Martian Manhunter vs Apocalypse Is Closer Than You Think, but I Think Apocalypse Takes It

Martian Manhunter versus Apocalypse is a lot closer than you might think, but when I break it down, I think Apocalypse wins more often than not. J'onn J'onzz can come out swinging and win the early exchanges, yet Apocalypse can survive that punishment long enough to adapt and eventually take him down.

These are two of the most powerful characters in comics, and they have strikingly similar power sets: super strength, telepathy and shapeshifting. Pretty much anything you can think of, they can do. So what happens when they go at it against each other?

Martian Manhunter's strength puts him alongside Superman

Martian Manhunter, J'onn J'onzz, is one of the most powerful heroes in all of DC comics. He is the last survivor of Mars, and he lost his wife and daughter in a Martian holocaust. Though it nearly broke him, he was brought to Earth by accident and chose to protect it as his new home. Over the years he has become a core member of nearly every Justice League lineup, standing alongside Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as one of the team's most valuable heavy hitters.

He is easily one of the strongest heroes in DC, and he has repeatedly been said to be roughly as strong as Superman himself. He has teamed up with Superman and Wonder Woman to help move the Earth, and teamed up with Superman to stop a spaceship that was much, much bigger than the Earth from destroying it. J'onn can pack all that power into a punch, too, knocking around Superman, Wonder Woman and Despero, and even tangling with Superboy-Prime and the entire Justice League all by himself.

He is just as tough as he is strong. He has been fine taking attacks from Superman and other Kryptonians, and he has shrugged off attacks from Black Adam and even the destruction of moons. At one point J'onn simply stood there as the rest of the Justice League attacked him, and it did nothing.

J'onn J'onzz heals like Wolverine and moves faster than light

Anything that does injure the Manhunter runs into one of the greatest healing factors in comics. I would legitimately put it up there with Wolverine and Deadpool. He can pretty much instantly heal from any attack and regrow his entire body at will, and he has said before that to kill him, you need to physically destroy every one of his atoms.

On top of that, Martian Manhunter is one of the fastest characters in the DC universe. He is not quite Superman or Flash fast, but he can definitely keep up. He is easily faster than light, he has no problem speed blitzing opponents, and he has even caught Barry Allen by surprise. Physically, he is one of the most dominant heroes DC has.

Martian Manhunter's telepathy and shapeshifting cover almost every power in the book

That still is not where his true power lies. Martian Manhunter has almost every single power in the book, and if you can think of it, odds are J'onn can do it. He is one of the strongest telepathic minds in DC. He can feel every single mind in the galaxy, has several times been able to influence every mind on the planet, and has even scanned across whole different realities. He can read minds, mind control his opponents, knock them out, shut down their minds and torture people with a telepathic assault. His telepathy even reaches as far as affecting and controlling straight up cosmic level beings.

He can also control his entire molecular structure, which gives him some pretty insane shapeshifting. He can grow to massive sizes, regularly grow additional limbs, stretch his arms into weapons, or transform into basically any animal or monster you can think of. J'onn regularly uses this to amp himself up mid fight, reshaping his brain to resist telepathic attacks or increasing the size of his muscles to get stronger. Because he can change his own DNA, he can even gain the powers and abilities of other people as he shapeshifts into them.

Lastly, he has shown off telekinesis, which makes sense for a mind as strong as his. He can turn invisible, turn intangible and use that to attack opponents, and he has Martian vision, which has been called as powerful as Superman's own heat vision. Martian Manhunter is not just another member of the Justice League. He is one of the strongest, most versatile and most terrifying heroes in DC comics.

Apocalypse was left in the desert to die and became the first mutant

Five thousand years ago in ancient Egypt, a child was born so terrifying in appearance that his own people left him in the desert to die. Gray skin, blue lips, features so far outside what anyone recognised as human that the tribe assumed he was cursed. That was the first mistake anyone ever made about En Sabah Nur. He was found by a nomadic warrior clan who saw something in the abandoned child worth raising. They trained him and made him a fighter, and what they got back was the most powerful mutant the ancient world had ever produced.

When the time travelling pharaoh Rama-Tut, later revealed to be Kang the Conqueror, tried to claim him as a weapon, En Sabah Nur was thrown into a pit of snakes to die. His powers activated. He grew, tore through the pit, tore through Rama-Tut's army, and took the name he would carry for the next five millennia: Apocalypse, because wherever he went, that is what followed.

His mutation alone has no real equivalent in Marvel. It is self atomic manipulation, control of his own matter at the atomic level. He can alter his size from microscopic to building levels, increase his density to near invulnerability, amplify his strength to virtually any level, adapt his body to any environment or threat, shapeshift every physical part of himself, and transmute and reshape the matter around him. Before he ever touched Celestial technology, he was already one of the most physically powerful beings in the ancient world.

Celestial technology made Apocalypse something even Odin worries about

Then he found the Celestials' abandoned facility. The Celestials are the godlike engineers of galactic life who built the Eternals, oversaw the development of human and mutant genetics, and operate at a scale that makes most cosmic entities look small. They left technology on Earth that nobody was supposed to find. Rather than just use it, En Sabah Nur merged himself with it, converting himself into a biomechanical life form where the Celestial tech and his mutation became one thing.

The result is a mutant warrior 5,000 years old who is also a walking Celestial weapons platform. He has teleportation, force fields, energy projection at massive levels, technopathy, and the ability to augment, manipulate or steal the powers of other mutants and cosmic beings. He can also grant dramatically amplified powers to others, which is how his Four Horsemen became the threats they are. He does not just choose powerful servants; he makes them more powerful than they already were.

