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Guide to the Injustice Roster: DLC Appendix 5

July 16th, 2013 Posted by Gavok

Evo 2013 has come and gone and while the bland Injustice: Gods Among Us tournament showcase probably poisoned the well for the game getting another high-profile appearance next year, it did at least show off a new trailer for Injustice DLC. Not only is John Stewart an available alternate skin for Green Lantern (Phil LaMarr voice acting included), but they’ve announced the first of the second set of DLC characters in Martian Manhunter.

So let’s take a look at the history of everyone’s second-favorite cookie monster.

MARTIAN MANHUNTER

Alias: J’onn J’onzz, John Jones, Fernus the Burning, Bloodwynd, Bronze Wraith and dozens of others
First Appearance: Detective Comics #225 (1955)
Powers: Super strength, speed, shape-shifting, telepathy, invisibility, laser vision, flight, intangibility
Other Media: Was a big player in the Justice League cartoon, showed up on some of the different Batman cartoons and starred in the terrible live-action Justice League pilot/movie.

Years ago, Patton Oswalt wrote a graphic novel called JLA: Welcome to the Working Week, where the main character – existing as Oswalt’s mouthpiece – referred to Martian Manhunter as the Bob Dylan to Superman’s Elvis Presley. When you’re a kid, you love the optimistic spitcurl, but when you get older, you start to appreciate the more serious giant brow. Martian Manhunter is a great foil for Superman, mainly different in that he was an adult when he made his exodus from his dying planet and that affects him differently.

The original origin was that J’onn J’onnz, a Martian lawman, was accidentally transported to Earth thanks to an experiment by Dr. Erdel. While Erdel would have been able to send him back, the shock of seeing this Martian caused him to have a heart attack and die. In the original continuity, Mars was still populated, so J’onn was driven by his quest to return. Back then, the idea of shipping a guy to Mars, even in a superhero world, was considered rather difficult. How novel.

J’onn used his shape-shifting abilities to take the identity of John Jones (get it?) and became a detective who would use his powers to give him the edge. His appearance as Martian Manhunter was meant to be a middle-ground version between Martian and human, being the best of both worlds. He joined the Justice League, used mainly as a stand-in for when the publishers felt Superman was being used way too much. For decades, J’onn was considered to be THE staple member of the Justice League. He appeared in nearly every incarnation of the team, which offset how little juice he had in carrying his own solo series, no matter how many times they tried.

Eventually, J’onn was reunited with his people and went on to rule Mars. He was written out of comics for a while until being brought back into the Justice League fold. I seem to remember that he had to save Earth from his own people in the final adventure of the classic “Satellite-Era Justice League” (ie. the original version of the team that started in the 60’s and ended in the 80’s). There was a part where he challenged another Martian to a fight and while the narrative strictly said that they were both invisible during this fight, the artist drew them like normal anyway.

Things got pretty dark for Martian Manhunter around this time. He was on the outs with his race. He joined the infamously bad Justice League Detroit (otherwise known as Aquaman leading a team of angsty teenagers) and ended up becoming the leader towards the end, only to have a couple of the kids tragically die on his watch. Then after Crisis on Infinite Earths changed continuity, it also reshaped J’onn’s origin. J’onn’s insane brother unleashed a plague upon Mars that wiped out everyone but J’onn himself. Not only did Dr. Erdel’s machine pull him from space, but also from time. The destruction of Mars was thousands of years ago. Like Superman, he was the last of his kind… until they brought in guys who were also Martians down the line.

It picked up for J’onn, though. He had a big role in Justice League International, known for being the fun and funny era. He mainly played the straight man to jokey characters Guy Gardner, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. Thanks to Captain Marvel, he was also turned onto Oreo cookies (later renamed Chocos due to trademark) and became addicted. He also led his own Justice League side-team called Justice League: Task Force and nothing of note came from that other than the time he temporarily turned himself female.

Every now and then, J’onn and the Justice League would have to face the White Martians, a genetic offshoot who were more dedicated to war while the Green Martians were more peaceful. The most famous of these battles was the beginning of Grant Morrison’s Justice League run where a team of superheroes came to Earth to create a utopia while antagonizing the Justice League. Batman figured out that they were White Martians in disguise and easily defeated them thanks to their weakness of fire.

