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Sign the Petition to Save J'Onn J'Onzz
Click here to leave a comment and sign the Petition
and get banners to help promote the campaign.
Click here to download and distribute the
Save J'Onn and the Superheores
PRESS RELEASE
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Save J'Onn J'Onzz
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It's Manhunter's Formal Attire!
 At The Aquaman Shrine, Rob Kelly posted the Aquaman art in AquaSketch by Michael Netzer - 2008 and added a few good words.
 Michael Netzer is a man of his word! He promised an original Aquaman sketch for the Shrine in conjunction with his Save the Martian Manhunter campaign, and boy did he deliver! Here we have not only Aquaman, but also the Martian Manhunter and the Atom, all hanging out and taking five from presumably yet another world-shattering JLA adventure.
I love it, thanks so much Michael!
Thank YOU, Rob, for the nice site and fine representation of the comics form.
In the comments thread, a little storm brewed over dressing up J'Onn J'Onzz with gloves.
Frank Lee Delano: I noticed in the sketch phase-- but trusted in the eventually result-- only to be totally creeped out by those "8mm" gloves. What kind of sick, twisted business is J'Onn J'Onzz getting up to in those things? I honestly fear the search for Ray Palmer may end in a place angels and gerbils fear to tread...
Russell: Yeah, that is weird. For a guy who says he's a Jonn fanatic, you'd think he would know Jonn doesn't wear gloves. Other than that, the piece is awesome, though...
Damian: Maybe in an attempt to save himself and fit in more, the Manhunter picked himself up some gloves. Or perhaps they're solely for the eating of cream filled cookies.
BentonGrey: Well.....after reading the other comments...I almost hate to enter this conversation. Ha, well, sticking just to the picture, it's beautiful! I love Aquaman there, he totally looks like a king. I like the inclusion of all three of these guys, I think they'd make a pretty great team. As a matter of fact, who needs the rest of the League;) So, what is it with J'Onn and Oreos anyway?
So, I chimed in with an explanation of J'Onn's short lived Oreo fetish and why he might have donned the gloves for this occasion. Frank responded with a little history of Manhunter's costume deviations and Oreo addiction.
Artists are always tweaking J'Onn's costume, and Mike Sekowsky even drew him with gloves in an early JLofA issue. At least the gloves match the boots. I never understood that period where he was wearing gold Amazonian bracelets.
Keith Giffen had the idea of Oreo filling having the same effect on a Martian metabolism as heroin. Either Janette Kahn or Andy Helfer (or both) nixed the idea of his being a literal junk food junkie, but his amusing affection for the cookie stuck regardless. John Ostrander even teased the original idea in an apocryphal issue of his solo series.
Rob Kelly then pointed to the details of the famous cover and recreation which also had J'Onn wearing gloves.
Here's the JLA #48 and JLA Companion covers with details.
Rampant Inanity Make Hulk Brain Hurt!
 At The Idol-Head of Diabolu, Frank Lee Delano gives a sobering plot analysis of the first of 3 issue Martian Manhunter series I drew, of a Denny O'Neil script, Adventure Comics #449 (Jan-Feb. 1977).
Denny O’Neil, one of the most popular writers in the industry, was on tap. A slew of guest stars had been approved. So too was Terry Austin, one of the only inkers in history to become a superstar. In the wake of Neal Adams, revolutionary new coloring and printing processes were available to the strip. Finally, rising star penciller Mike Nasser would take full advantage of the opportunities Adams had opened up, with dynamic coloring, stylish realism combined with avant guard flourishes, and even his own lettering. The new Manhunter from Mars feature looked set to take advantage of the type of perfect storm that led to the comic book boom of the 1990’s. Sadly, the feature was muchly a precursor to Image Comics-- a very pretty book for which hardly any pages were produced, those that were featured cringe-inducing scripts for a story that had to be completed by entirely different hands, and after a horrendous publishing collapse to boot.
...
But wait, it gets better. Imagine that the Martian Martin Luther King Jr. had just been killed, and somehow, the Jack Kennedy of Outer Space set out to avenge his passing. How should his people respond? By having Xeno-Lyndon Johnson declare J’onn J’onzz a traitor for abandoning them in shortsighted pursuit of vengeance, only to then abandon his people in a shortsighted pursuit of J’onn J’onzz. Manhunter did beat up guards armed only with swords to steal one of the two spaceships on all of Mars II, of course. With Army Commander N’orr Cott stranding everyone else on the planet by giving chase in the other one.
