it's 1986, 1992 and 2017 all over again as dc rolls out the game-changing doomsday clock. alan moore and dave gibbons' original watchmen miniseries piled layer upon layer to create a dense, multifaceted narrative; and d-clock already looks just as ambitious. there's so much in this first issue we're not even sure we caught everything, but we've certainly got lots to discuss.
often, these sorts of annotations accompany a big superhero miniseries which has drawn from a number of different sources. however, since d-clock is a watchmen sequel, we're going to take a slightly different approach. in order to focus on new elements, as well as old elements used in new ways, we're going to assume that you've read watchmen (or are at least familiar with the basic plot). we'll also examine how a handful of real-world figures compare to their d-clock counterparts.
be warned: because we're going to spoil the heck out of d-clock issue #1, turn back now if you haven't read the issue.
doomsday clock issue #1 was written by geoff johns, drawn by gary frank and colored by brad anderson.
view full article on one page, or leap to a section:
- setting up watchmen's 1992 for doomsday clock #1
- meet the newcomers to the watchmen universe
- introducing superman to the world of doomsday clock
- breaking down doomsday clock #1's watchmen-esque text pages
before we begin
we tip our cap to the indispensable brian cronin, who has already annotated the 6-page preview dc released previously. brian's notes explain
- how the real-world doomsday clock relates to the watchmen "ticking clock" logo;
- the "end is here" sign;
- the lettering in rorschach's journal;
- omnipresent smoke and/or fog;
- the veidt "v" logo, veidt building interiors, and the wall of tv monitors at karnak, veidt's antarctic retreat;
- the new york gazette newspaper;
- the location of veidt's brain tumor; and
- a callback to rorschach's "you're stuck in here with me" moment.
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ripped from the headlines (pages 1-8)
november 22, 1992 might simply be the sunday before thanksgiving, or it could be something a lot more significant. either way, we've covered this date (and november 1992 generally) pretty extensively already.
judging by page 1's references to "undeplorables" and "totalitarians," watchmen's america has become polarized along many of the same lines as the real one. rorschach's famous narration in watchmen issue #1 blames "liberals and intellectuals and smooth-talkers" who "followed the droppings of lechers and communists," but this time he dumps on both sides ("depends on your perspective"). his inability to remember precise details ("maybe it's the 23rd") will be a recurring theme, and perhaps indicates a relative lack of moral certainty that he will struggle to correct throughout the issue.
rorschach wanting to "bring god back down" is the first of many references to doctor manhattan as god. while we'll hold off on the "superheroes are modern mythology" and/or superman-as-jesus analyses, we will point out that in watchmen issue #4, a scientist describes doctor m's arrival as "god exist[ing] and he's american."
page 2 begins with a panel of shattered glass, not unlike that in eddie blake's apartment in watchmen issue #1. blake's shattered window was also the cover of an early watchmen collection.
in watchmen's world, actor, director and activist charles robert redford jr. (born 1936) was elected 38th president of the united states on tuesday, november 8, 1988. we don't know (yet) whom he defeated, but he would have succeeded richard nixon, who had been president for some 20 years. redford's election began as a gag in watchmen #12, poking fun at the real-world "cowboy actor"-turned-politician ronald reagan. by 1986 redford's filmography included butch cassidy and the sundance kid (1969), the way we were (1973), the sting (1973), three days of the condor (1975), the natural (1984) and out of africa (1985); as well as 1980's best picture ordinary people, for which he won the best director oscar. however, he probably did not star in a film adaptation of all the president's men (1976), since the comedian killed reporters bob woodward and carl bernstein before their watergate reporting could come to light.
it's hard to reconcile redford's liberalism with the president's behavior in d-clock. apart from the government's assault on the free press, golfing while the vice-president murders the attorney general during a white house hostage crisis just don't seem like things a president redford (or really any president) would do. either redford isn't president anymore, which would mean he's resigned in the 20 days since the "great lie" story was published; he is a horrible person naturally; or he's being mind-controlled by someone who has absolutely stopped caring.
watchmen's european union has collapsed, but in the real world it didn't begin formally until november 1, 1993. in fact, dc published a fun 1991-92 elongated man miniseries about the dibnys helping to preserve european unity on the eve of the eu's birth.
page 2's reference to the soviet invasion of poland recalls poland's status as a soviet satellite during the cold war, as well as germany's invasion during world war ii. in short, it's never good when poland gets invaded.
