Twelve Days of Christmas Special Review Series, Part Ten, By Johnathan

DC Comics Presents No. 67! Superman and Santa Claus vs. the Toyman!


The story is nothing extraordinary (read: I couldn't find anything especially worth making fun of) - basically, Toyman starts hypnotizing children to steal from street corner Santas and the like and the real Santa Claus ends up getting in on the act. The part that got me (because I'm a sentimental fool, see?) is when Superman gets home, thinking that it was all just a dream or possibly an imaginary story, and ends up finding his beloved childhood toy in his cape pocket.


I'm tearing up!

I do like that it wasn't a toy wooden thought-beast or anything. No, Kryptonian children wouldn't play with anything so primitive. They get thought-powered illusion machines which sounds fun until you remember some of the things that you imagined as a child. man, I was fairly convinced that there were horrible creatures (wizened, gnomish creatures) literally around every corner for a while. I probably would have had a tiny heart attack if I'd have been able to see them.

Still, JOHN APPROVED. Nice one, Santa.

"three Luornus,"

Twelve Days of Christmas Special Review Series, Part Four, By Johnathan

Only three days behind! I was going to write this last night, but I was distracted by enchiladas and wine. Who could resist that, I ask you?

Back to that super-hero party from Adventure Comics No. 289 (I can't stop plugging Super Future Friends! Go there!) - remember, the whole reason that Supergirl hauled her cousin 1010 years into the future was to get him some future bootie (booty?), and where better to look for a quick hook-up than the super equivalent of a drunken office Christmas party. Hell, there are probably four or five different sets of super-butt prints on the hyperspatial image duplication assembly already. All Supergirl really has to do is point Clarkie in someone's direction and let fly.

So who does she choose?


Saturn Girl! Saturn Woman! Whoever!


Superman has been holding out for a woman with a lot of plaques! Turns out that he only values qualities that have been commemorated by brass plate screwed to wood, which is why to this day he's convinced that Green Arrow is indeed the World's Greatest Sex Machine.

The most important question raised by this panel, though, is just who the hell gave her that plaque? Her mom? Her stalker? Is there a shadowy group of future trophy-makers dedicated to making the folks of the 30th Century feel okay about themselves? Should I expect a tasteful brass-and-mahogany number commemorating my exceptional capacity for beer and nachos?


"Holy poo! You look basically the same as you used to, only somewhat taller! I honestly figured that ten years would have rendered you into a total pooch! Look, I made you a joke dog-collar flight belt and everything!"


I'm pretty glad that 'darts + mistletoe' isn't a cliched holiday recipe for making people kiss. I can basically guarantee that I'd have had a few accidental trepannations by now, knowing my friends. Also, I don't trust their judgement on who I should kiss.


What is the etiquette on this kind of thing? Can you keep kissing someone as long as there's mistletoe around? Do they have any say in the matter or do they have to run and/or start spritzing some Agent Orange ceilingward? I haven't ever actually seen the stuff - anyone from a mistletoe-using part of the world care to weigh in?


It's been said before (though I seem not to be able to find an example): Supergirl watching Superman kiss people is creepy. And happens a lot.


"Holiday Spirit", eh? That smacks of euphemism. Is Superman drunk, do you reckon? Is there a reason that he hasn't seen these people in ten years?

"Hey, where's Superboy? We could really use his help with these Rigellian Spore-Monkeys."

"Uh, we had to leave him back at the Clubhouse. He's a bit too full of the old 'holiday spirit'. I think that we might need to have an intervention."


See? He's fleeing the party rather than admit his problem. Adventure Comics No. 290 is entirely concerned with his subsequent shame-based bender. Actually, much of Superman's Silver-Age behavior makes a lot of sense if you assume that he's smashed out of his gourd half the time ("Whee! Time to dig another tunnel! And then maybe get Batman to help me prank Lois!").

Finally: harsh, Supergirl. What did Phantom Woman ever do to you?

I have a new theory about how being shot through space at a young age promotes social awkwardness.

NOT APPROVED!

"nine Police sciencing,"

Twelve Days of Christmas Special Review Series, Part Two, By Johnathan

Dammit, I’m writing this on Calling Birds but I’m only up to Turtledoves (Augh! I was away from the internet again! It's Golden Rings!). Have to pick up the pace, Johnathan, or those Lords’ll be a-leaping sometime in February.

