Silver Justice 2: Marshalation

Sometimes, when I think about the Martian Manhunter, it hits me: he sucks. He sucks alot.

Look, he's sucking now! There's MM (JJ to his friends), fighting crime of the alien bee-men variety, and "inhaling as he goes." If I were a crimefighter, that's how I'd want to do it: inhaling as I go.

Then I realize, I'm underestimating J'onn. J'onn not only sucks, he blows. Big time. The Martian Manhunter blows like nobody's business.

By the way, I hereby nominate "As soon as my full strength has returned, I'll make short work of those bee-men!" for the Word & Thought Balloon Hall of Fame.

When I go to parties, I like to pick a phrase like that from an old comic book and spend the evening trying to work it into casual conversation. It's worlds of fun. Of course, it has become increasingly harder to do as I consequently get asked to fewer and fewer parties...

I understand why J'onn does what he does. If I had superstrength, flight, omniutile Martian vision, telepathy, invisibility, intangibility, shapeshifting, and the ability to draw gold from seawater with my mind, I would spurn them all. Too easy. Too unoriginal.

Yes, if I were a superhero, I'd fight crime by sucking and blowing. It's fun. It's cool to draw. And nobody else can do it. Except Superman, but we kind of all agree not to talk about that, because, you know, J'onn's kind of sensitive.

If you haven't realized it yet, this is one of the Ten Clues You're in a Silver Age JLA Story: J'onn sucking or blowing, or, as I like to call it:

Marshalation.

Always remember, you inhale; you exhale. The Martian Manhunter marshales.

How powerful is the Martian Manhunter's marshalation? Powerful enough to make a mirror.Okay, superpowers just don't get any more impressive than that, folks. Oh, that's "backed with silver", alright, J'onn -- pure Silver.

Hal Jordan and Kyle Rayner must love this guy, and probably never get more than arm's length away during a big fight. "Very well, Green Lantern, I shall craft you a mirror with my marshalation again, but I can assure you your hair is fine..."

Oh, and for the record, large quantities of Oreos do not exactly freshen your breath:
I mean, how bad does your breath have to be to make a demon from hell say "Ugh"?

Ah, Martian Manhunter, the Rodney Dangerfield of comics. Occasionally, they'd let him use his shapeshifting ability in a limited way, like superstretching his body.
So pretty much all you ever got to see him do in the Silver Age JLA was suck, blow, and stretch out his arms.

Then they got rid of him ... and replaced him with who?

The Red Tornado
and the Elongated Man.

Now that's comic book irony.

The Mixed-Up Martian Powers!

In our recent visit to the 1940s Star City, we had reason to mention Apex Studios, which is, naturally enough, in Apex City, where all businesses are named after the town, the Floridian home of 

J'onn visited Apex Studios at least once in Detective 268's memorable tale of

In which, once again, J'onn's powers cause more problems than they solve.

Martian-halitosis is darned inconvenient when one of your favorite powers is Marshalation.

Car 45, where are you? "Just around the corner"; of course.  
Apex City contains many wonders, yet is really dense.
Much like J'onn himself.

What IS it in the Apex City gene pool that DOES that to their chins?

It's a riddle with no answer.

J'onn makes a sound tactical decision that also allows lets him go solo, so he can use his panoply of Martian powers unobserved, because Ares forbid that Detective Jones should just take out his service revolver and shoot some thief in the leg.

And to get out of the car as soon as possible. Even J'onn's afraid of Slade's driving.

He changes into his Martian form, because I think at this point in his evolution, he couldn't do any Martian tricks while in human form.

I mean, any tricks EXCEPT shift back to his Martian form.

Then, the most natural thing in the world happens.

A flaming meteor from space lands at J'onn's feet.

J'onn is focused on the anomalous aspect of the meteor's flames not harming him, rather than the bizarre coincidence of a flaming meteor from space landing right next to him because flaming meteors from space fall on Apex City daily.

But how on earth can that be?

I see; thank you, Explanatory Floating Head of Wonder Woman.

Weird crap happens to J'onn constantly; if he actually stopped to deal with it, he'd never get anything done, so he presses on.

I think the meteor is a remnant of the planet Rastafaria. Just like "The Brother from Another Planet". 

NOW it gets more interesting than just random meteor strikes!

The metaphor of Detective Jones as a closeted Martian is always tantalizingly JUST out of reach for me.

Tee hee, J'onn's become the Bizarro Manhunter. This'll be good.

Yes. I can imagine that easily. Something ALWAYS goes wrong,
badly wrong for J'onn.  
He's the Charlie Brown of alien super-heroes.

I KNEW the internet would not fail to provide me with the image I needed.

