10 Best First Comic Book Issues From This Week (Dec 5, 2018)
3. Martian Manhunter #1
This has been the best time to be a B-lister in the Marvel or DC Universe. Mister Miracle, Black Bolt, The Vision, and presumably a couple other gems have all seen stellar success these last few years, and that streak continues with Martian Manhunter #1!
Two years before J'onn J'onnz joined the Justice League, he was merely an alien pretending to be a human detective named John Jones, living in Colorado. There are two plots intertwined here - one on Earth, where John is investigating the brutal murder of a family whose daughter has gone missing, and one in J'onn's memories as he remembers his time on Mars.
Steve Orlando is one of those writers who knows how to do horror, and that really shows through in J'onn's traumatic time on Mars, where he was a corrupt law enforcer before getting a second chance on Earth. The cosmic horror that stems from a shape-shifter going slowly insane just raises the stakes altogether, and we can only imagine how things will change in the ensuing issues.
Riley Rossmo's art is something else to behold all together too. A lucid dream-like realism grips every scene, from the gratuitous Vertigo-level crime scene to even an out of control J'onn shape-shifting.