Martian Manhunter's Powers

It was noted in a recent post at Comics Should Be Good that the Martian Manhunter's powers were quite extraordinary and that they kept growing as needed by the plots. So here's a look at what J'onn J'onnz could do.

We learn about his first power in the very first panel featuring him:

He can change his appearance at will:

His mind over matter ability comes in handy:


Two powers are hinted at here, but not stated:

He can make his body insubstantial, and turn invisible. Of course, you can argue that the invisibility power is simply a use of his ability to change his appearance. Making his body insubstantial is a power that has many applications in the stories. For example, he often uses it to walk through walls or to let bullets pass through him.

This power is a bit problematic:

Note that he is not just seeing into the future, as the text states. He's seeing into a future that no longer exists. Indeed, in the story, Jones has to intervene to make that future come true.

Here's one that I'm going to call foul on:

Martian molecular hypnosis? That's really just mind over matter, as Jones admits in a later panel.

There are numerous other examples of the writers using ridiculously convoluted language to describe his powers, when really they are just applications of some of the abilities already discussed. For example:

Retracing thought processes is just an application of mind-reading.

Of course, you can make similar arguments about a lot of the powers, so it can get a little arbitrary. For example:

Is he flying? Or just using an application of his mind over matter ability? I'll go with flying here, but obviously that's a judgment call.

Here's a pretty straight-forward power:


The first of his awesome eye-powers makes its appearance:


Figuring out what to call some of the powers can be tricky. I guess we should call this one "near-invulnerability":

And this probably qualifies as microscopic vision:

We learn a little bit more about the source of J'onn's powers here:

Here's a power that didn't get used often:

But if he can teleport himself anywhere in the world, couldn't he also teleport himself back to Mars?

Another judgment call:

He can change his size, and in this case, I don't think from the context that it's just changing his appearance.

This one's really complicated:

Nullifying the Earth's gravity sounds like flying, doesn't it? Still, walking on the water implies something a little different, and it's such a cool and unique power that I can't resist including it in the list.

That's it for the first ten stories (Detective 225-234). I will return to this post and add more powers over time.

Here's the list so far: Mind-reading, changing his appearance at will, mind over matter, making his body insubstantial, invisibility, the ability to see possible futures, flying, super-sensitive hearing, X-ray vision, near-invulnerability, microscopic vision, teleportation, changing his size and walking on water.

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Detective #288

On the most obvious level, this issue is part and parcel of the horrific "monster of the month" era in Detective Comics that characterized a good part of Jack Schiff's tenure as editor of the Batman family of magazines. And make no mistake about it, that's the primary (and exceedingly silly) plot.

The story starts with a lightning bolt hitting a pool of chemicals causing a strange transformation:

The bit about life arising from chemical wastes is probably inspired by the movie, Godzilla. Batman and Robin encounter the creature and their initial attempt to defeat it reveals that it is more powerful than it looks:

So by this point in reading the story, I'm already yawning at the transparent absurdity. But then something interesting happens. The creature heads towards the house of an old actor who's become wheelchair-bound. Batman moves to help him, while sending Robin to the town to get help.

The actor is somewhat fatalistic, until he sees Batman in trouble:

And in town, Robin discovers that the only official around is a mere clerk, who doesn't think he can handle the crisis until:

There are quite a few Batman and Robin tales from the Golden Age that follow this pattern, and they are among the classics of that era. While the stale art and the monster focus prevent this story from reaching those heights, the subplots did make it quite a bit more entertaining than I expected.

The third subplot involves a bank robbery featuring an ingenious method of escape:

"Nothing can stop us now," is of course begging for trouble, and the creature flies into the blimp, grounding it. Batman and Robin capture the crooks, and help the clerk calm the local citizenry, then electrocute the creature. And in the end:

The Roy Raymond story (one of the last in that long-running series) sees Roy solve the case of an heiress who has been cursed with the gaze of Medusa, causing anyone she glances at to be turned to stone. Of course, it's all a plot by a guardian to steal her inheritance.
The Martian Manhunter story is rather bizarre. MM's good friend Larry Loder has fallen for a swindle. A bunch of crooks sold him some treasure-finding inventions, with which he hopes to pay back the investors who lost money with him earlier. And when you see the inventions, it's not hard to believe that he's a pretty poor financial advisor:

J'onn takes pity on him and makes the inventions seem to work. But it turns out that this was stage two of the crooks' con job:

So the Martian Manhunter makes sure that the final invention works in such a way that the crooks are caught by Larry. The reward money ensures that Loder will have enough funds to pay back all his investors, who presumably reinvested the funds with him in a bagful of magic beans.

