Doomsday Clock 12

There is a war between optimism and pessimism, a childlike joy triggered by how wonderful things can be and then there is an awe and fascination in how terrible things can be, a desire to see the old ways shattered and hell let loose. But does that describe Doomsday Clock #12, or does it describe what has happened in DC Comics since Rebirth? Or does it describe both, with the two situations delivering up opposite outcomes? And which will lay the ground for 2020 and beyond?

Ordinarily, I would respond to an issue of this series by going into the small details and see where they are going. As the previous eleven issues, as well as DC Rebirth #1 and "The Button" and various crossovers like the Mr. Oz subplot beforehand ticked by at a remarkably leisurely pace, those small clues pointed us towards the end, an end which in many broad strokes – the JSA and the Kents returning; Superman turning Dr. Manhattan "good" – was visible from the outset. Other details led my prognostications, anyway, onto wrong paths and dead ends; perhaps there were some red herrings in some places, but then again, maybe some plans were changed. In many ways, we don't know, at the conclusion of issue #12, how things end because we ought to be wondering, is Doomsday Clock a turning point in DC's plans or is it a now-out-of-continuity story from a writer who has lost favor during the slow roll of this long, long running miniseries? I will post again on DC #12, looking into the small details, in the days to come. But as I reach the end of this issue, I find myself thinking most about the big picture, and that's what I discuss here.

Without unpacking them, I'll chronicle a list of plot points that I found relatively surprising: That the Superman-Manhattan meeting began as backdrop to a continuing attack on Superman from various villains. That Johnny Thunder had no significant role in saving the day. That the LSH and Superman's career as Superboy were affirmed while Bendis' LSH series seems to have taken a different path. That Veidt's plan prevailed and was not interrupted by Batman or anyone. That Johns provided an expansion of the Multiverse, placing old familiar timelines into the "Earth-" + number scheme. That Johns would flash-forward through the future of DC's reboots "predicting" many future years' worth of stories and hint at this continuing for over 900 more years. That Dr. Manhattan will get to live a non-superpowered life as a married man, a bit like the ending that Alan Moore gave Superman in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

In many respects, there were no major surprises at all. Superman's goodness prevailed and as far back as DC #5, I posited, "Veidt will likely… orchestrate a meeting between Superman, the DCU's symbol of hope, and Dr. Manhattan. But to what end, and to what intended end? Veidt sees the DCU in stark terms, and his only goal is to get Dr. Manhattan to return to his own universe and save it." That was a bit over one and a half years ago – the ending of Doomsday Clock was visible from farther out than any of DC's previous events have even lasted in their entirety!

But as the story ends, I find myself noting the possible dissonance between Johns' prognostication and what I see in much of the rest of DC's output, and I don't mean on mere small plot points (are the Kents alive again?).

Watchmen delivered up a worldview in which superheroes couldn't possibly be the sunshiny and beneficial saviors of a world, at least not one interestingly like ours. Johns, we could see from early on, was going to show the darkness of Moore's vision being illuminated and vanquished by the unstoppable optimism of Superman. On the page, in his own story, and his own miniseries, Johns had the power to make that happen. But what about the rest of DC's superhero comics? What about, as it was dubbed two weeks ago, the Depressoverse? DC has called 2019 "The Year of the Villain." Their flagship character in the making is Harley Quinn. The demonic force behind the scenes of several titles' stories is The Batman Who Laughs. While Johns' story tells us that Superman prevails in the long run, are DC's other stories – are the sales figures – telling us that characters with morality closer to that of the Comedian and Rorschach prevailing in their future output? Was the year of the villain a harbinger of many more years of the villain to come, or is it ending now to deliver up something closer to Johns' vision than to Snyder's? I reach the last page of Doomsday Clock more curious than ever to see how the story will end. We'll start to find out in 2020.

