A significant degree of
screentime in Doomsday Clock has been
devoted to the integration of a sideplot (Carver Colman). Dr. Manhattan has
indicated that Carver Colman figured large in his thoughts. What role does the
Colman sideplot play in relation to the main story?
Colman is tied directly to
the main plot. He lived in the New 52 DCU timeline in which Doomsday Clock begins. He was born circa
1912, moved to Hollywood as teenagr in 1928, and starred in the Nathaniel Dusk
films from 1943 to 1954, dying in a mysterious murder that mirrors the original
Nite Owl's death in Watchmen. In the
meantime, he had at least one encounter with Dr. Manhattan that significantly
altered that being's perspectives because Carver Colman "was once full of
hope" before dying.
I emphasize dates because
there are at least three significant connections to be made that have not, so
far as I have seen, been made online yet. Two of these involve the McCarthy
"Red Scare" witch hunt that has been intertwined with the Justice
Society backstory since 1979 and other ways in which Colman's timeline
intersects with the DCU superheroes'.
1. Colman's death occurs in
the early hours of June 9, 1954. This is not an arbitrary date. In the real
world, an Army attorney named Joseph Welch had an encounter with Senator Joseph
McCarthy on that date which famously ended public and political support for
McCarthy. The pivotal quotation, which many have heard in Welch's Iowan accent
culminated with, " Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have
you left no sense of decency?"
We know that Colman's life
intersected with the Red Scare because Ring Lardner Jr., the screenwriter of
his third movie – a real man from the real world – was part of the
Hollywood Ten, a group that was prosecuted criminally and blacklisted by
Hollywood for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities
Committee. (Lardner returned to screenwriting decades later and won an Oscar in
1970.)
We know from discussion in
Johnny Thunder's retirement home that Colman is remembered as a deviant by some
and a hero by others. What was so polarizing?
The timing suggests that
Colman's "hope" was extinguished just hours before McCarthyism was
otherwise eliminated. He had eaten dinner with Hollywood power brokers shortly
before his murder. Presumably, they learned that he had views that were
dangerous to them during the reign of McCarthyism. It seems likely that he died
on the last possible day before his views, sympathetic to Communism or, at
least, hostile to McCarthyism, would have become acceptable. Colman's death
seems to be a key trigger for Dr. Manhattan, making him experience feelings,
such as he has them, of futility and abandoning hope, a path that has taken him
into encounters with Firestorm and, eventually, Superman, with a dangerous
disregard for the worthwhileness of human life.
Perhaps incidental to the
story, Colman's death reminds me, in certain ways, of that of George Reeves,
the actor who once played Superman on TV. Like Colman, Reeves was a Hollywood
actor who played a hero, and after socializing with other Hollywood figures,
and died somewhat mysteriously, with an official ruling of suicide but some
suspicion that the shooting was actually a murder.
2. Dr. Manhattan's brief
biography of Alan Scott highlights that Scott spoke before HUAC (another arm of
McCarthyism, although McCarthy was a member of the Senate, not the House, and
did not belong to HUAC) on January 8, 1950 and "refuses to implicate
anyone in his employ." Aficionados of JSA lore may recall that Scott and
the JSA spoke before HUAC and refused to cooperate with them, and at that point
retired from their superhero identities, another loss of hope.
However, this is not the
same event. Back in 1979, a story in Adventure
Comics #466 explained the backstory of the Justice Society, who had retired
before Jay Garrick met Barry Allen in Flash
#123. (To be precise, Jay claims to have retired in 1949.) According to Adventure #466, the JSA appears, led by
Alan Scott, before HUAC on October 13, 1951, and rather than unmask themselves,
leave the proceedings and retire from their superhero roles.
The January 8 event, however,
took place over a year earlier. This is not the hearing involving the JSA, but
rather one involving the professional role of Alan Scott as a businessman, and
it is depicted in the 1993 Elseworlds work The
Golden Age with the same date. It is not clear if the events, in Dr.
Manhattan's timeline, are the same as depicted in The Golden Age, but it is, strikingly, this meeting before HUAC
that Dr. Manhattan cites, not the one involving the JSA. In the new timeline,
Dr. Manhattan visits Alan Scott's grave on January 1950, ten years after
Scott's death and at the time he would have – but in the new timeline
– meet with HUAC. Subtly, then, Dr. Manhattan is twice motivated by events
involving McCarthyism.
