, an Achilles heel much like Superman's kryptonite. Exposure typically makes him lose his physical form and melt into plasma. One portrayal explained that fire causes such chaos in Martian minds that they collapse.

  The storyline Trial By Fire reveals that the weakness is psychosomatic. The Guardians of the Universe created it to stop the species from reverting to a highly aggressive earlier state.

  In JLA issues written by Joe Kelly, J'onzz tries to conquer his fear of fire. He makes a deal with Scorch, a flame-wielding villainess who wants his telepathic help with her own mental struggles. The two fall in love in the process. The effort turns him briefly into Fernus, the Burning Martian, an ancient version of the race modified by the Guardians. Burning Martians reproduced through the psychic energy of suffering and grief, and the Guardians had chosen to engineer them rather than destroy them.

  Fernus tried to spawn using the grief caused by the destruction of the city of Chongjin, though the Flash had saved its residents. Manitou Raven helped League members reach J'onzz's mind, and Plastic Man fought Fernus directly. The true J'onzz reasserted himself. Afterward he was invulnerable to flames unless they carried "psychic significance", such as magical or pyrokinetic fire, or fire set by an arsonist. Later stories forgot this change.

  In The New 52, the weakness becomes a crippling anxiety unique to him, rooted in the trauma of watching the Martians go extinct.

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• 6. Death and Resurrection

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  In Bialya, several weeks before World War III, Martian Manhunter disguises himself as a young girl and tries to defeat Black Adam telepathically. Adam's darkest memories overwhelm him, and he flees Earth. The miniseries World War III is told from his perspective. DC used these events as the catalyst to redesign him. His costume now covered his chest, and his look came closer to his original Martian form.

  A Martian Manhunter miniseries spun out of the DCU: Brave New World one-shot explored those changes. Written by A.J. Lieberman, with art by Al Barrionuevo and Bit, it showed a J'onzz more mistrustful of humanity. Its main thread was his search for other survivors of Mars.

  Before the Infinite Crisis miniseries, J'onzz is feared killed in an attack on the Justice League's headquarters. He is later revealed to be alive, held captive by Alexander Luthor Jr. In 52 #24, he is shown working behind the scenes to destroy Checkmate, unsuccessfully, for its role in the death of his colleague Ted Kord.

  He was meant to join the Outsiders and appeared in the third issue of Outsiders: Five of a Kind, with Thunder. A change of writers soon wrote him out. He then went undercover in the limited series Salvation Run, which ends with him captured and alone on an alien planet.

  In Final Crisis #1, from 2008, writer Grant Morrison kills him, and the one-shot Final Crisis: Requiem develops that death. He next appears in Blackest Night as a Black Lantern. By the end of that miniseries he is resurrected.

  Brightest Day gave him a prominent role. He finds a water source on Mars and meets Melissa, daughter of Dr. Erdel, tucking her into bed in a retirement home while wearing her father's form. Elsewhere, plant life dies whenever he draws near. He finds M'gann M'orzz beaten and tied up in Australia, and she says a female Green Martian attacked her.

  That attacker is D'kay D'razz, a psychopath who wants J'onzz as her mate. When he refuses, she enters his mind and tempts him with a fantasy in which the Entity has resurrected all the Martians. He realizes the vision is false and fights her off. He forces her into the Sun, though the Life Entity saves her from that fate.

  The Entity tells him that his mission is complete and returns his life. It then offers a choice between Mars and Earth. He chooses Earth, and the Entity absorbs him into the planet. He becomes the Elemental of Earth, and the Elementals are fused with the body of Alec Holland to make Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing battles the Dark Avatar, a Black Lantern version of himself, and afterward restores J'onzz to normal.

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• 7. The Last Martian

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  In 2011, DC relaunched its continuity after the Flashpoint crossover under the banner The New 52, canceling and relaunching every title. J'onzz was reintroduced as a member of Stormwatch, a covert group that had previously appeared only in comics from DC's Wildstorm imprint. Stormwatch #1 calls him a former Justice League member. The phrase is later retconned as shorthand for being a public superhero, and J'onzz says he never tried to join the League. Later League comics show that he was indeed a member for a time. In Stormwatch (vol. 3) #12, he quits and uses telepathy to erase himself from his teammates' minds.

  In Justice League of America, he serves on a U.S. government-sponsored League that takes orders from Amanda Waller and Steve Trevor. Each member is chosen as a counterpart to someone on the independent League, in case that League goes rogue. J'onzz is Superman's counterpart. In Justice League, he arrives when Despero attacks the Watchtower and defeats him with a telepathic assault.

