DETECTIVE COMICS #235: The World’s Greatest Magician
One day at the station, John and the Chief are approached by the owner of the circus that is passing through town. Someone has been stealing from him! Their latest take being the diamond-studded collar that their lion wore. My initial reaction was why do have that thing on a lion, but immediate retracted it, as “on a lion” is probably a pretty safe place to keep something like that.
The circus owner suspects one of his performers but when he went to the police in another town, they had trouble figuring out who, as the crimes stopped once they were involved. How to catch them?!
A duuuuh, says John. I’ll go undercover! I totally used to be a magician!
You…um okay. The circus owner agrees and John uses “concentration” to grow a goatee. I’m not sure of the actual mechanics behind this growing. Did he shapeshift a goatee? Or is he like, actually just growing it fast? How does this work?
The owner introduces John to the rest of the circus as J’onzz the Great and he performs his first show that night. First he makes an elephant float by uh concentrating at it, it would seem. I think if J’onn just thinks hard enough he can do absolutely anything.
The other circus performers are absolute flipping out at this. This damn magician has gone too goddamn far. He can’t float an elephant, that’s just too much. Next J’onn climbs into a box and has them stab him with swords that he just allows to pass through his translucent body.
Finally he climbs up to the high wire, except that it’s no wire! It’s a strand of thread!
Everyone is having an absolute shit-fit at his goddamn stunts. Who does he think he is?
Unfortunately none of his crazy tricks manage to lure out the thief, so John decides he needs to sweeten the pot.
The next night, he has a boy place an object in a box and says that he will duplicate the object in another box.
Someone from the audience shouts that this is just too far! TOO FAR J’ONZZ! YOU’LL PAY FOR CRIMES AGAINST MAN AND GOD!
First he looks in the box and sees it is an ice cream cone. Then he uses…component parts from the very atoms in the air and make another ice cream.
He continues to make duplicates of various things for audience members for 30 damn minutes, until finally one guy doesn’t want to reveal what he had duplicated. Like he had the magician duplicate his favorite sex toys or something. NO! DON’T SHOW EVERYONE! IT’S TOO EMBARRASSING!
Oh wait no, he had J’onn duplicate the diamond-studded lion collar he stole!
The thief runs towards the fire-eaters flaming torches though, having noticed earlier that they startled J’onn. J’onn blows them out from across the room though and apprehends the criminal who turns out to be the circus’s clown.
The circus owner asks J’onn one last time how he blew out those torches. J’onn says “I’m a Martian! A freakin’ Martian! Hahahahaahahaha!”
N0, he says he can’t tell because of some Magician’s Oath crap.