Argh! Rampant inanity make Hulk brain hurt! And somehow, it only gets worse! But it’s so darn nice looking! Nasser’s layouts are fantastic, and even more than the brow, I love his cape effects! The way that it drapes over Manhunter’s shoulders or swirls with motion looks stunning. The work in general recalls period efforts from no lesser lights than Walt Simonson, Marshall Rogers, and George Pérez! You can see how thirty years on, the feature is still looked on kindly, in much the same way Robert Kirkman still adores Sleepwalker and Youngblood. I suppose its ultimately no less terribly written than most DC Silver Age fare—just much more violent and strung out over multiple parts...
It's quite a credit for bloggers such as Frank, who maintain such sites commemorating characters and storylines in the Superhero mythology, that they shed light on the medium and articulate insightful views on relatively marginal comics events that remain for posterity in the printed form.
The 1970's were an innocent time indeed for the comics. Even with the advent of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series at DC and the Spider-Man Comics Code Authority defiant drug issue controversy, it's safe to say that there seemed to be such little credence given to this form then, that even Denny O'Neil may have slipped into a creative slumber while handling the writing and editorial chores of the post GL/GA era, without anyone really noticing or saying anything about it.
It's actually rare to read such a review of that series which dares criticize the writing as being "inane", at least in the perspective of the evolution of comics writing since. There also exist many web sites that bring a daily dose of such unintended satire from the Silver Age, which upon close scrutiny, expose that entire Superhero era as suffering from severe lapses into extreme absurdity.
But back then, it was business as usual, for the most part. It would take a notable dose of mind-altering substances to cause some reflection on how hilarious some of this material which purported to be serious really was.
Perhaps, in retrospect, what we're seeing today is that comics fandom, connected electronically, has come to show how seriously they take these characters and stories. That they expect them to be handled seriously, as one would expect from a work of literature or art.
Perhaps the difference then, for the most part, was that the medium was a relatively neglected form and very few people working within it thought that it mattered at all just how absurd some of the content was.
Athena Guides
 Athena Guides is a pop-culture site with a section on comics maintained by Jeff Wetherington. In an item, Save J’onn J’onzz, Jeff carries a campaign banner and reports on the effort.
Rumor is that The Martian Manhunter, J’onn J’onzz, is marked for death in DC Comics’ upcoming Final Crisis series. Michael Netzer has started an online petition, designed website banners (like the one above) and is pleading with DC Comics to “Save J’onn J’onzz” from death in the planned series.
Petition Comments
K. Maddox
I feel it was an insult to fans that J'onn J'onzz was not included as a charter member of the new incarnation of the JLA. Martain Manhunter has been the heart if not the conscience of the JLA since it's beginning.
No, I don't believe the character should be killed off. And, I certainly don't think he should be killed off for shock value.
The Indomitable
Voice of Comics Fandom
As the wave of coverage and petition signings wind down, one thing this campaign has shown is that the comics community does care about the Superhero mythology. It matters little if all this will have a visible affect on the rumored possibility of the fate of J'Onn J'Onzz. It matters little if we'll see any indication soon that comics fandom's resounding support of this campaign contributed to changing, even slightly, the precepts guiding the editorial and marketing decisions by comics publishers.
What does matter is that a voice has been heard which we hadn't heard from before, in this way. And it's only the beginning of the rise of the voice of comics readership into attaining influence on the medium it supports.
In this spirit, I've begun contacts which will officially bring the material of the campaign and petition to the attention of DC Comics. A technical procedure which needs to be done, in light of the sincere effort put forth by everyone to have their voice be heard.
Heartfelt gratitude goes out to all who are still covering the campaign, carrying banners and reporting on it. And especially to everyone who pitched in and signed the petition.
It's not over yet, and undoubtedly, more battles await.
Sign the Petition to Save J'Onn J'Onzz
Click here to leave a comment and sign the Petition
and get banners to help promote the campaign.
Click here to download and distribute the
Save J'Onn and the Superheores
PRESS RELEASE
Click here for the
Save J'Onn J'Onzz
ARCHIVES
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