Broken Frontier

Why isn't the Martian Manhunter gay?

Let’s get acquainted.

The Martian Manhunter is easily the litmus test of superhero geekdom. Superman is an icon, and Batman is a brand-name, but you only know the Martian Manhunter if you truly ingest superhero comics. Not read, ingest. Casual familiarity doesn’t cut it here. You know Batman’s real name is Bruce Wayne? Well, who doesn’t? And that, on Krypton, Smallville’s Clark Kent was actually Kal-El? Bully for you, Poindexter. Only the steadfast readership of comics, particularly the superheroic variety (the comics, not the readers), would ID J’onn J’onzz as the Martian Manhunter. The litmus paper turns green for you, fanboy.

And further, the truly faithful will know that his Martian name translates to “light of light.” And that he has been part of every incarnation of the Justice League. And that his favorite Earth foodstuff is Oreos. And that he should be gay.

No? Too sudden a leap? Alas. Let’s rewind.

Since his first appearance in November 1955’s Detective Comics #255, J’onn has always been three things: alien, green, and alone. If the first two weren’t meant literally, all three things could be considered synonymous. J’onn has been ever the outsider, eternally the onlooker, forever the oddity. Whether one sticks with his original history – that of an exiled military leader from a later-destroyed Mars – or the revised origin in the wake of his publisher DC Comics’ Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series, solitary, suffering J’ohnn has always been his own man.

His own alien, rather.

However, J’onn arrived, both on paper and in narrative, a little unformed. Rather apropos for a shapeshifter, actually, even if both were entirely unintentional. That is, J’onn’s debut predates the printing of Showcase #4 and the arrival of the Silver Age Flash – thus named for his inaugurating the second, great superhero age – by just a few short months. Yet the Martian Manhunter began no new era of his own and, in fact, better found his shape once the era and its superheroic sensibilities were underway. In addition, as post-Crisis retroactive continuity (or “retcon”) would tell us, J’onn’s original backstory was nothing more than a fantasy; it had been inadvertently, telepathically co-created by the kindly scientist Dr. Erdel who had reached across space and saved J’onn from plagued Mars as all the rest of the alien society perished. This convenient fiction of being a ostracized martial commander smoothed over the more horrible truth:

The Martians died by fire, the ghastly result of H'ronmeer's Curse, a plague released upon the populace by J’onn’s own twisted brother. Its flames consumed both the minds and the bodies of his entire race – including J’onn’s wife and daughter.

Or, rather, J’onn’s spouse and child. See where I’m going?

In its online summary of J’onn and the fundamental divisions within his native culture, The Unofficial Guide to the DC Universe notes:

“...a split formed within Martian society between the more philosophical Green Martians and the militaristic Pale Martians. In retrospective [sic] any differences between one Martian and another are purely philosophical such distinctions as race and gender have little true meaning for a race that can shape shift between male and female or pale and green, only the underlying psychological aspects truly remain.” (my emphasis)

J’onn has demonstrated in many of his adventures the ability not only to alter his outer shape, but also his internal body structures. In JLA #11, he even managed to change the shape of his own brain, allowing his non-logical side to grow larger than his rational side in order to better see the world from the Joker’s psychopathic perspective. So, a womb – assuming that Martians even require such an organ to procreate – seems relatively easy, by comparison, to manifest. Even if they find a mate and produce offspring, it would seem that the choice of gender for a Martian is relatively arbitrary.

How arbitrary? Well, for instance, J’onn seems just as comfortable taking on human male form as female. Only a few issues after playing that brain game with himself, in JLA #27 he meets with millionaire Bruce Wayne and reporter Clark Kent – Batman and Superman’s public personae – as Hino Rei, an Asian woman. As the world’s greatest detective, though, Wayne is able to easily identify J’onn, not because of an apparent misgendering, but because, as he says, “the name’s a giveaway and I can still detect a little of your Martian body language under that disguise.”

Notice, incidentally, that it’s a “Martian body language” – the way a race uniformly holds itself – that tips off the uncowled Batman. Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne has nothing to say on J’onn’s posing as anything less than a genuine woman, noticeably.

But, okay, the Hino Rei identity is as much a “disguise” for green-skinned J’onn as the role of American detective John Jones or any other human form he assumes. Even his “default” form is something of a masquerade; his bald-headed, large-browed superheroic appearance is simply the closest to human that he can comfortably hold for prolonged periods. His actual form, far more angular and pointy-headed, is even less apparently gendered; he keeps it suppressed so as to fit in better with his allies and aid their comfort.

(He hides his true form for others’ comfort. A problem unto itself...)

Depictions of his Martian history vary so widely from artist to artist over the years that little can be said definitively about the physical differences between “husband” and “wife” – mate and mate. Might J’onn only be a “superman” (to whatever degree he is an anatomically-correct male) because this comfortable semi-human form lends itself more easily to male norms (e.g. bald, large-browed, etc.) than female ones?

