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 time around we look more at DC characters opposed to the previous, Rorschach-focused issue. Some of DC’s biggest character’s make an appearance, there’s tons of name-dropping and references to 1980’s contuinity, the Nathaniel Dusk story continues and the previously introduced symbolism gets new meanings, so strap in to take a deeper look at “Doomsday Clock” #5.
The cover shows a scan of Adrian Veidt’s brain tumour. As I pointed out in the first issue’s annotations, this image has a connection with two of the most important symbols in “Doomsday Clock” and “Watchmen.” The tumour is placed in the same spot in the circle-shape of Veidt’s skull as the hand of the Doomsday Clock and the drop of blood on the Comedian’s pin. The first panels zoom closer to the tumour until it turns into the flashlight of a doctor who is inspecting Adrian Veidt, who has been in the hospital since issue three.
The doctor and the policeman’s conversation and the title of the issue quickly tell us that “God” is the reoccurring motif of the issue, the same way “light” was in the previous one. The light motif continues here too, as the doctors talk about light at the end of the tunnel and turning off the Batsignal. Even non-metahuman superheroes are now considered a federal problem, with Superman being the only superhero the public seems to trust. Talk about God and believing is practically shoved to the reader’s face in these first few pages: “Thank God we live in Metropolis. Superman’s the only thing you can believe in anymore.” The doctor might be very much right about God watching over Veidt, since Dr Manhattan is probably keeping an eye on all of the “Watchmen” universe characters here. Veidt escapes the hospital to continue searching for Dr Manhattan, who can be considered a god figure. Despite this, there are fewer hints about Manhattan in this issue than in the previous one.
Hawk and Dove have been arrested in Russia by the Rocket Red Brigade. This is where a lot of stuff from the 80’s starts to come in, and this trend continues until the very last pages of the issue. The Rocket Red Brigade is a team of superheroes of the same name, originally created to protect the Soviet Union. Hawk delivering guns to Nicaragua on behalf of the US government in the late 80’s is also referenced. Red Star is another Russian superhero, an ex-member of the Teen Titans, formerly known as Starfire (not to be confused with the other Teen Titan called Starfire). A few pages later, even more Russian superheroes are mentioned and promised to be capable of destroying any American metahuman. They are forming an alliance with Prince Markov of Markovia and the Outsiders, Markovia being the fictional DCU country where the Supermen Theory was born.
Clickbait journalism and fake news are current topics that Geoff Johns briefly brushes on here in the Daily Planet scene. Perry White seems to be in favour of clickbait headlines, even though he has often been portrayed as a stubborn supporter of old-school journalism. He decides to call Ozymandias a metahuman in a headline despite having no evidence. It seems that there aren’t many media outlets trying to disprove the Supermen Theory. In “Watchmen,” Rorschach’s diary was published by an untrustworthy extremely right-wing newspaper The New Frontiersman. Now a respected newspaper like the Daily Planet is hopping onto the metahuman panic bandwagon to cash in on it. The Supermen Theory is at least claimed to be based on actual interviews and studies, but someone clearly has their own interest at play. Lois has an idea about who is behind it and is going to investigate. This is the first time we see Superman since the first issue of the series and what we see now isn’t much either, despite him being set up as one of the most important characters before the series being launched.
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In this issue the creators utilize a lot of the history of Firestorm, including his Russian counterpart Pozhar. Originally a victim of Chernobyl, Pozhar was also one of the Rocket Reds mentioned earlier. He tells on the news that as a response to Hawk and Dove’s actions Russia will close its borders completely, even to people who aren’t metahuman. Later on in the issue we hear that Markovia has closed its borders too. Meanwhile, Saturn Girl and Rorschach put on their previously confiscated belongings and leave to search for Dr Manhattan. Note Rorschach’s broken watch having stopped a few minutes to midnight, just like the Doomsday Clock, and a light with insects being drawn to it appearing again.
The Nathaniel Dusk story within a story is back, with private eye Dusk continuing to investigate the murder. The segments are quite short so there isn’t much to say about its parallels to the main story yet. It’s still the senior at the retirement home who’s watching the movie, while Johnny Thunder has escaped the same building to go find Alan Scott’s Green Lantern power battery. On Mr Thunder’s table are a book about Aladdin, the newspaper article about a green fire that was included in issue two’s backmatter and another book, which based on the first letters of the words is titled something like ‘The Mythical Land of Badhnisia.’ As discussed in the earlier annotations, the green fire is linked to Green Lantern Alan Scott. Badhnisia is a tiny island whose people kidnapped Johnny Thunder when he was an infant and gave him the magical Thunderbolt genie. The Aladdin book is there because the story’s genie is a clear inspiration to Johnny Thunder’s genie and Aladdin’s magic lamp and ring are similar to Green Lantern Alan Scott’s accessories. There is also some conflicting information going around about Alan Ladd Wellington Scott’s name related to Aladdin. Sources including Bill Finger have stated the character’s name would have originally been just Alan Ladd as a wordplay on Aladdin, if the editors hadn’t disapproved of it. However, Green Lantern’s main Martin Nodell has claimed in an interview that ‘Alan Ladd’ was never considered as an option and that chose the name Alan from a phonebook. To add to the mix, it’s often cited that real-life Hollywood actor Alan Ladd had something to do with the name decision, but for this I couldn’t find any comment from anyone at DC.
