It’s rare a book comes along that’s as prescient as the work that Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez are doing with Absolute Martian Manhunter. It’s even rarer that said prescient work is coming from one of the Big Two. That’s sort of become a recurring theme for Camp though, as he continually reveals himself as one of our most incisive and inspired creators. Absolute Martian Manhunter #3 invites each of us to look into the mirror of our own media consumption and consider the world which is being born in each of our individual perspectives.
The construction of this story and its presentation of ideas continue to reveal themselves as endlessly malleable. Even as this new issue sees our protagonists taking on a case that readers might not expect, it proves a perfect pairing with the way the book has conceived of martian vision. People’s emotions, memories and inner lives appearing in smoke on the page for the reader quickly allows the issue to engage in more complex conversations than superhero comics typically would because of the insightful nature of the concept.
There’s so much beauty in how this is conceived on the page as well. Rodriguez is routinely delivering the most empathetic views of sometimes the most horrible people.
Amongst all of this is where the Camp and Rodriguez invite readers to experience both their most beautiful and horrible realizations. The lack of pretense which is afforded to any of the characters brings readers into an uncomfortable intimacy with many of them. This often means seeing their most evil and their most hopeful thoughts. It also allows readers a clear understanding of what these creators believe is really haunting our culture. And they don’t pull punches on how big they believe the problem is.
It’s this therapeutic insistence to stare into the abyss which also seems to make the problem smaller. Camp is inviting readers to know the problems, the struggles, the bad thoughts which harm us on a day to day basis because he seems to believe that we can overcome those problems.
DC
On the other side of things, it’s still so cool to see Camp play so directly with how science fiction is portrayed in comic book media. There’s a decidedly different tone to his depiction of the world unknown. Rather than the curiosity and testing of a scientist approaching a new galaxy, or the horror of encountering a cthulian god, there’s the matter-of-factness of having to work next to something unknown which feels appropriate for the every-man.
This world is often truly very alien to us. This alienness at the textual level allows our real world to become easier to understand at the metatextual level. It’s a great sleight-of-hand which most science fiction media needs to pull off in order to achieve the impact which it’s seeking to. Here, it already feels rewarding even though its clear readers are only just building their vocabulary for where the book is going to go in the future.
Rodriguez’s work throughout is really what makes all of this work as well. His simple, cartoonish style is deceptively versatile. As, on the surface, it provides the perfect look and framework to consider the life of what most people would consider a “regular guy.” Then he drops in our claymation inspired Martian and due to the simple line work, and 70’s inspired aesthetic he fits right in with no question.
This is further made true by the way color overwhelms everything in this book. Each character at one point or another is awash in bright hues of yellow, blue, pink, orange, red and green. This is what helps enstate one of the central themes of the book, which is that we’re all feeling something. Likely, we’re all overrun by some emotion.
This is one of the things which makes the introduction of the White Martian over the past couple of issues seem so interesting. What will Camp and Rodriguez’s thematic reason be to introduce a character depicted in stark white to a world of so much color?
Lastly, I’d like to encourage readers to go out of their way to view the closing section of this book. The way that Rodriguez elevates the visual concepts of this book and how people are affected by the “smoke” of their emotions is incredible. Each new panel is beautiful and stimulating and brings clarity to the depth of humanity which these creators are trying to portray. I’m supremely confident that few other artists in the industry could’ve drawn these pages as perfectly as they’re seen here.
Absolute Martian Manhunter is the barn burner book in all of comics right now. Nowhere else is a character being so brilliantly reinvented, both narratively and visually. Nowhere else are readers being offered such an insightful look at the humanity of the world they live in. Every week that this book is published will be a week in which it’s the first thing I read.
