The Ambition of Absolute Martian Manhunter: The Agency

Ambitious. That’s the exact feeling I got upon closing the last page of Absolute Martian Manhunter #12, the last issue, while getting ready to say goodbye.

I described the creation of Martian Vision, the first arc of Absolute Martian Manhunter, as “like magicians concocting a powerful, ambitious potion.” However, that arc has ambitions in control, its writer Deniz Camp, artist Javier Rodriguez and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou playing to the upper limit of their strengths. It’s a tight, controlled, precise book where the magicians know exactly when to let go. 

In contrast, The Agency, the second arc of Absolute Martian Manhunter, is letting that ambition go crazier. It’s a more jam-packed book, more maximalist in terms of the ideas and themes it’s trying to convey, throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. I don’t think that always works, sometimes it’s just too much being conveyed in these 20 page comics (with the exception of the longer final issue) that I wish had a little more time to breathe – not in the sense of “extend these into two issues”, but rather, “give these issues more page space”, I imagine if every one of these issues were 32 pages they would flow a little better.

That being said, it’s this ambition specifically that makes me love this book so much. Yes, it can be too much for its own good. Yes, after every issue, I had to take a little 5-minute break to go get a drink of water, whatever. But it’s the only book from the Big 2 right now that makes me do that, makes me sit back and think about what these issues are trying to convey, how they’re trying to convey it. Just like Despero, these stories stuck themselves into my head and would not let go. That, to me, is power. I yearn for this; I yearn for big swings like this that aren’t afraid to put everything on the table, hammering home what it wants to say without skipping a beat, demanding that the reader actually sit there and think about what this book is saying.

It made me regret letting it all stack up to binge instead of reading it monthly because I imagine it would’ve been awesome to talk about it every month with my friends and discuss what’s going on (which, funnily enough, getting to read #12 early meant that now I’m on the opposite end of this, where I can’t talk about it because my friends haven’t read it yet). It’s a delight. 

You see a lot of this overwhelming feeling across how the issues are coloured. Like #5 and #6 of the first arc, there’s a lot of brighter colors, sometimes neon too, that are screaming at the reader. There are busier page compositions and, on average, more panels per page than in the first half, allowing more ideas to flourish. 

Most importantly though, there are bolder takes on stuff similar to Martian Vision, the concept from the first arc mostly used as “hold your book up to the light and see”. People nowadays hold the physical issue in such high regard, making sure to bag and board them, keep them safe, keep them preserved for some future reason even though, let’s be honest, it’s just for the feeling of collecting something. In #8, the reader is forced to draw a pentagon within the issue itself to capture the Martian, which is then used within the narrative. In #11, the reader is asked to cut out a portion of the page to reveal a slightly different story, which is still in tune with what is being said. It holds the reader responsible for actions that take place in the story, something you can really only see in interactive media like games, but to do so through challenging the readers’ own beliefs in “collecting,” especially as you have to interact with something tangible like the physical copy, is awesome. This is made more powerful, particularly in #11, by the twist that activating “Desper-Ovision” does nothing; it’s all about pretending not to be responsible for something rather than standing by your actions. 

The Agency, and Absolute Martian Manhunter at its core, is a story about communication, a theme made explicit through #12. How do we communicate, what do we say, and how do we say it? How limited are we by language? What could be more? How do you break barriers that are so thick? How do you understand someone else that you couldn’t before? To make this work, Camp, Rodriguez, and Otsmane-Elhaou really go full force. There’s so much in every aspect of this book that you can only make work in a comic, like the aforementioned “gimmicks”, the page structures, and how the lettering is used. When John loses the Martian and is possessed by “Despair-the-zero,” he begins to lose his understanding and doubts are instilled in him. It isn’t until the Martian helps him understand Bridget, and Bridget him, that they finally close that gap and begin to understand everything. It’s a beautiful thread. 

Specific to my interests is #8’s use of “the idea of a gun.” I think about Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones’ Final Crisis a lot. It’s my second favorite event comic ever published. Specifically, I think about the scene where Batman confronts Darkseid, pointing a gun at him loaded with the idea of a bullet. The construction of the Absolute Universe is essentially a creation of Darkseid, which is why he’s Bad Idea 0 (much like how Final Crisis has Darkseid turn Earth into a planet of Despair). It follows from there that, considering the Absolute Universe to be the extreme of his ideas in Final Crisis, we get the idea of the gun now. Framing that idea to be an American idea, mixed with letters and smoke effects in the star-spangled red and Blues and Stars, then having Uncle Sam be the one to tell the reader to trap the Martian is genuinely awesome work.

What a run. Reading all of it made me want to go for a walk by the Harbourfront in Toronto, sip on a coffee, and contemplate life. I’ll really miss it.