clearly, news reports about north korean missiles and the wall along the mexican border speak more to 2017 than to 1992. (add "the wall" to another list of things we wouldn't expect from president redford. maybe it was a nixon-administration holdover.) however, compare the "missiles could reach texas" line to norad projections about "salvag[ing] a lot of the farm belt" in watchmen issue #3. there are no good choices.
more contemporary allusions come in on page 3, with "accusations of collusion" and "russian intelligence" claiming that the government was involved in the "new york city massacre" (a/k/a the telepathic squid-creature from watchmen #12). however, we know that nixon and company had no idea what veidt was planning.
as we'll see in the text pages, "the great lie" refers to the revelations about veidt's plan. page 3, panel 4 is a callback to veidt's introductin in watchmen #1, but there the gazette headline was a reference to the doomsday clock. page 4 tells us that the gazette was "forcibly shut down" after that headline, which (as shown in the text pages) appeared on november 2, 1992. it and the rest of the free press have apparently been replaced by the national news network. these include the fictional ubs, home of howard beale and his "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" rant, both from the satirical 1976 film network. this is something of a crossover within a crossover, not unlike the meetings of fictional characters in alan moore and kevin o'neill's league of extraordinary gentlemen series.
page 5 gives us watchmen's version of william f. buckley jr. born november 24, 1925, he was a prominent conservative media figure who founded the magazine national review in 1955 and hosted the tv series firing line starting in 1966. buckley died in 2008.
having narrated the issue thus far (news snippets notwithstanding), rorschach appears in full on page 6. in watchmen #1 he first appeared on page 5, sneaking into the comedian's apartment. later in that issue, he breaks into doctor manhattan's military-issued quarters. here he's infiltrated a prison in order to break out an inmate. not only does that refer back to his meeting with doctor manhattan, it echoes his own jailbreak/rescue from watchmen issue #8. page 7 introduces his (new?) pancake fixation, but it's not clear whether he eats them in costume at morning joe's.
page 8's alternating color schemes remind us of a similar effect outside moloch's apartment in watchmen issue #5. (there, of course, colorist john higgins controlled the orange and purple pattern.) note that panels 8 and 9 show the same missile under different lights, which is probably a metaphor to be fleshed out later.
rorschach narrates throughout page 8's pre-launch sequence. apart from this juxtaposition, the narration reminds us of those familiar arkham asylum corridor walks, with its inmates "screaming to get out" themselves.
to a certain extent, veidt's planning, preparation and idealism have to contend with his naivete. the 1989 "global data exchange program" cited on page 8 seems to be an example of this, since too much transparency has now left the united states vulnerable.
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prison pals (pages 9-17)
this sequence introduces us to marcos "mime" maez (who first appears on page 11) and erika "marionette" manson (first appearing on page 9). they're married super-criminals who are new for this story but apparently old foes of rorschach. we think further that they are pastiches of the charlton villains punch and jewelee, who themselves were murderous takes on the classic violent puppets punch and judy.
created by steve ditko (who also created blue beetle and the question and co-created captain atom), punch and jewelee first appeared in march 1967's captain atom issue #85. in the charlton comics they fought captain atom and nightshade. once the charlton characters had been incorporated into the post-crisis on infinite earths dc timeline, punch and jewelee were recruited into the suicide squad. the couple retired briefly once jewelee became pregnant. in the pre-flashpoint timeline punch was killed on a mission and jewelee continued without him. however, in the rebirth era, the couple joined batman on his mission to santa prisca in the "i am suicide" storyline (batman issues #9-13, december 2016-february 2017).
while marionette looks like the more lucid of the two, mime's schtick combines brutal hand-to-hand combat with mimed "weapons" and a penchant for using his opponents' blood as lipstick. (that last detail probably reminds a lot of readers of a certain a-list dc villain coming soon to a d-clock cover near you.) mime's theatricality also comes through in page 14's "big dramatic turn," which is a very meta moment in a sequel to a very metatextual miniseries.
rorschach's page 9 observation that his "watch runs slow" encourages our pet theory that the watchmen world is "synced" to the main-line dc universe, but is currently 15 years "behind" it. regardless, his slow watch is another example of rorschach's imprecision. this is because (spoilers!) it's not the same rorschach, but an as-yet-anonymous african-american man under the blobby mask. likewise, the burgers & borscht container on page 17 reveals this rorschach's personality further. would the original rorschach have eaten detente food?
we won't speculate on the new rorschach's identity, except to note that a) geoff johns has a history of working on legacy characters (particularly in teen titans, flash and jsa); and b) this isn't watchmen's first legacy. the miniseries featured two versions each of nite owl and silk spectre, and the final issue hinted that laurie juspeczyk would become the new comedian.
