Post by redsycorax on Aug 16, 2022 1:50:48 GMT
Okay, so I've just written a 'hard science'-based Elseworlds origin story for the origins of the Green and White Martians. Unlike the Martian Manhunter of Earth-One 5E, this version has a more nuanced and scientifically valid background. I happen to think that the concept of a present day origin for the Manhunter isn't compatible with what we currently know about the red planet, which may explain the earlier elaboration attempt in Justice League 71 (May 1969), where several JLA members travelled there to assist J'Onn against his old adversaries, Commander Blanx and the White Martians. I think they got aspects of J'Onn's origin more reconciled with contemporary areological knowledge from the Mariner probes and other uncrewed exploratory missions when they depicted what J'Onn's Martian background was like- the Green Martians evolved in the desert, while the White Martians ruled the polar icecap/s. It did seem to be a dying world, where environmental pressures had possibly caused the global war between the White and Green Martians, although that wasn't spelt out- nor was the origin of the mysterious blue flame energy source.
When I read Alan Brennert's Holy Terror about twenty years ago, I found his AU depiction of the Manhunter intriguing. This version of Saul Erdel was a moral monster, who coldly and callously extracted J'Onn from an ancient Mars whose atmospheric composition was incompatible with survival on contemporary Earth, killing him almost instantly. What seems to have then happened post-Crisis is that this explanation was adapted into current DC continuity about J'Onn's origins and Saul Erdel's teleport technology had now extracted him from a different space and time milieu.
Now, I can accept that Mars-One might well have had a different areological history from "Mars-Prime" (as I'll call our universe's iteration of Mars) so I had no problem at all with making this an Elseworlds story. That out of the way, earlier this year, I encountered a quite fascinating areological volume from the United Kingdom and devoured its contents. And thus was a story idea born- if J'Onn J'Onnz and Green and White Martians had existed on a scientifically valid Mars consistent with our current state of knowledge and plausible inferences about its development and history, what might that mean for a suitably informed Elseworlds story? And so, I set about the task. When might the Green and White Martians have evolved? Based on the Red Planet, I chose the "Noachian" era of three to four billion years ago, a period when Mars had a thicker atmosphere, oceans and rivers. What then happened, as on primeval Earth, was that constant lightning strikes in an ancient ocean volatilised potential amino acid building blocs into early microbial life. However, Mars' environment was not our own, so I then surmised that the evolution of Martians was from protozoa, which evolved to encompass metamorphic capabilities and fed on nutrient minerals through osmosis. In effect, it was a monocultural biosphere. And thus arose the Green and Red Martians. Now, given this, it is extremely unlikely that they would even approximate hominids. The Noachian era ended and the Hesperian era dawned, leaving the Martians to fight one another over a legacy quantum energy source ("blue flame") on a rapidly dessicating planet and the White Martians won. When J'Onn was teleported to Earth, his telepathic abilities caused him to shapeshift almost at once to a humanoid form to adapt to his current surroundings. His actual appearance is not that whatsoever. When he related the story of his origins to his Justice League associates in May 1969, J'Onn's narrative was telepathically embellished, depicting his Green Martian and White Martian cohabitants as humanoid. Later, when the White Martians encountered the Justice League, Blanx's own strategic and tactical skills might then have concluded that in order to combat these troublesome newcomers, it might be prudent to assume a humanoid form as well. In actual fact, their internal physiology is nothing like humanoid.
How "Mars-One" Might Have Given Rise to "Our" Martian Manhunter.
Now, I'm not passing judgement on the version of Mars that existed beforehand. It may be that the original Mars-One had some substantial differences from Mars-Prime and the AU version that I've depicted. For example, unlike our Mars, Mars-One might have a far less eccentric orbit, which might have more favourably affected the evolution of something approximating humanoid life on that alternate Mars, which would also have perhaps enabled it to retain more of its atmosphere and surface water than Mars-Prime. In that case, Mariners 4, 6,7 and 9 and other Martian probes would have therefore sent back divergent orbital images than was the case on "our" Mars. Mars-One's J'Onn found the ruins of Green and White Martian civilisations, yet they were not present when the Viking landers touched down in 1976. What happened? Why did these buildings erode so quickly? Perhaps one answer might be that they were constructed on biodegradable premises, which rapidly decomposed and left little to no trace when the Vikings finally arrived. Given Mars' severe ecological constraints, that would be logical and reconcile continuity between what J'Onn found when he returned to his homeworld and the lack of such debris when the Viking landers and Supergirl turned up in 1976.
