Detective #231
'The Thief who had Super Powers'
Miller/Certa

A bank manager reports a man walking through the vault, staring down bullets, and robbing the bank!  Could a human have John's Martian powers? (Maybe he can figure out what they are!) Turns out, it IS a Martian, who was condemned to float in space with a belt thingy, but it malfunctioned and he came to Earth.   They tussle, and J'onn wins.   He sees an oppertunity to return home, but then realizes he'd be letting the Martian criminal run roughshod over the planet, so he sends him back

Martian Powers:  'Martian Super-Willpower', that teleports J'onn from the docks to downtown, the usual invisibility and intangibility.  Super-Vision (that can apparently press buttons... I guess that's really telekinesis again), and shrinking.. they have a fight at 3 inches tall.. boy, DC sure does love that trick!




Detective #232
'Dog with a Martian Master'

John has to let thief Andy Fletcher go to save a drowning dog, and the dog starts following him around and getting in his way.   He tries to contain him, but the dog is apparently a escape artist of the first order, and can sense him when he's invisible to boot!  He finally tracks Fletcher down, but a lamp gets knocked over and the building gets set on fire.  The dog (who escaped again and follows him) saves him from the fire, while Fletcher gets caught.  John names the dog Jupiter and decides to keep him.  The End!

Martian Powers:  Nullifying Gravity (to walk on water), invisibility, Super-Hearing, X-Ray Vision

Nice detective work, Hoosier!* That is, indeed, the first mention of Middletown.

Cei-U!
I summon the super-duper super-snooper!

* No pun intended

I'm pretty sure it's a coincidence. I don't think it's likely that the writers had Florida in mind.

Although there is that segment where the sports team is the Flamingoes.

I'll link to some Internet discussions on this subject later.

If Middletown is in Florida, it's not in Tampa. It's in the north. I think it's near Pensacola. When I was looking for "Middletown" in the text, I came across another piece of evidence for northern Florida. There's a reference to an east-west express train. Not likely in Tampa. Totally a northern Florida thing.

Yeah, the Flamingoes being the baseball team is pretty telling, I was thinking that, but didn't actually post it . Map I looked up showed Middletown as practically being on top of Tampa, but maybe the scale was weird... here is the one I found.

When I said 100+ issues, I was thinking 200 - 314, which is clearly not correct... I blame the jet lag .

Putting it in Colorado when there are cliffs, beaches, etc seems really ridiculous.. someone must have just looked at a map and found a blank spot (as far as pretend DCU cities go), and not actually read any stories (or worse, just assumed none of us have).

Looking forward to your 'paper' on that Hoosier

Detective #233
'Ghost from Outer Space'

John pretends to be the ghost of a victim of three bad guys to get them to confess.   He's almost defeated by an oil lamp, but he cries on it and puts it out.   This time he actually loses his powers being close to the fire, rather than just being afraid.  Of course, he does always say it's his 'weakness', but this time it was tangible.  He did pass out a couple issues back, but that seemed different.

No Geographic references this one.. could have happened anywhere.

Detective #234
'The Martian Convict' 

John goes undercover into the local prison to attempt to stop a jail break lead by Big Mike Kent (no relation, I don't think, to the OTHER Kents).   He's about to have it all locked down when he gets hit by a laundry basket and his glasses come off, thus (naturally) causing someone to recognize him.  They try to arrange some accidents, but they don't know about Martian power, so they fail.  Finally they try to arrange a fall guy, but John susses that out, too.  The End.

I LOL'ed at the glasses being the disguise, especially with the bad guy being a Kent.   Seemed pretty weird that John had 3 different jobs at the jail in three days... wouldn't they be more productive if they stuck with it a week or two at a time?  

Detective #235
'World's Greatest Magician'

The circus is in town!  But they brought a criminal with them.  John goes undercover as 'J'onzz the Great', a magician, and uses his Martian powers to grow a goatee, then do some tricks.   The others, not surprisingly are stumped.   When he starts duplicates random objects the thief gets both stupid and greedy, and has him duplicate what he stole.. the lion's jeweled collar.

The crook realized about the fire, and tries to escape by the fire eater, but John blows out the flames from afar and get the job done.

Martian Powers: Goatee growing (through concentration),the usual intangibility/mind reading/x-Ray vision, the ability to use the 'forces of the universe' to suck atoms out of the atomsphere and arrange them to make whatever he wants, super breath.

So yeah, the Goatee thing is just silly.  He has hair as John Jones, so we already know his shape shifting can do hair, why make it yet another power?  Then there's the molecular fiddling.. they use that in some early JLAs, too.  That is so ridiculously powerful... how did they not realize?  

3rd issue in a row where there's no mention of Mars (other than reminding us John is really a Martian) and no J'onn in Martian Form.

Yeah, I didn't either. It really could be a straight crime book very easily. It wouldn't be hard to write him as hiding around a corner instead of being invisible (which is the main power he uses), or dodging/knocking down doors (instead of walking through them). Even that last one (where he uses some ridiculous powers), he could have done actual magic tricks with a slight re-write.

Detective #236
'The Great Earth-Mars Mystery'

A thief has Detective John Jones and company stumped... he dives into the water, then disappears without a trace.  Even using his Martian Power, J'onn can't find him.

Co-incidently, back on Mars, a similar crime is happening.  Apparently, J'onn's being doing a Commander Data and using spare parts to build a Martian transmitter in his spare time.  After chatting with Ma and Pa J'onzz, and having them describe the crimes, he figures out that the thief is latching on to other boats to escape detection.. but not this time.  The end!

Martian Powers: Superspeed, 'Mist Dispersing Vision' (to see underwater), X-ray vision, Super Strength, and I guess super-tinkering (off panel)

Geography notes:  Its clear that there's a BIG bay, we see the skyline over the water, as John and some other cops scour the water, with a giant ocean liner in the water.   They sort of imply a navy presence, but not quite.  Makes me think Gulf Coast, rather than the Atlantic...you know where there's a nice bay on the Gulf coast side?  Near real life Middletown

The calling home this is fun, but a little random.  They explain that 'solar waves' are boosting the signal.. but that doesn't explain how he built the thing.  Funny how mom's asking when their little boy is coming home is universal

I do love the art on the Martians, though... I hate it when they look like green humans.