John Jones (Absolute Universe)

FBI agent John Jones was saved from a terrorist attack by a disembodied, otherworldly entity that exists only in thought. Gifted with extraordinary and psychedelic psychic abilities from their connection, together they are the Martian Manhunter.

History

Early Life

Darkseid created the Absolute Universe to be a world where heroes were the underdogs, and lacked the advantages of their Earth 0 counterparts.^[3] As such, John Jones was not an ancient and powerful alien, but an average man unequipped to handle his exotic psychic powers.^[1]

In his youth, Jones' father took him camping in the desert, and he once found a pack of cigarettes under his mattress. He also used to spy on his neighbour, Mrs. Donelly, as she sunbathed in her backyard.^[2]

John Jones and his wife, Bridget originally lived in Washington, D.C., where they bought their first house while she was pregnant with their son Tyler. He began his employment with the FBI, collaborating with Senior Agent Suttree.^[1] After six years of service the Bureau reassigned him to the Stochastic Terrorism Task Force, a specialized unit focused on the analysis and prevention of terrorist acts, under his supervisor, Special Agent Nelson. This required the Jones family to move to Middleton, Colorado; a city home to multiple immigrant populations.^[4]

Martian Vision

A year after moving to Middleton, Jones became the sole survivor of a domestic terrorist incident at Paco Coffee Shop when Mike Miller, angry at the world for being a fatherless child, committed suicide by blowing himself up with an explosive vest. Unbeknownst to Jones at the time, the reason for his survival was that he was rescued by a formless physical entity and became its host.

In the days following the incident, Jones began to feel the effects of the entity now calling itself The Martian in his mind, becoming capable of knowing personal information about people without knowing why, and seeing small amounts of thoughtsmoke. Seeking answers as to why Miller did what he did, Jones began to investigate behind Special Agent Nelson's back. This culminated in him choking on thoughtsmoke after a conversation with Miller's mother, which got worse when he went outside and inhaled massive amounts from people on the street. The Martian eventually revealed itself to Jones and helped him breathe the thoughtsmoke properly, letting it in. Lost in the sphere of Middleton's emotions caused by its inhabitants, The Martian would reveal to Jones the truth of his survival, proclaiming it and him as one.^[1]

Still disoriented and attempting to aggressively ignore the Martian, the entity soothed Jones with his most comforting memories and vaguely explained his origins before informing John of an impending shooting on Certa Street, a Middleton neighborhood colloquially known as Little Damascus due to its high number of Syrian refugees. The White Martian, a being similar to Jones' Martian, had begun to negatively influence people's thoughts and increase violence, so the Martian sought a partner to counter his activities. John, however, would not take action until he was called to the scene and drove to the shooting. Once there, working with the Martian, who would enter the mind of the shooter, named Trigger Taylor, Jones would distract him in the physical world by posing as his childhood friend, Clyde Toomis, while the Martian removed negative thoughts from Trigger's mind and extracted information. Before the Martian could complete his investigation, however, Trigger would be shot and killed by the local MPD, and then Jones would be berated by his superiors for his inaction against the shooter and return home exhausted alongside his mental partner.^[2]

On an otherwise unremarkable night, twenty-four residents of Middleton with no apparent connection to each other burned twenty-four random unhoused people to death at exactly the same time across the city. Due to the bizarre nature of the crimes, the MPD referred the investigation to the Stochastic Terrorism Taskforce. Jones and the Martian interrogated each of the killers, none of whom could explain why they had done it. Jones was able to see that each had a ring of white thoughtsmoke around their head at eye level. He then returned home, where he and Bridget sat in total silence and John's psychic abilities allowed him to hear Bridget's thoughts about the state of their marriage and how she was considering leaving him. John went up to Tyler's room to check on him and to his surprise found the Martian sitting with his son

John got a call from the FBI and learned that multiple buildings had just been set on fire. He ran outside and saw homes across the city burning. The white thoughtmoke rose up from the burning buildings and formed a face in the sky. As before the investigation showed that the arsons were simultaneous but also seemingly random and unconnected: people burning down stranger's homes, their own homes, even children burning their playground. At one of the crime scenes Jones wondered how he could possibly stop the wave of violence when it was just random people setting random fires, but the Martian guided him on using his abilities to see the "implicate order of everything". Jones realised that whatever was behind the burnings was attacking the idea of home rather than specific homes and that the next target was Sunnyside, a former hotel repurposed as Middleton's largest homeless shelter.