Doomsday Clock: The Adjournment

Doomsday Clock has paid considerable attention to a story within the story, a 1954 detective movie called The Adjournment. Like the pirate story "Marooned" in Watchmen, the story within a story can and almost certainly does provide insight regarding the main story. This is particularly fertile given that the star of The Adjournment is intertwined with some of Doomsday Clock's main characters, and the screenwriter himself is a Golden Age superhero. It's certain to be with good reason that Geoff Johns has devoted seven pages so far to giving us the story of The Adjournment, but what is that reason, and what does this story tell us?

There are at least three directions to follow in understanding The Adjournment.

1) On a surface level, what is its story? It's a story we've only seen the early portions of and we don't know its ending and/or the answer to its central murder mystery. This may not be highly compelling in and of itself, but it is part of the big picture.

2) Probably most important, what does the movie plot tell us about the main Doomsday Clock story? It seems highly likely that it parallels part of the main plot, and understanding that parallel could be used either to predict what is coming or to see what Johns is emphasizing as the most important aspects of the larger story.

3) Because the superhero Tarantula is the movie's screenwriter, the story may tell us something important about him and his relationships with other Golden Age characters.

The Adjournment's Plot

First, the facts. We have seen only the first portion of the movie, and while we have two spoilers regarding the upcoming portions, we don't know how it will end, nor do we know if there are more major characters to be seen. But we do know this:

• Nathaniel Dusk is an ex-cop turned detective.

• On Christmas Eve, a former colleague of his, Murray Abrahams, comes with him asking for help with a case that involves the death of Abrahams' brother-in-law.

• Two men, Alastair Tempus and Bentley Farmer, have been shot dead and lie in blood on Tempus' floor alongside the pieces of a chess game.

• Dusk and Abrahams visit three different buildings: The crime scene; the former home of Dusk's dead lover, Joyce; and, the home of Tempus' employee Wellington.

• There is considerable friction in the lives of these men: Dusk doesn't consider Abrahams a friend; Abrahams "never liked" Farmer; Wellington stole from Tempus; Farmer is divorced; Dusk has enemies he's hiding from on both sides of the law. At both of the last two stops, Abrahams warns Dusk against "breaking and entering."

• We are told of the men's various female companions: Dusk's "greatest love" is dead. Abrahams is married with young kids. Tempus' wife is dead. Farmer is divorced. Wellington claims to want a sex-change operation, which may or may not be an excuse for the women's clothing in his luggage.

• The crime scene appears suspicious: There is only one chair visible near the chessboard. A white knight is standing on its base on the floor, an extremely unlikely position for a chess piece to settle into after a table is knocked over. Dusk is in a position to see if the knight was on the floor before blood flowed around it or if it was set down into the blood.

• Dusk seems to believe that Wellington is not the killer, despite the cash he has stolen from Tempus.

• In the last frame we have seen, two scarab beetles appear onscreen behind Dr. Manhattan. I don't see the relevance of this, but they are linked to Blue Beetle, who was the inspiration for Nite Owl, and there were two Nite Owls in the Watchmen Universe.

• We are told of a "big twist, where one of the dead guys turns out to be a killer, too."

• The cover of DC #10 shows a man stepping on Dusk's head while a woman in an eye-catching dress looks on with scorn.

• The very first comment by Abrahams in analyzing the scene concludes that Tempus was the killer's intended target and Farmer was not. Dusk does not agree that this is certain.

The Solution

In a strict sense, we cannot solve this mystery with any certainty. Johns has a free hand to augment considerably the little we have seen of the movie, even bringing in several new characters. What we know so far may end up insignificant in comparison to what is coming. However, if we can solve it given what we've seen, there is only one plausible solution (and it is bolstered by working backwards from some things that would follow if the rest is true):

The killer (of at least one of the two men) is Murray Abrahams. Farmer is a primary target of the killing.

We have the following evidence:

• The crime scene was tampered with. Abrahams saw it before Dusk did.

• Abrahams did not like Farmer.

• Abrahams is not a friend of Dusk, which makes him suspect.

