Absolute Martian Manhunter #1
Doing a "Bold Take" properly
DC Comics’ Absolute line of books currently has six ongoing titles: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, and the Martian Manhunter.
Of these, the latter is the weirdest. It’s also the most original, and it’s the most exclusive to the comic art format.
Broadly speaking, comic book art has gotten exponentially better over the decades, with some artist redefining the medium within my lifetime, making more and more lifelike drawings. Others are extremely cinematic in their styles. The comics could very easily transition from page to screen, and for too many creators they were meant to serve as auditions or sales pitches to film studios.
Deniz Camp (writer) and Javier Rodriguez (artist) both decided to walk a bolder—and riskier—path when they got the assignment to adapt Martian Manhunter for the Absolute series. What resulted was one of the most mind-bending stories and mind-bending interpretations of a psychic character who operates on an astral plane to affect the real world.
It would be hard for me to explain how and why without completely giving the execution away. It’s like an acid trip on paper, and the way it’s told through the art would not translate to cinema without coming off as just too jarring. That, or it’d have to be some ungodly hybrid of Baz Luhrmann and Edgar Wright in terms of style.
The story is about an FBI agent named John Jones who survives a suicide bomber attack in a coffee shop in Middleton City. After the attack he starts seeing things—weirdly-colored clouds around people’s heads—and he realizes he can hear thoughts. As he grapples with this new burden, he tries to mitigate a growing series of violent cases in his city, and the job takes him away from his wife and son more and more. In the periphery of his awareness, a green, one-eyed alien nudges him along and explains what it can as it learns about Earth.
And as Jones relies on the Martian to understand what’s happening to him and his city, he becomes aware of a second alien stoking contention and spurring people to commit heinous acts of terror, moving invisibly, and influencing them with his psychic powers.
All of this happens as Jones’ marriage is strained, and he finally has a come-to-Jesus moment with his wife. I was very pleased to see how that conflict resolved. Very pro-family. Seems like these stories usually end up with the MC giving up his family for the job, because it’s important or whatever, and that’s a crap thing to do.
Anyway, highly endorsed. Content warning for some of the violence—it’s mostly psychological, there are some grotesque implications, but the profanity is all bleeped out and stuff.
Bold take on a lesser-known character, and it could have gone horribly wrong, but both the writer and the artist handled it incredibly well. You’ve got to read it to see it.