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WARNING : This article moderate SPOILERS forDoomsday Clock#2
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Dr. Manhattan has a role to flirt in DC’sRebirth , but will theDoomsday Clockseries make him a beginner , as well ? To be clear , we ’re not consult to an abstract ' Divine ' role , like many have theorized give the grounds that theWatchmenstar may have literally create the DC Comics Universe . We have in mind to postulate the question literally : having learned the value of human life in the originalWatchmenstory , didDr . Manhattan head off to a new universewith promise of becoming abiologicalCreator , and sire a shaver to preserve a raw world ?
As outlandish a possibility as it might sound - and maybe- the latest issuing ofDoomsday Clockmay be guiding readers to consider it . And despite how cold , distant , and inhuman Dr. Manhattan tends to be remembered , he did n’t start that way . In fact , it was love at first sight that made him a superhero - and finally , convinced him humankind were deserving bring through . Now that Dr. Manhattan ’s value for the potential difference of an unborn child has become aDoomsday Clockplot point , it ’s time to necessitate the hard questions .
No , not whether Dr. Manhattan having a child would affect the bequest of the originalWatchmenstory ( that metre will come ) . But if he did come to the DC Universe with that in mind , what happened to the small fry ? And do we already make out Dr. Manhattan ’s tyke by a unlike name ?
Dr. Manhattan Left Watchmen’s Universe to ‘Create Life’
As a quick admonisher forWatchmenfans , there have been plenty of clues that Dr. Manhattan is responsible for creatingsomethingin the DC Universe . Doomsday Clockconfirms Dr. Manhattan came to DC ’s realityafterWatchmen , and Geoff Johns and Gary Frank have gone a step further , recreating his final panels as a memory of Adrian Veidt ’s . Specifically , the moment in which Dr. Manhattan cede Veidt ’s homicidal mission was not for him to judge … and that he was"leaving this galax for one less complicated . "
But it ’s the lines exchangedafterthat quote that might prove more recounting . Adrian asks why Jon would leave , having assumed his return from Mars intend he had"regained interest inhuman lifespan . “And in some of his final words Jon Osterman reveal that ' interest ' to be of a different , higher nature , responding:“Yes , I have . I think perhaps I ’ll create some . Goodbye , Adrian . “A thought that want re - examining afterDoomsday Clock#2 suggests a different kind of curiosity .
The fistful of panels solve a mystery that was barely established in the first issue ofDoomsday Clock , when Rorschach avail a pair of dress up malefactor run from prison : Marionette and The Mime . He ’s following Adrian Veidt ’s orders , even if Ozymandias , the earth ’s smartest gentleman’s gentleman has n’t explicate why they ’re demand . Well , technically , it ’s justMarionettewho ’s take , with Adrian using her new son as leverage . A son that she was carry , it just so happen , when she sweep paths with Dr. Manhattan prior to his departure from the universe .
A growing human that stopped Jon Osterman in his caterpillar tread - and gave Adrian Veidt his only hope of convincing the blue god to save humanness once and for all . But even Adrian may not understand the true meaning of the present moment likeDoomsday Clockreaders …
Dr. Manhattan’s Value For a Child May Be The Key
The comedian does n’t make it expressed , and Marionette seems to be oblivious to the grandness of her meeting Manhattan , as well . As Rorschach and Veidt observe the surveillance footage of Marionette and The Mime robbing a bank , it ’s the masked vigilance man who notes that Dr. Manhattan chose not to obliterate the duo when he catch them . Despite having killed almost forty people , Marionette stepping in to die with her buff turn back Manhattan from disintegrating them . Well , as the comic ’s captions show , it was the heartbeat of her unknown kid that gave him pause . Without uttering a word , Manhattan left them to be bewitch , and the child to be bear .
Readers must take that Adrian Veidt did the math , working backward from her Logos ’s eld , and infer that Marionette was fraught when Jon was caught off - safety gadget . In fact , it seems he ’s counting on Jon ’s memory of the event to remind him that he once deemed a completely unidentified , untarnished human life deserving sparing . But it ’s what’snotsaid by the graphic symbol that seems to be just as important , both in the fictional sense for the characters , and the larger narrative being craft by Geoff Johns , Gary Frank , and Brad Anderson .
If Adrian Veidt has tie in this moment of Jon pausing to maintain an unborn small fry , and his final parting , he does n’t advert it . In fact , Jon ’s lines are never referred to at all . Of course , Adrian Veidt does n’t roll in the hay that he ’s in a sequel toWatchmen , or that Dr. Manhattan has already left his ascertain fingerprints all over another superhero - filled population . To him , the ideas that Manhattan would ' play God ' and that he pondered an unborn child at least once seem separated .
But when viewed as the directWatchmensequel it is , thisDoomsday Clockmoment sheds new light - potentially - on Jon’s"interest"in human life … and the thought that he might"create some"of his own .
It ’s utter speculation on our part , but the idea thatDr . Manhattan is disguise as a DC herohas already been put forth by Johns . Our theory is n’t going much farther , even if it chip in the originative team a much great spring to land without enraging comic rooter everywhere . And honestly , if reviewer are willing to hear Johns out after suggesting Dr. Manhattan leftWatchmen ’s reality for DC ’s , rebooted it into the New 52 as part of a larger programme , and made fictional heroes from his Earth living , catch one’s breath ones on DC ’s , what ’s one more potential twist ?
Across the DC book , it ’s already been essentially confirmed thatDr . Manhattan saved Superman ’s fathermoments before Krypton exploded . He also keptBatman’sFlashpointfather alivelong enough for the two to meet . The themes of paternity ( and motherhood , too ) and its powerful , even dangerous influence interpenetrate theRebirthmystery , so seeing it inDoomsday Clockis no chance event . include the first dream Superman ever had inDoomsday Clock#1 , recalling the bit his human parents were killed in a tragic accident ( … ? ) .
Even if Dr. Manhattan is n’t Superman’sliteralfather , the line of merchandise between create a superhero andengineeringone might be slight than fans recognize . And what the difference may be to someone like Dr. Manhattan … well , that ’s the kind of interrogative sentence that the right writer could ramp up an entireWatchmensequel around .
Doomsday Clock#2is available now .
MORE : Doomsday Clock Theory : Did [ SPOILER ] Become DC ’s Joker ?
lintel art fromLudoDRodriguez@DeviantArt