• Abrahams is smarter than Dusk gives him credit for.

• The only characters in the movie besides Abrahams are Dusk, the two dead men (at least one of which had a killer who wasn't one of those two), Wellington (who, Dusk assures us, is innocent), and two unnamed women (Farmer's sister and Farmer's ex).

• One more reason involving a parallel to the main plot that I will mention later.

Abrahams knows more than he is letting on, and is either the killer or, at the outside, is covering for the killer. He is looking for Dusk to solve the case incorrectly, and in so doing, clear him. Therefore, he wants to lead Dusk off the correct track.

Perhaps we will see more Adjournment characters in the story yet to come, and my solution will prove to be off-track, but there are reasons besides the internal logic of The Adjournment that make it an effective solution.

Parallel Plots

Whether this or something else is the solution to the whodunit, we still have to deduce why Johns is sharing any of this with us. I have, over the past several months, considered many combinations of characters in the main story and in this one, trying to find patterns where someone in the movie matches someone in the main DC plot.

1) Alastair Tempus = Alan Scott?

A few clues point me in a particular direction. First, the killing of someone, in this story, if it's to represent a pivotal event, would stand a good chance of representing Dr. Manhattan's killing of Alan Scott in 1940, changing the timeline. Now, zero in on the first part of "time"line and note that Alastair Tempus' last name is Latin for "time." This seems like a good place to start. Does Alastair Tempus represent Alan Scott? There are some matching characteristics, such as age and wealth. And look at the name alone:

ALA_S_Tair  → ALAn ScotT

It's quite an odd choice of given name, increasingly the likelihood that that similarity is deliberate. (Also note: Alastair is derived from Alexander and Veidt is obsessed with Alexander the Great.) But "tempus" means "time" in Latin, not "lantern" or "scott." It may be more apt to posit that Tempus represents the post-COIE or post-Infinite Crisis timeline, with the JSA living in the JLA's past, and that the death of Alastair Tempus represents the end of the Alan Scott timeline, which is to say the entire pre-Flashpoint continuity.

2) Nathaniel Dusk = Adrian Veidt?

Another pair who may match up is Dusk and Veidt. Look at these panels that occur in DC #3, Veidt in the lower-left corner of page 7 and Dusk in the lower-left panel on page 17 – ten pages apart, in the same part of the page. The composition is identical, and their hair is similar, though the lighting is nearly opposite. Now consider the following lines of dialogue:

Erika Manson to Veidt: "What's the price on your head anyway?"

Abrahams to Dusk: "Everyone knows about the price on your head."

And, consider the thematic arcs for each: Veidt is disgraced and preoccupied with tragedy in his past while trying to make sense of a new mystery. This is also true of Dusk. Most to the point: The prime mover in the Doomsday Clock plot is Veidt undertaking a plan to save the Watchmen Universe by finding Dr. Manhattan. The Adjournment centers on the investigation by Dusk of a pair of murders. The central figure of The Adjournment should likely correspond to a central character in Doomsday Clock and that's quite a short list. The aforementioned clues place the focus on Veidt.

3) Murray Abrahams = Dr. Manhattan?

If the first two matches are correct, then Abrahams has to be Dr. Manhattan. We already know that Dr. Manhattan is the killer of Alan Scott; killing Scott changed the timeline and Tempus is the timeline, so whoever killed Tempus represents Dr. Manhattan. Dusk and Abrahams have an established relationship, have worked together before, but are not friends. Reggie, the New Rorschach could also fit the bill of Abrahams, but then he certainly didn't work with Veidt before this case. And Dusk asks Abrahams for the favor of helping him revisit Joyce's home; Veidt's entire mission begins with seeking Dr. Manhattan's help, and nobody else in The Adjournment plays that role. These panels from #5 and #7 may provide another clue that this pair of characters is linked.

4) Bentley Farmer = The Reverse Flash?

