DCU Comic Book Reviews

MARTIAN MANHUNTER #5

The Others Among Us, Part 5

February 2007

Written by A. J. Lieberman

Pencils by Al Barrionuevo

Inks by Bit

Cover by Al Barrionuevo & Bit

Synopsis

In New York City, the helicopter with Mr. Giggs crashes into the water.  Three days later in Pennsylvania, Kewell is attacked by an unknown assailant.  Elsewhere, J’onn leads the Martians and Sara to an isolated rural housing development to hide out.  J’onn then attempts to retrieve the Sy’rann’s dead body so that it can be purified for a Martian ceremony.  Meanwhile, at the department of homeland security, Mr. Keane believes that Mr. Giggs has gone rogue.  When J’onn gets the body, he finds it has been infected with the same disease that destroyed Mars.  This is the reason the other Martians have been kidnapped.  J’onn decides to find Scorch, someone who might be able to help. At STAR Labs, he is greeted by members of the Justice League, who tell J’onn to stand down.  He refuses; the Martians defeat the league members.  A examination of DEO agents responsible for Scorch reveals they were killed by a green Martian.  Meanwhile, Giggs escapes.  He finds Mr. Keane, who then turns into a Martian and threatens Giggs.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

In case you haven’t had the chance to root around this damn fine website (and perhaps found your way here via a search engine), then I’ll let you know that I read and review a lot of comics.  There are some comics that are very good and some that are very bad.  I find that even with the bad comics, I still find some tidbits, either in the writing or the art, that keep me interested.  This mini-series is perhaps the only comic that I actively find not only uninteresting, but I have a very difficult time trying to follow the basic story.  And I read it twice before I write this review.  I think a lot of this is due to the jumps in the story.  I am not even talking about the chronological jumps in the earlier issues but some of the smaller leaps such as J’onn searching his apartment and then two hours later having Giggs tied up in the basement.  Okay, so how did J’onn find him?  What was Giggs doing before then?  What did he do after the helicopter went down?  Or later when Sara says she knows someone who can help, but then this is left dangling.  Who is it?  Did they contact this person?  Like a lot of stuff in this mini-series, what response J’onn had to Sara occurred off-panel.  It is these type of things that drive me crazy. 

Moreover, the entire premise that Martians were caught in order to attack J’onn just sounds ludicrous.  If someone wanted J’onn dead, all they need to do is start a large fire.  The plan to kidnap Martians (whom everyone though did not exist) to run secret tests to find a way to infect J’onn is convoluted and unnecessarily complicated that I just don’t buy it. 

What exactly is Zatanna doing with the rest of the Justice League?  For that matter, what about Green Arrow.  I assume Vixen and Black Canary were picked because of the new, otherwise I am not sure why or how these people were selected.  It just seems so random.  And ineffective.  Nice to see (or not since it happens off panel, like a lot of stuff this series) how quickly a couple of Martians can disable the Justice League.