Martian Manhunter
The Martian Manhunter is a superhero in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Joseph Samachson and artist Joe Certa, the character first appeared in the story "The Manhunter from Mars" in Detective Comics #225. Martian Manhunter is one of the seven original members of the Justice League of America and one of the most powerful beings in the DC Universe.
He has also been featured in other DC Comics products, such as video games, television series, animated films, and merchandise like action figures. In live-action, the character first appeared in the television pilot Justice League of America, played by David Ogden Stiers. He also appeared in the series Smallville, played by Phil Morris, and in the Arrowverse series Supergirl, played by David Harewood. Harry Lennix played the character in the DC Extended Universe, under the guise of General Calvin Swanwick, in the films Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, with Martian Manhunter's true form appearing in Zack Snyder's Justice League.
Publication history
Silver Age (1950s–1960s)
Martian Manhunter aka John Jones debuted in the back-up story "The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel" in Detective Comics #225, written by Joseph Samachson and illustrated by Joe Certa. The character is a green-skinned humanoid from Mars, who is pulled to Earth by an experimental teleportation beam constructed by Dr. Saul Erdel. The Martian tells Erdel where he is from, and Erdel tells him that to send him back will require the teleportation beam's robot brain to be recalibrated, and that this may take years. J'onzz then unexpectedly uses his shapeshifting to assume the guise of a human; the shock of seeing this kills Dr. Erdel and leaves J'onzz with no way of returning home. The character decides to fight crime while waiting for Martian technology to advance to a stage that will enable his rescue. To that end, he adopts the identity of John Jones, a detective in the fictional Middletown, USA.During this period, the character and his backstory differ in some minor and some significant ways from modern treatments. Firstly, as with his counterpart, the Silver Age Superman, J'onzz's power range is poorly defined, and his powers expand over time as the plot demands. The addition of precognitive abilities is quickly followed by telepathy and flight, "atomic vision", super-hearing, and many other powers. In addition, his customary weakness to fire is only manifested when he is in his native Martian form.
A more significant difference is that in this version of him, there is no suggestion that Mars is a dead planet or that the character is the last of his kind. Many of the tales of the time feature either Martian technology or the appearance of other Martian characters such as his younger brother T'omm J'onzz. Detective Comics #236, for example, features the character making contact with the planet Mars and his parents.
J'onzz eventually reveals his existence to the world, after which he operates openly as a superhero and becomes a charter member of the Justice League. During the character's initial few years as a member of the Justice League, he is often used as a substitute for Superman in stories as DC Comics were worried about using their flagship characters too often in Justice League stories, fearing overexposure. The Martian and the archer inaugurated the team-up format of The Brave and the Bold. J'onzz appears there one other time, working with the Flash. In some stories he is shown travelling through space at near-light speed or to other planets.
The detective John Jones is ostensibly killed in action by the Idol Head of Diabolu, an artifact that generates supernatural monsters. J'onzz abandons the civilian identity as he decides fighting this new menace will take a great deal of his time. At this point his feature moves to The House of Mystery, where J'onzz spends the next few years in battle against the Idol Head. Shortly after its defeat, he takes the persona of Marco Xavier to infiltrate the international crime cartel Vulture, which he defeats in the final installment of his original series.
As Superman was allowed by DC to become a fully active member of the Justice League, J'onzz's appearances there dwindled. He last participated in a mission in his original tenure in #61, shortly before his solo series was discontinued. In #71, his people finally came to Earth for him and he left with them to found and become leader of New Mars. Over the next 15 years, J'onzz appeared sporadically in various DC titles.
Bronze Age (1970s–mid-1980s)
In 1972, Superman was teleported to New Mars. J'onzz briefly returned to Earth via spaceship in 1975. J'onzz made another trip to Earth shortly thereafter, leading to Superman and Batman fighting alongside him on New Mars. Three years later, he was discovered playing cosmic-level chess with Despero, using JLA-ers as the pieces. The Martian again encountered Superman in outer space. He permanently resurfaced in the DC Universe in 1984. Shortly thereafter, the League had several members resign, leaving an opening for the Manhunter. While staying on Earth, he decided to revive his John Jones identity, this time as a private detective, but had to explain his 20-year "disappearance".Post-''Crisis'' (mid-1980s–mid-1990s)
In early 1987, DC revamped its struggling Justice League of America series by re-launching the title as Justice League. This new series, written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis with art by Kevin Maguire, added quirky humor to the team's stories. J'onzz is present from the first issue and within the stories is used as a straight man for other characters in comical situations. The series also added a number of elements to his back story that have remained to the present.The 1988 four-issue miniseries Martian Manhunter by J.M. DeMatteis and Mark Badger further redefined the character and changed a number of important aspects of both his character and his origin story. It is revealed that Dr. Erdel did not die and that the character's humanoid appearance was due to physiological trauma and attempts to block out the death of his race, his familiar appearance a "compromise" between his true form and a human appearance based upon Erdel's mental concept of what a Martian should look like. Later series use retroactive continuity to establish that his real form is private and that, even on Mars, his "public" appearance was the familiar version. The native name for Mars is said to be "Ma'aleca'andra" in his native language. The series also adds to canon the idea that J'onzz was not only displaced in space but in time and the Martian race, including J'onzz's wife and daughter, has been dead for thousands of years.
