Johnny (Mars Attacks)

Johnny (full first name Jonathan) was a student in Middletown, USA. He was a student in Ms. Hatcher's literature class. Known for being a slacker and a goof-off who rarely paid attention, he frequently brought his collection of Mars Attacks trading cards into class and looked at them rather than paying attention to his lessons. This got him trouble one day when Ms. Hatcher was reading H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds aloud and Johnny, who considered her a "hag," drew a picture of a Martian from one of the cards strangling her to death. Ms. Hatcher smacked him on the head and made him stay after class for detention, where he was to write "I will not disrupt the class" on the ckalkboard.

He managed to write three full lines before his hyper-fixation on Mars Attacks and his hatred for his teacher become so overpowering that he left the fourth line unfinished (omitting "class") and instead drew a much larger and more elaborate version of the Martian choking Ms. Hatcher (even having him say "Die Hatcher"), declaring that the teacher was going to die. Whether he meant this literally or not is unclear, but he certainly did not expect the drawing to suddenly come alive and begin moving of its own accord. The Martian told him he, not Ms. Hatcher, was the one who was going to die. The alien's hand reached through the chalkboard surface, becoming fully three-dimensional, and grabbed the boy, dragging him through and into the world of the chalkboard.

Chiding Johnny for disobeying his teacher, the now gigantic Martian dangled a tiny Johnny over his mouth, then dropped him in screaming and belched.

Notes

• It's unclear how much of what happens in the classroom scene actually takes place in the story; after eating Johnny, the Martian puts his helmet on and goes on to be the one on the iconic first card in the series, "The Invasion Begins." The remainder of the (unfinished) comics' story completely ignore the prologue; the Martians actually come from Mars rather than being created from a child's chalkboard drawing. It's clear the sequence isn't meant to be taken literally and was just done as a darkly comedic exercise in which Pocket Comics was poking fun at people who like Mars Attacks.