Two players in this story are associated with changed timelines. Two, counting "The Button," are killed by Dr. Manhattan. Thawne recognized Dr. Manhattan when he saw him, indicating a past interaction between the two. And Alan Scott is not a killer, so the other of the two victims must be. Pandora – killed by Dr. Manhattan in Rebirth – could possibly also fit the bill, but for centrality to the larger story, a better match is the Reverse Flash. If you recall the details of "The Button," Reverse Flash actively sought out Dr. Manhattan, with confidence that the latter had never faced anyone like him. That didn't go well for Eobard Thawne. The two had some past association, just as Farmer and Abrams are related by marriage. The art, again, may hold clues, as Farmer was shot in the left side of his face and Thawne was blasted, strangely, with the left side of his face blown off. To match the main plot, we may end up learning that Farmer tried to kill Abrahams, but was himself killed in the attempt.

5) Jasper Wellington = Johnny Thunder?

There's a curious complication about the JSA's removal from the timeline, which seems to involve both Alan Scott and Johnny Thunder: We know that the JSA is not part of anyone's memory in the current timeline. The fact that Dr. Manhattan removed Alan Scott from the timeline might seem to be part of a larger pattern that removed the entire JSA. Dr. Manhattan indicates in DC #7 that when he removed Alan Scott's survival from the timeline, the meeting of the JSA in November 1940 did not go on to occur. According to Rebirth, Johnny Thunder belonged to a "covert team of mystery men." He later told his Thunderbolt to protect the JSA at the meeting wherein McCarthy told them "Take off your masks" in October 1951. It appears that the JSA was removed from the timeline in two steps: First, Dr. Manhattan moving the lantern in 1940, then Johnny Thunder sought to protect them via his Thunderbolt at the hearing in 1951. The cause-and-effect relationship of timeline alteration may be pretty tricky, but the chronology of those two "events" goes from Dr. Manhattan in 1940 to Johnny Thunder in 1951. Now, we can say that he removed the JSA from their would-be lives, but unlike Dr. Manhattan's killing of Alan Scott and the Reverse Flash, he didn't actually kill anyone. The visuals are a tip-off, too. Check out this pair of panels, both from issue #5. And how many characters wear a bowtie? Finally, one of those ambiguous speech balloons in that issue refers to Wellington with "This poor man never hurt anybody" and overlaps with a panel of Johnny Thunder, a hint that they are the same "poor man."

6) Chess pieces = Characters in the DC Universe?

If Tempus and Farmer represent Scott and the Reverse Flash, who in turn involve timeline manipulation, then the chessboards and pieces may represent those timelines and the characters within them. Flashpoint has been referenced in this for a reason. Perhaps each of the pieces we see represents particular DC characters. When we see, then, Dusk closely examining the white and black kings, this may represent Veidt considering the DCU, and contemplating two opposing sides, either the heroes and villains, or the polar icons of Superman and Batman.

Now, does all of this wash? I wouldn't bet the farm on this, but a lot of details fit together in a pretty comprehensive way. Others don't, such as the fact that Alan Scott and the Reverse Flash never played a game of chess against one another, so far as I know, and if any characters in the larger plot are akin to chess opponents, there would be better ones to choose from. Because this is all on the level of symbolism, the story isn't obliged to declare that the plots are parallel in the way I describe here; this is the sort of thing one may see or not see or argue about weeks or years after the series is over. I'm going to go out on a limb, though, and suggest that these alignments of details in the plot and the art are part of an intended framework of parallels.

In any case, the Adjournment plot is much smaller than the Doomsday Clock one and I spent some time considering if the older and younger victims might represent the personalities of Firestorm – Martin Stein and Ronnie Raymond. It could just be that they work in that fashion, too, because parallels aren't obligated to be unique. "Marooned" certainly doesn't map to the Watchmen plot in a singular way. This or other parallels may work in addition to or instead of the ones I have mentioned. We don't know, but in the meantime, I find myself thinking that the art parallels are not likely a coincidence.