marionette doesn't know how accurate she is on page 10: rorschach "killed himself" insofar as he begged dr m. to kill him.
we already mentioned watchmen issue #1's doctor manhattan meeting, and here we see that page 17's wire fence and guard tower are reminiscent of that military housing. there's also a similar hole in the fence, no doubt courtesy of rorschach.
doomed city, secret lair (pages 18-26)
watchmen's camera angles often pull out of scenes to show the bigger picture, but page 18's camera angles push back into the city. here, of course, the camera pushes against the steady stream of evacuees.
page 19's "left or right" ambiguity is probably the most anvillicious moment of the new rorschach's indecisiveness. in fairness, we suspect he learned everything rorschach (and, as we'll see, nite owl) from walter kovacs' journal. that's undoubtedly a lot to keep straight. however, on page 24 rorschach affirms his (new) identity forcefully: "i am rorschach. nothing else to tell."
although we learn on page 20 that someone pulled out mime's tongue, it's not clear whether he did it himself or whether it was an ironic rorschach punishment. our bet is on the latter.
page 22 shows us that nite owl isn't home, but all of his equipment is. this looks an awful lot like the owl cave from watchmen, which the police raided at the end of issue #8. nite owl had packed everything up before the cops got there, so it wasn't too big of a loss (except, you know, for the whole "dan dreiberg identity" thing). nevertheless, the weeks between issue #12's confrontation in antarctica and the christmas day epilogue could easily have given nite owl enough time to set up a new headquarters/storage facility, to go along with his new identity. page 23 says he's retired, but we don't think that will last long. if anyone's going to move to the main dc universe when this is all over, we bet dan will be first in line.
of course, also on page 23 we get the long-anticipated return of adrian "ozymandias" veidt. once again he's in full costume, as he was at the end of issue #12. because a mysterious "mr. oz" had been appearing in the superman titles (starting with august 2014's superman #32), fans speculated that this was ozymandias, somehow transported to the main dc universe. instead, the "oz effect" storyline in action comics issues #987-991 (november 2017-january 2018) explained that mr. oz was jor-el, rescued from krypton's destruction for unexplained reasons. moreover, veidt's appearance here suggests further that he hasn't been messing around on dc-earth at all, since he's been in hiding on his own earth.
although he seems a bit more humble, veidt maintains some trappings of his old life. besides keeping his costume clean and neat, he's got a new bubastis (still a kitten at this point) to replace the original genetically-engineered cat killed in issue #12. page 25 appears to confirm that the tumor from page 4 is indeed veidt's, and that he does have cancer. on page 26, veidt narrates over reminders of his crumbling achievements, the new york massacre memorial plaque and the "one world/one accord" poster.
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midnight(?) in metropolis (pages 27-30)
after two dozen pages of relentless dystopia, the harsh oranges of 1992 give way on page 27 to the deep, gentle blues of quiet 2017 metropolis. this is earth-0, of universe designate zero, home since 1985 (ish) to the main line of dc super-people. clark kent's singles pad was at 344 clinton street, while his and lois' married address was 1938 sullivan (a building owned by bruce wayne). we're not sure of their rebirthed address, but they share it with their son, jon kent.
panels 3-5 of page 27 illustrate three facets of superman's life: the costume, the kents, and that he sees himself through clark's eyes. of course, panel 7 is an homage to (and a reversal of) the goggles of the nite owl costume, which "watched" dan dreiberg almost accusingly until he came out of retirement in watchmen issue #7.
someone (most likely clark) is reading walden two, a 1948 novel written by father of behavioral psychology b.f. skinner. skinner pioneered "operant conditioning," which held basically that organisms could be conditioned by the proper stimuli to do any number of things. if a behavior were rewarded, it would be repeated; and if it were punished, it wouldn't be.
because skinner contended that behavior could be determined (and therefore manipulated) by environmental factors, walden two describes a utopian society engineered to reinforce positive behaviors. in other words, under the right conditions everyone will be encouraged to do the right thing, and society will flourish as a result. given that this is exactly the kind of social engineering veidt sought to accomplish (not to mention that d-clock will compare and contrast two very different environments), we'll probably be hearing more about this theory as the miniseries goes on.