Fire is something all Martians fear, though it’s shown to be more of a psychological weakness than physiological. In other words, fire only hurts J’onn because he lets it. He briefly got together with a reformed fire-based villain named Scorch, who helped him get over his fear of fire. This turned out disastrous. We found out that eons ago, when the Martians were still primitive life forms, they were both bloodthirsty and virtually unstoppable. The Guardians of the Universe (Green Lantern’s bosses) were concerned with what this would mean if the Martians could evolve to figure out space flight. They intervened and subdued the entire race, injecting them all with a fear of fire as a way to keep them all in check.

No longer bound by this gigantic weakness, J’onn became corrupted by this savage, forgotten piece of his bloodline. He became a beast known as Fernus the Burning and showed that he was really the most powerful member of the League all along, as even Superman was helpless against him. Turned out Batman had a solution to this situation as well by siccing Plastic Man on him. Plastic Man’s immune to mind control and has a better grasp on shapeshifting, so he was able to help take down the mad Martian. J’onn and Fernus were separated from each other as two different identities in the end.

Nothing much happened with J’onn for a while. After Infinite Crisis, he got a new look that looked closer to his pure Martian form, mainly due to his pessimism towards humanity. This was for his new solo series which once again sold like shit and was canceled. J’onn was killed by Libra and the Secret Society of Supervillains in the story Final Crisis. Sweetly enough, Batman visited J’onn’s tomb and left a single Choco cookie.

J’onn returned from the grave during Blackest Night as one of the more unbeatable walking corpses. At the end of the story, he was one of the dozen characters fully resurrected. J’onn then starred in the series Brightest Day, where he was able to make Mars fertile again and ended up clashing with an insane Green Martian D’kay. J’onn had to kill D’kay and destroy the budding life on Mars, showing that in the end, Earth was his only true home.

With the New 52 reboot, J’onn had never joined the Justice League in the past but instead was part of Stormwatch, a cloak and dagger superhero organization. There, J’onn fought against evil from the shadows, but eventually left the team and removed all their memories of him being there in the first place. Since then, Martian Manhunter has been brought into the Justice League of America, the US government’s personal team meant to counter the regular Justice League if they ever get out of line. Martian Manhunter is there to deal with Superman.

Probably the saddest depiction of J’onn is in Kingdom Come, the dystopian future storyline. In order to give Superman vs. Captain Marvel more gravitas, J’onn had to be taken off the table. He appeared in one scene to aid Batman, depicted as a gibbering and mentally broken John Jones who could barely function after trying to open his mind to all of humanity. Poor guy.

One of the better Martian Manhunter stories is New Frontier, which exists as both a wonderful graphic novel and a pretty good animated film. When showing off his hybrid superhero appearance to a human friend, he was flatly told, “Real men wear pants.” And that’s a fair point because, really, what the hell is that outfit?

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“Despair is fine.”

October 19th, 2009 Posted by david brothers

Remember when JLA was a good comic book? Me too. Exhibit A:

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words by grant morrison, art by howard porter

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Elseworlds Destiny: Some Guys Age Like the World’s Finest Wine

June 10th, 2008 Posted by Gavok

I’ve talked about the differences between Marvel’s What If comics and DC’s Elseworlds comics before, but another major contrast has made itself apparent to me. They are both about taking a cool out-of-continuity concept and running with it as a full story. The problem with Elseworlds is that a lot of the time they get bogged down by either the need for familiarity (how many times has Kal-El become Superman when the entire idea of the story is that Kal-El is not Superman?) or the over-complication of the storyline.

Take JLA: Destiny for instance. The four-issue miniseries is based on a concept that is so full of promise that it could have carried the story itself. They could have just plugged it into the DC Universe and let loose a great story. Writer John Arcudi decided not to, seemingly going for more of an epic clusterfuck of a story. So this big twist in DC history is made into part of a bigger theme. It also becomes merely a subplot to the whole miniseries and this big shocker that should have been the selling point for the comic isn’t fully revealed to the reader until the third issue.

A couple years back, when I first read Destiny, I scoured online for reviews. I’m too lazy to check now, but all the reviews I found were for the first two issues only. Some didn’t make it past the first. Nobody knew what the point of the story was yet and had no indication that they were going to discover it in the final two issues, so everyone dropped it like a rock.

