Martian Manhunter #7 Review and *SPOILERS*

Stop Hitting Yourself, Stop Hitting Yourself!

Written By: Rob Williams
Art By: Ronan Cliquet, Marc Deering, Gabe Eltaeb, Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $2.99

Release Date: December 16, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Well, Martian Manhunter went and did it.  Our lean green Manhunting machine went and screwed over all of mankind in the previous issue and activated the blood magic to bring back the living Mars.  That might not sound bad at first, but for Mars to live, Earth has to die........ hence the screwed over.  The strangest part about all of this is, somehow Martian Manhunter's individual personalities survived the act and are now on Mars as well as our title hero.  As we saw from the previous issue, his other selves aren't too pleased with him and it looks like we're going to have a little Martian on Martian violence....... or self abuse depending on how you look at it.  As crazy as all of this sounds, I have to give it to Rob Williams for taking a character like J'onn J'onzz and making him interesting because I never thought I'd see that happen.  Let's jump into this issue and see what Mars is up to and what Martian Manhunter is going to do first during his homecoming.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins where you'd expect it to from where we left off last issue, with Pearl going straight up Martian crazy on our hero's ass, as the others stand back in awe at the sight of....... the inner struggle?  Hell, don't get mad at me not explaining it right because even Agent Wessel doesn't understand how any of them can exist while the Martian Manhunter has been brought back to form or even how a part of him can be fighting against him.  The fight finally stops when the brain of J'onn...... named Mould, speaks up and tells J'onn if he really brought back Mars like he wanted, then why is it sick and decaying like it was before.  That's a really good point Mould and to find out, Martian Manhunter flies off and leaves his other selves to be confronted by an army of what look like Martians..........with Martian tanks.  Mould tells the others to flee while he tries our his best Tank Man impersonation from the Tiananmen Square protests of '89, but doesn't quite pull it off when we see that he's straight up rolled over....... Man, I hope that doesn't affect J'onn's thinking.  Dude will be running around Mars like the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz, looking for a brain.  

What's really going on here is kind of sketchy to me because while the blood magic that was enacted to bring Mars back was kind of achieved, we find out that for some reason it wasn't done properly, which leads this reborn Mars.......... which seems to be a Mars from the past to be right next to Earth and eventually the two planets will collide, destroying both worlds.  If all of that wasn't a mind fuck enough for you, we also have Martian Manhunter coming across a boy Martian, which he recalls meeting previously in a long lost memory and the boy tells him that Mars is doomed.  Martian Manhunter pleads that it's been so long since he's seen him and before we find out who "him" is, Martian Manhunter snaps out of whatever daze he was in and realizes he was talking to a rock.  Okay, you got all that?  Yeah, it's not that hard to grasp, just kind of out there, but when we find out that the Martian armada that just rolled over Mould are actually humans and the leader of this group is a grown up Alicia, who Agent Wessel and Mr. Biscuits left at the airport a couple of hours ago....... when she was a little girl........ Well, Rob Williams........ You have some 'splaining to do!

In the end, Martian Manhunter, with his sanity apparently on the way out, sends a message to all Martians about the oncoming doom and for them not to worry because he's there to protect them against the war that's on it's way...........which I guess means Earth........... and which I guess means we're out a Martian on our good guy roster back home.  To add to the doom and gloom, we see that the grown up Alicia isn't too hip on her reunion with her pals from Earth because as our issue closes, she proclaims them all part of the Martian Manhunter and since she thinks he's the bane of both Mars and Earth, she shoots our heroes and gets ready for the upcoming war.

That's it for this issue of Martian Manhunter and while I initially thought that getting J'onn back into this book would lead to it becoming uninteresting, I have to say that my interest may be more peaked than it ever was before in this title because.......... Well, because I don't know what the hell is really going on.  We've got our real Martian Manhunter, his personality parts, a Mars that appears to be from the past, with humans who look like they come from the future, who are about to begin a war before Earth and Mars collide with one another.  That's some crazy ass shit.......... but it's also very compelling because this story could go anywhere at this point and I feel like a drooling dog now that I know Rob Williams is going to have to start spooning out those delicious kibbles of information.  This is all setup, but it's compelling as hell and my only wish at this point is that we continued to have Eddy Barrows on art because while I didn't mind Ronan Cliquet's style, it just wasn't what I've become accustomed to and......... well, I wants what I wants.  The book looked good though and I can't wait to see what happens next in this story.

Bits and Pieces:

With a series that began with out of the box thinking when looking at Martian Manhunter, it sure as hell is showing off it's muscular legs as it runs us further away from that box at top speeds with this story.  Hell, I can't even see that box anymore with the concepts that this issue is throwing at us and while I may not know everything that's going on at this point....... I seriously dig it.  While the art wasn't what I've come accustomed to when reading this series, it was still decent and I just found myself enjoying the hell out of this book as I tried to wrap my head around what was really going on. 

8.7/10