page 28 flashes back to the night ma and pa kent died as the result of a car crash. this is the couple's new 52-era fate, which seems to have survived into the rebirth continuity. according to february 2013's action comics #15, the 5th-dimensional imp vyndktvx was involved, although the official account blames a drunk driver. it reminds us that for a while, mr. oz was holding vyndktvx's rival mxyzptlk as a prisoner, but we don't think the two will play much of a role in d-clock.
otherwise, the nature-versus-nurture argument collides (as it were) with clark's otherworldly origins in the dialogue "it's not you, clark. it's the world"; "he can't be hurt"; and (on page 29) "this is god's plan...."
on page 30, clark observes that he's never had a nightmare. while that may be true in the rebirthed timeline, we're still freaking out a little over october 2007's superman #666 (written by kurt busiek and drawn by walt simonson). it involves supes' ultimate bad dream, where he takes over the world, kills loads of people, descends into hell and battles a kryptonian devil. the phantom stranger and etrigan the demon are involved, as you might have expected. we're reminded also that dan dreiberg's nuclear-annihilation nightmare is introduced by a look through his own glasses.
the comics narrative ends with a quote from the poem "ozymandias," but not that "ozymandias." this one is by horace smith (1779-1849), a friend of percy bysshe shelley. both wrote poems about the ruined statue of ozymandias, but no points for guessing which one roy thomas quoted in avengers.
in smith's poem, only one leg and an accompanying inscription survive to tell the world of ozy's glory:
"i am great ozymandias," saith the stone,
"the king of kings; this mighty city shows
"the wonders of my hand." – the city's gone, –
nought but the leg remaining to disclose
the site of this forgotten babylon.
smith then compares the "forgotten babylon" directly to the ruins of a future london, which has become the "annihilated place" of the final stanza. in contrast, shelley's more famous poem is more directly about the ruler himself, whose arrogance is now lost in the "lone and level sands." thus, for our purposes smith's poem has more ominous overtones for the fate not just of new york, but perhaps of watchmen's earth generally.
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text pages
the "great lie" article was written by jack n. anderson. although that's not an uncommon name, jack n. anderson (1922-2005) was a pulitzer prize-winning investigative journalist. he wrote about south american nazis, the iran-contra affair and the mafia, among many other things. november 2, 1992 was the day before election day (tuesday, november 3). the new york massacre happened at 11:25 p.m. eastern time on november 1, 1986; so the article came out around the 7-year anniversary of ozymandias' plan.
the roman emperor commodus ruled from ad 177 until his assassination in 192. for the first three years of his reign he was co-emperor with his father marcus aurelius. accordingly, naming the government's veidt investigation "operation commodus" may be a reference to veidt's immense political power in the wake of the new york massacre.
martha gellhorn (1908-1998) was a real-world novelist and journalist famed for her war reporting. she worked for the federal emergency relief administration during the depression and reported from europe in the years before and during world war ii. later, she covered the vietnam war, arab-israeli conflicts and the wars in central america. as for her d-clock clipping, according to wikipedia israel may have had nuclear weapons since 1966, although it has never admitted or denied their existence.
watchmen's mikhail gorbachev was the target of an attempted coup in 1989, two years earlier than his real-world counterpart. the failed coup, the breakup of the soviet union and the ascension of russian president boris yeltsin all happened here in 1991.
journalist doug roth is unique to the watchmen world. he wrote (writes?) for nova express, a publication which shares a name with a 1964 william s. burroughs novel and a 30th century star-liner which was part of superboy's april 1958 initiation into the legion of super-heroes (adventure comics #247).
reading between the lines of "the strange case of roger jackson," one certainly gets the impression that the new rorschach killed the hapless gofer seymour david and used rorschach's journal to become the vigilante's successor. however, we don't think it's that simple.
byron "mothman" lewis was a costumed crimefighter and one of the minutemen, alongside captain metropolis, hooded justice, the comedian, dollar bill and the original nite owl and silk spectre. the before watchmen: minutemen miniseries revealed that his glider wings left him in constant pain, requiring him to self-medicate with alcohol. eventually his mental health deteriorated as well, and he spent his last years in a mental institution.
the schrodinger's ad refers (as if you didn't know) to the quantum-mechanics thought experiment involving a cat that is both alive and dead. we're guessing the ad (and the reference) are more metatext about the intersection of the watchmen and main-line dc worlds. in that respect it may also refer to wally west's broken watch from 2016's dc rebirth one-shot, the comic which started this whole crossover.
finally, we think the dad's ad reveals where the discriminating masked vigilante buys his or her wire cutters.
what other details did you spot in doomsday clock #1? let us know in the comments!