Post by J'onn J'onzz on Jun 2, 2011 19:02:31 GMT -5
Canon or your own
Canon
Civilian Identity
John Jones (John Erdel, Marco Xavier, William Dyer, Josh Johnstone, Mr. Klingman, Miles the Cat, among many others)
Alias
Commonly referred to derogatorily as "The Martian Manhunter"
Gender
Technically variable, though he has the emotional and psychological status of a Martian male
Age
874, though he commonly takes the appearance of a human male in his thirties
Occupation
Adventurer, explorer, vigilante, while moonlighting as a GCPD detective; former Manhunter on Mars and intergalactic bounty hunter
Appearance
J'onn has certainly chosen an eccentric appearance for his human form. His frame is tall and thin, almost sinewy like a scarecrow, standing at six feet and weighing just one-hundred and seventy pounds, with long arms that extend like drinking straws from his tight shoulders. His musculature is more in line with a swimmer - not exaggerated, but prominent enough to notice when he's shirtless. Of course, this belies the superhuman strength that he actually possesses, allowing him to trick his opponents into believing that he's not a physical threat. His eyes are telling, large and wide, with a shade of brown that seems to betray his ageless soul. While operating as a normal human, his hair is a deep chestnut brown, a mop of tresses that simply sit on the top of his head. While acting as a hero, however, his hair takes on a green hue, while his irises become bright green over red sclera.
In his natural form, J'onn is most definitely not human. His frame is thin and elongated, much more so than his human form, in a structure that seems almost exoskeletal like an insect. With that same idea, his body is segmented, his muscles and limbs clearly defined in sharp edging rather than the rounded, soft musculature of human beings. His skull shape is elongated and tapered off at the top in a slight curve. His eyes are a stark red with no visible pupils. Normally, they appear to be a flat red, but when experiencing intense emotion, his eyes can start to glow in proportion to how strong his feelings are.
Personality
At first glance, the Martian Manhunter is highly energetic and very lively. He is extremely brash and unafraid to show his eccentricities, appearing to act alien. He is also easily agitated when people or objects do not do as he wishes them to, and will resort to physical confrontation and somewhat reckless behavior to achieve his goals. He has fantastic leadership qualities. He also has a large amount of knowledge of Earth slang and colloquialism as he is aware of Facebook, Twitter and Bebo. He is extremely resourceful and quick thinking, able to spin things to his point of view, and can find positive outlooks in negative situations. He is somewhat more melodramatic in his brilliance, going so far as to prove Fermat's last theorem, faster-than-light travel and why electrons have mass just to prove he could be trusted.
He also can tell how old something is by taste. He is often late, appears to have incredibly good eyesight as well as an eidetic memory, and is able to scan an entire scene and pick up little details. He implores others to observe every detail in an area and make brilliant deductions from doing so. J'onn shows a childlike recklessness but always has a grander scheme behind his actions. The Martian can have a knack for acting smug, occasionally boasting about his feats, knowledge, and reputation.
The Manhunter also has a more serious side to his character. He shows little tolerance for dire mistakes and being belittled by others; he does not give second chances. J'onn is also aware of the flaws humans have and reminds them of those flaws. J'onn seems to be less interested in his allies when he faces tasks he believes are too dangerous for humanity, going as far as not telling the Justice League about dangerous threats to the planet so that he can handle it himself.
J'onn believes that a great deal that humanity's sense of hope, even in the face of utter danger, is its most redeeming quality, though he also believes that a human's ability to feel pain and suffering defines them as well. He can be prone to violent actions and sometimes uses them as his first option to achieve his goals.
Abilities:
The Martian physiology is very unique, especially in comparison to that of humans. John's molecular structure is composed of a series of microscopic biological polymers, each of which can be mentally manipulated. These polymers grant him such abilities as superhuman strength, durability, and speed, in addition to the ability to alter his form in virtually any way he sees fit. By telekinetically pushing himself, he is able to fly unaided through the air. His mental abilities do not just cover his physical form, but also many other categories. John is able to read, control, and manipulate the minds of others, in addition to being able to see the future. However, there are powers that John possesses that are hard to classify as either physical or mental. For example, he is able to become invisible to a wide variety of spectrums, or even shift his atoms to move unhindered through matter. Even more odd are his enhanced senses, his superhuman breath, and what he refers to as his "Martian vision", which not only allows him to project bolts of force or heat from his eyes, but also lets him see into other spectrums and even zoom in telescopically or microscopically.