It isn’t that J’onn can’t be a woman. Case in point: Justice League Task Force #7-8. When a group of Amazonian, green-skinned, human women called The Daals, are holding an American scientist captive, the Justice League goes into gyno-action to this place where men are prohibited. Prism Comics’ Paul Freitag tells the tale:

“J'onn recruits a team of female super-heroes [...] So J'onn tells the group that he'll be with them in spirit, conveniently forgetting the fact that he's a shapeshifter. The others aren't buying it, and eventually J'onn gives in, even going into a closet to change, despite the fact that HE'S NEVER HAD ANY PROBLEM CHANGING HIS FORM IN FRONT OF TEAMMATES IN HIS ENTIRE 40-YEAR HISTORY. When he comes out, he's... well... a green, bald Amazon wearing the Martian Manhunter uniform.”

In fact, our hero-now-heroine briefly adopts the name J’oann J’onzz, the Martian Womanhunter, for this mission. J’onn drops the J’oann persona by the end of that (mis)adventure, but proves it to be an easy (and perhaps even natural) part of his repertoire.

As a result of their journey into “The Valley of the Daals” – for real, the story’s actual title – J’oann agrees to an apparently lesbian marriage with the Daals’ leader... who later reveals herself to be a hermaphrodite! It’s at just about this point, in coming to kiss him/her, that J’oann reflexively resumes what Freitag calls J’onn’s “Martian God-given gender,” but...

Let’s be clear about J’onn’s “default,” Martian form: With the return of the villainous Pale Martians in the late 1990s, little sexual distinction – save small crests, but not breasts, along the bustline – could be seen when they reverted to their “true” wan shape...which also included razor-sharp teeth and tails, quite unlike J’onn’s own Martian body. This further underpins the Guide’s notions that this split was both philosophical and arbitrarily physical – perhaps even that any form a Martian takes is based on their personality, not their innate dimensions.

In short, whether on Mars or on Earth, J’onn is male because he chooses to be male. Sex and gender – particularly those of humans – probably has little value to J’onn beyond how they mold personalities.

Where does this leave us? With the following facts:

1. Martians may have no innate gender.
2. J’onn chooses to appear male, either in green-form or in human-disguise.
3. J’onn suppresses his true form from even his allies.
4. J’onn, willing both to appear in public as a human woman and to shapechange in plain sight, seems embarrassed specifically to turn into a green female before them.

Does this suggest anything to you, too?

J’onn hasn’t dabbled too much in interplanetary relationships, admittedly. In fact, regardless of his exposed rippling pectoral muscles, he has remained largely aloof and asexual (despite a sometime-interest in better understanding humanity as well as his fellow immigrant alien Superman has – Superman who has wed and presumably bedded, quite gently, the human Lois Lane). And, just as a string of failed relationships might be indicative, this isolation in itself might also be telling. The brotherhood of superheroism into which J’onn has been accepted is a dominantly heterosexual one – an aggressively heterosexual one, despite (or perhaps because of) the rippling muscles, skintight spandex, and minority of women. Unlike the orphaned Dark Knight or the Last Son of Krypton, J’onn has found no other family save this pantheon of do-gooders since his arrival to Earth.

If J’onn were to admit an equal attraction to men as to women, would he still have their unwavering acceptance? Would J’onn dare risk this one area of belonging in his life by announcing perhaps an even greater draw to men...like those with whom he served?

Does Superman, paragon of Good and the original American Idol, accept homosexuals? Would he fight alongside one? I’m not certain that question has been answered, at least not in any widespread manner.

This argument could be made for almost any character ingrained in the straight superhero community, I suppose. Would Kansas understand if Smallville farmboy Clark Kent shacked up with another man? Did Bruce Wayne overcompensate with women for Batman’s oft-cited camaraderie with Robin the Boy-Wonder? And, taking it a step further, forget bisexuality – Is bestiality acceptable under the seas with Aquaman?

So, I’m not looking to turn every character gay by any means. Particularly from a writer’s perspective, the question just seems most acutely pertinent for poor J’onn: multiple personalities, shifting identities, lost family, a longing to belong, and a vague gender...

Why isn’t the Martian Manhunter gay?

To say nothing of the storytelling avenues this would open up for the Martian Manhunter, I want to close with this one horribly thematic way in which this sexual orientation could fit:

Where does the slur faggot come from? It was originally defined as simply a bundle of sticks, and, in England, still carries that meaning when folks use “fags” in place of “cigarettes.” (Just think of John Constantine’s smoking habit.) As with the supposed witches of Salem, homosexuals were cruelly burned alive, thus equating them with faggots – nothing more valuable than combustible materials.

And J’onn’s one weakness, one vulnerability, one literal and perhaps metaphorical connection to homosexuality?

He burns. J’onn burns.