Great suns! Continuity! The enemy of all Martians!
This volume was pretty ridiculous. In a good way. In a hilariously good way. The stories are very short, most are only 5-6 pages, as they were a tiny feature in Detective Comics at the time. Unfortunately, this means there are no covers, and very rarely even a splash page as an introduction, since every inch of space needed to be used for the core story. But there's nothing wrong with short stories. On the contrary, when I only had a minute or two of free time, I could get through one without having to worry about multiple parts or super intricate plots. It was pretty cut-and-dried. This doesn't mean there isn't a ton of laugh-out-loud moments of ridiculousness. They pop up almost every issue. And there's a lot of them. This book is the character's run from November 1955 to June 1962, Detective Comics 225-304. All of the stories (save the very first one from 1953) are attributed to Jack Miller. He seems to have a lot of fun writing for the character, and it's one of the most entertaining Silver Age volumes I've read so far. Joe Certa is attributed to providing all the art, and his fairly dynamic presentation complements the writing very well. I imagine translating the writing into a visual must have proven perplexing at times, considering what actions Miller has the Martian Manhunter perform. I also imagine both of them had a lot of laughs working on this project.
The very first story, interestingly, is from a Batman comic from 1953. A Martian criminal flees to Earth, and an officer of the law is sent after him. Upon landing and being discovered by Batman and Robin, the lawman states he is lightheaded. Batman, scientific wiz that he is, tells him it's because Earth's atmosphere has way more oxygen than Mars, and instructs him to simply, "Breathe lightly till you gets used to it!" Glad you're around, Batman.
I should add the criminal flees to Earth because, "It is the only planet with an atmosphere similar to Mars!" The integration of statements like these is absurd, especially when the writers seem to try their best to include actual scientific facts. Long story short, the criminal is captured and the lawman goes back to Mars. This story is considered the 'harbinger' of the Martian Manhunter, but I really can't see any connection other than a dude came over from Mars. Coupled with how big science fiction stories were at the time and the fact that it predates the Detective Comic stories by years, it makes the case even weaker. Plus, his appearance is a regular white guy in a retro sci-fi costume with a ray gun, not the green martian we all think of today.
In his first 'real' story, the Manhunter is transported to Earth by Dr. Erdel, who uses his 'Robot Brain' to probe space, time, and the FOURTH DIMENSIONNNN. He pushes a button to see what it will do (which he should know since he built it?), and it instantly transports Martian J'onn J'onzz right into his lab. J'onn then changes his appearance to an Earthling in order to avoid causing shock. Having the total opposite effect, this change causes Dr. Erdel to suffer a massive heart attack and die. Since the doctor is the only one who can operate the Robot Brain, J'onn is effectively stranded. I do enjoy this aspect of J'onn's background, except for the fact that there is no reason at all for him to be stranded for more than a few hours (as will be explained).
Side note: Why does Dr. Erdel, who has the mental capacity and skill to construct this 'Robot Brain' completely by himself, and who also knows that it can somehow probe spacetime, die of shock as soon as something happens? It doesn't seem like he should be too surprised about anything at that point. It should also be noted that over the course of this volume, other scientists fix the Robot Brain (multiple times), as well as everyday thugs and J'onn himself, yet he never goes back to Mars at any of these occasions due to circumstances of the situation.
He also states that his people can't come get him because they haven't created a ship that can carry them to other worlds. It might take them hundreds of years, even. Yet countless times, ships from all over the place (e.g. Mars, Jupiter, Venus) land on Earth, complete with aliens inside. Beings are also transported instantaneously to Earth through various means (sometimes even by accident), not even requiring a vehicle. J'onn even manages to contact his family back on Mars via video screen (somehow), so they know exactly where and how far away he is, but never just hop in or send a ship to go get him.
Early on, J'onn states that Mars had eliminated the strange Earth custom known as 'crime' centuries ago with their 'Enlightened Science', which I would love to witness firsthand. This statement is also complete crap, as a myriad of criminals from Mars all flee and come straight to Earth. I guess it must be the similar atmosphere. While he's waiting for rescue, J'onn takes the opportunity to help out Earthlings by becoming a police detective in his human form. I should point out that it isn't shown exactly how he becomes a detective, the police captain merely states, "You've qualified to become a detective! You'll be on the force tomorrow!" Just like that. This in itself is a marvel, since he has absolutely no form of identification. No social security number, no driver's license, no birth certificate, no passport, no immigration documents, no work history, no references, no anything. But Captain Harding states that, "He has qualified." What kind of qualification test could possibly have been given in such a short time with such gratifying results?
