Happy Holidays, everybody. If you
are wondering why I didn’t do a Christmasy themed post on either the twenty
fourth or fifth, the short answer is, once again, poor time management skills.
That, and I really don’t know too many superheroes that are staunch enough
Christians to warrant giving them the holiday spot like I did Magneto. So,
there you go. On with the show. Today, I’ll be discussing J’onn J’onzz, the
Martian Manhunter. This is going to be weird.
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| Do you have a problem with pants J'onn? |
Eons ago the planet we know as Mars
was a world brimming with life. The natives called their world Ma’aleca’andra.
Mouthful. The planet was home to two species of shapeshifters, the peaceful Green
Martians, and the warmongering White Martians. The Greens, somehow, were the
dominant variation of Martian. A Martian couple M’yrnn (male) and Sha’sheen
(female) were given the odd gift of twin sons. Apparently, twins among Martians
is almost unheard of, and as such the couple were… less than thrilled by the
prospect. The older of the two boys was named J’onn J’onzz, which means ‘Light
to the Light’ and the younger son was named Ma’alefa’ak, which means ‘Darkness
in the Heart.’ Sigh, people, even if you are one hundred percent sure your kid
will eventually be evil, you shouldn’t help them along by naming the child
something equivalent to Satan Beelzebub McBadguy! Jeeze. J’onn grew up to
become a Manhunter, the Martian equivalent of a police officer, as well as an
amateur philosopher. He had a family and was all around a happy man…alien…thing.
Ma’alefa’ak was less happy.
Apparently he lacked the ability to communicate telepathically, the Martian’s
main form of communication. Regarded as a freak and a monster by everyone,
great parenting J’onzz’s, Ma’alefa'ak grew to despise Martian culture. Being a lover
of Irony, he devised a way to punish the greater part of the Martian society by
using the ability denied to him by nature. He created a virus which he named H’ronmeer’s
Curse. H’ronmeer is the Martian God of Death and Darkness, appropriate. The
virus attacked Martian’s via their telepathy. Any Martian that telepathically
communicated with the infected would they themselves be infected, receive a symbol
of H’ronmeer on their forehead, and shortly after burst into flame. Martian’s also
suffer from sever pyrophobia, so this was like a double slap of terror. J’onn
was one of the last Martians left alive, and spent most of his time disposing
of the dead. Before he could enact his vengeance on his brother, or succumb to
the virus himself, J’onn was transported across time and space by Dr. Saul
Erdel.
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| That's a scary face. Probably a scary punch And scariest of all is that he can kill you with a thought. |
Erdel used ancient Martian tech to
make what he thought was a communication device, which turned out to be a
teleporter. J’onn came across about 500 years or so to end up in Erdel’s lab. Suffering
from some understandably awful psychological scars, J’onn was half insane and
incredibly unstable. Erdel was the first organism J’onn had seen in years that
he was 100% sure was not infected and his mind instantly connected with Erdel.
The link showed Erdel all of J’onn’s tragic history, and the cause of his
psychosis. Over the course of a few weeks Erdel helped restore J’onn’s sanity and
gave J’onn the idea to become a human champion. J’onn, being a Martian and thus
a shapeshifter, took on a more human appearance and superhero costume. Erdel,
being an old scientist that clearly didn’t get out much, had a heart attack and
died. Damn.
J’onn created the identity of John
Jones and became a police officer. For all those things that a police officer
of the DC-verse can’t handle, he was the Martian Manhunter, a green alien of
immense power. He helped form the Justice League and was the one member to
remain with it through all of it’s incarnations. The Green man from Mars
desires two things, to safeguard his new home, and to perhaps find survivors of
Mars.
Martians possess a number of
supernatural abilities. They can shapeshift into different people, organisms,
sexes, grow or shrink to absurd sizes, and change colors. This also allows him
to repair from immense damage, harden his body, and absorb just about any
amount of kinetic force. Oh, and his superhuman, er super-Martian, immune
system protects him from terrestrial disease. So, no War of the Worlds ending for J’onn. He can change his body to
reflect light, rendering him invisible to the naked eye. He is both telekinetic
and telepathic. He can fly, move at super speeds, see into the infrared and
electromagnetic spectrum, hear from great distances, and breath with the force
of a jet engine. He’s also an experienced detective. He’s basically what would
happen if you took DNA from Superman, Batman, Mr. Fantastic, and Jean Grey,
mixed them together and dyed him green. Scary as hell. Oh, and he can take his molecules out of phase, allowing him to pass through solid objects as if they weren't there. Like he needs more power.
