It's pretty bizarre to pick up an issue of a book to see the titular character dead on the first page. However, that's what's going on in this issue of MARTIAN MANHUNTER. Tonally, it's different from everything else that Martian Manhunter has starred in and this issue throws readers through loop after loop, keeping them on their toes.
A good chunk of this issue revolves around what's going on with Mr Biscuits, the strange martian who befriends children, and fans of this book have fallen in love with him. Without spoiling the issue or where this story is really going, it's easy to understand the importance of this really weird character that writer Rob Williams has tossed into the mix. He's going to be a big part of this book, as this war between the martians and Earthlings continues forward.
On the downside of things, there's a lot of new elements being introduced in this issue, since everything fans know and love about this character has been flipped on its head, and all those new elements feel like they're not explored as well as they could have been in this issue. In the long run, these elements easily have legs and will probably work well, but here, there's a bit of a feeling of being overwhelmed.
Williams is doing a stellar job at not only setting up these characters, but slowly delivering this war between martians as the invasion looms closer. Where a lot of this book shines is in the art of Eddy Barrows (pencils), Eber Ferreira (inks), and Gabe Eltaeb (colors). The book has this extremely dark and creepy look to it which makes this story so much more interesting. It plays on the ideas of science fiction films of the past and morph those stories into what they actually arc: pure horror.
MARTIAN MANHUNTER is probably the biggest surprise to come out of the post-CONVERGENCE DC Universe. It's a series that has it's own look and feel and tonally, is one of the most interesting things on the shelf. The biggest problem with the issue is that it throws almost too much at the reader for a single issue. In trade, this will play out a little better, most likely. However, MARTIAN MANHUNTER is hauntingly good and plays upon lots of fears that everyone has, while telling a really good DC story about an underrated character.