Continuing with Adventure Comics No. 289, today we answer the pressing question: what do super-heroes get each other for Christmas? (tangential observation: Red Tornado giving Batman a “World’s Greatest Detective” mug in the latest episode of The Brave and the Bold? Utterly adorable. That series is nothing but JOHN APPROVED)


Man, I don’t know how I feel about those pictures. I have some experience with that type of gift, and it is a super thoughtful/heart-warming thing to receive, but… there is absolutely no doubt that the implications of that time scope are profoundly creepy. I mean, think about what you did this morning. Now, think about a good friend of yours watching you do what you did this morning, with you all unaware. Gives me the shivers.

NOT APPROVED

So what do the Super-Cousins come up with to top that eerily thoughtful gift? Time-scope images of each Legionnaire’s death, maybe? Drawings of what they think everyone looks like in the shower, perhaps?


Flight belts! This is a good gift! So good, in fact, that it travels back in time - the teen Legion are using them in their next appearance and the poor Substitute Heroes have to make do with them for about twenty years after everyone else gets fancy-pants flight rings.

JOHN APPROVED

Still, I wish that the “glowing crotch” aspect of the flight belt had remained a part of Legion canon. It’s just so… festive.

"eleven Tyrocs shouting,"

Twelve Days of Christmas Special Review Series, Part One, By Johnathan

Hallo hallo! It's me, Johnathan, back from the far-away land of Offline and fat with turkey and buttered vegetables. As promised, I'm going to rock the twelve days of Christmas with twelve reviews highlighting various modes of holiday celebration in the comical booklets that I so love. And since we're already on Day 3 (French hens!) I'm going to be playing catchup.

What are we going to look at for Partridge/Pear Tree Day? Who else but the Legion! From Adventure Comics No. 289, as recently looked at over at Super Future Friends, we have this:


Supergirl has a plot to get a little action for her cousin, so she hauls him into the 30th Century to hang with the adult Legion for Christmas. More on the action-getting plot later - today we're looking at the Legion's decorations.

Not too sure why there isn't ever any snow around the Legion Clubhouse, as it's located just outside of either Smallville or Metropolis and I'm pretty sure that at this point those estimable towns are both located in Kansas. Isn't Kansas snowy? Maybe the poles flipped in 2567 or something like that. No matter. I'm sure it's Brainiac 5's doing.

I sure do like the Santa dummy in the space ship. Some of my favourite things about the Legion's future are its intersections with our past - rather than playing some crazy game where you simulate nuclear fusion with electronic beans they play holographic Dungeons and Dragons or Spaceopoly (which I hope is all about capturing the Boardwalk Nebula early in the game). Likewise, rather than having a robot out front with a special time portal that loops images of history's greatest Nativity scenes, including the original, they have a crappy Santa dummy that someone thought would look cute in their rocket car. My Dad's neighbours would do that!

JOHN APPROVED


As for their tree: fantastic! This is the solution for my irrational aversion to even the most convincing fake Christmas tree - make 'em weird abstract treeoid forms. I haven't had a tree in my own place for upwards of ten years but I sure would set up that cone-stack. Especially if I could arrange to have planets revolving around it. Or possibly something else, I don't know. Towns I've lived in? Snack foods I have known and loved (oh, Punkys. I miss ye). The important thing is the revolution.

JOHN APPROVED

"Twelve beasts of lightning,"

Prose: Review of Who Can Save Us Now?, By Johnathan

Took advantage of being home sick to finish reading Who Can Save Us Now?, which I mentioned in my first review of prose way back when. I'm far, far too lazy to see if I mentioned this then, but the theme of the anthology is that it's made up of the stories of brand new superheroes, and it's pretty consistently great. The authors (all new to me, which is extra-terrific as it gives me a passel of new books to check out) approach the idea of superheroism in a fairly diverse set of ways, from looking at old-fashioned rock-'em sock-'em heroics to everyday, trying-to-make-a-difference stuff. I did raise one eyebrow when the first story in the book ("Girl Reporter" by Stephanie Harrell) turned out to be, essentially, about Lois Lane and Superman without any names named, but it was such a damned fine yarn that I ultimately didn't care.

