November Bday 1

And now, for the cartoon, comic book and fictional characters that celebrate their birthdays in November…

We start with a superhero that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Joseph Samachson and artist Joe Certa, the character first appeared in Detective Comics # 225, in November 1955, in the back-up story "The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel" . The character is a green-skinned humanoid from the planet Mars, who is pulled to earth by an experimental teleportation beam (originally presented as an attempted communication device) constructed by Dr. Saul Erdel. The Martian tells Erdel where he is from, and is told that to send him back will require the Computer Brain's thinking plot to be changed. The shock of the encounter kills Dr. Erdel and leaves the alien with no method of returning home. The character decides to fight crime while waiting for Martian technology to advance to a stage that will enable his rescue. To that end, he adopted of John Jones, a detective in the fictional Middletown, U.S.A., using both his shapeshifting abilities and telepathy to appear human and to implant fake memories on his co-workers, making them think he had been working alongside them for years; later stories would explore his Martian background, and make him the sole survivor of his race, having lost his wife and daughter in the same disaster that annihilated all the Martians but him; in some cases, his origin is changed so Dr Erdel's experiment is the only reason he survived, as he took him out of Mars before being destroyed himself. He eventually reveals his existence to the world, after which he operates openly as a superhero and becomes a charter member of the Justice League. Interestingly, his superhero identity is a mix-up between a human and his original Martian form, so people can feel a bit more comfortable around him while he still announces his alien heritage. With a weakness to fire (and to chocolate cookies), he's among Earth's most powerful beings, pretty much on the same level as The Man of Steel, while his intelligence and telepathic abilities make him as good a detective as The Dark Knight, and is often considered one of the Justice League's main 'hearts', as he provides moral, medical and philosophical support to his teammates whenever not fighting alongside them.

So, happy birthday to DC's favorite martian.