Keeping a Watch on “Doomsday Clock” #10

Welcome to “Keeping a Watch on Doomsday Clock,” our column dedicated to annotating the first ever DCU/Watchmen crossover that most of us probably didn’t need but is here nonetheless! Since this 12-issue maxiseries relies so heavily on “Watchmen,” a comic that has a ton to unpack in itself, there are a lot of details and references to look at. This tenth issue finally explains Dr Manhattan’s motives for altering the DC Universe and the mystery of Carver Colman’s connection to Manhattan, so there’s a lot to focus on in our annotations.

The cover shows Nathaniel Dusk, played by Carver Colman, being pressed to the ground by his former ally Murray. There is a king chess piece lying on the floor next to him, and the first page continues with the chess allusions when Dusk first calls himself a knight and then a pawn. It turns out Dusk’s former lover Joyce Gulino had framed her own murder to get Dusk to kill her husband for her. The movie scene ends when Colman messes up his line. He cannot focus since he is troubled by a blackmail letter he had received from his mother a week earlier. The backmatter of “Doomsday Clock” #3 is now important. There it was said that after Colman’s death, the police found a paper revealing that his possible real mother, who was related to a crime family, had tried to blackmail him for money. In this issue, it turns out this is true and that the parents living in Merillville, Indiana, whom Colman thanks on page two, do not exist. Colman thanks his non-existent parents at an Oscar ceremony held at The RKO Pantages Theatre. This is a real place in Hollywood and has since Colman’s times been renamed The Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

We see a young Johnny Thunder working as an errand boy on the set of ‘The Adjournment.’ The title of the issue is ‘Action’ in reference to “Action Comics” and Superman, but that’s also what a movie director shouts on the set. The filming of ‘The Adjournment’ wraps up on the same day Colman is murdered. Colman insists they finish filming on that day, sensing he would be getting in deep trouble in the evening. Dr Manhattan is narrating these events, stating he feels nothing when standing at Colman’s grave a few days later despite being so interested in his life. Note that when Colman sits at the bar waiting for his blackmailer, there’s a man standing in the background who looks like Jon Osterman, Dr Manhattan’s original human form. The colouring isn’t detailed enough so that we could compare it to the brown suit and turquoise tie Manhattan wears when presenting as a regular person to the waitress later in the issue, but it could be possible that he was observing Colman disguised as a regular human.

We get another look at the black-and-white film. The previous issue referenced DC’s Crisis events quite heavily, and here Manhattan’s “Worlds live. Worlds die. Nothing lasts forever” is yet another reference to “Crisis on Infinite Earths.” The tagline for the first Crisis event was “Worlds will live, worlds will die, and the DC universe will never be the same!” This reference to Earths literally shattering in the first Crisis also frames the meaning of Joyce Gulino gifting Dusk a glass ball representing the world, which Dusk then uses as a weapon and destroys. “Nothing lasts forever. Or does it?” is also a parallel to Manhattan’s “Nothing ever ends” line in “Watchmen.”

Manhattan recaps significant events in his own life. He mentions having his human form destroyed, being on Mars with Silk Spectre, fighting with the DC heroes and leaving the “Watchmen” universe. He does not mention his day at the amusement park with Janey Slater, but the photograph of that day is floating on the surface of Mars, following him around as it has done throughout the series. When Manhattan arrives into the DCU he lands in Hollywood April 18, 1938. The date refers to the publication of “Action Comics” #1, even though there is some controversy on whether this is the publication date or not. Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is a real place in Hollywood, renamed TLC Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in 2013. Carver Colman was the first person that Dr Manhattan interacted with in the DC universe. Manhattan says he was drawn to the DC universe rather than just rationally choosing to enter it.

We return to Manhattan recapping Colman’s life. Young Carver leaves his mother’s house in December 1928 and gets a job at Paramount studios delivering mail. The very next panel says he’s been at the job for eight months in January 1929, which seems to be an error. He is fired from this job after seeing the studio head kissing another man. In 1937 Colman is fired from his new job at Dan Tana’s, which is a real restaurant in West Hollywood, even though it only opened in the 1960s. He is kicked out from his apartment on the same night Dr Manhattan arrives. The blue light pointed at Colman when he is sleeping in the street looks like Dr Manhattan’s powers, but it’s just a policeman’s torch. When Manhattan arrives soon after in a blast of his own blue light, Colman rushes to check the pulse of the policeman who just hit him on the head. Manhattan notes that the people of the DC universe are different compared to his own universe, perhaps referring to the act of empathy he just saw.

