Quarter Bin #61 "Binge-worthy VI: Martian Manhunter and other curiosities"

Martian Manhunter: American Secrets #1 (DC)
From 1992.

via Comic Book Resources

I've long been interested in having a look at this one.  I'm a huge fan of Martian Manhunter, one of the most perfect comic book creations ever and yet strangely one of the least-utilized DC icons, usually depicted as a stalwart member of the Justice League.  The launch of Grant Morrison's JLA put an extreme spotlight on all of the characters he chose to include, which led to the only, to date, Martian Manhunter ongoing series, which lasted for three years, at the turn of the millennium.  As indicated in his first appearance, previously featured in the "Binge-worthy" series here, the erstwhile John Jones was likely intended to be more of a detective than the green-skinned superhero he otherwise was.  With so many parallels to Superman and even the X-Men, Manhunter has always been a true outsider capable of providing a unique perspective on humanity.  American Secrets was an effort to do exactly that from a Cold War perspective, circa his earliest print history, the way some people still associate Wonder Woman with WWII even though she's been contemporized since her debut, unlike Captain America.  This is a noir story that doesn't even feature the green skin, much less cape (this is an alien who looks alien but is also a shape-shifter, so he can manipulate his appearance any number of ways, including a rough approximation of human, which is how he's usually depicted, and then an accurate version, which is how J'onn J'onzz becomes John Jones, the ultimate assimilated immigrant) until late in the first issue from the old "prestige format" (basically serialized graphic novel).  Maybe this particular line of dialogue, from our detective, sums up the project:

"...But not an evidence trail.  A trail of references, and hunches.  Game-shows, lizard-headed devils.  Comic books..."

I'd love for something like this to be reprinted, and for Martian Manhunter himself, for all intents and purposes, to be rediscovered.  If Ed Brubaker ever came back to DC, this is exactly the character he should write.  The same goes for Jason Aaron.  Heck, bring them both back and we can have a whole Martian Manhunter renaissance...

Martian Manhunter Special (DC)
From 1996.

via DC Wikia

This was a one-shot released just prior to the Morrison reboot, replete with pin-ups featuring the characters who were Leaguers at the time and about to be become irrelevant.  My two favorites are the Marc Campos Captain Atom (the artist was familiar with the character from the "Judgment Day" crossover and the early issues of Extreme Justice)

via Tumblr

and my boy Bloodwynd

via Tumblr

who funny enough was at one point mistaken to be a version of Martian Manhunter thanks to some hilarious confusion.  Why am I talking about the pin-ups rather than the comic itself?  Because the story is pretty generic superhero sci-fi.  The cover, meanwhile, is more art I'd rather talk about, featuring work from Howard Porter, who helped Morrison launch JLA, and so probably represents the chronological launch of the relaunch, moreso than the one-shot itself.

Martian Manhunter #1,000,000 (DC)

From 1998.

via DC Wikia

Speaking of Morrison's JLA, the event that spun out of it (the '90s were a decade that spun events out of series or creative teams DC wanted to spotlight; as such Dan Jurgens with Zero Hour in the wake of "Doomsday;" Mark Waid with Underworld Unleashed in the wake of his early Flash success; Karl Kesel and Stuart Immonen with The Final Night in the wake their Adventures of Superman; John Byrne with Genesis in conjunction with his Jack Kirby's Fourth World; and Geoff Johns with Day of Judgment on the cusp of taking over DC entirely) was called DC One Million, which was previously referenced in the "Binge-worthy" series concerning The Creeper.  Martian Manhunter was another character who greatly benefited from the event creatively, with regular series creators John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake exploring his adventures across thousands of years until he inhabits Mars itself.  It's another bold example of what sets the character apart and a welcome reminder of the undervalued work Ostrander and Mandrake did on the series, sort of the Brian Azzarello/Cliff Chiang Wonder Woman of its day, maybe not what JLA fans might have expected but some of the best character work of that time from an era that was steeped heavily in character work (Waid's Flash, James Robinson's Starman).

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel Halloween ComicFest Preview (Yen Press)

From 2013.

via Halloween ComicFest

Adapted from the acclaimed novel by Ransom Riggs, which I haven't read, for a graphic novel released early this year, which I also have not read, this becomes my first real exposure to the 2011 book, which will be a movie in 2016 starring the increasingly ubiquitous Eva Green (who has also starred in comics-related 300: Rise of an Empire and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For).  If this had originated as a Vertigo project, it would have fit in comfortably with Sandman and The Unwritten, a tale of a boy trying to reconcile the stories he used to hear from his grandfather which seemed too fantastic to be real, but as it turns out they were.  The Halloween ComicFest freebies are the unheralded cousins to Free Comic Book Day.  There are mini-comics (geared exclusively to kids) and also full-size releases like this one.

The Spectacular Spider-Man #229 (Marvel)
From 1995.

via SpiderFan

My earliest superheroes favorites were Robin and Spider-Man (two sides of the same coin, really).  These were the days when I knew superheroes exclusively from their TV appearances, which meant I knew Burt Ward's Robin and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.  By the time I started reading comics in the '90s, Tim Drake had become the third Robin, and...well, the Clone Saga was happening.  Every major superhero had some kind of crisis during that decade.  Superman was killed, Batman was broken, Green Lantern went insane, Wonder Woman was replaced.  And Spider-Man underwent the most extreme existential crisis ever: Peter Parker met Ben Reilly, and for a time neither knew which one was the clone.  It was a sprawling story that infuriated fans more than anything, mostly because it seemed the writers were, well, webslinging it as they went along.  I always felt it was maybe not deserving of all the hate it received, but then, I also didn't read any of it.  I was a DC guy by that point, had very little time for Marvel.  I think in hindsight, the Clone Saga is a perfect embodiment of what Marvel was for decades, a company that told the kinds of one-and-done stories DC became known for in the Silver Age, filled with sensational misdirection as a matter of course (if you heard the term "life model decoy" when people were trying to figure out how Agent Coulson was alive at the start of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. despite his death in the preceding Avengers, you have a sense of what I'm talking about), the very idea of instant retcon with every new creative team.  This issue is Peter Parker walking away from the whole mess (for a while), allowing Ben Reilly to assume the webbing as he tries to make sense of his ordinary life (again).  In case you were wondering, Ben Reilly was definitely the clone.  It's a whole era fans are still trying to remember positively, meaning its legacy in Spider-Man's history is still nowhere close to "Knightfall" or "Doomsday" despite the fact that Marvel itself keeps building off of it (to say nothing of the Ultimate Spider-Man version!).

Adventure Comics #6/509 (DC)

From 2010.

via Newkadia

Geoff Johns famously wrote into the letters column of Superboy, before he broke into comics, and offered his suggestion of the human DNA used to create Kon-El as having come from Lex Luthor.  This was something he made reality a relative handful of years later in the pages of Teen Titans.  Yet the best and subsequently undervalued work was done in the pages of Adventure Comics in what was also Johns' first collaboration with eventual Flash artist Francis Manapul, which led to the second Superboy ongoing series, written by Jeff Lemire.  After the New 52 reboot literally rebooted the character, this was a whole era that was consigned to the history books when it ought to have ushered a renaissance of appreciation.  This issue features a chilling version of Luthor, willing to do awful things to his own niece (another lost element, alas), one that trades heavily on his if-only-Superman-weren't-here self-mythology, and contrasts nicely with Johns' own Forever Evil version.  For fans like me, T-Shirt Superboy will always come in second place to Don't Call Me Superboy despite what Johns brought to the character, but this is an exception that deserves greater recognition.  Johns cleverly punctuated the arc with Superboy's running "What did Superman/does Lex Luthor do?" in the narration boxes, which I found instantly iconic, more relevant than what had been done with the character, outside of Johns and Karl Kesel, for years.