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wanderingmind867 · 30 days ago

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My definitive interpretation on Martian Manhunter:

Martian Manhunter/J'onn J'onzz and his younger brother Ma'alefa'ak were from Mars, a civilization built by and worshipful of the Roman deity of Mars. J'onn was a Manhunter, the equivalent of a police officer in martian society. He had a wife and a young daughter and all was peaceful and content for him. Ma'alefa'ak meanwhile was a recluse, shunned because he was the only Martian without telepathy. He grew bitter towards his people because of this, but it actually ended up becoming a great boon for him.

You see, the Martians have a natural enemy in the Saturnians. The Saturnians are the natural enemy of everyone in the solar system, in fact. That's because they're the chosen people of Saturn/Kronos, the evil titan who oppressed humanity back in antiquity. Although Saturn/Kronos is rotting in Tartarus, his chosen people continue to worship him and pray to him. And when he spoke to his people and told them they had to raise an army and enslave the chosen peoples of the other olympians, the saturnians answered the call.

Assembling an army, the Saturnians pillaged the Solar System.They enslaved the people of Mars (as well as the people of every planet in the solar system besides Jupiter and Neptune and Pluto), and planned to bend them to their will. Being a very militaristic but dignified society (as befitting their patron god), the martians fought back. J'onn was on the frontlines for some of it. The war was bloody, and horrifying. This is when J'onn was first pulled away from Mars.

You see, back on earth, Dr. Mark Erdel of Colorado was attempting to make contact with alien life. And by a strange twist of fate, he did. Except he didn't merely build a communication device. No, instead he built a virtual magnet for brain waves. To a telepath like J'onn, the pull of the machine was irresistible. He went from mars to earth in the blink of an eye, leaving his people and family all alone back on mars, to be enslaved by the cruel and savage saturnians. Shocked that he summoned up a real, live alien (and one who even shapeshifts to look more humanoid in apperance), Dr. Erdel suffers a fatal heart attack and dies.

J'onn ends up now on earth, stuck recovering from landing in a strange place and watching a man die. After a month or two of recovery from that ordeal (a month in which J'onn begins to blame himself for the death of Doctor Erdel), J'onn prepares to leave for Mars again. But before he gets the chance, he discovers a Saturnian plot to invade earth the same way they tried to invade mars. Using his telepathy and shapeshifting powers, J'onn manages to assemble a team of 6 earth heroes to help him repel the Saturnian invasion. After the invasion, the Justice League is born, it's members the 7 defenders of earth.

So while the demigods of earth dealt with the actual titans and saved olympus, J'onn and the League was saving the cosmos. This is my way of outright telling you: this universe is the same universe as Percy Jackson. We're never gonna have anyone comment on that, but it allows us to show a third front in the Titan War: the space front.

Anyways, J'onn gets permission from his fellow martians to go and study earth by living there for a few years. He blends in on earth society by taking the name of John Jones and renting an apartment home for himself. Posing as a police detective in Middleton, Colorado, he has many adventures with his detective co-worker Diane Meade and his interdimensional sidekick Zook. For around 2-3 years, he stayed as John Jones like this, having superheroic adventures on earth both solo and with the Justice League.

But then J'onn had to deal with the Idol Head of Diabolu. This evil statue expelled toxic gas, which John Jones heroically jumped in front of to save a young child's life. But since John Jones was a human, everyone assumed he had died there that day. And J'onn was getting tired of leading this double life as a martian and as an ordinary earthman, so he willingly faked his death. Diane Meade and his friends on the force were all lead to believe he'd died. The only one he actually told the truth to was Zook.

From here, Martian Manhunter and Zook worked to destroy the Idol Head of Diabolu. For almost a year they fought the monsters released by that menacing Idol, but eventually they managed to destroy the Idol Head and clear up all their earthly loose ends. With the Idol Head that killed his human persona of "John Jones" gone, J'onn should have been able to go back to Mars. He wanted to. But fate wouldn't let him.

You see, J'onn and Zook end up getting wrapped into one final earthly adventure: they had to infiltrate and take down an international criminal organization known as Vulture. To combat Vulture, J'onn takes the secret identity of Marco Xavier, a multi-millionaire with reported ties to Vulture who died in a fatal car crash in France. From here, J'onn completely infiltrates the organization of Vulture, and eventually unmasks their ringmaster.

And here's the big twist in our story: the ringmaster of Vulture was the Marco Xavier! He faked his death in that car crash, and merely allowed J'onn to continue taking his identity so he could lure him into a trap. On that note, the trap Marco Xavier set for J'onn ends up levelling the building, and killing everyone but Martian Manhunter. Sickened and repulsed by what the past few months infiltrating Vulture has shown him, J'onn decides he needs to leave earth and finally go back to Mars.

While J'onn was handling all of his solo adventures, such as dealing with the Idol Head of Diabolu and with infiltrating Vulture, he was also an active member of the Justice League of America. He had pretty good relationships with almost every member of the team, although there were some people he was closer to than others. Him and Superman got along really well, for example. Being two aliens, they could relate to feeling sometimes out of place on earth. J'onn more than Clark (since J'onn actually has a living family on Mars), but still.