Why did Dr. Manhattan kill
Alan Scott? These details imply that he was profoundly disturbed by the outcome
of the January 8, 1950 meeting, but it is not clear why, and we can't be sure
that the events of The Golden Age,
leading to a showdown with the Ultra-Humanite, are part of the timeline in
question. It is probably impossible for us to guess why Alan Scott's testimony
so disturbed Dr. Manhattan, but it seems likely that some unanticipated consequence
of his heroic stance led to the defeat of "hope" and that Dr.
Manhattan canceled the entire timeline by killing Alan Scott, just to prevent
that outcome. In the new timeline, Colman Carver becomes a new source of hope
before he dies. And now Superman plays that role. Maybe Superman will
demonstrate hope that cannot be defeated, and redeem the DCU for Dr. Manhattan.
What is Veidt's plan? The
cover of Doomsday Clock #8 shows
Veidt manipulating Superman and Dr. Manhattan as marionettes. The best we could
say for Veidt is that he is orchestrating the meeting between them because it
will end with Dr. Manhattan concluding his experiments in the DCU, and will
lead to Dr. Manhattan returning to the Watchmen Universe to save it. This would
amount to Superman providing the hope that Alan Scott, in an earlier time and
earlier timeline, could not.
Doomsday Clock #10 vs. Showcase #4 |
3. The cover of Doomsday Clock #10 shows a boy on a farm
whose mailbox reads "Colman." The boy is reading All Star Comics #3, the comic book issue that in our world introduced
the Justice Society. However, this has a major twist: Dr. Manhattan is seated
at the table with the Justice Society. Obviously, no such event ever took place
in any DC timeline that we've ever seen. A cover is not bound to narrate fact,
but this cover is asserting something – what is it?
I looked at this cover many
times, supposing that the blonde boy there was a young Carver Colman, but the
timeline doesn't fit. Colman would have been 28 years old in 1940 and working
as a man in Hollywood, while the boy in the picture is much younger. Although
timeline manipulation is part of the story, it seems that the boy is not
Colman. It is, more likely, Barry Allen. Compare that cover with the first two
panels depicting Barry Allen back in Showcase
#4. Though Barry here is a man, not a boy, and the details are provided in two
panels rather than one, it shows similar composition and intent, with the
"real" superheroes appearing fictional on a comic book cover, and Jay
Garrick part of the cover in both cases. However, given that Barry Allen's
youth has remained fixed since 1956, we can no longer posit that Barry was
alive and reading comic books in 1940, so it could be that the Allen boy seen
here is not Barry but Barry's father or even grandfather. That would match the
claim made by Wally that the watch was once owned by Barry's grandfather.
This scene likely could not
have happened in any of the timelines we're familiar with but it does assert a
few remarkable things. Strikingly, it suggests that in at least one timeline,
Dr. Manhattan tried to "find a place among them" by serving as a
member of the Justice Society. One imagines that this may have gone badly, with
the squeaky-clean and optimistic Golden Age Heroes clashing with Dr. Manhattan,
a clash that may have ended with his murdering them and terminating that
timeline. However, that is, given the previous discussion, likely not the
reason why Alan Scott and the JSA were eliminated from the New 52 timeline.
That is due to some combination of Alan Scott's HUAC testimony, Johnny Thunder
using his Thunderbolt "trying to protect them" from their testimony before McCarthy (who,
again, was not a member of HUAC; this detail may be a mistake), and Dr.
Manhattan going back to July 1940 and killing Alan Scott.
However, it does suggest,
strikingly, a connection between Barry Allen and Carver Colman. There may be no
way to make the timelines work nicely anymore and match the current Barry Allen
to any kid who would have been alive and reading comic books before 1950, but there
is one more reason to suspect a significant connection between Carver Colman
and Barry Allen – a watch.
One detail of Colman's death
is that his watch was missing. A watch is, of course, the metaphor that runs
throughout Watchmen, beginning with
the first syllable of its title. It is also what we see first and last in DC Rebirth, but the watch there, as
signified by the inscription, "Every Second is A Gift," belongs to
Wally West. That watch, or so Wally believes, belonged to Barry Allen's
grandfather. The cover and the "two" watches suggest a link between
Colman and the past of Barry Allen (and further, on to Wally West).