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| See J'onn? Was that so hard? |
Despite his immense powers, he has
an intense fear of fire. It is something all but encoded in his DNA. And his
experiences during the plague of his people didn’t help this. It’s a fear so
intense that it causes him to lose his powers. If it is a particularly intense
fire it causes him to lose control of his shapeshifting powers, turning him
into a pile of goo. Messy. Also, he has an extreme addiction to cookies. They're like Crack to him.
J’onn is a very popular alien
visitor, appearing in a number of DC material.
He was a founding member of the
Justice League in the animated version of the series. In this version he’s the
last surviving member of his race after a race of aliens assaulted Mars. He
remained alone on Mars watching over the monsters, until humanity landed on
Mars while he was in a hibernation cycle. The aliens escaped, assaulted Earth,
and J’onn followed. He joined the JLA and became one of their most powerful
members. In the episode Tabula Rasa,
J’onn becomes disillusioned with the “selfish human race,” and spends most of
the episode in his Martian form deep in a forest. To be alone with his thoughts. Naturally. His faith is restored when he witnesses a
group of humans searching for a little girl and sees and ‘hears’ via telepathy,
how far these people are going for someone they don’t even know. His last,
greatest contribution is against he Amazo android. The machine has the power to
copy superhuman powers, and for most of the episode the JLA keep J’onn away
from the fight, fearing what Amazo could become if he got the Martian’s powers.
When J’onn finally does join, Amazo uses his new telepathy to realize he was
being used by the insane Lex Luthor, and leaves the planet.
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| The human John Jones. You only know he's Martian when he's eyes glow red. |
He doesn’t do much in the sequel
show Justice League Unlimited, in
fact he barely leaves the Watchtower for most of the show, and when he finally does go on a mission afterwards he goes on a sabbatical to reconnect with humanity for the rest of the shows
run. Despite this, he is instrumental in fighting off Darkseid’s invading army in the
series finale. Apparently, while on his sabbatical, he moved to China, got
married, and enjoyed his sort of retirement. In his remaining scenes he is shown to be
much warmer and open then when he left, even taking the moment to call his wife
and assure her he’d be home for dinner. Good Guy, J’onn J’onzz. Er, John Jones. Or a Chinese equivalent
to that.
He is an important character in the
live action Smallville. In this he
was portrayed by Phil Morris, whom had been Vandal Savage in the JLA series. In the first episode where he's introduced "Static," he saves Clark from an escaped alien prisoner from the Phantom Zone. He is formally introduced in "Labyrinth" where he saves Clark from another Phantom that entered Clark's mind in an attempt to gain control of his body. The Phantom creates a complex delusion to convince Clark that he's insane and the last six years of his life was part of an elaborate fantasy. Clark escapes partially thanks to J'onn, and partially thanks to the family dog. After this he
serves as a mentor for young Clark for a good portion of the show. He has a
great respect for Clark and his potential, even going so far as to fly him to
the Sun to restore his powers, even though it cost J’onn his own. He’s just a Metropolis
Police Detective, and friend of Clark's for the eight and half the ninth season,
until the mystical Doctor Fate restored J’onn’s powers just before he was
stabbed to death. This is also the one and only time that we see J’onn in his
true Martian form, after Fate pushes him backwards we see a flash of him in his green skin and Mars before passing out..It's not the best design, but true to the character's roots. He helps the joint JSA and future JLA stop the villainous Icicle from killing them all. He also loves Oreo's, very true to his original character.
He appears a few times in Young Justice. In this version of events,
he is the Uncle of M’gann M’orzz, aka Miss Martian, the YJ’s resident Martian
and telepath. This show differs from the comics in that Mars is still heavily
populated, in M’gann’s and J’onn’s relationship, and in the fact that I guess
Martian’s have big families. Apparently J’onn has hundreds of nieces. Just. Nieces. If Martian families are that big,
I highly doubt twins are that rare.
I’ve liked J’onn since I saw Justice League as a kid. He was
mysterious, powerful, and, well, lonely. I really like the stranger in a
strange land style of character. He’s seen the absolute worst that sentient
life can do to itself, the horrors of genocide, and yet he doesn’t let it break
him. All he wants is to protect life. And I have to respect that. The
combination of immense physical strength and mental prowess is a rare one, and
J’onn pulls it off wonderfully. He can rip you to shreds, shatter your mind, or
hurl you into space, but he won’t do that because he’s a standup guy. He’s the
marvelous, malleable, magnificent Martian Manhunter. Next time, I’ll be going
in depth about one of my favorite super-powered ladies, Captain Marvel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_Manhunter
http://www.comicvine.com/forums/battles-7/flash-vs-martian-manhunter-583352/
http://youngjustice.wikia.com/wiki/File:Martian_Manhunter.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_Manhunter
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