Absolute Martian Manhunter, Vol. 2: The Agency

Absolute Martian Manhunter (2025) #7-12

by Deniz Camp, Javier Rodriguez (Artist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (Letterer)

Comics superstars Deniz Camp and Javier Rodríguez bring their surreal, smash-hit reinvention of a DC icon to an unbelievable conclusion!

After the mind-altering events of the White Martian’s first foray on Earth, the Agency—a shadowy group with unlimited governmental authority—comes to investigate the strange occurrences in Middleton. John must juggle his job, hiding the Martian, his expanding abilities, and his crumbling relationships, all while living out of a motel. Meanwhile, Bridget wrestles with the revelations John shared with her before his departure while single-handedly taking care of Tyler!

Superstar writer Deniz Camp (20th Century Men) and Eisner Award-winning artist Javier Rodríguez (Zatanna: Bring Down the House) continue their mind-bending, transcendental interpretation of the Absolute Martian Manhunter!

Collects Absolute Martian Manhunter #7-12.

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics, Superheroes, Comic Book, Collections

160 pages, Hardcover

Published August 25, 2026

Reviews

[Anne]

Solid 3 star finish.
The art and colors were (for me) the saving grace of the second half of the run.
I know there are plenty of fans of this kind of fever-dream style writing, but I've never personally enjoyed it much.
Your mileage will certainly vary.



As with all of the Absolute universe, I found the reinvention of the characters and how they interacted with each other interesting.
Despair-The-Zero (Despair-O = Despero) plays a large role in this second act, attaching himself to John in an effort to skew everything he sees through a black cloud of bleak hopelessness.
With John's now-estranged wife, Bridget, under the control of the White Martian who has inhabited their son Tyler's body, it becomes harder and harder for the Green Martian to break through his depression and communicate with him.



For whatever reason, the fate of this universe's reality rests on John, and to a lesser extent Bridget, being able to shake off the White Martin's influence, so that John can use his powers to reset the equilibrium.
Kinda?
Just be prepared to go with it if you decide to dive into this one.



I did like the way it all wrapped up. And like I initially mentioned, this one has some of the most phenomenal panels and colors out there that really do make it worth your time.
I read this as single issues on DC Infinite, and the individual reviews are linked below if you're interested in a more thorough review.
Recommended for fans of metaphorical comics.

issue #7
issue #8
issue #9
issue #10
issue #11
issue #12

[Chad]

I had no idea what I was reading half the time but I dug it. The art is pretty out there and inventive, especially for a DC comic. And I had no idea that was Despero for the longest time. I'll sit with this for awhile and then need to go back and read it all again straight through to see what I missed the first go around.

[Ali]

جنگی ذهنی با مهمانی ناخوانده برای بازپس‌گیری سلامت عقل.
مثل کتاب اول، تریلری روان‌شناختی

ایده‌ی اصلی داستان ولوم رو دوست نداشتم و خیلی دیگه همه‌چیز تریپ‌طور شده بود. به شکلی که به‌سختی می‌شد فهمید چه اتفاقی داره می‌افته و واقعاً تبدیل به یک head scratcherشده بود.

آرت اما چشمگیر و بی‌نظیر بود.

[Kelly]

This was very sweet 🥹 I can’t wait to read it again all the way through hard cover style 😝

[Siona Adams]

I think the art from this series was really cool, although I think the story was a little hard to follow because of it. But also, idk if subtext or metaphor would be the better word for it, but the story had more meat on the bones than a usual DC comic.

[Person Michaels]

A longer review of my thematic takeaways from this series will be coming on a proper reread. I experienced this volume monthly, and there’s no possible way that can do full justice to its brilliance.

[Anthony Lacroix]

is so weird.

[Cody Sanders]

What the hell where did all these tears come from?

Maybe liked it better than the first?

[Lucas]

I should've probably reread the first volume before diving into this one, felt a little lost at times. But it's still also firmly 90s vertigo madness that I can't help but love it either way. This volume goes full on mental breakdown hallucination. Incredible art, as per usual.

[Josh J]

Deniz Camp is sitting so firmly amongst my favorite authors at this point and Javier Rodriguez translates this story into the visual medium in a way I’ve never witnessed before. A must read series that’s left me beyond impressed.

[Aidan]

Utterly haunting and beautiful tale, the first volume covered societal despair. This covers personal. Yet again i wish i could give this a higher rating.

