Absolute Martian Manhunter (2025-) #5

Absolute Martian Manhunter (2025) (Single Issues)

by Deniz Camp, Javier Rodriguez (Artist)

An attack on Middleton power stations! A city-wide blackout! As night falls,dark sides are unleashed! It’s John Jones and the Martian against a city fullof psychopaths! And the one behind it all!

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Comic Book, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Science Fiction

Kindle Edition

Published July 23, 2025

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not the strongest conclusion.
I was hoping for more answers to this trippy plot.
And yet...



The reveal at the end is worth it.
At the end of the last issue, a coordinated attack on all of the city's power stations has left everyone in the dark, and the sun is nowhere in sight.



John and the Martian slink around the darkened city, following his wife and son at a distance to try to keep them safe. <--she told him they needed time apart in the last issue.
Meanwhile, people's shadows are seemingly coming to life and acting somewhat independently, and a bunch of people under the White Martian's influence are tampering with food (ground up glass, etc.), going on killing sprees, and just acting crazy in general.



John gets injured, and the Maritan goes on some kind of a soul journey through time and space to find out who or what is at the center of things.
Darkseid is...




Ok. So, I'm still all in, and I'm still going to be waiting for the next issue to drop. This is one of (for me) the cooler Elseworlds/Absolutes out there, and I'm here for it.

Recommended.

[MrGlassWontBreak · Rating 4 out of 5]

The White Martian continues to fuck with people's minds, and this time it involves shadows somehow. He makes a restaurant owner try to feed people burgers with shards of broken glass in them, and a snack delivery worker fills up his snacks with poison.

John and the Martian manage to stop them both, but he is hit by a truck driven by some White Martian-controlled psychos, sending him and the Martian into a catatonic state where they see the cosmic entity, Darkside himself.

Even though John was kicked out by his wife, which he totally deserved, he still secretly watches over her and his son. I just hope the boy doesn’t eat that pack of poisoned snack he took off the mall floor. Also, I know it’s the Absolute Universe, but I’m not really sure how Darkside connects to all this, but it was a nice cameo.

[Machiavelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Issue #5 of Absolute Martian Manhunter dives even deeper into the fractured identity of J’onn J’onzz. The story continues to blur the line between detective fiction, psychological drama, and alien introspection — all wrapped in bold, surreal visuals.

Rodríguez’s art is stunningly expressive, full of color and mood, while Camp’s writing keeps the emotional threads tight and unpredictable. Themes of loss, memory, and shape-shifting identity are front and center, making this series feel like something truly unique in the DC lineup.

If you’re into Martian Manhunter stories that go weird and personal, this is a must-read. For me I’ve never read any Martian Manhunter other than seeing him in Justice League International, so don’t know his story much, so maybe I missing out, or maybe this just isn’t a fit, but I just feel kind of lost in it all

[James DeSantis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow...might be my favorite issue so far. Dark as hell. When the power goes out, the people come out. Scary and fucked up with a great intense ending.

[Craig Schorling · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fantastic! The city is going to hell during a blackout and the tension is palpable. The art really works in this issue and the writing is top notch. This is one of my favorite issues of a comic that I have read in a while.

[Colin Post · Rating 5 out of 5]

The color has been great throughout this whole series, of course, but Rodríguez steps it up to another level with the shadows and shifting two-tone panels.

[Nick LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continues to be great. Psychedelic, inventive, psychologically complex, dark. Really good, definitely will reward a re-read. Amazing work with colors, fantastic visual storytelling.

Read as a single issue.

[Siegfried · Rating 5 out of 5]

And it's done. The first act is overwhelming.
It's gritty, dark and sad.
John Jonz DEFINITELY is out of his dept.
He's not strong, durable and the "I can fight Superman" hero anymore.
His figth is deeper, in the mind, in the subconscious, in the dark depths of the heart.
And fucking Darkseid out of nowhere.
Love it.

[James B · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a nice read, a bit depressing though. Maybe the darkness is learned through watching, life and/or media

[A Fan of Comics · Rating 4 out of 5]

The darkness will take us all…

After the sun got put out, we find our heroes dealing with eternal darkness. The public’s shadow selves are taking over the city and it’s getting dark quick. This issue was super fast but the metaphors and art were really smart and I feel like this could be a fun one off.

[scarlet♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

omg he found darkseid

[Luca Mendes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still think this visually amazing, and story is so interesting.

[Tyler Leto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who we are.

Who we are in the dark when no one is watching is who we really are. Jon Jones and the Martian are having their dark night of the soul, along with an entire city of people doing the same.

