Doomsday Clock 9

When I first read Watchmen in 1989, part of my response, following the patterns of all the DC stories I'd read before, was to wonder how the Justice League would respond to the deadly events wrought by Veidt and accepted by Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen. Neatly thirty years later, a partial answer to that question was offered by Doomsday Clock #9. Reduced to a pure "versus" between Dr. Manhattan and most of the most powerful characters in the modern DCU, it appears that the result is no contest. In a direct confrontation, Dr. Manhattan absorbs most of their most powerful blows and he is not so much harmed as inconvenienced. Almost as though to add insult to injury, he is fascinated rather than angered by their attack, as their powers are manifestations of physics that he'd never seen before.

Yet, in both Watchmen and DC #8-9, Dr. Manhattan is a mere physical force, reduced to a feckless judge of events around him. His direct contribution to Veidt's plan was nothing more than killing Rorschach, to preserve the secrecy that Veidt's plan required. He was, moreover, a failure in this regard, Rorschach's journal having leaked eventually, and the Watchman world is eventually in chaos because of/despite the collective efforts of Veidt and Dr. Manhattan.

But Veidt is the real agent at work here, as we're reminded when a single panel pairs Wonder Woman's use of the phrase "single villain" with Veidt's hands at work pushing a button. Veidt orchestrated the spiraling tragedy in Moscow, which is clear to the reader, but it's important to note that his ruse is very sophisticated, layered two deep. First, he made it seem to the world that Firestorm attacked the good people of Russia and that Superman took Firestorm's side, turning the whole world against the last, most respected superhero. The superheroes see through this first ruse, tracing the radiation to Mars. But, as Batman suspects, there is a double ruse: Dr. Manhattan didn't attack Superman, either.

Veidt's self-stated purpose is to save everybody. And yet, Saturn Girl is so horrified by what Veidt had in mind (much of which, we've seen) that he had to knock her out to subdue her. Veidt is trying to reshape events according to his design, and he's surely reshaping events, and certainly things will change, but the endgame can't go quite the way he's imagining.

A real eye-opener in DC #9 is that the group of superheroes who go to Mars ("they all" in Batman's formulation) lacks Wonder Woman. A reason that makes sense of this within the story is offered, but what is Johns' reason? Because the design this creates is that, of all the major superheroes, the only three who didn't leave the Earth for Mars are Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, and anytime those three share something in common, we ought to take notice.

At this point in the story, we have:

• A single superbeing who is capable of beating any of the DC heroes, perhaps all of them at the same time. He goes immunity even to the strongest magic as well as science-based powers.

• When an army of superheroes attacks the superbeing, he lashes out in retaliation, besting all of them.

• A genius who himself lacks superpowers but is directing the actions of that superbeing. He wants to change the nature of reality for the better but cannot be trusted with regards to his tactics or objectives.

• The supervillains of Earth united into an army.

• The Trinity held aside from all the other superheroes.

• Lex Luthor is working on his own behalf, opposed to the aforementioned genius.

• The superbeing has just resisted an attack launched by another version of himself.

What interests (and concerns) me about this is, this is much where we were at the end of Infinite Crisis #6, also written by Geoff Johns. (Noteworthy: Superboy Prime shows up in Guy Gardner's ring-projected circle of villains.) Without opening up a full re-discussion of that story, I find it to be an epic of impressive scope, many exciting scenes, and a story that ultimately becomes disconnected from its own arguments. After raising many interesting questions about what the superhero world should be, it has a brawl create an accidental choice of what the future (2006–2011) DCU would be like, with no compelling demonstration that the outcome was different was a rejection of what the villain (Alexander Luthor of Earth-3) had hoped for nor a positive affirmation of the world that the heroes would have chosen (if there'd ever been a consensus hinted at). The result was a world where the JSA had begun the era of heroes, and Wally West and the Teen Titans were part of a modern era alongside the JLA.

If, 13 years of DC comics later, Doomsday Clock takes a thus-far exemplary 12-issue story to get us back to that same basic point it would feel like a very roundabout path to get back to where we started. And, yes, comic books like other serials have, at their heart, circular time at their essence, but when a story begins as well as Doomsday Clock has, one hopes for more. This is, we hope a response to Watchmen rather than a replay of Infinite Crisis.

Means and Motives

To see where the story is going, the prime movers are the knowledge and motives of Veidt and Dr. Manhattan. We already know that Veidt wants to save "everything and everybody" on both worlds. But what does Dr. Manhattan want?

