Genuine question but have any writers/artists who have made martian manhunter black given in universe justification for doing so? Like, the martians can shapeshift. Why would someone who could look like anything decide to look like a member of a minority population that sees heavy discrimination and often violence?
I don’t mean to sound like that guy who hates race swapping characters and such (i followed you for exactly that). This one just seems like it opens up story and theme questions that seem neat.
I don’t follow much martian manhunter but that last post got me curious
Talking about Blackness in relation to Martian Manhunter? I'D BE DELIGHTED!!
The short answer is: yes. J'onn's shapeshifter Blackness has been talked about in text. Black creatives in particular, have explicitly imbued J'onn with this characterization.
The long answer is: to get a better understanding of how this came to be, we have to look at J'onn's history in adaptation.
J'onn's Blackness primarily comes from cross media adaptation. The only time he's been portrayed in live action by a white actor is in the TV Pilot for Justice League of America (he is played by David Ogden Stiers) in 1997. I don't think this ever aired.
Phil Morris is the first Black actor to portray J'onn in live action through Smallville in 2006. And although Carl Lumbly voiced a Martian Manhunter who took the form of a human white man (and eventually a separate Asian man persona) in the DCAU, his performance would ultimately be what set J'onn on the path to being tied to Black diaspora themes.
And that's because! Lumbly chose to portray J'onn with a South African accent. Lumbly himself is a first generation immigrant of Jamaican immigrant parents. Although he didn't have complete control over how J'onn was portrayed in the animated show, Lumbly did intentionally code and imbue his experience into the way J'onn navigated the world. He didn't like how J'onn lost his more formal speech pattern in a later season of Justice League Unlimited, feeling it wasn't reflective of his lived experience.
[Man of Tomorrow, Young Justice]
Ever since then, J'onn has primarily been depicted by Black actors in adapted media. Only being played by non-Black actors in short animated appearances like Justice League Action and Lego Batman. Along the way, his human form became Black as well to reflect this. In live action, J'onn has been consistently portrayed by Black actors.
[JLA Classified #42 "Even now the authorities greet me with their guns drawn"]
So for a while, people started seeing a theme develop when they contrast Superman to Martian Manhunter. Even if you look at older comics that don't intend to code J'onn as Black, this theme comes up. Superman is this white, human passing, accessible image of a foreigner- meanwhile J'onn represents this more uncomfortable idea of an alien. J'onn's powers are stranger, his true form isn't human passing at all, and when he does chose a human form- it's a Black one.
Frankly, this detail flew over the heads of non-Black creatives. Meanwhile, the Black actors and writers who had always identified with J'onn, decided to finally explore this. In comes CW Supergirl, starring David Harewood as the Martian Manhunter.
Harewood initially plays as this universe's version of Hank Henshaw. A strict director of the D.E.O. But there's a twist! He's actually J'onn the Martian Manhunter in disguise. When the original Henshaw seemingly died, J'onn stumbles into having to take his place at the D.E.O. And in doing so, stumbles upon living the lived realities of a Black man. He decides that despite being a shapeshifter who can take a form that makes his life easier, he'd rather change the world around him to be better instead.
Harewood didn't know he was going to play the Martian Manhunter going into this show. So he did his best to read up on Martian Manhunter comics to better understand the character. Unlike Lumbly, Harewood had a lot more control over J'onn. He even wrote and directed some episodes of CW Supergirl. And with that, he decided to expand J'onn's world from the comics into the tv screen and pay homage to history along the way.
And so! He invites the iconic Carl Lumbly to play as J'onn's dad M'yrnn J'onzz. And together, they created a generational immigrant father and son story in a genuinely lovely arc of the show. You can feel this is the story Lumbly always wanted to tell with the character. J'onn goes through his dad experiencing Martian Alzheimer's, the pressures of preserving the religious beliefs of a dying culture when you don't identify with it, and when he and his father are questioned about their Black forms- they confidently answer that they're fully aware of all the baggage their chosen forms come with. But they identify with Black marginalization, as it mirrors the bigotry they face from white Martians back on Mars.