There are a lot of fantastic tales in this collection, in fact. "Nate Pinckney-Alderson, Superhero"(fantastic characterization, especially of the titular youth) by Elizabeth Crane, "Bad Karma Girl Wins at Bingo" (possibly my favourite-as-a-person character in the collection) by Kelly Braffet, "Man Oh Man - It's Manna Man" by George Singleton (best title in the book, and one of the best hero concepts), "The Thirteenth Egg"(coolest costume or equivalent, in my head) by Scott Snyder, etc, etc. As I said, lots of different visions, and nobody took the theme off in a really jarring direction (you know - like there's a themed anthology about desks, and someone writes a stream-of-consciousness drug-inspired novella about a dying yak who spend half a page imagining that he is a desk. Whether or not it's a decent story, you find yourself skipping over it the next time you read the book and the whole thing holds together a lot more coherently without it. Or is that just me?).

Owen King and John McNally - the editors - also put in a good show on the writing front, McNally with "Remains of the Night", about the butler to the super-creepy, Batman-esque Silverfish, and King with "The Meerkat", which is probably my favourite of the stories in the collection. King has the Kurt Busiek-like ability to throw out a few references and imply a whole superhero-filled world. I would love to read actual comic books (preferably about the further adventures of The Meerkat) written by this guy - I do believe that they would be great.

Likewise, I would heartily enjoy hearing more from Jennifer Weiner on the adventures of the characters in "League of Justice (Philidelphia Division)". Though the story itself is open-ended in a way that doesn't strictly require resolution, I would read any followup stories or an expansion to novel-length so hard.

In short: great collection (oops, almost forgot - really nice-looking cover and neato interior illustration, the latter by Chris Burnham), JOHN APPROVED

Addendum: I just looked up a few other reviews of this book, just out of curiosity, and have to say: what the hell is up over at the New York Post? This review, which I implore you not to read unless you have already or never intend to read the book, is possibly the most heinous thing ever. Oh, it's positive, and obviously much more professionally-written than my own written-for-the-fun-of-it efforts, but good lord, sir (sir in this case being a Mr. Brian Doherty), what the hell were you thinking when you chose two quotes that ruined the impact of two of the more affecting stories in the book? It's like going back in time and recommending Star Wars on the basis of the bitchin' "Luke's father" reveal. NOT APPROVED, sir.

Review of Even More Martians Manhunter, By Johnathan

Howdy, y’all! The grand crossover that is Martian Manhunter Week continueth! Today, we’re going to keep on looking at alternate versions of J’onn J’onzz, Manhunter from Mars. Fair warning: there’s a chance of spoilers for the stories that these guys come from, though I’m going to try to focus on the green men rather than the plots surrounding them.


Here’s another look at J’onn in his natural state, oddly shiny and blasting eye-beams all over the place. Wotta guy, huh?


Sadly, this isn’t the J’onn J’onzz of Earth-X-Men-Movie or something, this is what he’s been wearing since Infinite Crisis or so. I’m not sure quite why I dislike this costume so much. I definitely favour heroes who wear a complete outfit instead of running around in their underwear, so that’s not it. Plus, I really like collars like the one that he’s sporting there, and this costume does a good job of incorporating elements from the classic Manhunter getup. I think that it might be the radical shift in the balance of colours in the outfit as a whole: green with some red and blue looks nice, while blue with some red and green looks bleh. NOT APPROVED.


This is a fun one from a yarn called JLA: Riddle of the Beast that I haven’t actually read yet but which I understand to be the Justice League set in a fantasy world, one of the ones with goblins and such everywhere. From what I’ve gathered, he’s all hermitish and creepy, which is fun. And I always like it when non-humans don’t look completely human, so JOHN APPROVED.


So at one point, someone decided that they’d heard enough bitching and moaning about how a fear of fire was a stupid weakness for Martians to have and decided to justify it. The route they took was the same one that was ultimately used to explain the Green Lantern weakness to yellow. To whit: “It’s because of a monster! In the power battery!” Or in this case, in the Martian genome. Turns out that J’onn is descended from a race of flaming warmongers, and that the Guardians of the Universe did something to make them the nice green chaps that we know and love to this day, and that the fear of fire thing serves to seal the deal. So, when J’onn eventually conquers his pyrophobia, FAZAM! He becomes a giant, burning asshole named Fernus. It’s kind of a neat story, I suppose, but I mostly threw it in here because of that cover, one of my favourites ever. Go, Plastic Man, go! JOHN APPROVED.

