FBI Agent John Jones is caught in an explosion which somehow leads to him having a martian’s voice in his brain - as you do. Is it real or is he nuts? Well it’s pretty fucking obvious what the answer is. Exciting. Then people start randomly doing horribly destructive things, that John and the martian try to stop - and then the comic just becomes this, over and over. It’s quite tediously repetitive.
DC’s Absolute range continues past their trinity of popular characters into their less popular ones with Martian Manhunter, a character I actually like but who rarely gets solo outings - for a raisin: they’re pretty bad. Case in point: Absolute Michael Mann’s Manhunter.
The story starts out with some potential. John Jones is a fed who doesn’t realise a martian’s in his head somehow and talking to him and showing him a hidden world or something. Except there’s no real plot, no sense of building up to a big bad (who just appears at a certain point), just a lot of pointless carnage that John and the martian run around in. Oh, John’s wife is also unhappy with him not talking to her. Riveting. It’s very one-note and ends in a confusing fashion.
I’ve been a fan of Javier Rodriguez’s art for years and enjoyed his work at Marvel on titles like She-Hulk and Spider-Woman. His art is superb throughout Martian Manhunter. Trippy visuals, colourful pages, imaginative layouts, creative panels - this might be his most virtuoso comic to date.
It’s just a shame Deniz Camp is a sucky writer that the story isn’t nearly as high quality as the visual presentation. Boring, muddled, one-note, and forgettable, Absolute Martian Manhunter fits in well with the rest of DC’s Absolute dreariness.
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