In #7, over a long discourse with Veidt, Dr. Manhattan reveals, "At first, I thought I might find a place among them." But, then he saw a vision of the upcoming confrontation with Superman, "the most hopeful among them… now hopeless." "Carver Colman was once full of hope, too… but everything ends." And, later, in #9, says that his point is "even hope decays."

Given the first of that information (and perhaps inferring it all), Veidt begins the plan to create the encounters we've seen transpire. He knows that Dr. Manhattan sees no hope in Superman when their future encounter will take place, in one week. Is Veidt's double ruse an effort to bring Superman and Dr. Manhattan together, forcing the positive action he desires from him? If so, perhaps it could involve one or more of the following:

• Superman's actions will indeed inspire Dr. Manhattan with hope.

• Superman is perhaps capable of destroying Dr. Manhattan (his easy dismissal of so many superheroes may lead the reader to doubt this, but Dr. Manhattan himself obviously considers it possible), and his own mortality may prompt him to abandon his stoic outlook and act.

• Dr. Manhattan appears to have learned magic, and perhaps other things from seeing the DC heroes demonstrate them. He may be more powerful now than ever.

Back to the Future

One of #9's surprises is that the gloved hand that mailed a USB drive to Lois Lane belonged to Lex Luthor, not New Rorschach. We don't know how he accessed film from alternate timelines, but Luthor has some sort of cross-timeline information source; he also knows that Wally West paid the price for Dr. Manhattan's timeline manipulation. He considers the invasion from the Watchmen Universe to be one that undermines "all of creation" and will add his assistance to Superman's efforts. Luthor's intervention may end up being key in informing Superman of the stakes, and alter the confrontation with Dr. Manhattan to a result we are meant to favor.

Aside: The name-checked film Back to the Future and Watchmen both offer specific dates corresponding to their events and have their main action take place the same week of October 1985!

Parallel Lives

Though we learned, as expected, that Dr. Martin Stein, the older half of Firestorm, is the mysterious head of the governmental superhero initiative, this story seems to be only half revealed. Stein remains determined to prevent the course of events as we've seen them, and after Dr. Manhattan shows Ronnie Raymond a past in which Stein basically abducted Ronnie as his means into metahuman powers, Stein says that Dr. Manhattan cannot be trusted. Meanwhile, it is noteworthy that Dr. Manhattan has this information when he seems generally disoriented about the other superheroes. What is their relationship? Is Stein another manifestation of Dr. Manhattan, created by but now quite different in outlook from the blue man from the Watchmen Universe? Is Stein actually the hopeful one who will inspire Dr. Manhattan?

The Nathaniel Dusk movie holds a parallel for some other part of our story. A young man and older man are both killed, because one was targeted. Are Stein and Raymond the older and younger men this represents? Did Dr. Manhattan create the Firestorm storyline to mirror the movie?

Back to the Past

As we've learned before, Dr. Manhattan created the current DCU timeline by causing the death of Alan Scott. This erased the JSA from history, and also erased the LSH from eventually existing, as shown by the disappearance of Ferro Lad, the Legionaire who sacrificed himself to kill a Sun Eater in a 1967 story. Why did Dr. Manhattan do this?

We know that Dr. Manhattan is pained by the loss of hope that Carver Colman experienced. Did Alan Scott cause this by offering the JSA's retirement in the face of HUAC demanding they reveal their identities? Dr. Manhattan stood "on set" of Colman's movie. He was apparently in the guide of a real person, either Colman or someone close to him. This entire manipulation of the DCU may be due to the disillusionment that Dr. Manhattan experienced as a result of the 1950s HUAC affairs, with Alan Scott drawing the blame.

Errata or something else?

In the final two pages of DC #9, two apparent discrepancies occur.

One, Green Arrow congratulates Ronnie/Firestorm after Captain Atom temporarily blasts Dr. Manhattan. Is this misassigned credit, or did Firestorm participate in some way we didn't see?

Later, we see superheroes lying unconscious on the sands of Mars, and this includes Guy Gardner, in his Green Lantern costume, but he had lost his costume when Dr. Manhattan dissolved his ring earlier.

Are these errors or indications of some intended change?

With Doomsday Clock entering the final issues, this is something I'm asking myself more. Is this fine series holding more wonderful surprises in store, or is it going to be forced into a desired ending despite what we've seen so far? For us as well as the heroes, only time will tell.