The gods noticed. Odin and the pantheons of Earth refuse to interfere with Apocalypse's plans, not because they are indifferent, but because they are afraid of the Celestials' involvement. When you carry Celestial technology inside your body, even the gods of Asgard are worried about you, and that is a specific kind of respect very few beings in Marvel have ever earned.

Apocalypse has restrained the Hulk and taken Thor's best shot

What he has done over 5,000 years is genuinely impressive. He physically restrained the Hulk with strength alone. He fought multiple Thors simultaneously. He took a slice from Thor's axe carrying the most powerful enchantment Thor could give it, designed specifically to pierce Celestial armour, and it barely left a scratch. He ripped a metal originating from the White Hot Room and stronger than adamantium with his bare hands.

He has defeated Loki easily, fought the High Evolutionary to a standstill, and beaten six X-Men in under 60 seconds. He has been worshipped as a god under dozens of names across thousands of years of human history. Cable, the time travelling son of Cyclops who has battled him across the centuries, called him the second most dangerous thing alive.

Apocalypse's whole philosophy is survival of the fittest, and that is not a metaphor. It is a literal operating principle he applies to every interaction, decision and conflict. He does not believe in good and evil, only strength. The weak exist to be tested, and if they cannot survive the test, they were not worthy of surviving. It is brutal, but it is consistent, and he has been surviving for 5,000 years.

Martian Manhunter holds the edge in strength and speed

Out of the gate, you could argue Martian Manhunter physically overpowers Apocalypse. Not that Apocalypse is weak: he has always needed teams to beat him, he has restrained the Hulk, walked straight into Asgard and battled Thor, and he could definitely push J'onn. It is just that when it comes to the true top end feats, Martian Manhunter has helped move the Earth and a ship that dwarfed it, and he has fought Ultraman and Black Adam and even hurt Superboy-Prime.

Speed is where it can get pretty ugly. Apocalypse has reacted to Quicksilver and said his super speed is nothing compared to him. But let's be real: Quicksilver's speed is nothing compared to a lot of people, including the Flash, whom Martian Manhunter has fought at super speed. J'onn has blitzed White Martians and can have entire telepathic battles in a fraction of a second. He holds a pretty clear edge here.

Apocalypse's regeneration and molecular control blunt J'onn's phasing

The flip side is that actually putting Apocalypse down is an absolute nightmare. Wolverine stabbed him through the head with his claws, and he healed. Nightcrawler teleported his eyes out of his skull, and he grew them back. Cable has blown holes through his body. He has taken attacks from Thor, Exodus and the High Evolutionary, and because he controls his molecular structure, he can reshape his body, increase his density or change his form around attacks instead of just tanking damage.

Martian Manhunter might have an answer: he can become intangible, and historically phasing is a great workaround for durability because it bypasses it altogether. Apocalypse cannot hurt somebody he cannot touch, while J'onn phases through attacks, turns intangibility around offensively or goes invisible. Game, set, match, right?

Except Apocalypse has dealt with this before, and pretty easily. Kitty Pryde once phased into him and he adjusted his molecules to match hers, so he could interact with her while she was intangible. "Easy peasy." Kitty and J'onn do not necessarily phase the same way, so I am not saying Apocalypse can just switch J'onn's powers off, but we know he can recognise molecular phasing and alter his body specifically to counter it. So intangibility does not really help Manhunter all that much.

Telepathy is Martian Manhunter's best shot, and Apocalypse has resisted it before

Attacking Apocalypse's mind is probably Martian Manhunter's best shot. J'onn is one of the most powerful telepaths in DC. He has scanned essentially the entire planet, entered the Spectre's mind and even overpowered Despero. He is really powerful and really good at it.

The problem is Apocalypse has spent a lot of time fighting telepaths. Jean Grey attacked him mentally and he resisted her, and he fought Jean inside a psychic landscape and won. Rachel Summers got inside his head while he was weakened, and he still forced her back out. He has done the same with Professor X and Cable. Is Apocalypse a better telepath than Martian Manhunter? No. But his mind is defended well enough that J'onn is not easily ending this with a psychic attack.

Why I think Apocalypse adapts long enough to win

Martian Manhunter has better physical stats, but "Apocalypse has the answer to basically everything he can throw at him." Manhunter hits him, and he regenerates. Phasing, shapeshifting, telepathy: Apocalypse has resisted and encountered all of it before. It is ironic, because Apocalypse fights entire teams of X-Men who, combined, come out to the same power set and power level as Martian Manhunter. Meanwhile, Apocalypse can teleport, attack with telekinesis, fire energy blasts, create force fields, alter his size and density, manipulate his molecules and use Celestial technology to keep adapting throughout the fight.

Honestly, Martian Manhunter can come out swinging and start winning, being faster and stronger, landing more hits and beating Apocalypse down. The problem is Apocalypse can survive that, and the longer it goes on, the worse it gets for J'onn. Apocalypse has thousands of years of experience, an absurd healing factor and a power set that lets him change himself to deal with whatever is in front of him. He does not have to become faster than Martian Manhunter. "He just has to survive long enough to figure out how to hit him. And I think eventually he does."

This one is really close, and Martian Manhunter can absolutely win. But more often than not, I think Apocalypse survives long enough to adapt and eventually takes Martian Manhunter down. Apocalypse wins.

Do you think J'onn J'onzz's speed and telepathy could end the fight before Apocalypse adapts, or does Apocalypse outlast him?