Furthermore, as Colman's family is from Indiana, as the farm location
reinforces, that provides a plausible geographical link as well to the pasts of
the Allen and West families, who are Midwestern.
Additionally, Colman is tied
plausibly to the JSA and Golden Age superheroes, and could even be one of them,
living a life where timeline manipulation, say by Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt,
may have placed him safely in a life where the HUAC showdown in 1951 would not
affect him. Because his bio associated the phrase "tick tock" with
him, and a fascination with clocks, I repeat my earlier supposition that Carver
Colman is Rex Tyler, "Tick Tock"
Tyler, the Hour-Man, hidden in an alternative life. Born in 1912, he would have
been 28 in 1940, a fine age for a scientist–superhero to begin his career.
Sadly, both of his lives turned out poorly, from some level of analysis, with
Hourman retiring due to HUAC pressure in 1951 and, in the new timeline, Carver
Colman being murdered due to political reasons in 1954. Dr. Manhattan is aware
of this, was physically present in the life of Colman, and feels hopelessness
due to the poor ends that Tyler-Colman inevitably met.
This would provide an interesting additional thread of
connection, for a chain of continuity involving time-based heroes if Hourman
passed a watch to Barry Allen who passed it to Wally West. Time and
watches/clocks thus serve as a symbol, as they did in Watchmen, but here the generations of superhero become the
"hours" that tick by: Golden Age, Silver Age, and then on to the
generation of Wally West (though he debuted in the Silver Age).
Furthermore, Colman had an association with John Law, the
Golden Age superhero known as Tarantula, who was present for the culminating
battle in January 1950 in The Golden Age.
Law was a writer in his original formulation and, in the end-notes of DC #3, a screenwriter, and therefore
also plausibly entangled in the Hollywood-HUAC mess that brought down many real
people as well as some in this story.
I don't think the entire story and reveals to come can be
guessed with certainty now, particularly as there are timelines involved that
we've never seen, but the Carver Colman story will take, at least, the loose
outlines of this form, and in so doing provides thematic support to the main
plot, and even a direct role in the JSA-HUAC-timeline part of the story that's
largely been hidden from us.
The case of Carver's biography aside, Carver Colman is tied
to a completely different sideplot – the plot of The Adjournment, the Nathaniel Dusk movie whose action has been
shown to us directly in several scenes. The plot of a story within a story has
no logical requirement to correspond to the main story in any way, but it is
not for nothing that Johns has chosen to devote a few pages. In my next post,
I'll ask what roleThe Adjournment plays in Doomsday
Clock.
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I'm starting to think Ferro Lad was related to Carver by ancestor. So it's also up to Superman to save the universe now.
ReplyDeleteI should add, Bobby, that Ferro Lad and the LSH figure into my considerations of what the people and events in The Adjournment represent. E.g., is Alan Scott the older dead man and Ferro Lad the younger? Probably not, but that's the sort of pattern I'm looking for, an old and a young, both dead.
DeleteThat's a very interesting supposition! My own take on timelines is that the death of one person in 1954 would probably lead to each and every person in 3019 being different from the other timeline. I would moreover guess that the entire LSH does not exist in the post-Alan Scott timeline.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this would mean that Ferro Lad is related to whoever Colman was in the pre-tampering timeline, whether that was Colman or someone else (like Hourman).
Hey Rikdad! Sorry for all the deleted comments above—was having some technical difficulties! As always, amazing write-up. Can't wait for the next piece. Question: Where did you get the October 13, 1951 date? As far as I can tell, Adventure Comics #466 doesn't give a date, but America vs The Justice Society says "early 1951" and JSA #82 tells us outright that it happened on March 21, 1951. I haven't looked back through dates mentioned in DC, but I wonder if there's any synchronicity there as well...
ReplyDeleteHi Collin – Thanks for the penetrating question! Johns himself used October 13, 1951 in a story he wrote in 2005. A Twitter thread detailing the different versions of this history (amazing legwork!) appears here: https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/1010444596260823040
DeleteThanks for the response. And for the link!
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