Author, Author

The Golden Age Tarantula is not one of DC's most beloved and enduring characters, but Johns has mentioned Tarantula's alter ego, John Law, in some detail in DC #3. As the screenwriter of The Adjournment and a suspect in Colman's murder, Law has at least two roles to play in this story. His divorce from Libby Lawrence may be driving some animosity between any other man who has tried or succeeded in winning Lawrence over. This could explain why he's a suspect in Colman's death. If so, there's some a major soap opera style plot going on. Consider that Lawrence, the original Liberty Belle, is the mother of Jesse Quick / the second Liberty Belle, and the possible connection (via "tick tock") between Colman and Hourman: A romance between Lawrence and Colman could be a one-generation-earlier pairing up like the marriage between Rick Tyler and Jesse Chambers, a romance originally authored by Geoff Johns.

In addition, Law's angst over losing Lawrence (shown in great detail in The Golden Age) could also surface in the plot of The Adjournment. In only seven pages, we've seen how no fewer than three men have lost the women in their lives – two to death and one to divorce. The evil-looking woman on the cover of #10 may be another facet of Law's bitter feelings towards women and romantic relationships.

Wheels Within Wheels

One unmistakable characteristic of Doomsday Clock is the attention to detail, something we have not seen in all that many works, including some of Johns' more sprawling epics like "Sinestro Corps War" and "Blackest Night" that are more broad and vast than deep. I, for one, admire the obvious degree of intricacy in the scripting, and I'm more than accepting of the slower release schedule that has been necessary. It's a pleasure to have a story with our favorite superheroes be worthy of this much attention. However posterity may remember Doomsday Clock in relation to Watchmen, I think fans will salute the effort that Johns put in and the intricacy that resulted. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next three issues bring and how well the patterns I cite here continue – or don't – as the story moves towards a finish.

Doomsday Clock: Carver Colman

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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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.

Doomsday Clock 7

Something big happened. Now that Doomsday Clock begins its second half, some of the key meetings have taken place and the biggest one yet to come – Superman facing Dr. Manhattan in battle – has appeared in Dr. Manhattan's future-vision.

Early on, Johns added detail to the backstory of how Dr. Manhattan changed the DCU by deleting the Alan Scott Green Lantern from its history; this is something I sketched out in my review of DC #3 as matching "the subplot of a JLA/JSA crossover in which an evil Johnny Thunder on Earth One used the Thunderbolt to prevent the Justice League from existing." Just as the Thunderbolt in that story prevented, for example, the lightning that gave Barry Allen from striking his lab, Dr. Manhattan in this story prevented Alan Scott from obtaining his lantern (and, moreover, causing his death). We can be sure that most if not all JSAers were similarly interfered with.

With a scene that looked almost literally like a set stage, DC #7 was centered around a group meeting (after a brief, frantic battle) that put Mime, Marionette, the Comedian, New Rorschach, Veidt, Batman, and the Joker together with Dr. Manhattan. And what followed was, for the most part, talk. In the meantime, Dr. Manhattan teleported the Watchmen Universe members of the group to three different times and places, as significant backdrops of relevance that was not stated directly. First, they go to an idyllic nature scene by a waterfall. Then, to an anti-superhero riot at night in Washington, D.C. Finally, they enter a movie theatre in 1954, terrifying the audience seeing the final Nathaniel Dusk film, The Adjournment. And during this time, with a lot of talking and a couple of one-sided fist-fights, something big happens. What is not immediately clear is: What is that something big?

Dr. Manhattan says "No" to Veidt's request. That happens immediately, and seems obviously irrevocable. There is a little more discussion, including the revelation that Veidt was lying about his brain cancer in order to manipulate Reggie into assisting him. (In retrospect, this was foreshadowed by the Veidt jigsaw puzzle that Reggie was working a couple of issues ago. In one frame, Veidt's head had a piece missing. Then Reggie put the correct piece in place and said that it was in front of him the whole time.)

