DC’s Absolute Martian Manhunter is Absolutely Saving Comics
Absolute Martian Manhunter #1, by Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez
Or, rather, it has come at the perfect time during the height of a period when comics is experiencing a “saving” renaissance of sorts across the board. Simultaneously, my own renaissance as a collector of comics has been taking place, and Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez’s new take on a classic member of the Justice League is the full-circle moment that I have been waiting for since I started my New 52 subscriptions when I was in middle school. Some of my favorite memories as a reader was riding two towns over with my dad once a month to grab my copies of Batman and Justice League, the two titles that I decided to snag when DC’s New 52 reboot kicked off in the summer of 2011. The shop I frequented during that time shut down not long after because the owner was a creep, and I let my subscriptions expire. Fast forward all the way to college, and I am given the chance to take a special topics English course on the graphic novel. In this course, we read and analyzed famous works in the graphic novel medium like Watchmen, Maus, and my favorite discovery from that class, Chris Ware’s enigmatic masterpiece Jimmy Corrigan.
Jimmy Corrigan was a comic series which ran in Newcity newspaper from 1995 to 2000, and it is unlike anything you will ever read. The story is remarkably mundane, which adds to its almost Lynchian surrealness. Jimmy Corrigan is a lonely, depressed 36-year-old man who deals with his overbearing mother and meets his estranged father for the first time after an awkward accidental phone call. The narrative is also largely comprised of flashback sequences, as the story of Jimmy’s great-grandfather growing up during the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and experiencing the same awkward loneliness as his progeny.
While the story is, purposefully, a relatively boring one, it is Chris Ware’s wholly original artwork and panel design that made Jimmy Corrigan stand out to me when I read it in college. The spread below will give you an idea to the very compartmentalized, sometimes organized, sometimes chaotic nature of Ware’s storytelling through his art.
At first, the amount of panels used by Ware can seem daunting, but it adds to the mundane absurdity of Jimmy’s life.
By the end of the series, Ware has you flipping and turning your book as you quite literally spiral into Jimmy’s awkwardly relatable psyche. It’s this same order-in-chaos adding to a tone of surrealness that I see shining through on the first issue of the long awaited addition to DC’s Absolute Universe line of comics, Absolute Martian Manhunter.
The story of Absolute Martian Manhunter, like the other titles in the Absolute Universe, sees the titular DC hero reimagined in a darker, grittier way. Originally, the Martian Manhunter is J’onn J’onzz, a green humanoid from Mars teleported to Earth where he becomes a founding member of the Justice League. The Absolute version takes the original Martian’s psychic abilities and superhuman powers and separates them from the character himself, now fully a human named John Jones. In the first issue’s opening page, Jones, an agent in the F.B.I.’s new stochastic terrorism investigation task force, is caught in an explosion when a terrorist walks into a coffee shop wearing a bomb on his chest. Immediately, extremism is brought to the comic’s thematic forefront, as the term “stochastic terrorism” is one that has gained traction in recent times. Stochastic terrorism is politically charged violence directly influenced by coded rhetoric meant to covertly incite such acts. The purpose of the task force that Jones works in is to assess potential terrorists and put a stop to their acts before they happen.
Following the explosion, Jones is advised by a doctor to take some time off work, but he instead goes back the next day. Jones then begins to hear a voice in his head and see colorful smoke emanating from the people around him, and it becomes very apparent that something else was unleashed during the explosion. In Absolute Martian Manhunter, “the Martian” is the alien consciousness that makes its way into John Jones’s mind, and which he slowly learns more about through the first issue.
It is the Martian, though, where Absolute Martian Manhunter sets itself apart from any other comics coming out today, and which for me hearkens back to the stylish weirdness of Chris Ware and Jimmy Corrigan. Javier Rodriguez’s art in issue #1 is unlike anything I have seen in comics, as the grittier, more hardboiled scenes of Jones at work as an agent contrast beautifully with the vibrant colors of the Martian and the smoke that Jones begins to see as he adapts to his new consciousness. Below is my favorite page from this issue, showcasing Rodriguez’s Martian. And this isnt the only page or panel that feels more like a piece of abstract modern art than a page in a comic book.
John Jones walks home from work as the Martian takes hold of his mind and makes him perceive the world around him in an insane new way.
The story progresses as the Martian shows more and more to Jones, culminating with the Martian revealing that he (it?) was the only reason Jones survived the explosion. As with the other titles in the Absolute Universe, I can see the story going anywhere at this point, and the ideas presented by Camp in his narrative so far are fresh and interesting, especially for a character which has been around so long but never got a true staring outing.
It is what Absolute Martian Manhunter, the Absolute Universe as a whole, and even Marvel’s similar Ultimate Universe reboot all represent that makes me so excited for this title. The first issue of Absolute Martian Manhunter quickly became one of the best selling comics of 2025 so far, but Deniz Camp would only consider doing the series past a limited run if he and Rodriguez could keep the reigns for the entire duration with no fill-ins or substitutes. Sure enough, the interest shown by the fans paid off, and the series has been extended to 12 issues. It is that feeling of independence shown by Camp, the passion and confidence in his work, that I think is making the comics medium amazing again. Even though the big dogs like DC and Marvel still dominate the shelves in shops, lately they are giving much more creative agency and control to the creators (writers, artists, pencilers, colorers, etc.) and we are getting the most original and groundbreaking comics content since probably the 90’s.
There is still great original comics to be read in the independent scene, as well, and I definitely plan to write about some of those. But, the Absolute Universe and Ultimate Universe are simultaneously bringing me back to the days of impatiently waiting and going to pick up my physical subscriptions every month, as well as my days of deep comics analysis of works like Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan. I get all of that with Absolute Martian Manhunter, and I cannot wait to see where Camp and Rodriguez take Jones and the Martian next.