Act of God was a neat idea for an Elseworld – one day, everyone on Earth who has super-powers loses them, and the world needs to adjust to this. Two big problems crop up pretty quickly: first, everyone who used technology to pull or fight crimes is unaffected, so there are a lot of guys like Captain Cold and Lex Luthor still running around causing trouble. Secondly, some of the former heroes find themselves unable to adjust to being unable to zap evil with their eyes and whatnot. In order to more effectively combat the former group, several members of the latter went to Batman and received training in vigilanteism. I’ll let our pal introduce himself:

“J’onn J’onzz, formerly the Martian Manhunter, now the Green Man – detective and martial arts skills, shock-value appearance, and a full range of multipurpose skull grenades.”


I don’t think that the 'multipurpose' part of the skull grenades was explored very thoroughly, beyond "You can put them down on the ground and they explode later, or you can throw them and they explode now." Regardless, they're pretty cool. As is J'onn, actually. Let's watch:


Possibly my favourite thing about this whole exercise was the effort that was put into creating new identities for the powerless heroes, without just saying "Okay, this is the new Aquaman, and since he can't breathe underwater any more, he'll be using a SCUBA rig. And the Flash takes a lot of speed." Yay, Green Man! JOHN APPROVED.

Okay, a bit of setup for the next one: J'onn J'onzz was once affiliated with the Justice League Task Force, which was a... task force made up of various members of the Justice League. At one point, this task force was off on a mission to a place full of alien Amazons. The team that was going on that mission consisted of a bunch of women and J'onn, and they convinced him that he would stick out like a sore something if he was the only guy in the whole damn place. And so, after much writerly effort and justification...


Joan J'onzz was born! Yikes, right? I mean, there are certain parts of my brain that are responding in a traditional ape-man fashion, but for once they are being shouted down by the peanut gallery that is the nerdy portion of my psyche. I have questions, Joan.

Okay, first question: what's with the costume? I mean, I appreciate the effort that you went to to shapeshift the classic elements of your regular costume (oh, ew. I just realized that the Manhunter's cape is almost certainly a part of him, like a curtain made of skin or something. *shudder*) into something that will cover up girl-parts, but... but you can do more than just cover them. The x-bra thing I can see - it's just too clever a modification not to use - but why the hell would you give yourself a thong, with what looks like a bit of camel-toe? Have you just been hanging around with lady super-heroes too much?


Secondly, and again this might have its roots in the fact that you hang around with people like Maxima all the time, why the hell do you look like that? I mean, I can understand wanting to look good, but disregarding the juvenile sexual aspect of the whole thing (and J'onn J'onzz is generally as asexual as a beet), what the hell is the point of having breasts the size of your head? Are you planning on hiding behind them in battle? Did you have a lot of extra mass to use up? Gah. Martians today...


Man, this cover is pure bondage cheesecake, but it's so blatant about it that it's almost admirable. Still and all, J'onn's gender-bending is too mind-bending and gets a stern NOT APPROVED.


Oh, man. Justice Riders. This one's easy to explain: the JLA in the Old West vs. Maxwell Lord as a corrupt rail baron. Not too much to say about this incarnation of the Manhunter, except that it was fun and well-characterized - like the whole book, really. Oh, and he had a great line when he first joined the team:


Man, if he had only said "I reckon." at the end, it would have been perfect. Still, JOHN APPROVED.

This next one's from early in the Grant Morrison run of JLA. Superman and the Martian Manhunter are trapped in a maze that is being generated by the Joker's mind and J'onn's solution is to, well:


I just threw this one in because it was a really neat solution to the problem, and the Manhunter looks great with that grin plastered across his normally-stoic face.


It's also really creepy when he starts adding little "ha ha ha"s to every sentence. It's not even like he's finding anything amusing, it's just an eerie little vocal tic that comes with the Joker-brain. Brrr. JOHN APPROVED.


Not that I looked very hard, but this is one of the few pictures that I found of J'onn in his native form (and on his native planet). Everyone's so pointy! JOHN APPROVED.


From JLA: The Island of Doctor Moreau. Fairly straightforward: what if Dr. Moreau had turned various animals into analogues of the Justice League and they hunted down Jack the Ripper? J'onn is Komodo, the lizard-man, 'cos he's green. It was an interesting premise, but a bit stretched. I think that the lion with electric eels attached to his arm was supposed to be Superman maybe, and that's a head-scratcher.


Still, it's rare to see someone fill out a singlet like that nowadays.

JOHN APPROVED.


This is just Kyle Raynor, trapped in J'onn's body and unable to control it fully. He's all melty.