John is well-rounded in many subjects, due to his biological and adoptive fathers as well as his own appetite for learning. Due in part to his telepathy and empathic nature, John is an expert mediator, allowing him to reason many diverse groups of people. He is a master detective, able to spot clues that others may have missed, which comes in handy with his job. This is also combined with a genius-level intellect, allowing John to become an expert scientist. He is a very personable person with a high level of emotional attunement.
Equipment:
J'onn has a symbiotic relationship with a Zo'ok plant. This plant grows naturally on Mars and is capable of manipulating its physical properties as easily as a Martian can. It develops a psychic link to its owner and acts as a Martian's clothing, with the link and its own shapeshifting properties allowing it to take on any form of attire John wishes.
Like all Martians, John has a kuru pendant, which stores all of the genealogical memories and information of those who came before. The owner telepathically interacts with the medallion in order to develop a greater understanding of Martian lore and culture, as well as record their own memories and contributions. He also has a number of kuru pendants recovered from the deceased.
He is the wielder of a red Martian crystal, which has a direct link to the Phantom Zone as well as various other dimensions. He commonly used this in his days in intergalactic law enforcement to imprison criminals right into the Zone. The crystal is capable of teleportation to and from the Phantom Zone, remote manipulation of objects, and remote interfacing with technology, among other feats.
Weaknesses:
John is highly pyrophobic, a psychological response to the deaths he witnessed on Mars. In the presence of heat and flames, his control over his powers will drastically wane depending on the significance of the flame. If exposed to flame for a prolonged period, the stress of the fear can actually cause his mind to shut down permanently, effectively killing him, or it can even cause long-term power loss.
The main limit of John's physical powers is that he has to align his body's polymers for a specific task. At its base, John is able to survive mortal injuries and lift great weights, but not nearly on the same level as Superman. However, given time to shift his body's molecules, he can sustain even greater invulnerability and strength for a limited time.
Background:
The planet Mars was once a proud civilization. Their technology was millions of years ahead of our own. The Martians were a proud and noble race, having lived in peace and harmony for ages. However, all good things must come to an end. For an unknown reason, renegade Martians began to grow, and they took on a white skin color as a sign of their rebellion. These Martians, for some reason, wanted nothing more than chaos and destruction.
The only force keeping the peaceful Green Martians, as the rest of the Martians had come to be called, from being destroyed were the Manhunters. They were the peacekeepers of the planet. They were police officers, detectives, judges, and bounty hunters rolled into one. Highly intelligent and skilled, a select few Martians were chosen from an early age to train to become Manhunters.
One of these Martians was J'onn J'onzz. As the son of M'yrnn and Sha'sheen, two of Mars's most famed scientists and members of the royal family, he and his brother, Ma'alefa'ak, were both chosen to become Manhunters. J'onn began training to become a Manhunter at a young age. While still in the academy, he met and married M'yri'ah, an artist, and soon came their daughter, K'hym. While renowned as a tough Manhunter with a 100% capture rate, he was a dedicated family man, loving his wife and daughter more than the world.
Unfortunately, this world was ending.
The White Martians unleashed their penultimate weapon, a virus which came to be known as H'ronmeer's Curse, named after the Martian God of Fire and Death. When a Green Martian would use their telepathy - as common an act as a human talking - the virus would enter their minds and cause it to spontaneously combust, lighting their entire body and mind on fire. He had to shut off his own telepathy so as to not catch the virus, which is as essential to Martian communication as speaking and hearing is to humans. He couldn't reach out to his own wife and daughter as they burned before his eyes. Watching his loved ones spontaneously burn in front of him caused J'onn to develop a deep psychological fear of fire. All J'onn could do was watch as his entire race died in thousands of blazes, including his daughter. M'yri'ah couldn't resist the urge to connect with her suffering daughter's mind, and she too fell to the virus.