[Zachary Palmer]

The art in this book is worth reading it for alone, but oh man, the story hits so good. I was tearing up through the entire last issue.

You can analyze this book and connect with it in so many different ways, but at its core, it’s a story about people struggling to connect in a world where connection can be so difficult.

It’s touching. It’s heartbreaking. It’s completely out of this world and cosmic, while somehow still feeling incredibly human.

Overall, it’s just amazing.

Check out Absolute Martian Manhunter. It’s absolutely worth it.

[Rory Wilding]

Reading all the titles from DC's Absolute Universe, which presents radical interpretations of the publisher's iconic characters, there is the semblance of a superhero narrative, even when the storylines can get dark and twisted, since Darkseid has left an influence in this universe. However, Absolute Martian Manhunter by Deniz Camp and Javier Rodríguez has zero interest in embracing the super-heroics and instead focuses on being a surreal psychological horror about a man losing grip of his own reality, let alone his family, after psychologically bonding with a green Martian.

Three months have passed following the events of the previous volume, in which John Jones and the Martian have prevented the White Martian's attack on Middleton. However, John is now living alone in a motel, after his wife Bridget believed him to be insane and kicked him out of the house. Unbeknownst to John, the White Martian's defeat proved to only be temporary as it has retreated into his son Tyler's body, while he and his alien companion are targets of The Agency, an organisation which claims to protect America from alien ideas.

If you liked the first trade for its trippy visual storytelling, you will be on board with this concluding volume, showing how John tries and fails to balance his family, his work environment and even his complicated relationship with the Martian. There was a point reading this that I was reminded of the somewhat comedic chemistry of the Venom movies, especially during a key moment where John in a drunken rage, shouts at the Martian to leave him alone for one night, which he reluctantly does. And this is where the drama intensifies!

While there is acknowledgement of the wider Absolute Universe, Camp writes this like one of his creator-owned works that again, feels closer to psychological horror. Even aspects like the Agency – an organisation that Amanda Waller is associated with in the main DC continuity – is presented more like a shadowy organisation with little interest in introducing other DC characters. However, we do get a new version of Despero, who was originally a humanoid extraterrestrial with three eyes and psychic powers that battled the Justice League, but is now Despair-the-Zero, an otherworldly consciousness who plans to corrupt John through despair and nihilism.

Considering aspects of the story feel like a domestic family drama, such as a chaotic scene between John and Bridget going into therapy, as well as the psychological themes of how emotions can be manifested, it is surprising how much a visual treat this series has been. No stranger to drawing superhero comics where there is an element of convention, Rodríguez is at his best when unhinged through experimenting with panel layouts and psychedelic colouring to create pages where characters and locations blend together that you don’t know where one ends and the other begins. While Camp has never been an action writer, John has a confrontation with the Agency, leading to the most insane and dazzling gun fight I've seen in comics.

As previously stated, the bizarreness will be too much for some readers and while you can make the argument that Camp is more interested in pushing the boundaries with what you can do in comics than telling a coherent narrative, Absolute Martian Manhunter brings out the best in both Camp and Rodríguez that it makes me so excited what plans they have with their upcoming Batman book.

[Knightdotcom]

I am yet again falling in love with Deniz Camp and Javier Rodríguez’s Absolute Martian Manhunter. I mentioned it in my review of vol. 1, but I just have to talk about the colors and the Martian Vision pages again. They keep getting so creative and they’re just the absolute coolest. Respectfully, I couldn’t bare the idea of marking my comics with any pencil/ink for the connect the dots segment, or cutting along the dotted lines to remove a comic panel, but the creativity in this series just keeps one upping itself. The way the topic of mental health was portrayed in this was so incredible to read and see as well.
The inclusion of all the other Absolute heroes being tied in with this story was such a fun and exciting thing to see. Camp and Rodríguez are such an incredible creative team and I love what they’re doing with our beloved Martian Manhunter. I can’t wait for vol. 3!

[Dani]

Una de las propuestas más originales de DC en años abstrae el conflicto físico al lenguaje, al contacto y al alcance de las ideas. Quizá he notado la historia un pelín desordenada, los villanos patriotas no entiendo demasiado qué pintan en todo esto, pero no está mal darle un cast de villanos para que el mundo parezca más lleno

[Bill Wallace]

Insanely innovative and entertaining. I don’t read enough current comics to know how this one ranks among recent superhero stories, but it’s easily the best of the Absolute line. I’m going to find and read the other works by the writer and artist and be watching for whatever comes next.