For the first time since Adrian Veidt used tachyon particles to blind his perception of time, Dr Manhattan cannot see time clearly. He even becomes confused about what the present moment is. He is standing on Mars with the incapacitated DC heroes waiting for Superman, looking at past events. In 1938, he introduces himself to Colman simply as Jon and takes the malnourished young man to a restaurant that becomes their meeting place for the upcoming years. Struggling to see into the future with his muddled senses, Manhattan focuses on Colman’s future and is able to see him sitting at the same restaurant a year into the future. Colman is explaining the success of landing his first movie role, which Manhattan predicted to him. He got a role in The Westerner, a real 1940 movie starring Gary Cooper, an actor most famous his gunslinger characters. A few more years forward, Colman is excited to tell his blue saviour about the popularity of the Nathaniel Dusk films. Otto Preminger, who is demanding a new Dusk movie, was a real-world director who became known for film noir and movies that pushed the boundaries of censorship, much like the Dusk films. Every year Manhattan tells Colman about successes coming his way, until in 1954 he has to tell Colman he would be dying within a year. Back in 1938, Manhattan hears the news about Superman debuting and exits the restaurant, leaving a confused Colman with the photograph of Jon and Janey Slater.

With Superman debuting in 1938, it is made clear that Manhattan arrived in the very first DC timeline. Here Superman was the first superhero, just as he was the first one to be created. Bryce DeWitt is a real-world physicist, credited for a theory stating that the universe is constantly splitting into alternate timelines like branches from a tree. This is what the DC characters and we refer to as the Multiverse, and the main DC Earth is the center from which the alternate timelines are branching from. This redefinition of the DCU explains why changes to the main DC Earth affect the state of the entire Multiverse, changing it from infinite parallel Earths to just one or fifty-two. The change to just one Earth was made in “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” fifty-two Earths in “52” and the Dark Multiverse was added in “Dark Nights: Metal.”

Once again Manhattan thinks about Alan Scott’s transformation into Green Lantern. This is followed by a lineup of the original Justice Society of America members, many of which have been subtly referenced throughout the series. The months mentioned in each character’s origins are the months when they debuted in comics. The JSA had invited Superman to join them, but the Man of Steel never showed up. The Daily Star mentioned by Alan Scott is where Clark Kent’s day job originally was. During the scene where Johnny Thunder wants to take a photograph of the group, the timeline subtly changes. The same moment is now repeated without anyone mentioning Superman. This is because Manhattan is now looking at the version of the JSA that existed during WWII before Superman debuted years later. In this timeline, the old heroes of the Justice Society preceded Superman as DC pushed his debut year forward to allow his contemporary existence. In the next scene, Manhattan is standing in an empty JSA meeting room, most likely in the continuity where he erased them from existence. He is exploring the different possibilities of how Superman and the JSA’s debuts affect the DCU.

When Manhattan meets Carver Colman in 1948, he is inhabiting the timeline where Superman debuted in the 1950s. Colman tells Manhattan has given him a great amount of hope, but has no idea who Superman is when Manhattan asks him. This hopefulness is what Manhattan referred to in his speech to the “Watchmen” characters in issue #8 and what intrigued him in Colman. Superman now debuts in Metropolis in 1956, which is often cited to be the starting year of the Silver Age. In the Silver Age comic “Superman” #161, the Kents died from a fatal disease they caught from a pirate treasure that they found when vacationing at the Caribbean, and this is depicted a few pages later.

After “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, Superman debuted in 1986 as seen in “Man of Steel,” where his parents are still alive when he leaves for Metropolis. After this we briefly see “Birthright” and “Secret Origins,” and then Pa Kent dying again in “Action Comics” #870. Many of the panels in these pages are close homages to the Superman comics mentioned. Looking through the events of Superman’s life, Manhattan learns that Saturn Girl, also appearing in “Doomsday Clock,” has a connection to Superman. The Legion of Super-Heroes panel is of course a homage to the classic “Adventure Comics” #247 cover, where the Legion was seen for the first time. According to Manhattan, Superman is the center of the DCU and changes in his life affect every Earth in the Multiverse. This observation makes him curious, and he decides to experiment by killing Alan Scott. When he kills Scott, the JSA ceases to exist and the scene where Superboy meets the Legion of Super-Heroes also fades away as that timeline ceases to exist.

Musing on the nature of the main DC Earth, Manhattan renames it the Metaverse. The Metaverse is special because the rest of the Multiverse reacts to changes in the Metaverse. It is the universe every other universe is a derivation and reflection of. This reflects how comic creators have always based other DC Earths on some twist on the main universe. Now we’re concretely getting into the explanation of how and why Dr Manhattan created the New 52 continuity. He wanted to change Superman into a version he could understand better and wanted to satisfy his curiosity by warping the Metaverse on his own whim. Dr Manhattan believes he can relate to Superman more when he is a troubled outsider. A major change he makes is to cause Jonathan and Martha Kent’s death on the night of Clark’s high school prom, making Clark feel isolated. “Doomsday Clock” #1 ended with Superman dreaming about the death of his parents, and now we know the significance of that sequence. We also see the t-shirt outfit from Grant Morrison’s “Action Comics” and the regular New 52 Superman suit.

The Metaverse can sense that Manhattan has been changing it and doesn’t accept those changes without a fight. This can be read as a metaphor on how the key elements of superhero comics always manage to come back after reboots and other editorial changes. This is embodied by Wally West, who was erased from existence in the New 52 reboot but showed up to scold Manhattan for his hubris.

Back in 1954, Carver Colman’s mother kills him by hitting on the head with his award statue. As already pointed out in earlier annotations, this parallels the murder of Hollis Mason in “Watchmen.” Manhattan has his back turned and does not stop Colman from dying, deeming himself a “being of inaction.” In contrast, he calls Superman a “man of action,” as an allusion to “Action Comics.” In the present, Superman wakes up parallelling how he woke up at the end of “Doomsday Clock” #1. We also see ‘The Adjournment’ for one more time, with Dusk getting shot in the back.

The ending quote is from Socrates, who is of course a classic philosopher from Ancient Greece. The quote could be interpreted so that while Dr Manhattan enjoyed playing with the DC universe like a toy, now he has to pay the price by either destroying his creation or getting destroyed by it himself.

The attached documents are a photo and two texts about Carver Colman’s life. The blood-smeared photo shows him with his mother. The first text, a letter from his mom, reveals Colman’s secret is that he was having a relationship with another boy in his youth. It seems like his orientation wasn’t entirely kept secret from the public, since a resident of Johnny Thunder’s elder care home said many people remembered Colman as a “deviant.” The second text is the script of ‘The Adjournment’, by John Law aka Tarantula, who was a suspect for Colman’s murder according to the third issue’s backmatter. It recaps the beginning of the movie and reveals it’s ending. It turns out Joyce ordered Murray to kill both Farmer and Tempus, and Dusk had already found this out earlier. Dusk survives the shot in the back and the movie ends with him looking at a clock ticking to midnight, keeping up with the clock and watch imagery. Since this is probably the last we saw of ‘The Adjournment,’ it’s a good time to try and recap what the characters represented.

First we need to understand Nathaniel Dusk’s purpose as a character. Dusk says he already solved the chess murder “35 minutes ago,” which is a reference to Adrian Veidt revealing he had already carried out his New York massacre plan in “Watchmen.” It is also notable that Colman parties with the movie crew only for 35 minutes after wrapping his final Nathaniel Dusk scene. This indicates that Nathaniel Dusk could be an allegory to Ozymandias. It does make sense, since the main character of the ‘Tales of the Black Freighter’ story in “Watchmen” was also an allegory to Veidt. Both Dusk and Veidt are trying to make sense of a mysterious situation, and both men were also shot but survived. There doesn’t seem to be a clear DC or “Watchmen” allegory for Joyce, but this could be made clearer in the remaining two issues since Joyce only stepped into the picture near the very end. Then there are the two murdered men, Farmer and Tempus. Here the names could provide a clue. Farmer could refer to Clark Kent’s rural origins. Tempus comes from the Latin word for time, so he could represent Dr Manhattan. This idea is backed up by them being called “Two men from two different worlds.” If the story within a story is a close allegory to the main plot, this could mean both Superman and Manhattan are getting destroyed in their showdown. However, the ‘Tales of the Black Freighter’ story wasn’t an exact match to the main plot of “Watchmen,” either, so nothing can be said for sure.

In many ways this issue was framed as the “continuity dump” where things requiring an explanation were given one, but it gave a lot of food for thought instead of just listing a bunch of changes made to the DCU. Come back when the penultimate issue of “Doomsday Clock” arrives in August!