The Case Against Mr. Jones

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

Do not let the Defense confuse you with its attempts to play on your sympathy or fear for the well-being of other characters, including yourselves. What is at issue in this case is not Mr. Jones' character, but rather the character of Mr. Jones.

And, as a character, Mr. Jones is intrinsically flawed. His origin, even by comic book standards, is simply unsupportable. True, aliens with fantastic powers are commonplace in our universe. But fictional planets in other solar systems are one thing; Mars, a real-world planet adjacent to our own and known to be smaller and without intelligent life, is quite another. Even in a universe as fantastically populated as ours, Mr. Jones' so-called Martian abilities are unbelievable to the point of being ludicrous. I can produce expert testimony that Mr. Jones could reasonably be assigned at least 40 of the 44 standard powers available on a Heroclix figure dial, and still that would not fully comprise all his abilities (see Exhibit A). His shifting and ill-defined powers render him nearly unwritable, by the general agreement of readers and writers alike (including the writer of this very blog, see Exhibit B).

Although haphazard attempts have been made to limit his powers to make him more usable, all such attempts have broken down. In fact, with the addition of telepathy and flight to his power set and the intermittent removal of his equally absurd weakness to fire, he's only gotten more unworkable. In short, Mr. Jones is a character from another time, riddled with sci-fi flaws inherent to that era, who has repeatedly and consistently resisted attempts at ameliorating revision, and has become an embarrassment for the DCU. Mr. Jones' absurdity makes a mockery of our entire universe, threatening its existence and, by extension, our own.

As bad as that is, Mr. Jones is rendered even more unusable by his history of mental instability. The Bloodwynd Incident; Maalefik in his Mind; his Sociophobia in JLU; the Kingdom Come Collapse. These are just a few of the examples of his increasingly consistent portrayal as unhinged and mentally crippled. Is this the kind of hero our children deserve? If a character like this lived in Gotham, he'd have the room next to mine at Arkham!

For several decades, Mr. Jones has enjoyed a pseudo-icon status, due to his association with the Justice League, and association stemming more from historical accident than merit. But the sheen of this gloss is transparently false. Unlike the true icons of the DCU, Mr. Jones has no Golden Age pedigree. He is unable to support his own title even briefly; he's never been able to serve as a Dynastic Centerpiece of a larger mythology. Has he even been seen with Miss Martian since her introduction as such? The Defense would have you believe that Mr. Jones is a pillar of the Justice League and thus of the DCU. But how strong a pillar is he if he cannot support his own title or mythology? If he is indeed a pillar of the League and the DCU, it is not to his credit but to their detriment, and it's a situation that should be rectified by his elimination.

A pillar? No. Where are the Martian Manhunter Megos, the Martian Manhunter Halloween costumes, the Martian Manhunter Underoos? Despite his sentimental inclusion in various media versions on the Justice League, he remains unpopular and uninteresting to the general readership and public. He disappeared for 13 years during the 1970s and 1980s; did anyone really notice? Did the DCU collapse without this so-called pillar? The fact that Mr. Jones has appeared so much, so publicly, for so long with so little success in developing a broader fan base is simply further evidence of his unworkability.

The Defense asks you to take pity on Mr. Jones. But so do I. The "Martian Manhunter" is ill-conceived, inconsistent, embarrassing, unstable, unloved, and wholly unworkable as a character. This is not execution, ladies and gentlemen; it's euthanasia. It's time to put the Mr. Jones out of his misery ... and ours.