Sunday, March 08, 2009

Because The World Series Of Poker Uses Teep Blockers, You Know

Without the use of his superhuman abilities, how insightful is the Martian Manhunter? With telepathy, J'onn can normally probably learn quite a bit about a person with little time.

What if that isn't an option? How perceptive is he then? Say he was fighting some foe, and he can't read their mind, and isn't sure why. The foe claims it's because they are a superior telepath to J'onn, and not only are they blocking his attempts to probe their mind, they're actually messing with his perceptions at this very moment. J'onn can't poke inside their mind to determine whether this is true. Do you think he could determine if they were bluffing*?

Granted J'onn was a detective for at least some of his time on Earth (among many other identities), but I have no idea how often he would have solved cases relying solely on intuition, rather than his considerable array of powers. I'm sure he wants to try and learn about how Earthlings do things, but that probably takes a backseat to expediency when there's a murderer on the loose. I know in JLA 50, he told Wonder Woman that he isn't the detective Batman is**, because he lacks a certain level on deductive insight the Dark Knight has. Which suggests that without the skeleton key of being able to peek inside your mind, J'onn couldn't tell whether you have three aces or not. Although, he has been on Earth for awhile, surely he's picked up some things just from being around so many people.

* For the purposes of this, say they are bluffing. It wouldn't actually be a bad gambit to try, getting J'onn to doubt his senses. Hey, against someone as powerful as him, you really ought to grasp any advantage you can find, right?

** Though other than Detective Chimp, who is? Elongated Man, I guess.

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