Martian Manhunter Through the Ages?

[Captain Kal]

Just to be more complete and fair:

Giffen's & DeMatteis' JLI and the Invasion! storylines did try to stay true to the MM's history and continuity.  Nowhere in those books can be found J'Onn phasing, even when it would have come in very handy to do so, though they did play up his telepathy and shape-changing which are perfectly legitimate powers dating from his original series.  They even had him needing a spacesuit in JLI and Invasion! which again is perfectly in keeping with his previous history.

(It must be noted that Captain Marvel also required a spacesuit in JLI back then just like MM did.  The Post Crisis DCU hierarchy was still being defined back then so nothing was a given including CM being equal to Superman.  The twin precedents of that JLI fight when he struggled to beat J'Onn only to be downed by circumstance, and The Weird where Superman is clearly shown to be superior to the JLI itself incl. J'Onn, Guy, and Captain Atom gives early recognition for Superman being the top-tier super-hero early Post Crisis.)

I can live with his being able to use his invisibility with his other powers.  It did seem odd to me that the supposed best of the Martians was so limited while the others could use their full powerset at will.  Either make all Martians incapable of combining invisibility with their other powers or remove this ridiculous limitation from J'Onn.  I could live with them choosing the latter.

The fact that Ostrander chose to violate Post Crisis continuity as established above, and it actually made absolutely no thematic sense re: space capability is completely unacceptable except to MM fanboys not thinking things through.  If someone could somehow reconcile the addition of super-speed and space capability with J'Onn being trapped on Earth, then it would be legitimate.  But it violates the themes of being trapped and Post Crisis continuity to no other end than to feed the mania of rabid MM fanboys.

In the end, beefing up J'Onn out-of-continuity was no more successful at saving his book than the similar boosting of the Silver Surfer at Marvel.  Despite what Tim Allen's character preaches, "More Power!" is not always the answer.