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Deadshot’s Tophat and Other Beginnings: Cab to Cat

February 6th, 2007 Posted by Gavok

Welcome to the fifth installment. Took me longer than expected, but a lot of these guys are big names. If you reach the end of the article, Batman will reward you with his greatest quote ever.

CABLE

New Mutants #87 (1990)

Originally, Cable appears in Uncanny X-Men #201 (1986) as a baby, but I figure it would probably make more sense to show his real introduction. The story begins with a terrorist act by a team of Stryfe’s henchmen in some facility. The only one I actually recognize is Four-Arm. After they leave, a new figure enters through a hole in the wall.

Cable tracks Stryfe’s team on their next mission, where they plan to kidnap a couple kids out of a government facility. He takes the battle to the enemies, but their numbers eventually overwhelm him. He’s left to die and the mutants get away. The issue ends with Cable in military captivity, thinking about how he went at this the wrong way. He’s going to need help.

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Extreme Justice Revisited: The Alliance

January 20th, 2007 Posted by Gavok

Elseworlds can be a mixed bag. Scratch that. Elseworlds can be a mixed bag that’s half eaten. You know when somebody’s picked out most of the good candy from the jar and there’s only three Jolly Ranchers left among a pile of 20-year-old pieces of candy corn? That’s more like what Elseworlds are like.

There are some good ones to be sure. The epics like Kingdom Come, Dark Knight Returns and Red Son count without question. Other good Elseworlds that come to mind include the Justice Riders, where Sheriff Diana Prince goes after railroad baron Maxwell Lord while accompanied by madcap inventor Beetle, godly-quick gunslinger Kid Flash, maverick card player Booster Gold and others. The Secret Society of Superheroes is another obscure story with a great spin, where the Justice League act in the shadows while FBI Agent Bruce Wayne works to exploit them. That story has possibly my favorite incarnation of Batman ever. Then there’s JLA: Destiny, which is only half good. The core of the story is about Jor-El being the sole survivor of Krypton with Thomas Wayne being the one who watched his wife and son being shot down in front of him. Sadly, while everything relating to Jor-El and Mongul (who fills in a Luthor role) is seriously good, the comic is absolutely bogged down by unnecessary characters and subplots.

Most of the rest I can care less about. In the end, you’re just seeing another retelling of Batman’s origin, only he has a mustache or his father was Abraham Lincoln.

The subject of this article is part of a 5th week event known as Legends of the Dead Earth. Information on it is pretty hard to come by, but to the best of my understanding, something screwy happened to Earth, causing its heroes to scatter into alternate realities. So on one hand, it’s a series of Elseworlds while on the other hand, the issues are canon in a sense.

This issue, Justice League America Annual #10, is part of the series. There are really two reasons I find it worth talking about. For one, it’s based on Extreme Justice, which I had just gone over. For two, it’s really out there and moves so fast that you can only scratch your head. Christopher Priest wrote this issue, by the way. So that’s something.

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Deadshot’s Tophat and Other Beginnings: A to At

November 28th, 2006 Posted by Gavok

I’m still waiting on a couple artists for the What If finale, so I figured I’d start this. The idea originally came from a thread at Superdickery back when I hung around there, and I later reprised it at BSS. Sure, we all know about Action Comics #1 and Amazing Fantasy #15, but there are so many great comic characters and a lot of them have changed since their debuts in ways that would surprise you. So let’s take a look at the heroes and villains before they were stars. Back when Lobo wore spandex and Wolverine had whiskers.

I figure I’ll do one of these every two weeks or so. It’s fun and educational!

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Last Sons Twice Removed

June 25th, 2006 Posted by Gavok

Several months ago, I brought myself to read through James Robinson’s brilliant Starman series. With its great supporting cast, the character Mikaal Tomas stuck out to me. One of the many superheroes to once call himself Starman, Mikaal turned against his conquering alien race and sided with Earth. Eventually, this led to the extermination of his kind and the truth that Mikaal was the last of his people. This made me realize how overused this idea was. So many aliens in the DC Universe were the last of their kind. Other than Mikaal, we have Superman, Martian Manhunter, Lobo and even Kilowag.

I got the feeling that these guys need their own story based on this. When I came across DC Universe: Last Sons at the local Barnes and Noble and saw that this was essentially what I was asking for, I realized I had to read it. Even without Mikaal and Kilowag there, I was still interested. Besides, it was about time I read a book that didn’t have pictures in it.