Whereas him and Wonder Woman had a more contentious relationship, initially (he was a patron of Mars, while Ares/Mars was one of Wonder Woman's biggest enemies). The Roman in J'onn vs the Greek in Diana made for some very icy relations, initially. Eventually they learned to work past it. But there's still a sort of lighthearted rivalry that exists between them, even now.

Another member of the team J'onn became really close to: Green Arrow. After their first few missions together, they became inseparable. Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter and Speedy were like an inseparable trio. Like Batman and Superman, except with more of a mutual trust. J'onn became just as much a father to Roy as Oliver. J'onn even began to see Roy like one of his own kids back home on mars. And Zook was like the weird family pet, even accompanying Roy on a solo mission or two.

In short, J'onn was the heart of the team. He was the one responsible for it's founding, he was the one who was always on call, he was just the one really holding the team together. So when he left to go back to Mars, it really devastated the team dynamics. They managed to survive, but as i'll show later: things really went to hell without J'onn around.

But J'onn finally heads back to Mars, homesick after years on earth. He can't wait to get back to M'yri'ah and the kids. And to introduce them to Zook, his new interdimensional sidekick. He was in really good spirits as he flew back to mars, anticipating nothing but happy things. But what he finds there on Mars is enough to haunt him for the rest of his years.

In his absence, Mars has been completely razed to the ground. The Saturnians came back, slighted by J'onn repelling their invasion of the solar system. As punishment, they used the martian's genetic weakness to fire, and burned everything and everyone to the ground. The martians fought valiantly, and managed to kill most of the Saturnian forces. But the end result was the same: a bloodbath. J'onn's wife and two kids were murdered in cold blood, and he could have saved them. If he wasn't on earth, he could've saved them…and that's what finally breaks him.

Almost everyone died in that war, beyond one Martian and one Saturnian. J'onn's brother Ma'alefa'ak managed to survive, mostly because ma'alefa'ak was such a hermit that the saturnians didn't even know where he was. He survived because his people shunned him. And one Saturnian survived the wars: K'os'che'i, the deathless one. He couped the rightful ruler of Saturn by declaring him too weak to get revenge on Mars, and he then led the charge to massacre every martian in existence.

These two brothers were then left on an abandoned planet to grieve. Seeing red at the death of his wife and two children, J'onn loses it and goes on a revenge quest with Ma'alefa'ak' and Zook. The quest takes them to the farthest ends of the galaxy hunting for K'os'che'i and the secrets to his immortality. It even leads them to discovering the true heir to Saturn, Prince Jemm. Jemm was the adopted child of the Emperor of Saturn. But when K'os'che'i led his coup, Jemm's adopted mother spirited him away to a distant star system to be raised to fight and reclaim his throne.

Now, Jemm joins our trio in hunting down K'os'che'i, and we eventually have a dramatic confrontation scene at the edge of all the known galaxies. Martian Manhunter, Ma'alefa'ak, Zook and Jemm have already destroyed the artifact keeping K'os'che'i alive. And with sorrow and righteous anger welling up within, J'onn and Jemm kill K'os'che'i and burn his ashes to dust.

Now depressed and miserable, J'onn, Ma'alefa'ak, Zook and Jemm go their separate ways once again. J'onn and Ma'alefa'ak are going to go back to Mars, try to process their loss and grief. Meanwhile, Jemm decides he's going to explore the galaxies, try and see if he can't rebuild the legacy of the good Saturnians elsewhere in space. Zook decides to accompany Jemm, knowing it's probably best he give J'onn time to himself, after this tragedy.

From here, J'onn and Ma'alefa'ak end up spending time on Mars again for a whole period of years. They just end up exploring space together, always returning to their little makeshift village on mars just for the two of them. It's a very peaceful and tranquil life. The most peace J'onn's known in a long, long time, honestly. But like all things in J'onn's life, this peace doesn't last.

After 5-6 years in space with his brother, J'onn is summoned back to earth by the Justice League. He has to stop Batman's coup attempt on the league, which finally brings J'onn back to earth. He manages to stop batman just in the nick of time, and then he heads back to mars to resume his vigil. But once back on Mars, a nagging feeling of dread never quite leaves him alone. So about a month or two after all this, he returns to earth. And that's when he finds the Justice League has disbanded in his absence. And that they inducted about half a dozen new members in his absence. And that they apparently kicked Snapper Carr out!?

J'onn is devastated by all the idiotic changes the league made in his absence. But he knows that he can't abandon the legacy of this team he helped create, so he decides it's time for him to come back to earth once more. And this time on a more permanent basis. So he goes back to space and convinces his brother Ma'alefa'ak to come to earth with him. Together they move to Detroit and set up a detective agency. This is around when J'onn sets up the Justice League Detroit. But that's a topic for my Justice League interpretation post.

I cover most of J'onn and Ma'alefa'ak's adventures on earth in my Justice League interpretation posts. But let's pick up where that one left off. Ma'alefa'ak' went on a rampage because he felt the earthmen were being prejudicial to him, and he had to be stopped by every member of the Justice League working together. But before they can capture him, Ma'alefa'ak escapes. Nobody knows where he went and nobody has the time to track him down, since the Justice League Detroit begins collapsing like a house of cards shortly after this.

