DC’s Absolute Universe is the best line in comics and it isn’t close. It all started with Absolute Batman, Absolute Superman, and Absolute Wonder Woman, three books that took the formulas that fans recognized and turned them on their ear. Their success was massive, and it was a no-brainer that fans would get more. DC announced more Absolute books, including Absolute Martian Manhunter, by Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez. Right away, fans knew this book would be different, especially once DC started showing promo art for it. Absolute Martian Manhunter wasn’t your father’s Martian Manhunter, but it wouldn’t be until the first issue was published that we’d know just how different he is. Absolute Martian Manhunter #1 is amazing — and you need to find a physical copy right now! — a comic that takes people on a brilliant ride they will never forget.
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John Jones is an FBI agent who almost died in an explosion. He makes every excuse he can to keep working, both to his superiors and to his wife, but the world around him changes in ways that he doesn’t understand, the multi-colored smoke of people’s thoughts surrounding him, a voice he’s never heard before speaking to him. It’s a ride. The book ends with a Martian Vision page, where we see a new name for the Martian Manhunter — the Martian Mindhunter. This is a huge change for the character, and could easily show readers the way this book will go.
This Is New Martian Manhunter Hearkens Back to the Classic, While Adding a Dose of New
Absolute Martian Manhunter #1 is a visual feast — seriously, you need to hold it in your hands and marvel at it — and shows off telepathy in an entirely new way. Smoke is an important part of the book — John is injured in an explosion, he smokes cigarettes, and when he starts seeing the thoughts of people around him, he sees them as smoke curling out of people’s ears and all around. Looking at the way Rodriguez renders the thoughts of the characters around John is breathtaking, and with the way Camp writes telepathy to work, John Jones might become a literal “mindhunter,” a telepathic bloodhound who follows the scent of people’s mental smoke to find them. This new vision of telepathy is the most interesting way to think about the mental landscape made by people. Changing the hero’s name to Martian Mindhunter says a lot about what kind of comic we’re going to be getting.
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One of the things that people sometimes forget about Martian Manhunter is that the character started his existence not as the Swiss Army knife of the Justice League, but as a detective. J’onn J’onnz was a lawman on Mars and was pulled away from his home by a science experiment. When he came to Earth, he took the form of a human and joined the police force. “John Jones” did his best to stop crime and punish wrongdoers, and that looks like something that the Absolute version of the character is going to do, as well. As his powers develop, it’s easy to imagine him using his telepathy to hunt down the smoke of the minds he reads. On top of that, there’s the Netflix show Mindhunter, a procedural about FBI agents hunting serial killers; this new John Jones is an FBI agent who will almost certainly use his powers to hunt down minds. He is a mindhunter and he’s from Mars, making this new name very apropos.
Absolute Martian Manhunter Is Going to be a Very Different Type of Martian Manhunter Story
Martian Manhunter is one of the most powerful superheroes in the DC Multiverse. Readers haven’t really gotten to see many of his solo adventures in recent years, but they’re usually detective stories. Absolute Martian Manhunter is certainly going to use this idea, as Absolute John Jones seems completely devoted to his job at the FBI, and the way that Camp and Rodriguez use telepathy easily lends itself to detective stories. John, following the “scent” of the mind he’s looking for like a bloodhound, drawn by Rodriguez, is definitely going to happen at some point in the book.
Absolute Martian Manhunter #1 is on sale at DC.
