Monday, June 21, 2010

Geoff Johns on Martian Manhunter's Brightest Day



Last Friday, IGN ran a five page interview with Geoff Johns about Brightest Day titled The Rebirth of the DC Universe. Being such a long interview, and relevant to so many characters, The Aquaman Shrine and Being Carter Hall have both issued pull quote posts of material related to their respective blog's characters. I figured I ought to follow suit for Martian Manhunter fans.

Most of the interview is about building from the positive foundations of the characters, fortifying the DC Universe, learning from both 52 and Countdown, yadda, yadda. Johns made it clear he felt writers should own their spin-off characters from out of the Blackest Night resurrections, rather than everyone writing disjointed pieces of a character puzzle. He also stated who his book's specific stars were...

"Again, the main Brightest Day book itself focuses in on Aquaman, Firestorm, Martian Manhunter, Deadman, Hawkman and Hawkgirl. It's the story of why they're back in addition to adventures following these particular characters. You can read just the Brightest Day book and get the big picture story and the stories about these various characters."

Since the creators on Justice League: Generation Lost, Birds of Prey and so on are responsible for their characters, with brief pre-planned ties to Brightest Day, the writers of the main book are free to develop their book organically...

"There will always be things and turns in the road that you don't see coming, and there will always be characters you don't necessarily plan for originally. Another example is Miss Martian shows up in Brightest Day, even though originally she wasn't planned to. But Pete came to a point where she just seemed natural to bring her into the story."

Specific artists on the book will stick to their established characters...

"As you can tell, each artist is taking lead on a character. Ivan Reis is doing all the Aquaman and Deadman stuff; Ardian is doing Hawkman and Hawkgirl; Patrick [Gleason] is doing Martian Manhunter; and Scott is doing Firestorm. Everyone has their own character, and every character has a different feel."

and now, the meat...

IGN Comics: The Martian Manhunter. He might be one of the most iconic characters involved in Brightest Day due to his long history with the Justice League, but at the same time he's also a bit of a blank slate in a lot of fans' minds. Even if fans don't know the character well, a lot of them definitely at least know of him. What's your take on Martian Manhunter, and how do you plan on justifying his place as an equal to the rest of the DCU's Big Seven?

Johns: "We want to really dive inside his head and his heart. He has a lot of issues on his shoulders because of the death of his home planet Mars. It's not like Superman, who never knew Krypton. Jonn had a whole family and an entire life on Mars. It was his home world, and it was taken from him. That's the key. And now he wants it back."

IGN Comics: Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but in Jonn's desire to bring back his home world, there almost seems to be something sinister or dark at work there. How would you explain his journey in Brightest Day: is there something darker underneath Jonn's motivations?

Johns: There's something darker beneath every single one of these characters. That's all I'll say.

10 comments:

mathematicscore said...

This seems consistent with what I was thinking from the end of the last issue... the problems with bringing EVERYONE back from the dead. Where does it stop?

While this is interesting, and I'm loving the Gleason Manhunter, it feels a little off from my version of J'onn's "true North." I see him as a bit of a fatalist. He takes things in stride, and even though the death of his family saddens him, I don't see him taking active steps to recapture the past.

I dunno, I just see him as more self aware than that.

Diabolu Frank said...

Hubris is Superman's bag, but I guess they figure J'Onn already swiped so much from Silver Age Krypton, why not throw in the doomed attempts at saving his homeworld? My originally scheduled introductory post to "Last Sons" hits on this. J'Onn is all about the stiff if sometimes quivering upper lip. If this were Pet Semetary, he should be Jud Crandall, not Louis Creed. Superman's the one who'd be burying Krypto, Kon-El and Lois like a maroon.

LissBirds said...

Eh. I'm not crazy about the direction this is going in. I didn't read the latest issue of BN yet, but I already feel that Johns is out of touch with who the Manhunter from Mars is. Plus, like Frank said, do we really need yet another Superman parallel?

Then again, I'm trying to keep an open mind about BN. I think if J'onn's efforts to recreate Mars end in tragedy, I'd be satisfied, as this is more fitting to his character, I think, then having a colony of Martians for him to fraternize with and/or rule would take him in the wrong direction. (And again, would be like Superman and World of New Krypton.)

Diabolu Frank said...

I still don't think Johns is writing J'Onzz. At best its a collaboration, but I suspect with its lackadaisical pacing, loosey-goosing continuity and dark(er) tone, this is all Tomasi. It reminds me of PT's work on Green Lantern Corps, which also did not wow me. At least throw Mongul in as a bone for me, eh?

I actually do want more Desert Dwellers running around, but none of J'Onn's making.

will_in_chicago said...

One option would be to have J'Onn find a group of Martians who left the planet sometime before tragedy befell there. They might even be lost. Imagine J'Onn having to explain to them that the Mars that they hoped to one day see after generations (centuries or millenia to us humans) of being lost was a dead world. Now, that is something that I think would work well and not really screw up continuity much.

will_in_chicago said...

I would actually prefer J'Onn, instead of trying to raise dead Martians, to try to make at least part of Mars habitable for the different races of the Solar System -- including humanity. That would be a more novel take than Pet Semetary 3.0.

Diabolu Frank said...

J'Onn's preparing for the return of the exiles that have been secretly living on Mars II since 1984. Any takers?

LissBirds said...

Can Commander Blanx be included in that group, Frank? 'Cause if so, I'm on board 100% for that.

will_in_chicago said...

Frank, works for me. Yet I doubt DC's writers did that much homework.

Diabolu Frank said...

I find reports of Commander Blanx's demise highly suspect...