DCU Comic Book Reviews

MARTIAN MANHUNTER #2

The Others Among Us, Part 2

November 2006

Written by A. J. Lieberman

Pencils by Al Barrionuevo

Inks by Bit

Cover by Al Barrionuevo & Bit

Synopsis

Now...J’onn J’onzz enters the secure medical facility to search for the other Martians.  He gleaned its location after probing the mind of the assassin sent to kill the Martian Roh’Kar that managed to escape the facility.  Four weeks earlier...a Martian pendant fell out of the sky.  Ms. Ferdinand, the administrator of the facility, attempted to retrieve the pendant, but she failed.  Eventually, J’onn was able to get it.  Now...J’onn frees the five Martians.  They are suspicious of J’onn, believing he is part of the plot to keep them imprisoned, but J’onn convinces them he is helping them.  J’onn attempts to hide the small group from searching soldiers, but the Martians decide to exact revenge for all the horrible things that had been done to them while they were imprisoned.  Of all human emotions, revenge is not foreign to J’onn’s people.

Review

I am not all that pleased with the continuous use of flipping back and forth through time, especially since some of the flashbacks actually occurred in the Brave New World one-shot.  While this particular method of storytelling is certainly not new, it just seems to be that since Identity Crisis, it has been used more and more.  In some cases it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  I don’t think it works particularly well here.  A lot of that is due to the fact that these characters are new to the reader.  It gets disorienting flipping around, trying to keep in mind who is who and what they mean to the plot and what they mean to each other.  With familiar characters (such as the heroes in Identity Crisis, it is much easier to keep everything in perspective. 

With this one small caveat, this second issue of the series failed to capture my attention or make me care about the Martians in any way.  It is strange, but I am less interested in what had been done to them in the facility than I am in learning the reasons how they survived the destruction and where they have been hiding during the time J’onn has been on Earth.  Were they on Earth, were they elsewhere in the vast universe, but because the number of Martians is so small, their presence was not big news.  The universe is huge; it would be easy to hide Martians.  Of course, I suppose this begs the question, why does the facility need the Martians and what did they do to them?   Huh.  In a roundabout way I guess I am interested in the learning what happened, but I think the real question to be answered still remains:  where have they been?

Essentially, I am interested in the answers to the questions the story creates, but I am not all that invested in the characters or what they are doing.-- Review by MRB