[Cybernex007 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series continues to astound me! The art and story continues to be top tier, but the art once again challenges every fantastic issue we’ve already seen to elevate it in new ways. And this issue takes it to a new level with the use of shadows! Last issue the white Martian succeeded, the heat wave gave way to suicide bombers who targeted all of the major power plants. With those gone, Middletown has been left in total primordial darkness. And in the darkness that side of people begins to come out, and we see as people literally start to work and interact with their shadows. More time than not, this is not good. The city is plagued by a serial dog killer, and residents stay inside their dark homes every night unsure of who to trust. I love how this issue examines people and their behavior on such a grand scale. There was a line in here that really stood out to me: “we can’t see people clearly in this kind of gloom. To be sure if anything, we have to get up close.” As John worries about his wife, who refuses to see him even in this crisis, and son, he spends most of his time doing what he always does…running around trying to stop the shadows. As I mentioned, this also gives John a great opportunity to see every type of person. The ones who argue with their shadows, the teens who loot and get the assistance of their shadows to steal more only to revert back to old religious practices as they dance around a fire with their trophies…only to cast them in the fire when they are bored to start again lager on. They also see others who worship the light, purse it to q violent extent to unknown ends. Children seem a bit better off, a bit more in touch with themselves as John even sees cases where kids are playing with their shadows.

But as John says, everyone has their dark side and right now it’s his job to sniff them out and stop them before it’s too late. For example, we see in this issue as John stops a 24/7 dj we from serving burgers filled with shards of glass to its patrons. John chasing down the human as his shadow (the Martian) chases down their shadow. We also see where a convenience store owner has decided to start filling chocos (goated reference to MM) with poison. Unfortunately it also seems that John’s son decided to slip a pack of these after Johnathan chased the man down. I really hope that doesn’t come back to bite us later.

But John doesn’t always show up on time, such as at the home where a man killed his entire family then himself. It didn’t take long for the ambulance to arrive…and then drive itself right into John! Throwing him back into the brick wall he was standing in front of! All John could think about as he was trying to get back up was his family, as the ambulance drivers stepped out (one of their faces taken up by a solid white ball) the Martian decides it wants to understand deeper. It seemingly swims into the insane drivers mind as he talks about amputating whatever he wants from John. The Martian swims deeper and deeper into the cosmic secret origin of the entire universe, before he finally gets to bad idea #0…darkseid himself!! WHAT!! I did not expect that to pop up in this series!! As we end this issue John is in a terrible spot, the Martian is facing the truth of this universe, and the only person I really think can take care of themselves is John’s family. Even as we see at the end of this issue, the dog killer from the start has decided to take his next victim by going to their door! Have I mentioned this series is amazing?

[Alexis Moreno · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this issue, uh, was probably the most complex of the issues so far, but I think the main thing I got from it was the use of shadows and the use of light and the back and play between the two and what they symbolize. So essentially I think one of the themes or ideas brought was that, you know, each carry a shadow or essentially something that casts an absence of light that represents who we are. This sort of absence of light is, you know, our worst fears, our greatest, darkest impulses. They're something that, you know, we don't have a whole lot of visibility into given the nature of the fact that it's a shadow, but it's also like the fact it's our unconscious self, the things that we'd rather not admit to ourselves. But for all of us, the thing about shadows is that they show up whether you want them to or not, um, given the right, given the conditions that all you need is light. And I think the allegory, the metaphor was given here was when the city went into a power-wagged outage and there was no light and there was no visibility, all of a sudden there isn't a shadow. There's, there's, there's almost no shadow and there's all shadow. There's all darkness. Shadow is darkness, right? But now what happens when there's no light at all, we're using to cast light and to make a shadow. So instead, everything becomes a shadow. Everything becomes the dark, everything becomes the worst impulses. And this sort of thing is what spirals and creates, uh, the looting and the riots and the attacks and the, uh, horrible crimes that are being committed. But these sort of things happen not because people are bad, but because people are bad and they feel that they have no other way of dealing with it. So when all of a sudden the rules or the light that allows people to feel good and feel like, okay, maybe they can do something and maybe they don't have to resort to something more sinister goes away. They're just left with that negative. They're just left with, well, what's stopping me? Well, I don't have a, I don't have a source of light shining on me. Hey, I need to be careful. I need to be good. There is something worth protecting instead of just, well, no one can see, no one can matter. It doesn't matter what I do. We're all in this together and this pit of nothingness might as well try to do something with it. Even if that something is terrible, that way it does matter again. However, I was half asleep when reading the issue. So that was definitely not my, uh, best idea, but this is what I take away from it. Um, I think I'm off base here. I think a closer one, a closer read would be closer to, actually, no, I don't know. I think it's like, I think a more literal view is lawlessness, lawlessness and, and the citywide outages, uh, go hand in hand because, you know, there's less control and there's more violence. And finally we reached the tipping point with ulterior forces and ulterior motives being everywhere. But I don't really like that motive or that idea. It seems too basic.