Sources: Simon Morden: "Part Four: The Noachian Era" (pgs 83-127) The Red Planet: London: Elliott and Thompson: 2021.
Justice League 71: dc.fandom.com/wiki/Justice_League_of_America_Vol_1_71
When I read Alan Brennert's Holy Terror about twenty years ago, I found his AU depiction of the Manhunter intriguing. This version of Saul Erdel was a moral monster, who coldly and callously extracted J'Onn from an ancient Mars whose atmospheric composition was incompatible with survival on contemporary Earth, killing him almost instantly. What seems to have then happened post-Crisis is that this explanation was adapted into current DC continuity about J'Onn's origins and Saul Erdel's teleport technology had now extracted him from a different space and time milieu.
Now, I can accept that Mars-One might well have had a different areological history from "Mars-Prime" (as I'll call our universe's iteration of Mars) so I had no problem at all with making this an Elseworlds story. That out of the way, earlier this year, I encountered a quite fascinating areological volume from the United Kingdom and devoured its contents. And thus was a story idea born- if J'Onn J'Onnz and Green and White Martians had existed on a scientifically valid Mars consistent with our current state of knowledge and plausible inferences about its development and history, what might that mean for a suitably informed Elseworlds story? And so, I set about the task. When might the Green and White Martians have evolved? Based on the Red Planet, I chose the "Noachian" era of three to four billion years ago, a period when Mars had a thicker atmosphere, oceans and rivers. What then happened, as on primeval Earth, was that constant lightning strikes in an ancient ocean volatilised potential amino acid building blocs into early microbial life. However, Mars' environment was not our own, so I then surmised that the evolution of Martians was from protozoa, which evolved to encompass metamorphic capabilities and fed on nutrient minerals through osmosis. In effect, it was a monocultural biosphere. And thus arose the Green and Red Martians. Now, given this, it is extremely unlikely that they would even approximate hominids. The Noachian era ended and the Hesperian era dawned, leaving the Martians to fight one another over a legacy quantum energy source ("blue flame") on a rapidly dessicating planet and the White Martians won. When J'Onn was teleported to Earth, his telepathic abilities caused him to shapeshift almost at once to a humanoid form to adapt to his current surroundings. His actual appearance is not that whatsoever. When he related the story of his origins to his Justice League associates in May 1969, J'Onn's narrative was telepathically embellished, depicting his Green Martian and White Martian cohabitants as humanoid. Later, when the White Martians encountered the Justice League, Blanx's own strategic and tactical skills might then have concluded that in order to combat these troublesome newcomers, it might be prudent to assume a humanoid form as well. In actual fact, their internal physiology is nothing like humanoid.
How "Mars-One" Might Have Given Rise to "Our" Martian Manhunter.
Now, I'm not passing judgement on the version of Mars that existed beforehand. It may be that the original Mars-One had some substantial differences from Mars-Prime and the AU version that I've depicted. For example, unlike our Mars, Mars-One might have a far less eccentric orbit, which might have more favourably affected the evolution of something approximating humanoid life on that alternate Mars, which would also have perhaps enabled it to retain more of its atmosphere and surface water than Mars-Prime. In that case, Mariners 4, 6,7 and 9 and other Martian probes would have therefore sent back divergent orbital images than was the case on "our" Mars. Mars-One's J'Onn found the ruins of Green and White Martian civilisations, yet they were not present when the Viking landers touched down in 1976. What happened? Why did these buildings erode so quickly? Perhaps one answer might be that they were constructed on biodegradable premises, which rapidly decomposed and left little to no trace when the Vikings finally arrived. Given Mars' severe ecological constraints, that would be logical and reconcile continuity between what J'Onn found when he returned to his homeworld and the lack of such debris when the Viking landers and Supergirl turned up in 1976.
Sources: Simon Morden: "Part Four: The Noachian Era" (pgs 83-127) The Red Planet: London: Elliott and Thompson: 2021.
Justice League 71: dc.fandom.com/wiki/Justice_League_of_America_Vol_1_71