Doomsday Clock 8

A Crossroads

I've paused considerably before posting thoughts on DC #8. While the narration in the issue is considerably action-packed and the physical events that occur are presented in a clear fashion, there is a disorienting degree of uncertainty surrounding the hows and whys of these actions. The majority of the issue is devoted to a two-phase catastrophe in Moscow, but some events that get less coverage are still striking and mysterious. It's clear that some very important events took place off-panel and/or inside someone's mind between the meeting between Veidt and Dr. Manhattan in DC #7 and Firestorm's arrival in Moscow in DC #8.

To be succinct, the framing scenes with Veidt that start and end DC #8 strongly imply that he is directing all of the major events in Moscow, making moves behind the scenes and from a distance to give Superman, many Russian citizens, and apparently Firestorm one very bad day. His stated goal is to save everyone and everybody, and apparently, and in keeping with his master plan in Watchmen, he is quick to sacrifice many individual lives along the way. But what is happening, and why?

Moscow: Superman, Firestorm, and (?) Dr. Manhattan

What happens in Moscow? Firestorm arrives, which is to say that Ronnie Raymond has decided to confront those he perceives as his tormentors who have aimed the Supermen Theory against him and other superheroes. His temper and his powers get out of control and this leads to many Muscovites being turned into glass. Firestorm flees the scene. Later, Superman gives Firestorm a pep talk after which Firestorm succeeds in changing one of the glass people back to normal. When Firestorm and Superman arrive in Moscow seeking to restore the many other glass people, Russian superheroes and Russian military forces under the command of Vladimir Putin respond with force rather than give Firestorm a chance. This escalates rapidly into Superman losing his status as the world's one, truly universally respected superhero. Immediately thereafter, an explosive blue flash leads to Superman (and Firestorm) disappearing and damage done to many of those in and near Moscow, including a rapidly-approaching Batman.

As others have already noted, this structurally resembles Veidt's surreptitious plans in Watchmen: Firestorm's angry outburst, followed by the use of his powers, resembles Dr. Manhattan's angry outburst when a talk show guest accuses him of having caused many people's cancer. Second, a large explosion in the middle of a city resembles Veidt's master plan creating mass casualties in New York.  We may further note that Firestorm is one of the DCU equivalents of Dr. Manhattan (Captain Atom may fit the bill better, but Firestorm is the one who's on-panel here). However, the similarity with Watchmen only goes so far: Superman seems to be the main target of all of this, and Firestorm seems to be more of a weapon used to place Superman in this situation.

This leaves us in search of an understanding of why and how Veidt is making all of this happen. We should moreover be wary of false assumptions, because there are some inferences made at many points in the discussion, and some anomalies that are surely setting up some major reveals.

Perhaps the biggest clue to all of this is the alternate cover that shows Veidt's hands manipulating marionette versions of Superman and Dr. Manhattan on Mars. It seems like a good bet that the blue flash at the end of the Moscow crisis consists of Dr. Manhattan's powers teleporting Superman and himself to the surface of Mars, a getaway that Dr. Manhattan also chose in Watchmen. Veidt tried, unsuccessfully, to get Dr. Manhattan to return to the Watchmen universe, and that is still his goal. His plan may be as "simple" as believing that a face to face meeting between Superman and Dr. Manhattan will produce a conversation in which Superman, as the paragon of hope, talks Dr. Manhattan into doing the right thing, which will be what Veidt wants, to save everyone and everybody. We may also predict that this won't work: Saturn Girl already disapproved of Veidt's plan, Dr. Manhattan's vision of the future shows him and Superman in battle, and both the art and the dialogue cast Veidt as the same sort of would-be-hero-but-villain role that Alexander Luthor played in Johns' Infinite Crisis.

Even if this successfully describes the aim of Veidt's plan, it is unclear how he goes about it. He seems to have engineered the following events that seem to be the product of others' choices, or by chance:

• Ronnie Raymond decides to go to Moscow as Firestorm

• Many citizens are turned to glass – apparently by Firestorm

• One glass citizen is turned back

• Dr. Manhattan's powers send Superman away, probably to Mars

Some of this seems to require superpowers, and some does not. Veidt is hyper-intelligent and skilled at manipulating others into doing his bidding while they think they are utilizing their own free will. Veidt could probably trick Ronnie into going to Moscow with something as simple as a forged text message or handwritten note. Turning people to glass, however, is not part of Veidt's skill set, so he apparently accomplishes this through one of the following:

• Bubastis has some version of Dr. Manhattan's powers and is capable of using them as Veidt desires.

