Martian Manhunter in the Steve Orlando series was reimagined as a corrupt cop on Mars.
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Justice league quarterly #11 is arguably one of the most important yet overlooked stories for Martian Manhunter in the modern era as it highlights an change in how he is perceived in comics and media.
Written by Pat Mcreal and Dave Rawson, the story takes place in 1963 Alabama. J’onn J’onzz as his persona John Jones visits a old reporter friend in the hospital when he hears the case of a little girl named Mary Lou who burned inside a church. Investigating leads to no answers and to the realization that his old friend may not be all that good.
Martian Manhunter uses his telepathy to find out what happened to her and in her mind he sees the burning that surrounded her and the people who have killed her.
Confronted with a race-motivated murder J’onn contemplates how certain humans would want to succumb to violence against someone with a different skin color. This is where we see John Jones become Bill Smith “One of his first African-American identities in comics.”*
While initially created as a superhero with Caucasian characteristics, Martian Manhunter now in the current era is largely coded as a black man thanks to media portrayal by Carl Lumby in the JLU cartoon and Phil Morris in the Smallville tv show.
David Harewood in the supergirl tv show also portrayed Martian Manhunter and in instance Harewood did a panel where he discusses black heroes including how he believes Martian Manhunter could be defined as one despite him being a green alien with history as a default white man.
You could watch it here 42:05-43:06 but essentially the quote is here
“Here is a character that chooses to be black,” Harewood said. “He’s a shapeshifter, he could be anybody, but he chooses to be black. And I think he chooses to be black, particularly in this day and age, because he understands injustice, he knows what injustice is about and as one of the most powerful people on the planet chooses to stand with those who are fighting injustice.”
This is not unlike this story where J’onn as Bill Smith feels the pain and suffering of injustices caused to African-Americans and chooses to march with them in a protest as a sign of solidarity with an deep connection with them.
Summary
*While Bloodwynd was confirmed to be Martian Manhunter in disguise, it’s important to mention this separation of the two characters that is unlike his personas he inhabited before as Bloodwynd was establised as an separate person from Martian Manhunter.
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This was awesome
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