While we were away over the last couple of months, news of DC Comics' Final Crisis confirming that J'Onn J'Onzz Manhunter from Mars will be shipped off to the graveyard of comic book characters, broke first with Rich Johnston's report last week (belated congrats for the birth of Alice), and at the NYCC, as covered by Frank Lee Delano at The Idol-Head of Diabolu: News You Can Lose, exemplary essays for J'Onn J'Onzz enthusiasts.

Though this seems that our campaign to save the Martian Manhunter has failed, in reality the opposite is true. The unprecedented support and coverage seen in the 125 petition comments and 70 comics media reports on this campaign from news sites, blogs and forums around the world, tell of the more heartfelt voice of comics fandom that publishers do not appear to truly fathom, though they pretend to ignore. 125 petition comments and 70 comics media reports and commentaries attest to the fact that J'Onn lives within the hearts of the comics readership, regardless of the sensationalist, overused and frankly mundane story device that DC will milk, by killing the Martian Manhunter in Final Crisis.

The latest of such media notice of the campaign comes today from none other than The New York Times fashion and comics news writer, George Gene Gustines, in an entry announcing the return of the Barry Allen Flash to the DC Universe list of resurrected characters. The blog entry, An Unexpected Comic Book Resurrection: The Flash, closes with a link to the petition to save J'Onn J'Onzz and a hope that the campaign might shorten his expected departure from amongst us.

If nothing else, this should bring hope to those fans of Martian Manhunter (who premiered in 1955) that are worried about rumors that he will meet his death during “Final Crisis,” which begins next month. They can sign the petition or they can just bide their time and hope that he, like The Flash, comes back in 23 years or less.

Within the brewing comments thread of this NY Times blog entry, the voice of readers disenchanted with life and death zigzags in the comics, speaks as loudly and clearly as it has been heard in our campaign, even when laced with the author's wishes for something good to emerge from Final Crisis.

I’m hoping that "Final Crisis" which has been described as the day evil wins will be less about clean up and tell a really great story about Darkseid, the return of Barry Allen, and an epic struggle about good vs. evil.

But do we need to look so far beyond our own real world epic struggles between good and evil? In our economically driven culture, drunken with a profit lust that denigrates it into an abyss of creative aptitude and questionable ethics, is not our own reality also a reflection of such an epic struggle? Though we continue to hope for better from the comics, we also remember that as far back as when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's intellectual property rights were legally compromised by giving Superman for publication in 1938, we've come to know what to expect from comics publishers. The recent decision to award the Siegel estate its rightful share of Superman only accentuates the long road to moral truth and justice that the comics industry still needs to make.

DC Comics does not truly hold the upper hand with J'Onn J'Onzz, nor with any of the comics characters whose exploits it publishes, for the simple reason that corporate DC Comics cannot independently create these characters nor tell their stories. The people who produce good comic book stories are comics creators, not publishers. Corporate DC Comics is primarily adept at legally compromising the inherent rights of comics creators and marketing their intellectual creativity and properties. Comics publishers are then dragged kicking and screaming into the courtrooms, waving their legal rights to this creative bankruptcy and questionable legal strong-arming of properties which they themselves did not, and apparently cannot create.

In the wake of the voice of the common people heard loudly throughout all this, truth and justice appear to more compliment the aspirations of comics fandom, and not necessarily those of the publishers proclaiming them in the comics.

125 petition comments and 70 comics media reports are the force which really holds the upper hand with J'Onn J'Onzz and the Superhero mythology. This shout heard across the comics web media in the campaign to save the Manhunter from Mars, lives forever within the hearts of comics aficionados and within the chronicles of the comics industry. Through this voice of truth, J'Onn J'Onzz continues to live.

The indomitable voice of comics fandom, recognizing the timeless treasures given by comics creators, is more relevant to the Superhero mythology today than DC Comics and other publishers are showing an aspiration for.

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