• Veidt uses some DCU power such as Alan Scott's lantern or a kidnapped superbeing such as Zatanna, the Martian Manhunter, or Psycho Pirate to make the glass transformations occur or Firestorm to cause the transformation.

Finally, the teleportation to Mars may be performed by Veidt or by Dr. Manhattan himself, as a response to events in Moscow.

I will note a (literally and figuratively) glaring detail on page one: The lighting in the Oval Office scene switches from bright (white) to dark (blue), which may symbolically indicate that Veidt is creating a darker reality, or may mean that Bubastis is glowing blue as we've seen before. This is also echoed symbolically in the next scene when Perry White refers to Clark Kent's "blue suit" and Kent says that it's navy (a darker blue). Of course, Kent's more famous blue suit is that of Superman.

Given that list of options, it is perhaps not so important as to how Veidt manipulates events: There are plausible means at his disposal for doing so, and his choice seems like a mere detail. That gives us a broad explanation for much of the Moscow scenes. But, we have a puzzle piece unmatched and a hole where a puzzle piece should go: Where is Dr. Manhattan, and why is Martin Stein referenced so much in this issue (but unseen and unheard)? In the broader story, we have a major puzzle piece yet to fit and a hole regarding the Supermen Theory and the unobserved plan of Dr. Manhattan. It is likely time for all of these to fit together. I can't cite everyone who has previously posited that Martin Stein is the DCU identity of Dr. Manhattan, but the evidence stacks up pretty deeply now.

Martin Stein and Jon Osterman have similar enough careers. Both were nuclear physicists and both were given nuclear transmutation powers because of a nuclear accident. Luthor said that the head of the Supermen Theory conspiracy was a metahuman and a former JLA member, and Stein qualifies as both. Dr. Manhattan was likely present for the events in Moscow, and Stein – as the subordinate personality inside of Firestorm – was known to be present. The Supermen Theory produced many new metahumans and we know that Dr. Manhattan at some point manipulated the number of superheroes in continuity by allowing Alan Scott to die. And, there has to be a good reason why the Supermen Theory subplot is part of Doomsday Clock, which has not yet been completely explicit.

And, there's one more subtle detail way, way down in the weeds. In the end materials for DC #6, the file for the supervillain Typhoon says that his metagene was deliberately triggered by exposure to radiation, and that he was named "Typhoon" by the Director of the U.S. Government's secret Department of Metahuman Affairs. Typhoon first appeared in a Firestorm story as a backup feature in Flash #294 (1981), a story I happened to buy off the newsstand. Johns uses the introductory issue as a code name for three metahumans, including Typhoon, Moonbow, and Puppet Master, with Typhoon as FL294-1981. With just a few pages per issue, the Firestorm story played out over multiple issues, and the name Typhoon was first thought and then said in Flash #296 by Firestorm, who is both Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein. Though technically this indicated the will of Ronnie, that seems to be a knowing clue that Martin Stein is the head of the Supermen Theory conspiracy. Furthermore, the director's name is blacked out in the end materials of DC #6, and it appears to start with a vertical stroke (as 'M' does) and be of about the right length (this depends upon the font, which may or may not be Arial Narrow) to be Martin Stein.

Let's examine Martin Stein's wishes as relayed by Ronnie in the issue:

• Didn't want to come to Moscow

• Get back in the sky

• Give up trying to restore the glass boy

• Don't trust Superman

• Can't restore the glass people

• Wants Superman to leave

• Says thanks to Superman

• Tells Ronnie to leave Moscow

Stein is constantly striving to prevent or end the situation in Moscow by having Firestorm and/or Superman quit and/or leave. Seven of his eight comments are to that effect, while the remaining one thanks Superman. The likely explanation for this is that, as Stein, Dr. Manhattan is forced to go where Ronnie wishes. Knowing what will occur, Manhattan/Stein would naturally be upset about the deaths of bystanders and, perhaps more important to him, the tarnishing of Superman's reputation. It is essential to this that Veidt's plan arose in response to a small number of comments in which Dr. Manhattan identified the hope in Superman and Colman Carver as something to which he responded and apparently seeks.