[RubiGiráldez RubiGiráldez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hace unos meses, España sufrió un apagón total que por suerte privó de luz apenas ni un día. Al darse a mediodía y volver a la mañana siguiente, a los inevitables percances del transcurso de la jornada del corte eléctrico, solo se sumó ese preciso momento en el que llegaba el anochecer y no se veía ningún encendido general. Lo que descubría un concepto de oscuridad que a veces creemos perdido o superado pero que está siempre ahí. En mi caso, durante unos angustiantes segundos en ese momento crucial, me dio por pensar en sí al siguiente día continuaba el apagón. Y al siguiente, y al siguiente... El "buen rollo" que se exhibió en esa única jornada podría tornar en una actitud más temible y peligrosa... En esta incertidumbre, tengo claro que el dibujante Javier Rodríguez supo trasladar cierta catarsis propia cuando el relato propuesto por Deniz Camp para Absolute Martian Manhunter, hace llegar a Middleton un apagón total. Tras esa ola de malos pensamientos, los incendios y la epidemia de malos humos. El envolver todo en noches totalmente oscuras, es un nuevo gran paso en la esquiva amenaza de ese Marciano Blanco. Y John puede constatarlo al estar más que nunca en la calle al haber tenido que alejarse de su mujer e hijo tras la gresca doméstica pasada. Asaltantes, rateros, asesinos y hasta impensables cultistas. Es díficil preveer quien se dejará llevar por la angustia o locura de esta situación. Más cuando parece que las mismas sombras de cada uno parecen tomar vida propia. En este punto, el Marciano adherido al superado investigador, se encara al verdadero motor de este mundo torcido. Una revelación que explica mejor que nada, por qué esta cabecera superó esa barrera inicial de parlamentado arco argumental de 6 números. Absolute Martian Manhunter es algo más que una colorida curiosidad en este universo alternativo DCita. El combo Camp-Rodríguez ha presentado una de las mejores reinvenciones en estos términos creativos y que se enlazan mejor que cualquier personaje de la Trinidad o asociados a esa amenaza más existencial y emocional detrás de toda la existencia terrible del Universo Absolute. Y hay muchas ganas de que se pueda seguir desarrollando con la narrativa literaria de Camp y el arte de pura explosión imaginativa de Rodríguez.

[Arch Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t even really need to say much, cause if you read my prior reviews of this series you already know my high opinions of it.

Absolute Martian Manhunter #5 does not miss at all, even though it appears to be a buffer issue between a more major storyline event. This issue is dealing with a complete blackout in town that is allowing the White Martian to really play its negative role on society.

The artwork is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this issue to convey the message. Dealing with light, or lack there of, to highlight people coming into the grips and the reality of the shadows they’ve been caring their whole lives and seemingly forgot about. This is done so tastefully, that I sincerely did not want it to end so abruptly. It is showing a major lead up into the next issue that will hopefully keep the theme of perpetual darkness for a few more pages.

Easily a 4.8 out of 5 stars. Only knocking .2 off cause this also really was just filler for the most part. But it’s like that really good filler that you would go back to read just for the vibes.

[Madison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is this really supposed to be wrapping up soon?? I feel like there’s so much going on and like I understand but I don’t?? I really like the way the story is told through shadows and the dark with the fear of it and how dangerous thing are in it especially after the last issue all about the sun and how the heat puts people on edge. Good stuff man

[R. C. Ripley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An 'Absolute' - pun intended - masterclass of color, pacing, and paneling. The colors in this issue convey the perplexing emotion and state our main protagonist finds himself in. Muted, gritty, and brash. As we're getting close to the conclusion for the first arc, readers are greeted by the complexities of a life lived twofold.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

choccos making an appearance for the first time??? in my martian manhunter??? i'm kind of wondering whether they'll feed into the regular story of chocco's being addictive for the martian to be honest. other than that, the darkness thing was very inventive and john's fear for his family's safety is very sweet.

[Jason Holtzman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This issue was honestly the weakest of the series for me, not quite paying-off the great ending of the last. Despite this, I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and hope that all the set-up done here pays off next month.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah, this issue kinda making me lose interest. We’ve seen so many instances of people’s dark side, and we’ve been plunged into complete darkness.

Got it but how many times do I need to see people committing horrible acts. Can we plz move the story forward.

[alejandro galvez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soo goood!

Don't let the haters tell you otherwise, this comic is really good. Very unique take. Its the best of the Absolute line of comics, in my opinion. Can't wait to buy it in print. Buy it!

[rocco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great issue.

[Ushnav Shroff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing is so damn good here, and the more said about the stellar artwork the better.

[Axx · Rating 5 out of 5]

qué procede si este número acaba de cambiarme la vida para siempre??

[Danii Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cliffhanger was RUDE.

[Andy Waldron · Rating 5 out of 5]

the cookery continues. also: CHOCOS!!!!

[Powerman61 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This issue of Absolute Martian Manhunter takes
a step back. The storyline is more bizarre than
the previous issues. The artwork continues to
standout.

[Tojuan Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

this series has done the impossible, its made me give a damn about a solo Martian manhunter story.