But this is a big scene for some reason besides those. We know this because when Veidt returns to the Owlship, he believes that he no longer needs Dr. Manhattan's help, and that he has a plan to save everybody. These thoughts frighten Saturn Girl, who believed at the beginning of the issue that everything would turn out fine, but at the end believes that Veidt's new plan will ruin everything. This is yet another turn in her demeanor as seen during "The Button" and makes the details of her mental state an important part of the picture.

Why? Whatever Dr. Manhattan said or did changed Veidt's plan is the mystery in front of us the whole time. It was cryptic for us, and we know things that most of the characters don't. We know that the Nathaniel Dusk movies are tied in some way to the JSA-era superheroes, but Veidt presumably does not know that. So what did Dr. Manhattan say that instantly changed Veidt's worldview?

Dr. Manhattan says a few things with a lot of implications, and some pithy but key statements of his concern the two children of Mime and Marionette. Those statements tell us a lot and tell Veidt a lot, too, but not necessarily the same things. First, we find out that Marionette is pregnant again, which means that the child was conceived in the past few hours in the DCU. Second, we find out that their first child will do or has done something that is so significant to Dr. Manhattan that it is for that child's sake that he spared Marionette's life during the bank robbery we saw in DC #2.

If the information that suddenly changes Veidt's worldview is this, then why? Very likely, because Veidt has some reason to suspect that that child would not have a valuable future ahead of him. And we can guess at several reasons why. First, there was a nuclear war happening on the Watchmen Earth when last we saw it, and that is reason enough. Perhaps Veidt even knows from the child's location that he is dead due to the nuclear attack. Also, the photo of the child that New Rorschach gave to Marionette was "a few years old": Perhaps the child died between 1987 and 1992. In any of these scenarios, Dr. Manhattan's statement may give Veidt hope that the entire timeline can be altered. And therefore, it gives Veidt hope that the past can be changed for the better. This is likely the information and motive behind his current plan.

Dr. Manhattan's comments and thoughts also tell us a lot about Dr. Manhattan's plan. First, we find out that he prevented the rise of the JSA through the murder of Alan Scott. In the same passage, introducing the issue, we find out that one of the events in Alan Scott's timeline of which Dr. Manhattan was aware was the JSA's surrender to HUAC, causing the superheroes of the DCU to disappear. Second, we find out that he was greatly dispirited by the death of Colman Carver, which led him to say that his comment at the end of Watchmen was wrong, and that "Nothing ever ends" has been replaced in his worldview by "Everything ends." Why? The connection here likely lies in the inconspicuous details of DC #3's end notes about Colman Carver and a simple panel at the beginning of that issue. According to those references, the screenwriter of Carver's 1947 movie went to prison for refusing to cooperate with HUAC. This was in fact a real man, Ring Lardner, Jr. who really was imprisoned and then blacklisted from Hollywood just as the fictional DC #3 says. Why include this information? This is likely the key as to why Johns has included the Colman Carver subplot in Doomsday Clock. Knowing that HUAC exists in the current DCU timeline, we also know that the same threat that caused the JSA to retire was not dissipated by Dr. Manhattan's alteration to the timeline entailed by the death of Alan Scott. We now know that killing Alan Scott was not a petty or malevolent act on Dr. Manhattan's part, but a calculated one intended to bring about a positive outcome. And this tells us a lot about Dr. Manhattan's and Johns' intentions:

The notion of an entire generation of Golden Age heroes retiring due to pressure from HUAC was introduced in 1979 as I noted in my review of DC #4. This is an idea that Alan Moore copied in Watchmen, with Hooded Justice retiring (like Alan Scott) and Mothman (a major focus of that issue) ending up in a sanatorium (like Lardner). Mothman remembers this when, after Veidt's scheme killing millions is revealed, he says "They're rounding them up" in reference to the events of 1992. Mothman remembers when his generation, also, was rounded up.