By default, J'onn had become the ruler of the Green Martians, as well as the highest-ranking Royal Manhunter - and as the last member of his species. But where most men would admit defeat, the Last Son of Mars felt quite the opposite. For years to come, J'onn waged a one-man war against an entire species...and left the White Martians with few numbers. His determination, strategy, and willpower would become legendary throughout the galaxy, with word of the exploits of the Martian Manhunter culminating in other civilizations finally coming to J'onn's aid. Badly wounded and fatigued after years of bloodshed and facing a squadron of White Martians, J'onn was able to use one of his new allies' teleporter to escape to the nearest civilized planet: Earth.
Though the Green Martians were rendered extinct in the 1400s, the space-time warp of the teleporter left him on Earth in the 1930s. He was found by Dr. Saul Erdel, a scientist, who nursed him back to health and familiarized him to Earth, even helping him establish the human identity of John Jones, a student.
Meanwhile, nearing defeat, the last of the White Martians launched from Mars in what was left of their fleet, following J'onn's teleportation signal to Earth in order to kill the last Green Martian before their own demise. On October 30th, 1938, the White Martians landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey and immediately began killing every person in the vicinity while screaming for J'onn's head. By now having been on Earth for several weeks and knowing that the fight was personal and that innocent humans were caught in the crossfire, J'onn revealed his Martian form to defeat the invaders, finally managing to imprison the last of the White Martians into the Phantom Zone.
However, mankind still wasn't ready to accept that extraterrestrial life existed, especially in such extravagant nature. Riots, lynch mobs, and suicides ensued as they couldn't handle such a revelation, with Dr. Erdel dying in the ensuing riots. With the help of a young reporter and aspiring actor by the name of Orson Welles, J'onn used his telepathy on a large scale to convince the public that they had actually been listening to a fictional radio broadcast by Welles. Only Welles remained aware of what had actually transpired.
With the loss of his human mentor, J'onn took Erdel's portal technology and left Earth, spending the next few centuries traveling through both space and time. The legend of the "Manhunter from Mars" only grew, due to his belief in justice and the lengths to which he would go to fight evil. The White Martians and the Dominators had gone so far as to refer to him as a force of nature, "The Emerald Tempest." Throughout his adventures, he often visited Earth, and remained aware of the events that had been shaping up, especially the arrival of the last Kryptonian. He began to keep files on the growing superhuman population on Earth, in the event that he needed them - or if they went rogue.
Recently, however, his traveling technology was broken in battle with Commander B'lanx, a White Martian commander who escaped from the Phantom Zone. Stranded on Earth in 2011, on the cusp of the first appearances of Earth's greatest superheroes, J'onn decided to contribute himself. Though he had always fought evil covertly on Earth during his travels, he has begun to flirt with the idea of taking a costumed identity. Taking the identity of Inspector John Jones of the Gotham City Police Department, he continues to fight crime, while also remaining in possession of his records on superhumans, as well as the fact that an evil force brews that will require a team of great heroes.
Base of Operations:
Presently Gotham City, though he is a traveler at heart
Sample Post:
Canon
Civilian Identity
John Jones (John Erdel, Marco Xavier, William Dyer, Josh Johnstone, Mr. Klingman, Miles the Cat, among many others)
Alias
Commonly referred to derogatorily as "The Martian Manhunter"
Gender
Technically variable, though he has the emotional and psychological status of a Martian male
Age
874, though he commonly takes the appearance of a human male in his thirties
Occupation
Adventurer, explorer, vigilante, while moonlighting as a GCPD detective; former Manhunter on Mars and intergalactic bounty hunter
Appearance
J'onn has certainly chosen an eccentric appearance for his human form. His frame is tall and thin, almost sinewy like a scarecrow, standing at six feet and weighing just one-hundred and seventy pounds, with long arms that extend like drinking straws from his tight shoulders. His musculature is more in line with a swimmer - not exaggerated, but prominent enough to notice when he's shirtless. Of course, this belies the superhuman strength that he actually possesses, allowing him to trick his opponents into believing that he's not a physical threat. His eyes are telling, large and wide, with a shade of brown that seems to betray his ageless soul. While operating as a normal human, his hair is a deep chestnut brown, a mop of tresses that simply sit on the top of his head. While acting as a hero, however, his hair takes on a green hue, while his irises become bright green over red sclera.