NOT APPROVED.


Ah, the Legion appearance. J'onn showed up while Mysa Nal, the White Witch, was going on some grand spirit-quest in an attempt to reclaim her powers after they were sapped by a painful divorce (this is what happens when you marry the most evil sorcerer ever, ladies). I never quite got why he was so interested in helping her, but it was nice to see 20th Century/30th Century interaction again.


Okay, so J'onn wasn't exactly 20th Century anymore, what with his having lived through the intervening years and all, but you get the idea.

He looks like he's been bumming around the galaxy for a thousand years, doesn't he? The word is "weatherbeaten", kids.

I actually thought that I'd have more to say about this one. It was a good time, I suppose, even if nobody took J'onn's advice.


He's as quick on the uptake as ever, folks!

JOHN APPROVED.


Okay, this one is weird. It's from All Access, a spin-off of the Marvel/DC Amalgam Comics collaboration. Now, I really enjoyed that whole event, what with the neato combinations of characters and so forth. Imagine my consternation, though, when I looked up J'onn's role in the proceedings and found that he had made only a one-panel appearance, merged with Phoenix and not even rocking a punny new name. Boo! Boo I say! Look, I'll make one up right now: J'onn Sampson, the Martian Hulkbuster. See? It's easy, Amalgam writers. NOT APPROVED.

(Aw, poo. It turns out that Mister X of the JLX comic was Manhunter, too - I just hadn't been looking in the right places [and god forbid I should go to the trouble of reading the comics again]. Well, live and learn, I say. I'll just change this one to JOHN APPROVED, hey? Wait, no... that amalgam's still hideous. Still NOT APPROVED)


The great hope for present-day Martian Manhunter to be alive: future Martian Manhunter! From Martian Manhunter 1 000 000, this is J'onn after 800 000 years or so of life, with all kinds of scraps and adventures and so forth having happened in the interim. Eventually he ended up as part of the since-terraformed planet Mars and got to make giant heads like this to impress Kyle when he came to visit. I liked this one - it was a good yarn, and J'onn looks good made of dirt.

JOHN APPROVED.

From the JLA/Young Justice crossover Sins of Youth:


Klarion the Witch-Boy has pulled some mystic mumbo-jumbo on the assembled heroes of Earth, making the adults youngsters and vice-versa. According to a text page somewhere in the comic, the de-aged Manhunter is known as the Martian Kidhunter, which actually sounds a bit creepy (though not as much, I just realized, as the Martian Boyhunter would).


Aside from the fact that his boots are too big and that he hasn't yet learned how to make a nose, the Kidhunter isn't too different from the Manhunter, which is a shame. I guess that by virtue of the fact that he was super-serious all the time whilst in the Morrison-to-Infinite Crisis JLA, J'onn was cast as the quiet, responsible type of kid that I'm sorry to say that I might have been at one point. Meh. The above scene was neat, though, with the pint-sized JSA and JLA rampaging around in the old Justice League cave HQ while grown-up Stargirl tried to keep them in check. JOHN APPROVED.


Another one I haven't read yet, a JLA special called Primeval. I include it here because that green blob at the back is everyone's fave Martian Manhunter, J'onn J'onzz, all devolved and this is more the sort of thing that I was hoping to see him become in JLApe. JOHN APPROVED. (the cute little devolved Zauriel at the top of the panel is also JOHN APPROVED!)

From the Elseworlds 80-Page Giant:


I love "Slim Green Lord of Glam Rock" as an alternative to "Martian Manhunter". I'm going to try to use it more often in casual, Martian-related conversation. That mullet, however, is a hundred million times more horrifying than Superman's ever was. NOT APPROVED.

That's pretty much it, folks, though if you can think of some neato variation on the Manhunter that I missed, let me know. I'm going to wrap up with a look at some images from the Secret Origins version of J'onn's trip to Earth:


Okay, now that is an alien that could inspire a heart attack. Plus, he was apparently in a Martian mosh pit when he was teleported. I like Doc Erdel's goggles, but a flattop is no substitute for a gigantic walrus moustache.


Pathos!


The world tour from the original J'onn J'onzz origin tale was neat, but I like the newer version, as shown here, where he just watched a whole lot of TV. That's one of the reasons that he was such a great character in New Frontier, I think: the 1950s broadcast enthusiasm that he had about things and life and stuff.