The 1990s saw the character continue to serve in many different versions of the Justice League of America. In addition to serving in the League under his own identity, he also joins disguised as "Bloodwynd," a mysterious and powerful necromancer. J'onzz assumed the physical form, stand-offish mannerisms and magical powers of Bloodwynd, while Bloodwynd himself was transported and trapped inside of his "blood gem". It was during this time the JLA engaged Doomsday in The Death of Superman series. After being hurled by Doomsday into a burning building, Blue Beetle discovers the merged identity of the two heroes. Soon after, it is revealed that J'onzz accidentally bonded with Bloodwynd prior to joining the League. The two are eventually separated and both continue their associations with the League.
The 1992 miniseries American Secrets is set in the character's past, exploring a previously unknown adventure against the backdrop of a changing America during the 1950s. Written by Gerard Jones and with art by Eduardo Barreto, the series finds the Manhunter drawn into a murder mystery that rapidly escalates into paranoia and alien invasion.
Post-''Zero Hour'' (mid-1990s–mid-2000s)
In 1997, J'onn J'onzz became a founding member of Grant Morrison and Howard Porter's new JLA where the team fought a group of White Martians, the Hyperclan.Martian Manhunter began as an ongoing series in 1998, written by John Ostrander and illustrated by Tom Mandrake. The series lasted 38 issues before being canceled due to low sales. Ostrander established that Martian Manhunter is the most recognized hero in the Southern Hemisphere and that he maintains a number of different secret identities, many of them outside the United States, though his primary and first secret identity is still John Jones. However, after Cameron Chase reveals some of his identities to the public, he begins to use fewer secret identities. In another incident, part of his psyche splits off from his main personality, taking on the identity of John Jones before dying; the experience leads J'onn to "retire" all of his other human identities aside from Jones to honor the part of him that died.
J'onn J'onzz is a native of the planet Mars, and his parents were influential figures in Martian society: his mother, J'ahrl J'onzz, and his father, M'yrnn J'onzz. Also known as the Martian Manhunter, J'onn was the firstborn. Twins are rare on Mars, and Martian society believed that twins were meant to be a single amalgam, divided between light and darkness. His mother, a precognitive mystic, had a vision before their birth: one of her sons would become the savior of their people, while the other would bring about their destruction. J'onn grows up to become a respected law enforcement agent. Although his twin was seen as a pariah by Martian society, J'onn was the only one who loved and defended him — until the genocide of Mars, which turned the two brothers into enemies, fulfilling their mother’s prophecy. The series establishes J'onzz's brother as Ma'alefa'ak, who uses his shapeshifting abilities to pose as J'onzz, capturing and torturing Jemm, Son of Saturn, and terraforming part of Earth to resemble Mars. This is all part of a grand plan designed to convince the rest of the Justice League that J'onzz has turned into a sociopath. However, J'onzz is able to clear his name and defeat Ma'alefa'ak despite having most of his body destroyed in an exploding spaceship.
The series also further established the history of both the Manhunter and the Saturnian race. The first issue revealed that there was a "real" John Jones, a human police detective who was murdered by corrupt colleagues, and that J'onzz subsequently assumed his identity to complete an important court case. He kept Jones' form upon realizing that he could use his prior training in law enforcement as a means of blending in with humanity.
In issues of JLA written by Joe Kelly, J'onzz attempts to conquer his fear of fire and makes a deal with a flame-wielding villainess named Scorch, who wants J'onzz's telepathic help in dealing with her own mental issues, the two falling in love in the process. This effort results in J'onzz briefly transforming into the Burning Martian, Fernus, an ancient version of the Martian race that were modified by the Guardians of the Universe; the Guardians had recognized the danger that the Burning Martians posed to civilized life as they 'reproduced' through the psychic energy generated by suffering and grief, but had simply engineered the Martians into their new state rather than destroy them. As part of this engineering, the Martians had been 'programmed' with a new vulnerability to fire, with J'onzz breaking the genetic blocks against fire, also giving him access to race memories of the Burning Martians. Despite Fernus' power, the League were able to help J'onzz reassert himself over Fernus, Manitou Raven helping key League members access J'onzz's mind and draw out his true self while Plastic Man battled Fernus directly, allowing the true J'onzz to manifest when Fernus attempted to spawn using the psychic grief caused by the destruction of the city of Chongjin, the sorrow enough for at least one spawning even if the Flash had saved the city's residents. With Fernus' physical form defeated, J'onzz's traditional aversion to fire was redefined, as he is now invulnerable to flames unless they are "flames of passion" or of some other "psychic significance". This change is forgotten about in later series and adventures.