In his natural form, J'onn is most definitely not human. His frame is thin and elongated, much more so than his human form, in a structure that seems almost exoskeletal like an insect. With that same idea, his body is segmented, his muscles and limbs clearly defined in sharp edging rather than the rounded, soft musculature of human beings. His skull shape is elongated and tapered off at the top in a slight curve. His eyes are a stark red with no visible pupils. Normally, they appear to be a flat red, but when experiencing intense emotion, his eyes can start to glow in proportion to how strong his feelings are.
Personality
At first glance, the Martian Manhunter is highly energetic and very lively. He is extremely brash and unafraid to show his eccentricities, appearing to act alien. He is also easily agitated when people or objects do not do as he wishes them to, and will resort to physical confrontation and somewhat reckless behavior to achieve his goals. He has fantastic leadership qualities. He also has a large amount of knowledge of Earth slang and colloquialism as he is aware of Facebook, Twitter and Bebo. He is extremely resourceful and quick thinking, able to spin things to his point of view, and can find positive outlooks in negative situations. He is somewhat more melodramatic in his brilliance, going so far as to prove Fermat's last theorem, faster-than-light travel and why electrons have mass just to prove he could be trusted.
He also can tell how old something is by taste. He is often late, appears to have incredibly good eyesight as well as an eidetic memory, and is able to scan an entire scene and pick up little details. He implores others to observe every detail in an area and make brilliant deductions from doing so. J'onn shows a childlike recklessness but always has a grander scheme behind his actions. The Martian can have a knack for acting smug, occasionally boasting about his feats, knowledge, and reputation.
The Manhunter also has a more serious side to his character. He shows little tolerance for dire mistakes and being belittled by others; he does not give second chances. J'onn is also aware of the flaws humans have and reminds them of those flaws. J'onn seems to be less interested in his allies when he faces tasks he believes are too dangerous for humanity, going as far as not telling the Justice League about dangerous threats to the planet so that he can handle it himself.
J'onn believes that a great deal that humanity's sense of hope, even in the face of utter danger, is its most redeeming quality, though he also believes that a human's ability to feel pain and suffering defines them as well. He can be prone to violent actions and sometimes uses them as his first option to achieve his goals.
Abilities:
The Martian physiology is very unique, especially in comparison to that of humans. John's molecular structure is composed of a series of microscopic biological polymers, each of which can be mentally manipulated. These polymers grant him such abilities as superhuman strength, durability, and speed, in addition to the ability to alter his form in virtually any way he sees fit. By telekinetically pushing himself, he is able to fly unaided through the air. His mental abilities do not just cover his physical form, but also many other categories. John is able to read, control, and manipulate the minds of others, in addition to being able to see the future. However, there are powers that John possesses that are hard to classify as either physical or mental. For example, he is able to become invisible to a wide variety of spectrums, or even shift his atoms to move unhindered through matter. Even more odd are his enhanced senses, his superhuman breath, and what he refers to as his "Martian vision", which not only allows him to project bolts of force or heat from his eyes, but also lets him see into other spectrums and even zoom in telescopically or microscopically.
John is well-rounded in many subjects, due to his biological and adoptive fathers as well as his own appetite for learning. Due in part to his telepathy and empathic nature, John is an expert mediator, allowing him to reason many diverse groups of people. He is a master detective, able to spot clues that others may have missed, which comes in handy with his job. This is also combined with a genius-level intellect, allowing John to become an expert scientist. He is a very personable person with a high level of emotional attunement.
Equipment:
J'onn has a symbiotic relationship with a Zo'ok plant. This plant grows naturally on Mars and is capable of manipulating its physical properties as easily as a Martian can. It develops a psychic link to its owner and acts as a Martian's clothing, with the link and its own shapeshifting properties allowing it to take on any form of attire John wishes.
Like all Martians, John has a kuru pendant, which stores all of the genealogical memories and information of those who came before. The owner telepathically interacts with the medallion in order to develop a greater understanding of Martian lore and culture, as well as record their own memories and contributions. He also has a number of kuru pendants recovered from the deceased.
He is the wielder of a red Martian crystal, which has a direct link to the Phantom Zone as well as various other dimensions. He commonly used this in his days in intergalactic law enforcement to imprison criminals right into the Zone. The crystal is capable of teleportation to and from the Phantom Zone, remote manipulation of objects, and remote interfacing with technology, among other feats.