[MannyLikesPie]

4.5 Issue 11 was out of this world, Shadow of the Bat will be peak!!

[Jake Lee]

2026.17 [ebook]

this is also the stuff but slightly less so the stuff

[Lina]

c'est trop joli inside and out tout est incroyable

[Dr. Devine]

A fantastic ending to an amazing series. Completely breaks the mould art-wise and tells a thrilling story with emotional heft.

Along with "Creature Feature," this is one of my top reads of 2026.

[Bertazzo]

A story about a forced connection that, beneath explosions of color, concealed a story about reconnecting with those we love - "with help, despair becomes delight."

It's Absolute, but it's a Vertigo classic.

[Clint]

Rodriguez’s wildly psychedelic visuals and bold layouts continue to amaze in the back half of this series. Getting to see Camp’s heady material brought to life like this is a delight. The continuing story is interesting and thought-provoking at times, but I’m less sure it has genuine profundity to offer as much as it’s having fun circling around big existential ideas akin to a late night philosophical riff session where you broadly solve all the world’s ills with a close friend.

That’s still neat though, and perfectly abstract material to let Rodriguez go crazy.

[Shea Harding]

Did not finish as strong as I had hoped but this series was really strong overall.

[Heather]

A fantastic follow up to the first volume. The pacing continues to be rock solid and the art astounds as always.

I love how much the art shifts as things change in the story. Depending on which partner John is working with (the Martian, Despero) the colour palette and panel choices change. Despero has more shadows and blues and darker colours, the panels have straighter, sharper, spikier lines. In contrast, the Martian has access to the full spectrum of colour and his panels tend to be a bit more free-flowing, almost defying perception. This carries over to anyone else working with some sort of Martian. Mr. USA and the agents have a very red, white, and blue colour scheme, while Agent Rainbow - associated with 60s psychedelics - is a bit more hazy and unrefined at the edges, like something you’d expect to see in a bad trip. And of course, the level of pure white void that follows Tyler and the White Martian around. Then when we get the ultimate Martian vision, things move into an even bigger level of abstractness, helping to convey the Martian’s alien-ness even more. I want to give another shout out to Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou on letters because I do think he does some FABULOUS stuff. The text for each entity is so unique and distinct and it works with the art to tell the story.

This section continues the previous section’s musings on alienation and metaphor and human connection. Taking it one step further to emphasise the danger of isolation. The inability to communicate is what caused Tyler to be such a good host to the White Martian and it is its ultimate goal. To have people not be able to understand each other anymore. Genuine human connection and understanding and communication saves the day!!! Which I loved.

I liked that the ambiguity as to what exactly the Martian is and what happened in DC/in that coffee shop persists. We get the sense that the Martian was there all along but it still could be a metaphor for a number of things.

Something super interesting this volume approached was this idea of complicity. It criticises the state and the way it works to divide people. Which connects to its commentary on alienation by strongly linking it to immigration and border control. The story states that John is complicit in a lot of this because of his role in the FBI and so he has to leave it by the end for that arc to make sense. He has to stop being just a cog in the machine. It also makes the audience complicit in a lot of stuff. We’re the ones who draw the line that traps the Martian so he can captured, we’re the ones who don’t cut out the panel of people being killed, therefore dooming them. It has a very interactive feel to it which was fantastic.

I loved the happy ending, it really felt earned given the character development over the series. This was a stupendous read and I can’t wait to come back to it over and over again.

[Reece]

Getting into the second half of this now well regarded series was a treat because we get to see the villainy of something more familiar and less abstract as the White Martian (not that I didn't enjoy the White Martian as a villain), that's right folks, the US Government are here to save the day and rescue the people of Middleton from the terror of monsters that are making life miserable , just kidding they're hear to further their own means while actively making the life of John Jones actively worse. I'll admit it's a little on the nose how the government agents use ideas and concepts as their weapons, even if it looks like a gun on the page, it's the idea of the gun that holds the real power.

