How DC's Doomsday Clock Differs From Most Crossovers

CBR

DC's Doomsday Clock Is Different From Most Crossovers, Johns Says

By Kevin Melrose

Published Dec 28, 2017

Writer Geoff Johns explains the biggest difference between DC's Doomsday Clock and most comic book crossovers.

Geoff Johns knows a thing or two about comic book events, having written Infinite Crisis, Blackest Night, Flashpoint and Forever Evil. However, he says his current project, DC Comics' Doomsday Clock, isn't the typical crossover.

"The whole series is character-driven," Johns said in an interview with CBR about Doomsday Clock #2. "It's all about the characters. We're spending time with the characters, and we're doing moments and interactions that I hope are unexpected. I think the version that Gary Frank and I weren't interested in telling was a DC vs. Marvel-type crossover. We were not interested in anything like that. It's not like somebody said, 'Hey, Geoff, Gary [Frank] -- do Watchmen characters meet DC characters.' That never came from anybody. When we came up with this story, when I pitched this story to everybody, we made it clear right then what we wanted to do, and everybody was psyched for it. I think the interactions between the characters -- they're on the page, so people can see what we've done and what we're doing and the tone of it. The thing we didn't want to do is have it just be about fight scenes and kind of a typical crossover."

Doomsday Clock serves as a sequel to Watchmen, the seminal 1986 miniseries by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and promises to resolve some of the mysteries surrounding changes made to the DC Universe with the launch of Rebirth.

"Most crossovers and big event stories, they get big. They go outside," Johns said. "They get universe-spanning in such a macro way, it becomes impersonal, I think. What we want to tell is a very, very personal story, and every single facet of this series that we're doing is a personal story. It's not a crossover. It doesn't have one-shot books and miniseries spinning out of it. It's not about alternate versions of other characters. It's not about making the universes bigger and bigger and bigger. It's about people."

Doomsday Clock #2, by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, is on sale now from DC Comics.