There truly is nothing on the stands like Absolute Martian Manhunter. Javier Rodriguez’s eye-popping art, delightfully metaphysical concepts, and a gritty sci-fi noir neatly obscured by technicolor psychedelica, the series is a spectacle that feels like it’s pushing the boundaries of the medium (let alone the boundaries of DC’s Absolute experiment).
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The sixth issue of the series, out this week, takes all the tension that has been simmering over the preceding issues and pushes it into full, all-out conflict. This being the arthouse production it is, that conflict occurs both physically and (bear with me) theoretically. Detective John Jones and his family find themselves at odds with violence-lusting, clown-themed gang members, while our Martian faces off with his opposite on planes metaphysical; where they battle “a punch is not just a punch…it’s a metaphor.”
For all its cerebral nonsense, the book isn’t lacking for concrete stakes: John’s family – his wife, Bridget and son Tyler – are being stalked through their home by an invulnerable madman, and their plight is completely free of the larger, more abstract concerns. This thug is full, potent, potential violence, and while Bridget is no slouch in self-defense, there is a sense of very real and human dread occupying her pages. The book doesn’t want us to spend all our time with our heads in the clouds: it wants us to know that this chaos is real, and it’s spread throughout the city. John might be able to fight for his family, but who can fight for the panicked and rioting population?
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Perhaps more than the big three, flagship Absolute books, Absolute Martian Manhunter seems concerned with its Darkseid-sprung trappings. This whole eruption of chaos is rooted in the anti-life; Jones finds himself muttering “dark-side is” over and over as he tries to come to grips with the overpowering dread. As singular as the book is, it wants to reach out to its imprint’s larger structure in a way that feels meaningful, potentially educational: is this the space readers should be looking for answers to the larger Absolute mystery?
Issue #6 feels like a non-stop, roiling experience. Even when the action appears to be over, a packet of poisoned cookies looms, Chekhovian, and refuses to let our heart rate drop. Rodriguez and writer Deniz Camp have truly hit a fever pitch, and all the reader can do is hang on and wait for the next issue’s aftermath.