John spends a fair bit of this volume separated from the Martian which I suppose lends credence to the idea that he IS a creature in his own right, but I suppose his origin still remains ambiguous, his origin might still be in the mind of John Jones. Instead he is replaced for a while by Despair-the-Zero who has a more nihilistic outlook on life compared to the Martian. Even though he's anathema to the Martian his role definitely suits the issues touched upon in this volume, especially when he delivers an entire sermon the American Justice System, how criminals are victims are their circumstances, how Judges deal out harsher sentences when they're hungry, and so on. It exposes the hypocrisy of the black and white justice system that FBI agents like John Jones believed in.

The White Martian is still kicking around in this volume, mostly working in silence through the eyes of John Jones's son Tyler, whose non-verbal autistic (presumably) existence is manipulated to keep his mother isolated from Jones while negative ideas manifest in the house around her. The subtlety by which its done goes unnoticed, much like how we've been dragged down incrementally by our governments so gradually that we scarcely remember what the good times were.

Which brings us to finale, the moral and practical victory is not born from some unbelievable fisticuffs at the fringes of known existence, though The Martian and White Martian are giving it a go. It comes from reconciliation with our loved ones, it comes from understanding the histories that led to our emotional baggage. John learns to reconcile his trauma and his inability to interact with his child. He at least starts to close the emotional distance many men create in the aim of avoiding failure, he doesn't become the perfect Dad between pages but he's certainly going to start.

Overall I felt the emotional weight more than any artistic weight in this volume, I felt it in myself more than I saw it on the page. Highly recommend everyone with an interest in comics beyond men in tights to pick this series up.

[Surly Gliffs]

Goodreads gave me a hard time about submitting this review before the volume publishes, but fellow nerd Shane lent me the entire run in single issues, which I'm reviewing as a unitary work. Additional warning that at this point, I'm a lapsed DC reader but grizzled enough to have fierce opinions about it.

And with those caveats, this Ultimate-style reinvention of the Martian Manhunter is excellent. Instead of the absurdly overpowered Martian of the mainstream continuity, Camp splits John Jones from his alter ego, where the Martian manifests as an independent psychic presence. So we get to know John as a real person, someone who struggles with his job, his marriage, his kid. And the Martian becomes more real as well, marked by the same deep compassion that can be found in the best mainstream takes on that character.

So the conflicts in this book are really internal mental health processes writ large: how do we deal with despair, with alienation (smirk)? All those conflicting forces are personified, with the White Martian representing violence and bleakness, among other interesting entities that bubble through the stream of consciousness. Given how complicated the stream gets, I was pleasantly surprised by how Rodriguez' art corrals that complexity, along with a few unique, inspired page compositions (not just the see-through stuff) that I won't spoil here.

This title is notionally set in the current day but really hails back to psychedelic comics of the 60s and 70s. Camp doesn't shy away from that, cheekily referring to his creation as the "Martian Mindfucker." Some readers may be put off by that haze. I usually found it satisfying, but I did find that in the issues down the stretch (going into the guts of the second volume), it did get a little tedious. That's less on Camp and more on DC editorial, which probably demanded that all the Absolute titles be stretched into 12-issue 2-volume arcs, whether or not that was wise.

Even so, this series is one of the best I've read in recent memory. The emotional impact is real, and as cliche as the relationships between John and his spouse and child may seem at first, Camp keeps going deeper. And the final issue offers some catharsis and an authentic conversation about mental illness. Perhaps as importantly, I'm excited to see what John and his Martian alter ego might do next. Flex Mentallo, thou art avenged. Recommended.

[Zac]

I’ve been collecting these as they were released but had only read the first few. Now that the series has finished, I’ve just read through #1-#12. I’d first become familiar with artist Javier Rodriguez through Zatanna: Bring Down The House, which was pretty trippy but this is another level. The lines are simple but there's a lot of crazy colours, fluid shapes, and little background details everywhere. Though it's a colourful and attractive comic on the face of it, it’s actually pretty dark thematically with lots of cruelty and death.

The story follows FBI agent John Jones who has survived a traumatic event and has his consciousness invaded by an alien intelligence who is urging John to investigate or intervene in unexplained bouts of violence occurring around the city. Meanwhile John’s relationship with his wife and their nonverbal, adolescent son is becoming strained. That frustrated love story is one of my favourite aspects of the book. The second half of the series introduces some more strange villains. Events from John’s past are explained but I still not sure I fully understand what happened. The art is deceptively complex but so is the writing: John and other characters speak out loud, while John is also the narrator and the Martians (spoiler alert: there are a couple) converse with those internal thoughts. The final battle is fought physically and also psychologically in the form of flashbacks and visions. It would benefit from a re-read at some point and it would not be a chore to pick this up again.