And his powers. Holy crap, his powers. Countless abilities are introduced, then lost, forgotten about, or just not used anymore. We're talking invisibility, the ability to extract gold from the ocean (he needed money to survive on Earth, obviously), telekinesis, walking through solid objects, bending light rays, reading minds, seeing the goddamn future, breathing underwater, seeing through solid objects, super strength, heat vision, super hearing, super breath, changing his physical appearance, nullifying Earth's gravity in a localized field, flight, instantly growing facial hair, magnetizing objects, teleportation, being near invulnerable, creating mirages/illusions, super speed, and others. It is also unclear what restrictions his powers have. At first, he must be invisible to use his powers, then he states that it doesn't matter and he can do it either way, then he states that he is unable to use his powers while invisible. It's really whatever fits the bill at that point.
He also blatantly uses his powers in front of everyone. Other officers at the precinct, regular citizens, criminals he's apprehending, anybody. His biggest fear is his true identity being revealed. This is again, ridiculous, since as soon as he brings criminals in they immediately claim he is an alien since he used his powers right in front of them in order to make the capture. Every single time the lawmen laugh and kick the criminal(s) off to jail, because how could a criminal possibly tell the truth about anything? J'onn also almost always makes some sort of smug statement about 'not having revealed his true powers', usually right after doing so. When he appears suddenly in the middle of a crowd, people stare with wide eyes and gaping mouths and usually say something like, "Where in the world did he come from?" and then just keep on walking and get on with their daily business. When he walks through a wall into a gang's hideout, they all shoot at him out of what I'm guessing is blind terror. Of course the bullets go right through him, and the next panel is of J'onn turning the criminals in and making some cocky remark about how he, "Probably just got lucky this time!"
His only weakness? Fire. Any kind of fire. A match, a cigarette, a flamethrower, you name it. At one (hilarious) point, he even stumbles and nearly faints when someone on the other side of a door is audibly fired from their job. Needless to say, nearly every case he is assigned to involves fire on some level. From being a stuntman in a movie to shoveling coal into a furnace, there's fire everywhere. And apparently on Mars they don't even have fire, because when J'onn gets back there (temporarily), five Earthlings have conquered the entire planet with a book of freaking matches, and nobody knows what to do, so they submit to their 'Earthling Masters'. So how does J'onn know a) what it's called, and b) that he should be afraid of it? So many questions, Manhunter. It should be noted that fire doesn't seem to harm him, it only makes him lose his superpowers, so as soon as he walks away (or sometimes simply avoids looking at the flames), he becomes super again. The Martians are also repeatedly noted as 'the leading race in the universe'. I suppose an additional weakness would be anyone with a speck of logic or intelligence, but thankfully there don't seem to be any of those on Earth (or anywhere else, for that matter).
There is also a notable lack of supervillains in this volume. The only non-regular foes he faces are other aliens. The craziest things on Earth he faces are magic (which usually turns out to be fake), and criminals with insanely weird scientific inventions. The rest of the time, it's just commonplace thugs, so his powers really aren't necessary for stopping most of them, but he heavily relies on them to get the job done. Of course, most of the crooks are always SMOKING! Which means J'onn becomes as helpless as an infant and only wins by sheer luck most of the time.
There are instances, of course, where J'onn loses his powers for whatever reason (a special comet flying by, position of the moon, a meteor falling in the middle of the city, spoiled milk, etc.). It is always only temporary, and things work out for J'onn in the end, but he is the most pathetic example of a regular human being. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern were infinitely more effective in Home Alone than J'onn without his powers (and they got their ass kicked by a ten-year-old). J'onn can't even walk without tripping over his own feet. For some reason, he also loses his vulnerability fire at these points. In addition, it is shown that on Mars, the inhabitants have no superpowers due to the planet's atmosphere. This implies that the entire planet must be people constantly dying from falling out of windows, drowning in puddles, and starving because they can't figure out how the food is supposed to get inside of them. "We Martians are the leading race in the universe!"
For all its logic faults, I highly recommend giving this a read. I had a smile on my face for almost every story, just because they are so entertaining. You'll know if it's something you'd be interested in within the first five stories, and if you do like them, there are more than 80 in this book alone. I haven't started Volume 2 yet, but I am looking forward to it very much. Even though it takes Miller a while to let the character find his feet, it's worth it all the way. Covering all the hilarity in this book would take up way too much time, so you should just check it out yourself.
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