Sure enough, it goes even more wrong for J'onn as some workers notice him, report him to the House Committee of UnTerrestrial Activities, and he's burned at the stake like a witch.

 "I don't care what they do in the privacy of their own homes and alien bars, but do they have to GLOW in PUBLIC?"

It's little scenes like this that really hammer home the fact that the DCU, well, wasn't much of a "U" at all back in the day.  Each hero operated not merely in a vacuum, but in their own little world.  Which is terrible for J'onn, since he can't use his Marshalation in a vacuum.  It's also terrible because it means he can't simply say: "Hi, I'm an alien superhero, just like Superman, except green. One with a ridiculous allergy,  but that's not important right now."

Fortunately for J'onn, he is in the ONE PLACE where he can get away with this glowing alien bit.

At APEX MOVIE STUDIOS.

Imagine; J'onn looks exactly like a 1950s B-movie writer's idea of what an alien looks like! So, undaunted, 

Don't worry; he gets daunted pretty soon.

J'onn decides to phase through a nearby wall 

Payroll. It's always payroll.

and instead just smashes his face into it

Oops. Or, being an super-strong and indestructible alien lummox, crashes THROUGH it like he's Kool-Aid Man.

"YOU BLOCKHEAD!" shouts the director.  Actually, he blames it on the WALL, because everything on movie sets is fake and flimsy.

"AND DON'T CALL ME 'CHIEF'!"

Two power fails in a row is a pattern, so JJ decides to test his treasured lung power (Marshalation).

You probably don't floss enough, J'onn.

Just how DOES Apex Studio store its junked ships VERTICALLY?  Like J'onn, Apex City is special.

Being a detective, J'onn quickly deduces (with a little help from some starlets), that the meteor and/or its fire is the cause of his Mixed-Up Powers.

It's a Red Kryptonite story, in other words.

This presents J'onn with his WORST-CASE SCENARIO:

That is, an ORDINARY EARTH DETECTIVE who can casually crash through cement walls like he's Kool-Aid Man.

Oh, dear; the struggle is real.  Fortunately for J'onn, British comedic character actor Maurice Dallimore is on hand to steer him in the right direction.

"It is the considered opinion of Her Majesty's government that you must pursue the thief at all costs."

Sigh. J'onn.  Just turn BACK into your Earth guise as Detective Jones, take out your service revolver and SHOOT THE THIEF IN THE LEG.  Detective Jones could handle almost every situation you ever find yourself in, JJ, because your real problem is your ridiculous panoply of powers, mixed up or not.

Oh, no. A fire has broken out. In Apex City, American's Most Flammable Vacation Spot. Imagine.

Upon beginning his rescue, he immediately abandons the idea of doing it as An Ordinary Earth Detective and uses his Martian vision.

What will happen? Take a wild guess.

Oxygen-eating Vision. 
Sure, J'onn. Whatever.

Naturally, J'onn's mixed-up powers have given him exactly the ability he needs to rescue the men. At this point, just rename him Nemesis Kid or let him swallow the H Dial, why don't you.

With truly Charlie Brown levels of insecurity, J'onn notes that his colleague Slade now has the situation in hand, and concludes that he himself will be on no more use to the police and will have to quit.

"All I have is the powers of an ordinary Earth detective and the ability to walk casually through cement walls; I'm useless a police officer!"  Get some therapy, J'onn.

I'd love to just SLAP J'onn when he gets like this, but I'd only break my hand.  Besides, now that the universe has (again) brought JJ to the point of tears because he's a blockhead, it relents and gives him his powers back.

"As the Martian Manhunter reaches the wall..."
Were ya just gonna... crash through that wall, JJ, like the Kool-Aid Man again?  
Is that what you were going for?  smh

Sometimes the internet will NOT provide you just the image you need.

The Red K effect of the meteor ended once its flames died out.  Because Martian Manhunter stories always treat fire as if it's some sort of tangible, radioactive element, rather than just the result of a chemical combustion process.

Harrumph. Okay, maybe the mix-up left him unable to shapeshift back into Detective Jones. But his over-reliance on his 47 powers is still the root of his problems. 

Now, Batman would have that meteor encased in lucite, labelled, and displayed in the Hall of Trophies overnight and Superman would assign a team of robots at the Fortress of Solitude analyzing it to determine what caused the effect and whether it could be of any danger to him in the future.  The Martian Manhunter...?

To him, it was a Tuesday.

Clip Week 4: The Silver Age

I am out of reach this week for very pleasant reasons. Rather than time-release posts without being to attend to the commentary thereupon, I'm offering a retrospective on some of our favorite topics here. [I've noticed that the labels function on Blogger doesn't always pull everything, which is why I'm not just using that to do so.]