By the way, this is filled with spoilers. If you want a review that doesn’t tell you that Xemtex’s robot friend dies, go here. If you take that guy’s word for it, continue.

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Comics vs. Cartoons: A Look at Diniverse Designs

February 14th, 2006 Posted by Gavok

Next Monday seemingly marks the end of one of the greatest eras in animation. For fourteen years, we’ve been given what people call the “Diniverse” (named after a guy who barely writes actual episodes anymore). It started back in 1992 with a primetime showing of Batman: the Animated Series and after all these years, it’s going to die out with the finale for the fifty-eighth spin-off, Justice League Unlimited.

Lord knows the Diniverse made its stamp on both the world of animation and the world of comics. Characters like Harley Quinn were introduced… as well as more forgettable folk like Livewire and Lockdown. The comic version of Supergirl started wearing the white t-shirt and tight skirt made popular by Superman: the Animated Series. John Stewart took Kyle Rayner’s place as the token Green Lantern on the Justice League roster. Batman Beyond showed up in the pages of Superman/Batman for no reason whatsoever.

There are obviously changes here and there over how certain characters are portrayed. Many consider the Kevin Conroy-voiced Batman to be the defining version of the character, compared to the close-minded, paranoid caricature he’s become in the comics. Sure, the Joker kills people here and there on the cartoons, but at no point would they ever have him cripple Batgirl and strip her naked in order to drive her father insane on Cartoon Network. In the comics, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl have never been an item, nor has a big chunk of the JLU roster been members of any Justice League roster. Hawk and Dove sucked in both mediums, so there is that. Read the rest of this entry �

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Infinite Christmas Part Two: The 12 Days of Vengeance

December 20th, 2005 Posted by Gavok

Superman #163: What Do You Get the JLA for Christmas?

This very special issue of Superman comes from 2001, after Lex Luthor was elected President. In it, Superman goes around meeting with various JLA members to complain about the Luthor situation before giving them a crappy Christmas gift. Then he goes and fucks Lois in the city of Kandor while ripping off Plastic Man’s jokes.

The list of presents are as follows:

For Plastic Man: rubber bands
For Martian Manhunter: a box of Ore— er Chocos Cookies
For Aquaman: a Metropolis snow globe
For Green Lantern (the one without pubes): jewelry polish
For Flash: tube socks
For Wonder Woman: a tiny replica of Mjolnir, no doubt to remind her of the most unimportant subplot in Marvel vs. DC
For Batman: a magnifying glass
For Booster Gold and The Question: supporting character roles on the greatest cartoon on TV

A gimmick of the issue was that each segment was drawn by a different artist. That included the absolute horror of Rob Liefeld drawing Aquaman. Read the rest of this entry �

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Infinite Christmas Part One: Countdown to Infinite Christmas

December 18th, 2005 Posted by Gavok

Ah, the holidays. A time of family and buying and having to listen to songs about grandmothers and their relationships with reindeer. A time where I find myself watching the final twenty minutes or so of It’s a Wonderful Life or any incarnation of a Christmas Carol that happens to be on TV. Where I think about the old days, where Fred Flintstone would allow his best friend to finally have some of his sugary cereal without chipping in. A time of talking in sentence fragments.

It’s also the day of two of the greatest superheroes to never wear tights. One guy went around for years, using his powers to heal and feed people. He died a pretty kickass death (still need that issue, as I only own the novelization), but for the past 2,000 years, his fans have been clamoring for him to come back. He was a second-generation character, but his dad was WAY too overpowered.

The other guy spends the year in his headquarters, preparing to aid the innocent and punish the guilty. He and his many sidekicks monitor the world as he summons his power for a yearly run of super-speed, stealth and exercise of his bottomless stomach. While some find his ways a bit creepy (watching you as you sleep) and anti-Semitic (only using his power to help the Christians), he still gets support for taking in freaks – such as the talking mound of snow and the mutant reindeer – to help with his annual mission to spread good.

The thought of these bearded men made me think of these other super-powered heroes, trying to do the right thing. What are they up to during those days? And so, I tried to read as many Christmas-based comic books as I could. There are quite a lot out there, whether they be Christmas specials or just issues in December that decide to join the bandwagon.

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