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Single Issue Review: Detective #331

For its first 330 issues, Detective Comics had always published multiple stories, but this issue provides a book-length tale combining the two features that the mag was publishing at the time: Batman and the Elongated Man. It's the fifth issue into the New Look, and the interior (and cover) artwork is by Carmine Infantino, while the story is by Gardner Fox.

As the story begins, Bruce Wayne is visiting a wax museum dedicated to American history, that was funded by the Alfred Foundation (see ending for a discussion of the Alfred Foundation). But when he poses for a picture at the Matthew Brady exhibit something odd happens:

Yet another reminder that Julius Schwartz didn't get rid of all the science fiction elements of the Jack Schiff years. Bruce has temporary amnesia, and around the same time as he's stumbling around the city in a daze:

As you can probably guess, it's a phony Bruce Wayne, who's well-prepared and cons the bank VP into letting him withdraw $500,000 from his account.

Later that night, Robin is forced to battle some jewel robbers on his own. But fortunately for him, Batman recovers his memory and helps out. Now they have to figure out what happened during his amnesia. Robin tells him about the withdrawal from the bank (apparently the bank officer was a little casual about Bruce's privacy).

Meanwhile, Ralph and Sue Dibny have arrived in Gotham and visited the wax museum themselves. Ralph gets curious when he notices a few pictures that his wife took:

Realizing that the man's face had changed dramatically, Ralph smells a mystery. As it happens, about the same time Bruce and Dick have visited the bank, where it turns out that the man in the photograph has been robbed in a similar fashion to Bruce. When they learn that before being robbed he had visited the Matthew Brady exhibit at the wax museum, they change into their fighting togs and head there, meeting up with the Elongated Man inside. The three are attacked by invisible enemies, as shown on the cover. When Batman makes it to the Brady exhibit:

We learn a bit about the "science" involved here from the crook, Boss Baron:

Fortunately, the Elongated Man sticks his face in front of the camera to protect Batman's secret identity. This works, but at the cost of Ralph losing his memory temporarily. Batman and Robin start wiping up the crooks with a little sluggish help from the Ductile Detective:

And in the end, Batman shares a secret with the Elongated Man:

But it's okay, because Ralph will lose his memory of Batman's secret identity when the face-change wears off.

Comments: An interesting and fast-paced story. I confess, however, that the plot device of the face-changing machine (electrofaciograph) seems rather far-fetched.

Postscript: The Alfred Foundation was a charity that Bruce Wayne set up in the aftermath of Alfred's (apparent) death in Detective #328. After he was brought back to life (discussed here), Bruce changed the name of the charity to the Wayne Foundation.

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Single Issue Review: Detective #389

By this time, all the camp elements were gone, and Batman was returning to his roots as a creature of the night. The story begins with Batman and Robin greeting a new parolee: Jonathan Crane, aka the Scarecrow. Batman is hoping that Crane will reform and has even given him a job (as Bruce Wayne), but Robin is a little jaded:

As far as I know, that's the first time that the dual crime-fighting nature of Batman/Bruce Wayne is mentioned, with Bruce as the carrot and Batman as the stick.

Driving back to Gotham City, Batman and Robin muse that the old days, when Batman's very appearance would "strike fear" into the hearts of criminals, have passed. But when they encounter a gang it's just like the good old days:

And the next evening Batman has a similar effect on some jewel thieves:

The Scarecrow calls Batman and dares him to attend a meeting in a warehouse to find out why he terrifies villains. Batman turns up, and when he does, the trap shown on the cover (a ring of mirrors around him) is sprung. Suddenly Batman is frightened of himself. Crane had managed to inject him with a fear-inducing drug. Of course, this doesn't make much sense, as the drug affected nobody but criminals before. Batman had interacted with Robin, several cops, and Commissioner Gordon in between without frightening them.