Weaknesses:
John is highly pyrophobic, a psychological response to the deaths he witnessed on Mars. In the presence of heat and flames, his control over his powers will drastically wane depending on the significance of the flame. If exposed to flame for a prolonged period, the stress of the fear can actually cause his mind to shut down permanently, effectively killing him, or it can even cause long-term power loss.
The main limit of John's physical powers is that he has to align his body's polymers for a specific task. At its base, John is able to survive mortal injuries and lift great weights, but not nearly on the same level as Superman. However, given time to shift his body's molecules, he can sustain even greater invulnerability and strength for a limited time.
Background:
The planet Mars was once a proud civilization. Their technology was millions of years ahead of our own. The Martians were a proud and noble race, having lived in peace and harmony for ages. However, all good things must come to an end. For an unknown reason, renegade Martians began to grow, and they took on a white skin color as a sign of their rebellion. These Martians, for some reason, wanted nothing more than chaos and destruction.
The only force keeping the peaceful Green Martians, as the rest of the Martians had come to be called, from being destroyed were the Manhunters. They were the peacekeepers of the planet. They were police officers, detectives, judges, and bounty hunters rolled into one. Highly intelligent and skilled, a select few Martians were chosen from an early age to train to become Manhunters.
One of these Martians was J'onn J'onzz. As the son of M'yrnn and Sha'sheen, two of Mars's most famed scientists and members of the royal family, he and his brother, Ma'alefa'ak, were both chosen to become Manhunters. J'onn began training to become a Manhunter at a young age. While still in the academy, he met and married M'yri'ah, an artist, and soon came their daughter, K'hym. While renowned as a tough Manhunter with a 100% capture rate, he was a dedicated family man, loving his wife and daughter more than the world.
Unfortunately, this world was ending.
The White Martians unleashed their penultimate weapon, a virus which came to be known as H'ronmeer's Curse, named after the Martian God of Fire and Death. When a Green Martian would use their telepathy - as common an act as a human talking - the virus would enter their minds and cause it to spontaneously combust, lighting their entire body and mind on fire. He had to shut off his own telepathy so as to not catch the virus, which is as essential to Martian communication as speaking and hearing is to humans. He couldn't reach out to his own wife and daughter as they burned before his eyes. Watching his loved ones spontaneously burn in front of him caused J'onn to develop a deep psychological fear of fire. All J'onn could do was watch as his entire race died in thousands of blazes, including his daughter. M'yri'ah couldn't resist the urge to connect with her suffering daughter's mind, and she too fell to the virus.
By default, J'onn had become the ruler of the Green Martians, as well as the highest-ranking Royal Manhunter - and as the last member of his species. But where most men would admit defeat, the Last Son of Mars felt quite the opposite. For years to come, J'onn waged a one-man war against an entire species...and left the White Martians with few numbers. His determination, strategy, and willpower would become legendary throughout the galaxy, with word of the exploits of the Martian Manhunter culminating in other civilizations finally coming to J'onn's aid. Badly wounded and fatigued after years of bloodshed and facing a squadron of White Martians, J'onn was able to use one of his new allies' teleporter to escape to the nearest civilized planet: Earth.
Though the Green Martians were rendered extinct in the 1400s, the space-time warp of the teleporter left him on Earth in the 1930s. He was found by Dr. Saul Erdel, a scientist, who nursed him back to health and familiarized him to Earth, even helping him establish the human identity of John Jones, a student.
Meanwhile, nearing defeat, the last of the White Martians launched from Mars in what was left of their fleet, following J'onn's teleportation signal to Earth in order to kill the last Green Martian before their own demise. On October 30th, 1938, the White Martians landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey and immediately began killing every person in the vicinity while screaming for J'onn's head. By now having been on Earth for several weeks and knowing that the fight was personal and that innocent humans were caught in the crossfire, J'onn revealed his Martian form to defeat the invaders, finally managing to imprison the last of the White Martians into the Phantom Zone.
However, mankind still wasn't ready to accept that extraterrestrial life existed, especially in such extravagant nature. Riots, lynch mobs, and suicides ensued as they couldn't handle such a revelation, with Dr. Erdel dying in the ensuing riots. With the help of a young reporter and aspiring actor by the name of Orson Welles, J'onn used his telepathy on a large scale to convince the public that they had actually been listening to a fictional radio broadcast by Welles. Only Welles remained aware of what had actually transpired.
