Villain Profile: Ma'alefa'ak

Having siblings can be a pain in the butt sometimes, but I am very glad to say that my brothers, my sister, and I have a much better relationship than various siblings of fiction. I’ve covered this point a few time already, but the next post makes me real glad that none of my siblings have a never ending quest for vengeance against me, or me against them. But I’ll cover that in a second, on with the show.

Resting a throne of corpses, subtle.

Ma’alefa’ak is the younger twin brother of J’onn J’onzz. On Mars, twins are very, very rare, and are usually considered a bad omen. As such, older brother was named J’onn meaning Light to the Light, and younger brother was named Ma’alefa’ak meaning Darkness in the Heart. Sigh, I mentioned this in J’onn’s profile, but seriously folks, even if you know without a shred of doubt that one of your children is going to turn out to be evil, ya still shouldn’t give them a name that's the equivalent to Lucifer Beelzebub McBadguy. Self-fulfilling prophecies folks! Speaking of self-fulfilling prophecies, we pretty much have one here. J’onn went on to be a successful Manhunter (police officer) and philosopher, while Ma’alefa'ak was pushed to the fringe of Martian society. It didn’t help that he lacked the ability to speak telepathically, which is a Martian’s primary means of communication. Ma’alefa'ak’s lack of telepathy is what lead to his plan to get vengeance against the rest of Mars. This is getting to be too much of a mouthful. From now on, I'll refer to him as Ma'al for short. Ma'al created a plague, which he named after the Martian god of Death and Darkness, H’ronmeer. H’ronmeer’s Curse quickly swept across the face of Mars. Any time a Martian attempted to speak with someone telepathically they would pass the infection on. A mark appeared on their forehead, and within a few days the infected Martian would burst into flame. Considering that Martian’s have a deeply rooted fear of fire, even the smallest amount of fire can cause a Martian to freeze up in fear, this was pretty much the worst way to go for them.

I’m not sure if Ma’al was aware of this, but his brother J’onn was tasked with disposing of the infected corpses, which later included J’onn’s wife and daughter. If he was, that must have been gravy to the insane Martian. Eventually, Ma’al believed himself to be the last Martian on Mars. He lived on the planet comfortably for centuries, unware that his brother was still alive, and that he was later transported across time and space to Earth. After learning of J’onn’s continued existence, he traveled to Earth to see the end of Martians once and for all. You’d think being left alone on a planet for a few hundred years would have cooled his temper a little, but sadly no. He became one of his brother’s most persistent and dangerous enemies. During one of their earlier encounters the brother’s underwent the G’amal’khul ritual, where the two traded a small portion of their psyches with one another. Hm... having a small bit of a close family member permanently lodged in one's brain? A bit of Scott or Amy I could handle, a little of Matt would probably drive me insane. But enough of my familial hypotheticals.

Someone is trying too hard to look bad ass.

The bit of Ma’al that was in J’onn made it his life goal to destroy J’onn for the inside out. He twisted J’onn’s memories, both of Earth and Mars, and constantly urged his brother towards suicide. Why the bit of J'onn in Ma'al didn't make him a better person, I'll never know. Eventually, Ma’al took control of his brother’s body and started causing trouble. This worked until J’onn, strengthened by the bits of his wife and daughter’s psychic essence that was also within him, force Ma’al back. In a later story it is revealed that Ma’alefa’ak’s perceived genetic defect was not, in fact, genetic. Apparently back on Mars, before engineering H’ronmeer’s curse, he was still a pretty bad dude. He used his telepathic powers on J’onn’s wife to, well, psychically rape her. He was punished by the ruling council of Mars, who put up mental barriers to cut Ma’al off from the rest of Mars, and then modified his memories so he believed that this was always the case. Given what he did later, I think that the Martian ruling council may have come to regret this decision. I’ll get back to this in a second.

Eventually, Ma’al used his shapeshifting powers to pose as J’onn and attack the Justice League. He personally tortured another extraterrestrial hero named Jemm, before confronting his brother directly. The twins were evenly matched, but J’onn got the upper hand in the end. He used his own telepathic powers to remove the telepathic blocks on Ma’al. Now, you may be thinking that giving Ma’al access to his telepathic powers would be a stupid thing, but with his telepathic powers comes the Martian intense pyro-phobia. J’onn had undergone several years of rigorous mental and physical training to help him combat this intense, crippling fear, but Ma’al hadn’t. The completely terrified Ma’al was trapped in a spaceship in close proximity to the sun. He just watched in terror as his body burst into flame. Like so many other villains that I’ve covered before, Ma’al wasn’t gone for good, he’d eventually return to menace J’onn once again.

Ma’alefa’ak possesses nearly all of the Martian powers inherent to his species. He’s incredibly strong and durable. He has complete control of his molecular structure which allows his to shapeshift, regenerate, increase or decrease his density, become intangible and invisible. He can use “Martian Vision,” high powered energy beams of energy fired from his eyes. He’s also telekinetic. Because, why not? While for most of his supervillain career he didn't have telepathy, reasons may vary, this was in at least one a benefit. Lacking telepathy for whatever reason also freed him of the crippling pryrophobia that plagues his species. He can handle fire just like anyone else, well, like any other superbeing.

Ma’al is an underused villain, appearing only in one DC series thus far.

Ma'al is never amused. Which is a pretty awful way to live,
not going to lie.

In the direct-to-DVD movie Justice League: Doom, he’s recruited by Vandal Savage to destroy his hated older sibling. Fun fact, J’onn and Ma’al are played by the same actor, Carl Lumbly, most likely to highlight the fact that they’re supposed to be twins. Ma’al shapeshifts into a leggy blonde, and buys J’onn a drink. Hm… I’m thinking a therapist would have a field day with Ma’al’s strategy here. Whatever, he buys J’onn a drink, spikes it, and J’onn rather stupidly drinks it. He then reveals his identity to J’onn, and reveals that the drink J’onn ingested was spiked with magnesium carbonate. J’onn was made physically ill by the chemical, and worse, his body tried to sweat it out. Ma’al then set his brother on fire. For those who don’t know, Magnesium burns hot, and continues to burn even when dosed in water. So, yeah, J’onn is pretty much screwed. He’d have burned to ashes had Batman not given Wonder Woman and Cyborg aluminum oxide which they injected into J’onn’s body. The aluminum oxide counteracted the magnesium. After recovering, a little, from the ordeal, J'onn joins the League as they assault the Legion of Doom's base. During the battle between the J L and the L of D, the J’onzz brothers fought it out by shapeshifting into various animals and monsters. The fight ends when J’onn drops out, and Ma’al is burnt to cinders by a rocket. Got to assume that J'onn needed a few therapy sessions after seeing his twin burn to death. No matter how much bad blood there is between brothers, seeing that would mess ya up.

Like Mirror Master yesterday, Ma’alefa’ak is a character that I don’t really know well enough to judge whether I like or dislike the character. Based entirely on the Justice League: Doom, he’s an incredibly creepy and dangerous character. His shapeshifting powers and seeming unending hatred for J’onn makes him a character that is incredibly difficult to track and very unpredictable. I wonder if this between him and J’onn would get better if the two of them just tried to hug it out. Probably best to not try that one out, as Ma’al would just try to stab J’onn in the back. He’s the evil, malevolent alien from Mars, Ma’alefa’ak. Next time, Wonder Woman’s feline foe, Cheetah.

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