  The Trinity War crossover brings the two Leagues together with Justice League Dark, after a diplomatic crisis in Kahndaq triggered by the young superhero Shazam. The Outsider reveals himself to be an evil counterpart of Alfred Pennyworth from Earth-Three, and the Crime Syndicate arrives. The three Leagues are soundly defeated, and Deathstorm traps J'onzz in the Firestorm matrix.

  Inside it, during the Forever Evil issues, he and Stargirl share an adventure linked through each other's memories. They stay close friends after being freed in Forever Evil #7. With Green Arrow, they become the core of a new League based in Canada, Justice League United.

  The fourth volume of Martian Manhunter, published in 2015-2016, gave him a new origin. Mars was once a living, thriving world millions of years ago. After a psychic warning, the Martian government recruited a young J'onn and others to investigate a threat. Ma'alefa'ak betrayed them and murdered every subject except J'onn, who then underwent a magic blood ritual that gave him his powers.

  He hunted Ma'alefa'ak and found the cause of the warning, a monster that took the shape of his own son. It was the physical manifestation of Mars. It asked for help and then judged the Martians unworthy of life, and Mars and all its inhabitants died. J'onn was sent to Earth. Before landing, he split himself into multiple identities that would not reunite for millions of years, and he kept no memory of his origins.

  He seems to die while trying to stop a series of bombings, but pieces of him survive and begin to bring him back together. On an alternate Mars, Ma'alefa'ak turns out to be another construct of J'onn's memories, planning a ritual to restore the real Mars with himself as ruler. The plan fails. The remaining constructs merge back into J'onn, and he finally accepts that he truly is the last Martian.

  In the DC Rebirth era, before Dark Nights: Metal, he leaves Thanagar in search of Nth Metal. Three Dark Knights imprison him with other heroes, and Wonder Woman rescues him. After No Justice, he rejoins the Justice League as its new chairman.

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• 8. Screens and Echoes

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  David Ogden Stiers played J'onn J'onzz in the television pilot Justice League of America, the character's first live-action appearance. That version could only shapeshift, and with difficulty, impersonating others for short periods. Phil Morris played him in Smallville as an old friend of Jor-El who came to Earth to watch over Kal-El. He loses his powers in the eighth season and joins the Metropolis Police Department, and Doctor Fate helps restore them in the ninth.

  David Harewood played him in the Arrowverse, starting with Supergirl. This version had lived on Earth for 50 years as an alien refugee. He used the guise of Hank Henshaw, who seemingly died in a failed attempt to kill him, and became director of the Department of Extranormal Operations. Forced to reveal his identity, he kept using Henshaw's form to ease dealings with humans.

  In animation, Carl Lumbly voiced him in the DC Animated Universe in a South African accent. That version was the last surviving Martian after an extended war with the alien Imperium. He serves as the expanded League's mission coordinator in Justice League Unlimited and temporarily leaves in the third season to explore Earth. In Young Justice, voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, he is not the last of his kind and is the uncle of Miss Martian. In Justice League: Warworld, Mongul uses him to create psychic illusions that keep captives in line, and he seemingly dies destroying Mongul's Warworld.

  In video games he is a playable character in Justice League Heroes, voiced by Daniel Riordan, and in Injustice: Gods Among Us, voiced by Carl Lumbly. In the Injustice prequel comic, he joins Batman's Insurgency and serves as a mole in Superman's Regime, taking the captured Hawkgirl's place.

  Harry Lennix played General Calvin Swanwick in the films Man of Steel, from 2013, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, from 2016. Fans theorized that Swanwick was secretly Martian Manhunter. Director Zack Snyder said he would consider the theory, and Lennix said that "someone else" wanted him to be the character in a future film. Snyder later said Swanwick was going to be Martian Manhunter in the original cut of Justice League, but the scene was not completed before he left. Lennix reprised the role in Zack Snyder's Justice League, from 2021, where the Martian's true form appears. An earlier project, George Miller's unproduced Justice League: Mortal, had cast Hugh Keays-Byrne in the part.

  Alternate versions keep reinventing him. In Kingdom Come he loses most of his powers and is trapped in human form after trying to open his mind to every human thought. On Earth-Three he belongs to the Crime Syndicate. In DC: The New Frontier he arrives in the 1950s and becomes a detective. In Dark Knights of Steel he is a composite who assumed the identity of Alfred Pennyworth. In Absolute Martian Manhunter, John Jones is an FBI agent possessed by the Martian, a being with no physical form.

  Other creators have borrowed him as well. Jack from Jupiter belongs to the Seven in The Boys, and Mark Markz appears in Jeff Lemire's Black Hammer. Martian Man and Shapesmith both appear in Invincible.

  A February 2018 collection from the DC Meets Looney Tunes line even pairs him with Marvin the Martian in a crossover special.

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