With the loss of his human mentor, J'onn took Erdel's portal technology and left Earth, spending the next few centuries traveling through both space and time. The legend of the "Manhunter from Mars" only grew, due to his belief in justice and the lengths to which he would go to fight evil. The White Martians and the Dominators had gone so far as to refer to him as a force of nature, "The Emerald Tempest." Throughout his adventures, he often visited Earth, and remained aware of the events that had been shaping up, especially the arrival of the last Kryptonian. He began to keep files on the growing superhuman population on Earth, in the event that he needed them - or if they went rogue.
Recently, however, his traveling technology was broken in battle with Commander B'lanx, a White Martian commander who escaped from the Phantom Zone. Stranded on Earth in 2011, on the cusp of the first appearances of Earth's greatest superheroes, J'onn decided to contribute himself. Though he had always fought evil covertly on Earth during his travels, he has begun to flirt with the idea of taking a costumed identity. Taking the identity of Inspector John Jones of the Gotham City Police Department, he continues to fight crime, while also remaining in possession of his records on superhumans, as well as the fact that an evil force brews that will require a team of great heroes.
Base of Operations:
Presently Gotham City, though he is a traveler at heart
Sample Post:
The light. That might have been what he remembered the most. On Mars, all of their lighting was provided by solar arrays. It was pure sunlight, all of the time. But when the Curse started...the fires. Oh, god, the fires. Orange, yellow, and red, with an intensity that their smooth, natural sunlight simply couldn't match. Maybe it was due to the bio-polymers of the Martians that the fires consumed. Beginning from the inside out, the Curse would result in slow, planned, yet somehow still chaotic burning. It could take as little as a minute for a Martian to be completely consumed and destroyed, or as long as a few hours.
For the wife of J'onn J'onzz, it was the former. For his daughter, the latter.
"K'hym!" His voice had been hoarse due to days of screaming. Ordinarily, Martian communication was done through telepathy, but due to the nature of the Curse, they had no choice but to resort to primitive forms of speech. He didn't care how dry or cracked his developed vocal cords were; he wanted to talk to his child, damnit. He wanted to touch her, he wanted to hug her tightly and tell her that everything would be alright. SHE WAS HIS CHILD, DAMNIT! But before his very eyes, all J'onn could do was watch as his only daughter erupted in a slow burn, the fire emanating from the center of her chest. Oh, how he wanted to mentally soothe her and implant a positive memory, like any father should. But he knew if he opened his mind up for even a moment, H'ronmeer's Curse would spread to him, and the genocide of the Green Martians would continue. It was easier said than done, however; psychic communication and contact were as essential to a Martian as speaking and hearing, as seeing and touching, what all of these were to a human being. And here was J'onn, unable to peek from behind his closed mental shields. All he could do was watch as the disease took his daughter from him. The bastards would pay. Surely, when all of this was over, he and M'yri'ah would--
The light. Another one ignited directly next to him. Slowly, J'onn craned his head to the left in order to peer at the source of the new illumination, hoping that it was some other member of his race and not the one that mattered to him. Please, please, anybody but her. Take HIM, but not her...
"M'yri'ah..." Watching their daughter agonizingly burn to death had been too much for the wife of the Manhunter. M'yri'ah had attempted to telepathically soothe K'hym, only to end up becoming Cursed herself. With wide red eyes, she turned to face her husband, mouth agape. Most of her body was already charred into a crisp - thankfully, she would go quickly. It was the longest minute of J'onn J'onzz's life, watching as his wife turned into ash to his left, while to his right, his daughter was slowly melting by the hour.
The hoarse scream of the Martian Manhunter echoed for galaxies.
"Jones!" The sound of Commissioner Gordon's voice was enough to pull John out of his slumber. Brown eyes snapped open as his upper body pulled back off of the desk that he had made into his makeshift pillow. The contents of the dream were enough to cause him to crack the wood of said desk, with a curvy line moving almost perfectly through the center of the mahogany finish. Gordon casted him a look that was halfway between shock and worry. A small smile was given to the police commissioner as well as an even smaller wave of his hand. As soon as Gordon went about his way, John turned his head down to look at the sticky note that he himself had written earlier...with the number of a woman that he had met at a bar after his shift.
Obviously, he wasn't quite ready yet.