The Silver Age

Krypto's Silver Age
Lois's Mittens
Kryptonite Monkey
Notsoinanimation
Marshalation
Serialocution
Superspinning
Strange-compellification
Foefeosity
Feeding the Ostrich
The Unkillables
In a Single Panel
10 Things Batman Should Never Say
The Name of Fear

The Carnival of Doom, Part 2: The J'onzz Corollary

So, the bad guy has engineered a crack in the track of the mechanical horse that John Jones and Willy are riding on at Wonderland, and we listed a few of the, oh, 17 or so reasonable ways J'onn could use his powers to fix the situation so that it no longer threatens (assuming that it really IS that big of a threat).

Of course, J'onn uses none of those, because he never does anything obvious or sensible, or even comprehensible.  Instead, he adheres to the Martian Prime Directive:

"All problems that can be solved by spinning must be solved be spinning."

Galileo said, "Measure what is measurable and make measurable what is not so." J'onn is the Galileo of Martian culture and his motto is, "Spin what is spinnable and make spinnable what is not so."  This is the J'onzz Corollary to the Martian first principle.

Yes. It hardened. Immediately. With no cooling application of Martian breath required.  Sigh.

So, with a child's life at stake, J'onn decides to... do nothing. Not even spin.

Yeah, Willy is wearing the same outfit he was wearing when introduced so... John was on the night shift.

This is not at all the only way to find out, but it is the way that J'onn chooses so that he and Willy can be put in danger again as soon as possible, because, well, his stories are really short. The bad guys oblige.

You could have robbed the box office and left by now.

Dick Dastardly goes to set another trap for John and Willy.

Really? The plane ride is 5 cents cheaper than the horse ride?

It's been a while so you may not remember that planes in Apex City invariably FALL. And amusement park planes are no different.

Second verse, same as the verse.

Again, JJ/MM has to figure out some way to fix the situation without Revealing His Secret Identity. Really, he does this kind of thing every day, you think he'd be better at it.  Obviously the situation calls for Martian breath, because everything you don't solve with spinning you solve with Marshalation.  

I wouldn't call it "super-breath" out loud, MM, or you're likely to get a letter from Clark's lawyers.

So, John falls out of the falling plane and manages to land FASTER than the plane does, rolls away somewhere to change form/become invisible with still enough time to use his sup--Martian breath to guide the plane to safety.  Those planes must have an impressive glide path for park rides.

DO 
NOT
LOOK
at the assembled flock at gawking Apexians forming a unified but many-headed blob in the background, if you ever want a good night's sleep again.

Meanwhile, the crooks are adhering to their strict time table and have robbed the box office, even though John's not dead yet.

Hot pursuit!

"Nothing can stop our getaway through the Tunnel of Thrills!"
You'd think saying it OUT LOUD would make you realize how ridiculous it sounds.

Now that the source of the danger is evident, it's clearly incumbent upon John to ditch Willy, which, clearly, he doesn't because Martians do not think the way we do and besides, you know he's seen all six original "Lone Wolf and Cub" films and has sidekick envy.  

Just spin the kid away, JJ.

To his credit, John THINKS about leaving Willy behind. But Willy is already in the boat and-- somehow-- John is powerless to change this. In the same way that once the mechanical horse track was damaged, John couldn't STOP the ride, he had to go through with it. John can never change or avoid his circumstances; he has to overcome them somehow. My theory is that Speed Saunders and the Martian Manhunter are sort of conceptual opposites and this is one of the reasons I was inspired to visit Apex City again.

Speed Saunders is, superficially, a perfectly ordinary man with no special power or ability.  But he doesn't need them because he has meta-textual authority.  Speed unknowingly controls the reality of his narrative: his hunches will come through, bullets will not hit him if he does not wish it, people will confess if he wants them to, evidence will be deposited on his dinner table, and answers will appear in the closest book if he needs them to.  The world arranges itself AROUND Speed Saunders.

"I shot the fourth wall because I found it inconvenient. You have a problem with that?"

The Martian Manhunter is perfectly extraordinary, with every special power and ability.  But he needs them all because the narrative will always conspire against him.  Meteors fall right next to him, everything around him bursts into flame, his secret identity is under constant threat of exposure, and the writers force him to use his powers in the least simple way possible.  The world arranges itself AGAINST J'onn J'onzz.  

It's always something, isn't it, J'onn?

I think if I wrote Martian Manhunter, I would have Speed Saunders do occasional walk-ons as a visiting detective who unintentionally makes John look like a fool every time he shows up and solves a case while John gets himself trapped in a broom closet.

Anyway, John is now STUCK with Willy as he tries to follow the crooks into the Tunnel of Thrills, so tomorrow we'll see how that goes.

Hint: it will NOT be thrilling.