"Through living as a Black man, J’onn was able to find an analogous way to express his inner truth."
-Jules Chin Greene in an article about J'onn's Black history.
But they weren't done paying homage to Black DC history yet. Because the CW Supergirl crew also invited voice actor legend Phil LaMarr to play Ma'alefa'ak, J'onn's misunderstood evil brother. Known for his many roles but especially that of Virgil Hawkins in Static Shock and (who Lumbly affectionately calls "my boy") Green Lantern John Stewart in the DCAU. To this day, this version of Ma'alefa'ak is still the best evolution on his character. Yes, Lumbly was involved in this arc that resolves itself in the form reconciliation between brothers.
"So often black men are told to be hard, to be tough, and often lose in sharing each other’s company because of that. J’onn and M’yrnn, while aliens, are framed as black men who share in that existence together."
-praises Princess Weekes in an article about how Black masculinity is portrayed by J'onn's family in the show.
[Nubia Coronation Special]
This crossed over to the comics. But only through the people it mattered to the most; other Black creatives. In the Nubia Coronation Special, Nubia meets the Martian Manhunter. Whose human form in this comic, clearly resembles David Harewood. Together, they talk about how Nubia as a Themysciran is profiled in a way Wonder Woman Diana isn't, and discuss respectability politics together. This comic is written by Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala.
Clearly, Harewood's impact and contributions to Martian Manhunter were felt. Unfortunately, since J'onn isn't as big a leading character as other DC heroes, this kind of thing doesn't seem to be communicated with the rest of the company. Because it's like a flip of the coin whether they decide to have J'onn's John Jones persona be classically white or Black to reflect how he's evolved.
[Justice League Unlimited by Mark Waid and Dan Mora on the left, Martian Manhunter 2019 by Steve Orlando and Riley Rossmo on the right)
Then comes Martian Manhunter Identity: written by Steve Orlando (2019-2020). Orlando imbues the character with queer Jewish coding, but doesn't do much with J'onn's Blackness outside of an aesthetic acknowledgement.
We can see some influence from Harewood's iteration of the character. J'onn is an alien who stumbles into the life of Black human being John Jones. In this take, it's Martian tradition to honor the dead by living as them for a while. But J'onn finds that he can't stop being John Jones. Because after being so lonely and invisible, he's finally seen as a person through John Jones.
J'onn doesn't have any critical thought towards being a Black cop, much like how his partner Diane doesn't have any critical thoughts about being a queer cop. It's a hit and miss. Blackness and diaspora experiences aren't really integrated as meaningfully here.
And now with Absolute Martian Manhunter being the new hot best selling series that stars a white John Jones as the lead, a pattern becomes clear; non-Black creatives don't value the Black contributions to Martian Manhunter as a character. You can glaze Deniz Camp's incredible leftist writing all you want, but the new series is a spit in the face against everything Black actors and writers built through this character. Camp made an entirely new character loosely based in Martian history and slapped the branding "Martian Manhunter" on it. And because we don't value Black stories, we eat it up and say it's what "fixed" J'onn.
J'onn was the result of collaborative effort between the Black community. His character blossomed out of Black actors and writers showing up for each other; giving each other a platform where they didn't get to have their say elsewhere. J'onn's Blackness gave him pathos to his underbaked immigrant themes. Pulling him away from science fiction shenanigans and grounding him in how it feels to be judged as visibly Other.
J'onn has meant a lot to the broader POC community too. But seeing how a POC writer like Camp can stomp out all this history when headlining the character, it's led to me to not trust J'onn in the hands of non-Black creatives. I think a proper evolution of J'onn's Blackness should reflect that communal growth. Whether he's body snatching or stumbling into the life of a Black man or choosing the form for himself, I think J'onn's choice to be visibly marginalized always made him inherently more interesting.
[My fancomic, "Epiphany" from the DC Pride fanzine]
COUGH COUGH, they should do something about that. Anyway, this matters a lot to me! J'onn's character has a long history of queer and non-white immigrant coding that's made him so much more relatable to me than Superman. And seeing it so quickly be lost to time through Absolute Martian Manhunter is such a sad way to see your favorite character die through success.