J'onn then heads up to Ottawa to help found the Justice League Canada. But all the while that he's in Ottawa, he can't help thinking of his brother. He misses Ma'alefa'ak', and so he's constantly trying to find his brother at the same time he's trying to lead the Justice League Canada.

After around a year of searching as the Justice League Canada builds itself up, J'onn gets a report that his brother was spotted heading towards Colorado in the company of characters like Captain Cold and Harley Quinn. Concerned by all of this, J'onn heads off for Colorado all on his own, leaving the rest of the league to try and deal with a threat in his absence. Since he was the stabilizing force on the team, his absence is felt immensely. But they survive.

Anyways, let's check in on Ma'alefa'ak'. As mentioned previously, he ran away from the league after his rampaging attack on humanity. Knowing he needed to lie low and settle down, he shapeshifts and takes a new identity as an ordinary citizen in St. Louis, Missouri. For like 2-3 months he laid low here, just trying to lose himself in the crowd. But at some point, he accidentally runs into a group of criminals. Captain Cold and Harley Quinn had been planning on founding a team of reformed supervillians, and they chose St Louis as the perfect midway point between their locations in which to meet up and discuss it. And Ma'alefa'ak just so happens to be there observing them.

After eavesdropping on their conversation, he worms his way into the discussion and persuades them to let him join their group. He shapeshifts and pretends to be some common thug looking to go straight. He manages to work his way into their organization, and helps them plan their first activities as reformed villians. And when the other members of the team hear about a smuggling ring in Colorado and agree to head out there to bust it and showcase their new ways, Ma'alefa'ak' tags along. Some normal citizens accidentally see him transform back into his martian apperance (one even takes a screenshot), and that's how J'onn finally learns where his brother is.

J'onn ends up going down to Colorado to talk some sense into his brother, but after a brief fight with this supervillian team J'onn realizes that they're actually all looking to go straight, Ma'alefa'ak' included. He hadn't told any of them he was a martian (he was still afraid of facing humanity's scorn), but he was hoping to use them to make some form of amends for what he did. So then Martian Manhunter helps this team bust the Colorado smuggling operation.

After this, J'onn realizes that he wants to help this team of reformed villians gain legitimacy. They deserve to get the respect they deserve for making an effort at going straight. J'onn also realizes that he's now in Middleton, the same place he used to work as a Police Detective, all those many years ago. The place where John Jones died…the place where he killed Professor Mark Erdel….

Devastated by the memories of what happened, J'onn goes to the Middleton graveyard, where he spots his own grave from way back when. But he also spots the grave of Doctor Mark Erdel, who died at 70 years old of a fatal heart attack. A heart attack J'onn feels sure he caused. So in his shapeshifted form, J'onn stops to pay his respects at the grave. And that's when he realises two others are there, paying their respects too.

Turns out Doctor Erdel had a family. His grandson, Saul Erdel, followed him into the field of scientific research, and he now lives in Middleton to be close to his grandfather. And Saul Erdel has a daughter of his own, an 8-9 year old girl. Feeling even more guilty than ever, J'onn tries to run. But they discover him, and he's startled that he accidentally shapeshifts back to his true form.

As J'onn begins begging for forgiveness, Saul has to calm him down by assuring him it wasn't his fault. Hawkman and Hawkwoman figured out that J'onn wasn't the real killer years ago. J'onn just never had time to learn that, because he was busy on Mars. Relieved by this information (but still burdened with the trauma of untold millions) J'onn collapses in front of Saul, telling him everything.

But in a shockingly pure act of hospitality, Doctor Erdel invites J'onn to live with him. He doesn't have to be alone on earth, this time around. He can let himself open up to people. He can finally find a home on earth. So after like 10 years away from Colorado, J'onn's story ends the way it began: with him back in Colorado. Except this time he actually embraces humanity and settles down here.

J'onn becomes a private detective in Colorado, while also helping to mentor his brother and the other reformed supervillians (who are also now based out of Colorado to be close to him). He works on that for like a year, before eventually getting dragged into the creation of The Protectors (my DC version of The Defenders) when Doctor Fate summons him alongside Solomon Grundy and Ocean-Master. But I'll discuss that more in a note about The Protectors.

J'onn also now has a support system of humans around him in Colorado. Or at least, he's got 2-3 human friends there now. He's got the Erdel family, who him and ma'alefa'ak still live with. He's also got Diane Meade again, who's become a police commissioner in the time since J'onn's been away. But she still remembers him, and it's touching for both of them to be able to reconnect. And he's got his extended friend group up in space and abroad. Jemm and Zook occasionally stop by for visits, to catch back up with J'onn and Mal. And Green Arrow and Speedy waste no time reaching back out to their old crime fighting partner again.

So for now, J'onn J'onzz can finally say he's happy on earth. He's found new family and friends. A new job. A new life. Finally, he feels like he's home again. The death and trauma of his past is behind him. And he can finally be at peace.

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