What a nice little issue!
That may not sound like a resounding endorsment for a comic, but sometimes they can have more to offer than just an issue long slug-fest. First, let me get this out of the way: I think that John Ostrander is the most under-appreciated writer in comics. He has taken characters who were without direction, or simply not interesting and worked virtual miracles with them. When he is given an interesting character, his writing is no less impressive, as his defining run on the Spectre showed.

So here we have one of the original heroes from the silver age, one who really hasn't found his niche in a long time. Ostrander got to work immediantely providing the character with little (and a few not-so-little) tweaks. Those improvements are really more than I have room to go into here, but I really recomend seeking out any back issues that you can find (don't forget the 1,000,000 issue and the 0 issue). Ostranders artist on almost the entire run of Martian Manhunter is Tom Mandrake, an artist that I quite frankly didn't like all that much until his work on the Spectre. His loose, moody pencils were perfect for that book, and they are fitting for this one as well.

This issue has no fight sequences (except for a flashback) and no real melodramatic angst. It rather simply concerns how J'onn reacts when the D.E.O. (Department of Extranormal Operations) threatens to expose his secret identities if he does not help them create background files on the other superheroes. With Ostranders deft scripting, you learn a lot about J'onn J'onzz and more importantly than that, you care about him more. Creating characters that we care about is so often forgotten in this day of splash pages and cross-over events. It's not an issue long slug-fest, but if you want that, well, Batgirl came out this week too.