The question is, is that all Veidt's plan? Veidt knows, as of DC #7, that Dr. Manhattan seeks hope, and that Superman is the ultimate representative of hope. By ruining Superman's reputation, Veidt ruins Dr. Manhattan's quest for hope, and thereby eliminates Dr. Manhattan's stated objective for refusing to return to the Watchmen Universe. Now Dr. Manhattan is motivated both to fix the DCU and also the Watchmen Universe. But does Veidt actually know that Dr. Manhattan was present inside Firestorm, or is that by happenstance? It depends what he means when he looks through the files in the White House and says "Yes. Yes, this one will do nicely." If he's selecting Firestorm as an arbitrary weapon to frame Superman, then maybe his plan didn't depend upon Dr. Manhattan to be present for the tragic events. If he knew that Firestorm included Dr. Manhattan, then "should do nicely" may mean that he was selecting some other DCU individual to assist him in the control over events.

Dr. Manhattan's course of action, then, seems to be one in which he has continually tinkered with the timeline in search of some outcome he finds desirable, and then using his powers to reboot the timeline, with changes, when the last version did not work out. This is, also, like the role that Alexander Luthor played in Infinite Crisis. The sequence of timelines he has experienced or witnessed may include:

• The Justice Society as originally seen in All Star #3

• The Justice Society with Dr. Manhattan as a member (seen on a cover for DC #9)

• The DCU without a Justice Society (described on the first page of DC #7)

And causes of his disenchantment, making him give up hope may include:

• The JSA surrendering before HUAC

• Colman Carver's murder after he stands up to HUAC

• Superman losing his status as a universally beloved hero (at the end of DC #8)

The Justice Society

A  brief, but weighty, event early in DC #8 shows Lois Lane receiving a package that Reggie/Rorschach sent last issue. This contains a keychain drive with newsreel footage of the Justice Society in action, dated 1941 like the corresponding story in All Star Comics #4, the first in which the JSA went into action together as a team. The underlying fact is not new to us – there is a timeline, since banished into oblivion by Dr. Manhattan and/or Johnny Thunder's Lightning Bolt, in which the JSA existed in the Forties. But we have no explanation how Reggie obtained that imagery. We know that Johnny Thunder told him about the JSA, but where did the pictures come from? Something cosmic is working on Reggie's side. Maybe Alan Scott's lantern. Maybe Dr. Manhattan. Maybe the Thunderbolt or some other JSA-era force with cosmic powers has returned. A clue may be in the fact that someone rummaged through Lois' desk before the mail arrived. It seems like someone who knows a lot about what's going on is working at cross purposes with Reggie. Veidt? Someone else?

Superman v Batman (and Black Adam): Where's the Hope?

One of the episode's surprises is the flight of Batman (almost certainly towards Moscow) as he monitors the situation and calls out to Superman. He has learned some things during his painful brush with the Watchmen Universe characters, and he seems to have made some important inferences, getting ahead of the readers. As he shouts out desperate orders contradicting Superman's intentions, orders that Superman does not heed, the final tragedy and explosion seems to indicate that Batman is informed and wise while Superman is uninformed and foolish. The dynamic also looks bad for Superman when Black Adam tells him that the Supermen Theory is correct (which documents in DC #7 already showed us).

This is news because the first seven issues of Doomsday Clock were unrelenting in showing a Batman who was unprepared for the challenges that faced him, from being outplayed by Rorschach and Veidt, subdued by a crowd, and shocked by the Joker. The series had begun to look like a polemic against Batman while Superman was elevated to the embodiment of hope. Here in the final pages of DC #8, the dynamic reverses, with Batman's perspective seeming to prove correct as Superman, by taking sides, leads to catastrophe.

But was Batman correct? He certainly seems to have tactical knowledge of the situation, including the fact that Superman's words would anger Putin and the fact that the pending explosion was not due to Firestorm (but rather, it seems, due to Dr. Manhattan, although it could be more complex than it seems). But perhaps Superman was on the right moral track, saying, correctly, that Firestorm was not to blame. Batman says that Ronnie is a reckless kid who has too much power, but perhaps both Ronnie's rashness and the tragic events in Moscow were due to Veidt's manipulations, not Ronnie's decisions or actions.

As action escalates, this is still a confrontation primarily of beliefs and ideals. There is likely to be little pause in the final issues of the series now that Superman and Dr. Manhattan have, apparently, met. It'll be fun to watch the action, but Johns' big message is probably going to come across in the speech balloons, not the art.