Comic review: Martian Manhunter #1- Real world hints, then back to comic book unreality

Writer: Rob Williams
Art: Eddy Barrows
Publisher: DC
Released: 15th July 2015



There are hints at real world realities in this book:

‘Multiple terrorist attacks. I want to know who you can trust these days.’

Hints.

‘This terrorist attacks around the world the television talks of, the calls for a worldwide war in response. I know who is really behind it.’

The book also criticises Dubai:

‘I’m just an orphan thief from the mess and ugly and vomit of hope that is Dubai harbour.’

The hint is that terrorism is not what it appears to be, and that the obscenely wealthy corporate elites of all countries are working together and playing us off against each other.

However, this is a comic book published by a massive corporation, so that’s as far as it can go. There will be no revolution in comic books.

Islam is not mentioned.

Intelligence agencies are not mentioned.

Terrorism is portrayed not as a religious or sociological problem, but as an alien threat from Mars.

The Dubai angle is just a reason to get a young female protagonist into the story, and to push her as a new hope, a representative of the people, just like they do with all of the other mainstream corporate comic books of today. In the middle of issue #2 this young girl leaves Dubai, and is now on a ship to the US to join all of the other heroes. Her back-story over, she’s just another DC feminist girl hero now.

What is happening within the pages of this book is a good example of a writer using real world concerns to give an air of contemporary legitimacy to his narrative. That’s not a criticism, it’s a compliment. But having used these concerns to frame the narrative, the book is now turning into just another character based, corporate friendly superhero narrative.

Mr. Biscuits, the best thing about the book.

The ‘terrorism’ word will become background now, and religion will not be a feature of this book. Linking terrorism with Islam is something that mainstream comic books will not do. They’ll link Christianity with terrorism of course, but never Islam.

The one person who criticised Islam in a comic book was Frank Miller. He did it in a book called ‘Holy Terror,’ a book that was supposed to be a Batman DC book. They refused to publish the book, so he had to self publish. That’s how much of a taboo it is at the moment. Terrorist attacks in the real world are predominantly linked to Islamic fundamentalists (with an ideology coming from the western friendly Hellhole that is Saudi Arabia) but you will not see this being represented in mainstream corporate comic books.

That’s okay. I don’t expect anything else from a DC comic book, and it was nice of writer Rob Williams to sprinkle a couple of hints at reality before he got back to paying his bills and knocking out another corporate friendly superhero narrative.

Is the book worth getting? Yeah, it features a character called Mr. Biscuits, and he’s a lot of fun. The art is pretty nice as well, and I quite enjoyed reading along whilst looking for nuggets of real world truth within the daft aliens are invading story. I didn’t hate the book. It’s better than most of the other lame comic books out there at the moment, but there’s nothing particular special or revolutionary happening here, so although it might be fun, in all honesty, it's just another corporate friendly comic book, and not something to get too excited about.


Rating: 6/10 (Hints at reality, then back to a standard alien threat narrative)