A crowd of people under the influence of the white smoke attacked the Sunnyside, throwing in Molotov cocktails and setting it alight. Jones called the police and fire department to the scene and then ran to Sunnyside himself. He went through the rooms one by one, using his new abilities to teleport the people inside to safety while the Martian battled and destroyed the psychic manifestations of each of their traumas made from thoughtsmoke. In a corridor, they encountered a woman made of white flame, while a man on fire ran past them and jumped out of the window to the street below. The woman made of fire addressed the Martian, knowing he was inside Jones' mind, and told him that the White Martian welcomed him to watch what it was doing.^[5]

After the arsons, Middleton experienced a heatwave for ten straight days. Tempers flared in the heat and Bridget became increasingly frustrated with John. When Bridget tried to confront John and talk to her bout her feelings he was called to deal with the aftermath of a riot downtown which had been started over spilled coffee. While John was investigating the crime scene the Martian looked at the sun and realised that the White Martian was causing it to ramp up people's aggression and making violence more likely. For the next two weeks Jones intervened in incidences of community violence while avoiding Bridget, eventually sleeping on the couch. Meanwhile the Martian continuously tried to undo what the White Martian had done to the sunlight.

Eventually Bridget cornered John as he was trying to sneak into the house around sunset on the fifteenth day. Bridget told John that his emotional distance never bothered her before because she had always been able to look into his eyes and know his thoughts and feelings. However, since the bombing she had been unable to do that and she now doubted their marriage and how John felt about her and Tyler. She said that she didn't know who he was anymore and John insisted that he was the same person he had always been; but she yelled at him for moving their family across the country without consulting her. She told him that none of their old friends in DC would talk to her and she had no idea why. John claimed that he didn't know either, but she didn't believe him and slapped him across the face. Meanwhile, the Martian finally managed to remove the anger-inducing effects of the sunlight as the sun set.

Bridget told John that she had always accepted him not telling her everything about his work because she knew that he would tell her about anything which would affect their lives, but she wasn't sure if that was true anymore. John told her that he only kept secrets from her and Tyler to protect them, but that only made her angry. She yelled at him that she couldn't take the secrets and lies anymore and didn't want to share a home with a stranger. Bridget old John that she wanted him to move out. As soon as she said that, three men wearing costumes and explosive vests identical to Millers' blew up Middleton's three major power stations, causing a city-wide blackout. The Martian said that the light had been a distraction, and the darkness had been the White Martian's true intent.^[4]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Alien Connection: After saving him from an explosion, an alien creature referred to as the "Martian" bound himself to John Jones, gifting him superhuman abilities:
- Energy Resistance: The Martian manipulates the oxygen molecules around Jones' body to protect him from fire.^[5]
- Enhanced Senses: Jones possesses "Martian Vision" which grants him "Absolute Perspective".^[5]
- Precognition: Jones can intuitively predict someone's future.^[5]
- Telepathy: Jones gained the ability to hear people's thoughts and experience their memories from the alien intelligence possessing him.^[1]
- Empathy: By looking at someone's memories, Jones can also feel the emotions they associate with them.^[1]
- Teleportation: The Martian allows Jones to move people and objects through "shortcuts through non-Euclidean space".^[5]

Abilities

Firearms
Investigation
Law

Notes

Martian Manhunter/John Jones was created by Joseph Samachson and Joe Certa, first appearing in Detective Comics #225. However, the Absolute Universe version of Martian Manhunter/John Jones first appeared in Absolute Martian Manhunter #1 by Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez.