DC Comics Debuts Doomsday Clock Trailer

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Doomsday Clock: DC Debuts Trailer for Watchmen-Centric Rebirth Event

By Stephen Gerding

Published Sep 22, 2017

Geoff Johns walks us down the road to his and Gary Frank's event series pitting the heroes of the DC Universe against character from Watchmen.

The clock is ticking, as we get closer to the debut of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's massive DC Comics event, Doomsday Clock.

The 12-issue series arrives in November and will explore what happens when the heroes of the DC Universe -- Superman, in particular -- come face to face with the entity responsible for changing their very reality: Watchmen's Doctor Manhattan. Today, as part of the growing promotion for the Johns and Frank's tale, DC Comics released a trailer of sorts for the event. The three-plus minute video features Johns explaining the origins of Doomsday Clock's story, revealing how last year's United States' Presidential election helped inform the plot, and how he and Frank will incorporate different aspects of Moore and Gibbons' series and characters into the DC Universe.

"It's also a little quirky. The characters are a little off, the characters that we're playing with," Johns says of the event's tone as an image of Lex Luthor with Ozymandias' hand on his shoulder flashes on the screen. "It'll be very apparent in Issue 1 -- there's a bit of humor to it, I think in a very odd ay. But our main word, if there's one word for it, is 'thought provoking.' We want people to think about it. They can think about it in fun ways, they can think about it in serious ways. But whatever's happening when they're reading the book, and they're in the book -- or when they re-read the book -- that they'll really... just think."

Earlier this year, Johns explained the decision to introduce some of Watchmen's characters (created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) into the DC Universe, saying, “Thematically, and metaphorically, there was no better choice than to use Doctor Manhattan. If you’re going to have a conflict between optimism and pessimism, a battle between the very forces of hope and despair, you need to have someone who personifies the cynicism that has leaked into our hearts and also has the ability to affect the entire DCU. It’s all paying off this November with Doomsday Clock.”

Doomsday Clock #1 is scheduled for release on Nov. 22, though fans willing to stay up late can purchase it from participating stores at 11:57 PM on Nov. 21; issue #2 will arrive in late December.