Thoughts on a Martian Manhunter (Fernus) Analog Horror series
Considering how interesting the Batman Analog Horror series is, I’m just wondering what an analog horror adaptation of the Fernus storyline. I would imagine it’s more of a AU rather than a straight adaptation.
Like an alternate timeline where Fernus has taken down the justice league and killed them all except Plastic Man. It would be cool to explore a hellish world where everyone has already been defeated with a sequence of flashbacks to show how we got here. Then we see the guardians (the race of people that lead the green lantern corps) try and stop him but fail. Fernus uses this as an opportunity to take revenge for altering the DNA of the Burning Martians and bio-engineering their fear/weakness to fire. As it was this fear/weakness that was used to wipe out the whole of his race, culture and family. We then see the development of the story as him trying and failing to take humans and experiment on them/their DNA to replicate and repopulate the Martian world. It would be revealed that Plastic man was kept alive due to having similar shapeshifting abilities to his own, and thus is his primary and most prominent lab rat. This would likley evolve him coming into contact with Lex, since he would likely want as many resources as possible to conduct and develop these experiments as well as up scaling this if possible as well as using the resources of both the government via Amanda Waller and the Leauge of Assassins due to the presence of the Lazarus pits as a means of species revival. This would likely come to a head either with multiple characters.
It could alternatively be a confrontation with characters from Wonder Woman’s Lore (or she could be made to survive) as he seeks to use magical/divine means to revive his species. Either way he would force many of the most powerful villains to pledge allegiance to him or face becoming lab rats in his experiments.
The tragedy of his Fernus form could be the discovery that his girlfriend (after rejecting him) was used as another integral part of his plans to genetically replicate burning Martians. Ultimately it reaches a point where there’s no fight that can be one. With both his combative power and institutional control such a possibility is impossible. Enter, Miss Martian. She could be the key to getting through to him emotionally. Whether it’s successful or not it could go either way. The important part is that his experiments continue to fail and as such his emotional and psychological state proportionally deteriorates.
The sound design would be a mixture of the grainy 90’s esque sound that’s low in resolution and developed modern sound designs. This is largely because it would be interesting to establish a soundscape for this story that matches the conventional SFX of analog horror, whilst contrasting it to the sound of Martian Manhunters powers. He has a lot of powers (pyrokinesis, shapeshifting, telepathy and telekinesis among a whole host of other psionic abilities) and it would be interesting to have acoustic motifs associated to his powers that use modern Acoustics. It would reinforce his sense of loneliness and make him feel alien to the world around him (as a Martian, he’s always been othered in a way that’s more extreme than superman who’s human passing and white even though he’s also a human).
The visuals would also be similar to the Batman Analog series. The art is incredibly detailed and Fernus’ design is kickass; it naturally lends itself to fantastic dark palate art.
But yh it’s just an idea and it’s not being made by me it’s just an interesting proposal.