MARTIAN MANHUNTER #13-16: RINGS OF SATURN
Weird science starring everyone's favorite bald, green Superman

Writer: John Ostrander
Artist: Tom Mandrake
Colorist: Carla Feeney
Letterer: Bill Oakley
4 Issue story arc
Published by DC 1999-2000
$1.99 each

Reviewed by Pindaros

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of reading superhero comics over the last few years has been the way writers have used the genre to challenge commonly held ideas about the nature of society and morality. This has been particularly true of Britons such as Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis, who often use superhero stories to analyze the relationship between idealism and political power. In the MARTIAN MANHUNTER arc 'Rings of Saturn,' Ostrander and Mandrake undertake what is perhaps an even more radical task: to ransack the history of science fiction for a more utopian vision of human nature.

The Martian Manhunter is an ideal figure for this exploration, as a character belonging to the worlds of both SF and superheroes. Although introduced in DETECTIVE COMICS, J'onn J'onzz was a figure equally at home in the SF milieus popular in the comics of the fifties. This is of course no coincidence, as Silver Age editor Julius Schwartz began his career in pulp science fiction, and often had SF writers such as Gardner Fox writing his superhero books.

While the "science" in Silver Age DC comics is laughable today, it remains constructive to compare the notes about molecules and light in FLASH and GREEN LANTERN comics with the ideas about radiation and mutation in Marvel Comics of the sixties. Learning correct definitions of "mutant" and "evolution" in biology classes remains a disheartening experience for many young X-fans.

As a figure with origins in pulp science fiction, the Martian Manhunter has generally shared the same tendency toward cookie-cutter characterization that plagues the genre. In general, the way SF asks how different sciences and environments change aspects of the world can be dramatic. Air, water, earth, space and time are basic features of human knowledge that are continually challenged by science, and thus are easily addressed by science fiction.

"We are better off labeling MARTIAN MANHUNTER as science fantasy"

In contrast, science has made only the most tentative steps toward changing our notions of the soul and what it means to be human, so that SF writers and readers have been much less interested in characters. Nevertheless, the masterworks of Asimov, Delaney, LeGuin and Sterling show clearly that the basic drive of SF is to question everything. When a writer does rise to the task of creating real characters, they will do so by undermining limited notions of humanity, and offering powerful redefinitions of self, love, intelligence and alienation.

Of course, the Manhunter offers a fair number of difficulties for such a treatment of his character, since as a "little green man" Superman, he lacks the realism that makes SF possible. We have all pretty much given up looking for little green men on Mars; when we look for aliens, we look in other galaxies or even other dimensions.

Ostrander and Mandrake overcome this by laying their foundation on elements of SF preserved better in comics than novels. Most notably, J'onn J'onzz differs from normal humanity through superpowers of transformation and telepathy, and his native environment is an interplanetary landscape developed from SF movies and the cover art of pulp magazines. Given the aesthetic, rather than scientific, nature of these elements, we are perhaps better off labeling MARTIAN MANHUNTER as science fantasy, an imaginary development of features proposed, but abandoned, by literary SF.

The derivation from the pulp cover tradition is especially evident in Mandrake's drawing. Depictions of vast architectures against the star-encrusted blackness of space have been an on-going staple of science fictional visions; the painted covers of the pulps joined this setting to an athletic and erotic physicality of heroes and heroines, and a grotesque liquidity of space monsters.

"J'onn has a tendency for poetic elocutions that recall Rutger Hauer's monologue in BLADE RUNNER"

Mandrake's art accentuates the animal vitality of the pulp cover tradition, as the curves that suggested ghosts and the macabre in the SPECTRE are used to depict the unearthly characters and environments J'onn J'onzz moves among. We could perhaps use the term "futuristic medievalism" to characterize the violence, weapons and capes of the space peoples, and the dungeons, halls and towers they inhabit.

In 'Rings of Saturn,' Ostrander has developed a particularly apt story for such an environment, describing the obstacles to a dynastic marriage between two hostile peoples of Saturn posed by various pirates, courtiers and noblemen. Moreover, in Ostrander's hands, J'onn has a tendency for vaguely poetic elocutions that recall Rutger Hauer's climactic monologue in BLADE RUNNER. While Ridley Scott's urban wasteland underlined the futility of the replicant's nobility in that movie, the grandiose majesty of Mandrake's vision in MARTIAN MANHUNTER offers a quite comfortable environment for Jonn's portentousness.

Ostrander and Mandrake have managed an even more fascinating achievement in their extrapolations from J'onn's powers of shape changing and telepathy. In 'Rings of Saturn,' J'onn has a disturbingly intimate relationship with both the animate and inanimate features of his environment, at one point actually merging with a spaceship as he pilots it. The story is particularly appealing in having a wide range of other characters that share these abilities, and Ostrander fully integrates these powers into the plot.

In particular, the villain of the saga, Cabal, both succeeds and is destroyed as a result of its nature, a composite of hate-filled Saturnians. Mandrake's depiction of this enemy is a perfect culmination of the pulp tradition of reptilian monsters, a vivid image of the darkness inside us. It is a tribute to the taste of colorist Carla Feeney that she elected to use almost no colors on this horror, except a bright red for the eyes.

"The alien love in this story proves the crucial theme which resolves the drama"

Also appealing is an episode where J'onn saves himself through the telepathic aspects of love-making among Martians and Saturnians. J'onn's partner in this enterprise is equally attractive in her own right. The Saturnian Cha'rissa moves back and forth between a savage reptilian fighting shape and a rather erotic feminine shape, vividly portraying a combination of woman and hunter that could only be hinted at by Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN 4. Mandrake's female figures are often the least attractive parts of his art, so it is an indication of his synergy with Ostrander that he envisions Cha'rissa in such an appealing way. Not at all a conventional comic book "babe."

The alien love in this story ultimately proves the crucial theme that resolves the drama as a whole. The twisted relationship between Jemm of Saturn and J'onn, which was worked out in earlier issues of MARTIAN MANHUNTER, is finally resolved in the love between J'onn and Cha'rissa and the marriage between Cha'rissa and Jemm. Such a triangle, which in X-World could only mean drama and despair, is elevated through the fundamental alienness of the participants into a reimagination of the relationships that real love and respect can create.

The final scene of the saga, a conversation between Wonder Woman and J'onn about all that has happened, brings home just how contrary to our conventional expectations this relationship is. J'onn, as the last survivor of Martian civilization, seems an inherently tragic figure. But as J'onn himself notes with a smile, for a man who is able to accept all the love available from those around him, such pain can also be a measure of the fullness of his joy.

Recommended (with reservations: only for fans of old school SF)

Pindaros is a regular contributor to PopImage.

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