The Scarecrow warns him that he can only take six exposures to the sight of himself before going insane. But Batman tricks him into thinking he's used up the six, when in actuality he's only seen himself five times, and so he's able to defeat the Scarecrow and his henchmen.

Comments: Way too short a story, although it's entertaining, especially the part where Batman and Robin are reminiscing. Art by Bob Brown, story by Frank Robbins.

The Batgirl story is part II of a two-parter. We learn quickly that Batgirl had attended an airline hostess' costume party in place of a stewardess, but it turns out that the flight attendant had ripped off some crooks after smuggling diamonds into the country. Amusingly, the crooks are dressed up as various members of the Justice League, giving us the opportunity to see Babs in action against DC's stars of the Silver Age:

Since the stewardess had given Babs the excuse that she was attending a party for her grandfather, Babs locates the old man's house. It turns out that he's not exactly a kindly old codger:

Comments: The story (by Robbins) is nothing special, but the art by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson is terrific.

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Quick Thinking, Boy Blunder!

Heheh, I was looking for more Batman and aliens stuff when I stumbled across this rather amusing mistake in Detective #271. In the story, Batman discovers he's got a new ally in the war against crime:

The Crimson Knight is chosen along with Batman and Robin to guard the Liberty Train, a rolling museum displaying priceless historical documents:

But it turns out that the Crimson Knight's crimefighting was a guise to get him an opportunity to loot the Liberty Train.

When the dynamic duo burst in on the Crimson Knight, note that he has several of those priceless documents in his hand. And what does Robin do?

Which causes this:

Yes, nice going, Robin! True, it's a bit of a shame that the Declaration of Independence and a couple other priceless documents got a little wet there, but hey, at least you busted that phony Crimson Knight.

Incidentally, this story also features Batman's electronic crime file:

The electronic crime file was the subject of a recent post over at I Believe in Bat-Mite. I talked about that same story a long time ago in my post on Batman 1956.

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The Skeptic

DC published any number of backup features during the Silver Age. One of my favorites was Roy Raymond, TV Detective. Raymond was the host of a TV show called Impossible But True, and the focus of the stories was how he managed to keep from being hoaxed by people wanting to get on the show for one reason or another.

The stories were always tight, as was the artwork by Ruben Moreira, who handled the feature from its debut in Detective #153 (November 1949) (where it bumped the long-running Slam Bradley) to its last appearance in Detective #292 (bumped in the next issue by the arrival of Aquaman).

Just to give you the flavor of this series, I'm going to present the supposed impossible but true thing, and Roy's solution for a few issues in a row:

Detective 255
Impossible But True: A man from Saturn arrives and shows Roy that it is safe for earthlings to live on his planet. A murderer arrives and plans to hijack his way aboard the alien ship.

Roy's solution: It was all a plot for the murderer to make his getaway on Earth, secure in the knowledge that everybody would think he had departed for Saturn. Roy suspected the man from Saturn was a phony because of a mistake he made in drawing Roy:



Detective 256
Impossible But True: A native African can protect people from attack by animals with special branches from a tree he has blessed.

Roy's solution: It's a plot by one of the partners in a diamond mine to convince his partner to go out in the jungle with little protection other than a useless branch:



Detective 257
Impossible But True: An actress in a movie drinks a potion that is supposed to be able to turn her into Cleopatra. After drinking the potion, she suddenly is able to locate ancient ruins that only Cleopatra would know.

Roy's Solution: The whole think was a scheme by the Egyptian government to flush out an illicit dealer in rare antiquities. He knew the actresss didn't really turn into Cleopatra because:



Detective 258
Impossible But True: An auditor is hexed after touching a stone idol hundreds of years old, with pearl eyes.

Roy Raymond's solution. The whole thing was a plot to prevent the auditor from checking the books of two companies whose bosses have been embezzling funds. He knows the idol is fake because:

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