Synopsis:
Beyond Mars…beyond physical form…beyond Human Understanding…all that’s left is the ultimate alien: the Absolute Martian Manhunter!
Review:
Why do people do what they do?
That’s the question of Absolute Martian Manhunter #1, the boldest experiment in the Absolute DC initiative so far, and perhaps the strongest. Written by Deniz Camp with art – the word is wanting – by Javier Rodriguez, this first issue achieves something very difficult in comics and consequently very rare. The book is simultaneously subtle and loud.
You gradually piece together that a suicide bomber nearly killed FBI agent John Jones. Why is anyone’s guess, and it plagues the workaholic Jones as much as the strange multicolored smoke he seems to see everywhere.
Rodriguez’s art emphasizes the disquieting mood, even as it threatens to burst with kaleidoscopic fervor (which it eventually does in the book’s final pages). Jones sets out on an investigation into the bomber, against the wishes of his superiors, his wife, and his common sense, but he’s driven.
Why do people do what they do?
Who are people? What do we really know about them? The question lingers over John and the reader as the book’s big twist – not unexpected, but delivered with a unique and by-now standard Absolute DC joy – unfolds. Camp’s script builds to its crescendo slowly, working in perfect harmony with Rodriguez’s colors. The colors create a very Watchman-like mood in the beginning with its contrasting blues and oranges, reminiscent of John Higgins classic work on that title. The lettering also conveys the creeping sense of something being very wrong, as the narration gradually advances into something else.
The smoke John perceives gradually clarifies as the thoughts of others. He can read minds after his injury, it seems, but it doesn’t end there. He’s not himself. He may not even by John anymore. The bomber, a good boy so far as his mother was concerned, wasn’t the same man others remember, either. We experience who the bomber was with John thanks to his telepathic experience. Camp’s tying John’s experience of dislocation with that of the bomber takes the book past standard superhero fare to create something deeply psychological, unexpected, and promising. This first issue feels hard to top in its kinetic page-to-page full-color joy, but there is so much more to know and learn about this character and world.
It’s as much a domestic drama as it is a sci-fi horror mashup. Jones’ wife is, at best, a work widow. His son is making clay figures of his family with his dad as the Martian we eventually understand him to be, in an almost Close Encounters of the Third Kind homage. Jones is a workaholic, an absent father and husband, and perhaps, not even human anymore.
As with Absolute Batman #1, this is a reconfiguration of a classic DC Comics superhero. Martian Manhunter, also known as J’onn J’onzz, first appeared in Detective Comics #225 back in November 1955. A core member of the Justice League, he’s essentially a Martian refuge with shapeshifting abilities who poses as a human. His malleability makes him even more prime than other DC characters for a modern update, and Camp and Rodriguez have raised the bar.
With psychedelic images which recall heady music posters from the 1960s, and a smart, sly mystery that asks as much of the reader as it gives, Absolute Martian Manhunter #1 creates something unique and powerful.
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