This series is set in the "Absolute" version of the DC Universe but it’s a new origin story for Martian Manhunter so no prior knowledge is necessary and only the most well known DC characters make fleeting cameos that don’t impact the story. The godlike villain Darkseid is involved in some way that is not critical to understand for the story to be enjoyed. This is perhaps the least-superheroey comic to come out of the Absolute Universe so far and will surely go down as a classic miniseries, though it's not even my favourite thing Deniz Camp is doing right now (that would be Assorted Crisis Events for Image Comics, which I keenly look forward to each month).

[Jacob]

To be completely straight reading the single issues as they came out I wasn't exactly sure how to feel. But now that they're all out I realize it's really just great as the first half. Really the only thing that was holding it back was the unfair quality of volume one.

It takes a sort of different approach to the same ideas. There's this slight political edge. I have to be honest the first three or so issues are a little confusing because of this. I mean the whole series is at least a little confusing but man those first three really got me. I still don't understand all the stuff about the gun or why it comes from that one guy.

I actually really like the way it brings in politics. Deniz Camp has made it clear through stuff like assorted crisis events how he feels about the current state of America but Martian manhunter doesn't really tap in to politics to simply make a point about current events. At least not explicitly. It instead ties politics to the already present themes because--yeah. It only takes like two flicks in the right direction for the idea of the white Martian to become an allegory for the system and all its boot licking defenders.

The art and writing are still just as great. The layout of the panels is a bit more straightforward than it was before but that's more of an observation than a criticism. It's just as trippy as before and just as smart.

There is one thing I'm inclined to say about that it I don't think I could say about the first volume: There are moments when the writing and the visuals are just beautiful. Especially near the end. "God is the devil. And God is everywhere."

What else can I say? Absolute Martian manhunter continues to be a timeless superhero story. The world has perhaps never been so isolated and angry as it is in this moment. The art of empathy is almost alien to it now. But it (this comic) stands as a reminder that no matter how hard it is to do the right thing it'll pay off so delightfully in the end.

[Renato]

A few notes to summarize the key points of Absolute Martian Manhunter:
a) The series deals with John Jones as a purely human character, with the "martian" aspect being disembodied alien entities from far far away existing in a dimension of "thought"
b) The Green Martian entity that enters Jones can see abstract thoughts as images and emotions as colours
c) The antagonists of this series, "The White Martian" and "Despair-The-Zero" tend to only focus on spreading negative emotions and nihilistic thoughts
d) Given the Absolute Universe is a creation of Darkseid, there is a l0t of mention of Life vs Anti-Life here, but I would like to think that all three alien entities were once one-and-the-same that were once rent asunder into perceived dichotomies (your opinion may vary)

There is a lot of Gerard Way Doom-Patrol kookiness in this series (one of the semi-antagonists are able to capture the Martian by drawing a shape around it and shoot it with a bullet from the idea of a gun).

However there is also a lot of heart in this, and what appears to be very alien series actually has a lot of the human heart at its core.



I will not say that I understood everything that occurred in this last volume, but I was in awe of its majesty, and I will definetly come back to it with a 2nd and 3rd reading.

[Langston Lardi]

Another amazing read from the absolute line. Absolute MM is one of my favorite books of recent years and I was sad to hear it was ending so soon, but eager to read the final volume. The book is great, it’s short at 160 pages, but the length doesn’t hold it back, even if I’d love to spend more pages/time with these characters and this crazy world. The artwork is still amazing and absolutely crazy about 99.9% of the time, the stylistic choices in every single panel are captivating to observe. The story is pretty straight forward and continues where vol 1 left off. After the battle with the white Martian in vol 1 John is trying to rebuild his life and get his family back even if he seems further away than when he started, all while battling anti-life and the mastermind behind it all, as well as a gov agency hell bent on capturing MM. the ending was satisfying enough, it left things at a nice place like a present wrapped with a bow on top, but also leaves room for our imagination to continue the story (since we unfortunately aren’t getting anymore). Overall another fun read with out of this world art and a simple story with big metaphors and messages.