Everyone enjoys a story in which the good person turns out to be the bad guy. And it appears that this is a recurrent motif in DC, where most of the major heroes have undergone villainous arcs. This trope has been used more frequently on Batman than on other characters. With themes like evil and retribution all around him, he becomes an ideal subject for such plots.
This leads us to the Dark Multiverse, a realm in which the Dark Knights have joined forces with Perpetua, a rogue celestial creature. And one of them, the Mindhunter, is a hybrid of human and Martian DNA.
It is like merging Batman’s intellect with Superman’s physical prowess. You would not want to go up against this guy, right?
In this video, we will learn about the Mindhunter’s past and how Hawkgirl and the Martian Manhunter eventually vanquished him.
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A Brief History Of The Mindhunter
Batman’s wits alone have been lethal, even against his superpowered allies. This is a man who makes contingency plans to take down metahumans and then makes other contingency plans should plan B fail. Combine this with the abilities of the Martian Manhunter such as super-strength, flight, and shapeshifting and you have a complete beast at your disposal.
Well, that’s what happened in the Dark Multiverse. This is a multiverse that exists as a shadow right under the main Multiverse. Every bad decision, every fear, and every nightmare has created this darkness. A universe where the worlds are fragile and doomed to their end. And here, we have a Batman whose DNA has been combined with that of the Martian Manhunter.
Under a pact with Perpetua i.e. the first creator of the Multiverse, the Mindhunter had invaded Earth 0. This earned him a ticket to being recruited into the Dark Knights, a union created for the warriors of darkness by the Earth-22 Batman known as the Batman Who Laughs. The group is exactly what you think it is. A bunch of Batmans from different universes, forming their own league.
His job was to act under the command of the Grim Knight and as a guard for the Castle Bat. Both the Grim Knight and the Castle Bat are variants of Bruce Wayne and Batman in the Dark Multiverse. However, when the Earth 0 heroes posed a threat to them after defeating Darkfather, the Mindhunter failed his mission due to his telepathic abilities of Jarro being superior to his. If you don’t remember who Jarro is, he is a Star Conqueror who is very loyal to Batman and eventually wants to be his Robin. The name feels nostalgic because Starro the Conqueror is its genetic parent.
Anyway, after the Earth 0 Martian Manhunter tried to destroy Perpetua’s throne to stop it from powering her, and freed the Legion of Doom to do so, the Batman Who Laughs sent the Mindhunter to stop him. The Martian Manhunter was defeated and the Mindhunter probed into his mind to find out what was up with the Earth-o counterparts of the Justice League trinity a.k.a Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.
He attacked the Martian Manhunter’s mental defenses, obviously. However, J’onn J’onzz and Hawkgirl here had a unique telepathic connection, even though the Thanagarian had mental resistance against mind tricks. This was because they were in love with each other. The Mindhunter took advantage of this connection and located the presence of her allies in Brimstone Bay. The information was received by the Omega Knight and he blasted at them with a beam.
How Did Batman Become The Powerful Mindhunter?
It wasn’t a natural phenomenon that created a Batman who can rival Superman in strength. This is a man who has always embraced the darkness. In the mainstream universe, he tries not to succumb to it, with his no-killing policies and all of that. However, he could’ve easily been the bad guy. And that’s not just because of that horrible night at Crime Alley, but because that’s who he is.
In the Dark Multiverse, that’s what we see. A Batman who is evil and works alongside other evil Batmen. In this world, Lex Luthor has injected himself with Martian DNA to turn into Apex Lex. And Bruce Wayne has done the same, which has turned him into the Martian Manhunter, but evil, all while retaining Wayne’s genius mind.
Mindhunter’s Most Interesting Arc
The Justice League Death Metal tie-in story goes in an interesting direction for Issue number 56. There are several twisted versions of Batman in this Dark Multiverse, like the ones we’ve spoken about. Such as the Castle Bat, the Batman Who Laughs, and the Darkfather. The Mindhunter is at the center of it all, harboring a special interest in the Martian Manhunter and by extension, Hawkgirl.
Written by Joshua Williamson, the Super Celestial and powerful being Perpetua will be the biggest, baddest, villain amongst several other big, bad villains.
Adding a bit of an intro to her, when existence began for the very first time, the Source of All Things created a race. This race was one of the supercelestial beings. They were called the Hands. They populated the void with multiverses using the anti-crisis energy, which was given to them by the Source. Since the power wasn’t their own, they’d return the power back to its origin. As a result, they would also pass. However, Perpetua was against it. She wanted to create a vicious reality that would exist forever, throughout the crisis, and be reborn, just to go through the same loop over and over again. So you can see how she’s not the amicable one.
Now, Batman Who Laughs happens to be her second-in-command here. To oppose them, there’s a ragtag Justice League team. There’s Nightwing, Cyborg, Hawkgirl, Starfire, Detective Chimp, and surprisingly, Lex Luthor. After being betrayed by Perpetua, he returns to make her experience the consequences of her actions.
And of course, J’onn J’onzz will be playing a huge role against the Mindhunter who wants to consume the Martian Manhunter, something that’s very clear from the cover of the issue.
The story takes off after Omega Knight’s attack. The Justice League is unable to hold up against Perpetua’s Knight while the Mindhunter is unable to get access into the Martian Manhunter’s mind. To make things work for himself, he is trying to access Hawkgirl’s connection with J’onn J’onzz. He takes her to his mind to question her. But, she knows how to protect herself from mind control.
Hawkgirl breaks out into the real world and engages the Mindhunter in a fight. The Mindhunter shapeshifts into a demonic Bat-like creature to kill Hawkgirl, as he uses her now-strained relationship with the Martian to taunt her. Turns out, the odd couple is broken up. The Mindhunter uses this to tell her how he left her because he doesn’t care about her. But before he could take things too far, the Martian Manhunter arrives at the scene to prove him wrong.
The Mindhunter tries to use his heat vision to burn down J’onn J’onzz. But with Martian’s DNA, his vulnerabilities and Martian’s vulnerabilities are shared. And it’s something Hawkgirl can use to her leverage – fire. Hawkgirl uses her bright fire to attack the Mindhunter, who is vulnerable to it since he has added Martian DNA to his DNA pool.
The fire does more than enough damage to defeat the Mindhunter, despite how overpowered the latter is. In the face of adversity, couples tend to get over their squabbles and get back together so J’onn J’onzz and Kendra i.e. Hawkgirl share a kiss and head to regroup with their friends who are suffering against the Omega Knight.
What Makes The Mindhunter Dangerous?
The Mindhunter has all the abilities of the Martian Manhunter as a Martian-Human hybrid. As a result, he can fly, turn himself invisible, shapeshift, and use telepathic powers such as telepathic assault, telepathic relay, and illusion casting.
He also has superhuman durability, strength, and stamina. In the comic mentioned above, he referred to using his heat vision as well.
Even without these powers, he would be dangerous. With these powers, he is just on another level. But thank god for fire.
To be fair, some plot armor helped the Mindhunter face defeat in this story. Mainly because Bruce Wayne isn’t the guy who wouldn’t take his vulnerability to fire under consideration, especially when fighting against Hawkgirl. However, having to consider all of that would make the Mindhunter invincible. It’s a good thing that the writers wrote Batman to be a genius, billionaire without any superpowers.
And with that, today’s video comes to an end. What did you think of the Mindhunter? Did you enjoy this video? If yes, then don’t forget to like and comment on this video. Till then, goodbye. And have a nice one!