And those are just the cutest couple of panels ever. JOHN APPROVED.

Good night, folks! I've got one more Manhunter-related post in the works - look for it soon.

Review of Martians Manhunter, By Johnathan

Hello again, folks! Time for the second installment in our portion of the Paul and John Review/Living Between Wednesdays crossover tribute to our favourite dead Martian, J'onn J'onzz! Today, I'll be looking at some of the Manhunter's different appearances in Elseworlds yarns and what have you and trying to review how he looks instead of the book as a whole. Easier than you think, though, because I haven't read some of this stuff yet.

For comparison, here's J'onn J'onzz in his standard configuration, before he made his head pointy and started wearing that terrible uniform that he died in.

I'm writing these in no particular order, so first up is J'onn in an Elseworlds tale about the JLA, called Destiny (I think that I might have to do little mini-reviews of these things to keep my opinions about them from seeping into the main reviews. In brief, this one is about a world in which there is no JLA: no Superman, no Batman, etc. There are some really neat original characters and I remember liking it enough that I'm not going to spoil it more than I have to. Thoroughly JOHN APPROVED). As I recall (it's been a while), J'onn has been half-dead in a desert for years, and is slowly dissolving or something like that.

Or maybe it's his mind that's dissolving, since you can see him floating in the middle of the forehead there. In any case, for the purposes of this story, J'onn J'onzz is an immobile, intangible green giant lying in a desert and conversing with Destiny, the title character.

He acts as a sort of informant and clues the good guys into some of what's been going on in the world (if this isn't one of the 52, it should be. It's a damn sight better than that crappy Red Rain universe, I can tell you that.). It's really fun; I wish I could tell you more but there are ethical considerations. Read this one if you get the chance.

Oh, he's also really ugly, even for a giant. Even so, I enjoy the creative use of the character - this is the good kind of Elseworld, where it's not just Batman in a pirate outfit (not that that's necessarily a bad time, just that it's not as cool).

JOHN APPROVED

Here's the Manhunter from the much-maligned JLApe event (I haven't actually read this yet, but I like the concept and the name is kind of clever, so it's tentatively JOHN APPROVED):

I have to admit, I was hoping for some sort of Martian primate, or a weird lizard-man or something. This just looks like Beast Boy doing some cosplay or something. This:

terrific look/sound of surprise kind of makes up for that, but doesn't mitigate the fact that the Manhunter immediately uses his shapeshifting powers to become normal and wreck the whole premise of the thing. Damn internal consistancy.

NOT APPROVED

Three quick ones:

First, Mr. Mxyzptlk takes him out in World's Funniest:

Nothing new, really, but it's a great comic, so I felt compelled to mention it at one point or another. (JOHN APPROVED!)

Next, the Manhunter in an Elseworlds called League of Justice, which is a fantastically creative name:

I haven't read this one, but the J'onn-analogue is really creepy looking, so I felt like including it here. Bug eyes and veiny head? ugly is one thing, but this guy is ugly-ugly.

NOT APPROVED

And here's the funny animal version of him, from Captain Carrot No.14:

Martian Anteater? Mediocre at best - better than Rat Tornado but nowhere near Elong-Gator. Though it wouldn't have quite as effectively hammered home the THIS IS AN ANIMAL VERSION OF THE JLA message, I feel that calling him the Martian Anthunter would not have caused panic and rioting in the streets. NOT APPROVED

Here's the Manhunter in Kingdom Come:

He's a shell of his former self, but he doesn't deserve this:

Real tactful, Spectre.

I have a theory about why J'onn ended up this way here (and it applies to his similarly neutered state in Dark Knight Strikes Again): Ross (and Miller) had written his great big epic featuring a conflict between Superman and Captain Marvel (or Superman and Batman's brain), the two most powerful forces in the DCU, and then remembered that there was a third, slightly more green guy floating around in the same weight class. Thus, the telepathic self-lobotomy is born (or the nanotech-to-the-brain. Nanotech that both invalidates mental powers and makes someone all hard-boiled and Sin City-esque). It kind of makes sense, but it's an ignominious end for the noble Martian.

NOT APPROVED

Here's a non-pathetic-looking Ross Manhunter, just for the hell of it.

Guh. I'm done for the day. Turns out, though, that I have enough of these pictures for a whole 'nother day of this. Tune in next time for J'onn J'onzz as a kid, as a cowboy and as a lady!

Whee!