And Dr. Manhattan remembers, too. He was discouraged by the lack of hope in both the Watchmen and post-Infinite Crisis DCU timelines entailed by the surrender of the heroes to the political pressures of their respective times. Removing Alan Scott prevented the JSA from existing, and therefore from surrendering to HUAC. But the death of Colman Carver extinguished the hope that Dr. Manhattan found in that. Why? Here, I see two possibilities, not mutually exclusive. One, based on no more information than an offhand comment early in DC #3, that Carver was regarded by Johnny Thunder's fellow inmate Donald as a hero suggests that Carver resisted the political pressures but remained working and in fact subsequently won an Oscar. A second, as I mentioned earlier, is that Carver actually is one of the would-be JSAers, likely Hourman (obsessed with clocks), and his movies had inspired positive heroism, until his death (being beaten to death with his own trophy like Watchmen's original Nite Owl).

And this tells us what is driving Dr. Manhattan. He, too, is driven by hope. He has been altering the timeline of the DCU, trying to achieve a more hopeful outcome. He deleted Alan Scott's Green Lantern career, trying to prevent the surrender of the JSA (which resembled a sad occurrence on his own world), but it didn't work, culminating with the death of Colman Carver. And now, he is seeing how the events finally play out, with Superman, the current symbol of hope, in some future act of war against Dr. Manhattan himself. This is fated to fail, and at that point, Dr. Manhattan ends the current timeline. The post-Flashpoint DCU is an experiment that Dr. Manhattan is running and he (and Johns) deem it a failure, set to end a month from now. The now-explicable scene at the end of DC #1 showing the deaths of the Kents shows another Dr. Manhattan-triggered tragedy that edited the timeline for the sake of an experiment that turned out tragic. When Dr. M (and Johns) give up on the current timeline, some version of the previous timeline, with Alan Scott living and the JSA existing will prevail. And, by implication, we will also get the Kents back. The fistfight between Superman and Dr. Manhattan will not end with the punch making contact, but with the implied sense of malaise leading the entire timeline to come to a dour close.

In the background, another, probably far less consequential mystery concerns the "identity" of Dr. Manhattan in the DCU. We get three clues. One, Dr. Manhattan himself says that he thought he "might find a place among" the DCU. Two, he says that he stood (physically) on the set of The Adjournment in 1954. Third, Bubastis' eyes glow when he is staring in the direction of The Comedian. I don't see a clear resolution behind all these details, but I do see a misdirection. Veidt believes that his cat responds to The Comedian, but New Bubastis already faced The Comedian and had no such response in DC #3. Either the trace of Dr. Manhattan on The Comedian's body happened after that or Bubastis isn't responding to The Comedian at all but to the man who happens to be standing behind him – The Joker. But we see The Joker still standing there after Dr. Manhattan manifests, so The Joker can't be him, as I postulated earlier, but is possibly "on" him in some fashion, or has left his trace there. I don't see how the details shake out yet, but there is some connection between the old movie set (predating most or all of our current DCU adults) and The Comedian and/or The Joker.

Still, whatever the small details, the large details are now apparent. We know Dr. Manhattan's actions and motives and where they lead. We also know that Veidt has a different plan and it isn't the one that Saturn Girl is hoping for, no doubt leading to her horror in the opening scenes of "The Button." Veidt's new plan is supposed to fail, then, and hope lies elsewhere.

And on the note of hope, the theme I mentioned earlier is emphasized once again: Batman comes across very poorly in DC #7. Although he manages to show his competence in battle, it is with mixed results, as he is injured by Marionette and then sucker-zapped by The Joker. Dr. Manhattan takes us to an anti-Batman riot in Washington and, though Batman is the last man standing after the fistfights of DC #7, he comes across as a mere brawler achieving temporary victories while Superman is "the most hopeful." Veidt, Dr. Manhattan, and Johns are all seeking hope. And we hear again and again that Batman is not it; Superman is.