Veidt now meets the DCU’s other smartest man besides Luthor when he drives from Metropolis to Gotham to return to the Owlship and finds Batman waiting for him. Police cars arriving at the abandoned amusement park is reminiscent of the ending of “The Killing Joke.” At the same time yet another subplot continues as Mime and Marionette, who are searching for the Joker, get the Comedian on their trail. Mime and Marionette realise the DCU’s money is useless to them, since they don’t have Richard Nixon, whose face is apparently printed on some bills in the “Watchmen” universe. This is weird since Nixon was still alive in 1992 and US dollar bills feature only historical figures.
While interviewed on live television, Firestorm swears in a manner not typical to regular DC comic books but to more “mature” comics. Firestorm’s enemy Killer Frost publicly supports the Supermen theory in the same broadcast, despite being one of the metahumans whom the theory has accused. Black Adam appears and creates the grounds for more international conflict by saving tv reporter Jack Ryder (aka the Creeper) from the Kobra Cult in Syria. Adam declares his nation Kahndaq will offer asylum for all metahumans. Lois Lane follows the broadcasting – where his father Sam Lane appears too – until being allowed a conversation with Lex Luthor. Luthor flirts with Lois, which is behaviour that he has previously shown in older contuinity when his role as a sleazy businessman was established. Luthor claims that the person creating metahumans has at one point been a member of the Justice League, which doesn’t say much as there have been dozens of Justice League members, Luthor himself having been on the roster a few years ago.
Johnny Thunder has found the steel factory where the mysterious green fire happened. The other one of the homeless people sitting outside says “There is no future. There is no past,” which is the beginning of one of Dr Manhattan’s most famous quotes. Inside the factory Mr Thunder gets surprised by violent punks before he finds the Green Lantern power battery. The one who starts beating him up with the battery wears his hair in a knot on top of his head, a reference to “Watchmen’s” teen gang Top-Knots, who killed old Hollis Mason aka the first Nite Owl by beating him with his award.
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Meanwhile Ozymandias is berating Batman the DC universe for the simplicity of their lives and morals, which can be also seen as a sort of meta commentary on the opposing premises of “Watchmen” and DC stories. He again proposes that Dr Manhattan might have come to this world to blend in under a secret identity. Then Veidt opens the owlship and lets Batman fall to be beaten by the mob, which now consists of thousands of people. The Batsignal is thrown off the roof of the GCDP and broken, foreshadowed by the hospital staff’s conversation at the beginning of the issue. There seem to be at least two people crushed dead under its weight. Luckily Mr Thunder is saved by Rorschach and Saturn Girl, who have come all the way to Pittsburgh probably with the same goal as Mr Thunder, as they are searching for some kind of bright light and a Green Lantern’s power battery certainly fills that description. How the battery could help in luring out Dr Manhattan is still unclear. In the final panel showing the battery an insect can be seen circling it, which is very similar to the previous issue’s imagery.
The Joker’s appearance has been heavily teased throughout the series and now he makes his entrance on the final page, meeting Marionette and Mime. Joker is sporting a very traditional look as opposed to his most recent appearances where his hair was cut bald from the sides. (The three Jokers subplot also created by Geoff Johns still awaits any sort of resolve, so this might be a different Joker than the one who has recently appeared.) The variant cover for this issue also stars the Clown Prince trying on some of Adrian Veidt’s Nostalgia lipstick. Something worth pointing out in the Joker cover is the framed picture hanging on the wall. It’s an image of a nuclear bomb mushroom cloud with a smiley face drawn on top of it. The mushroom cloud is a reoccurring image in “Watchmen,” while a smiley face appears both in “Watchmen” as the Comedian’s symbol and in the DCU, where it is associated with the Joker. This type of exploring of overlapping imagery is interesting regardless of how the actual story of the crossover plays out.
The issue’s ending quote is from Eugene O’Neill, American playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. More specifically it’s from his 1927 play Lazarus Laughed, which has a biblical theme. Here the quote of course refers to superheroes such as Dr Manhattan as god figures. This issue’s back material is a magazine’s special report on the metahuman controversy. This specific issue has been shipped to a retirement home in New York, most likely the one which Mr Thunder lives at. First the magazine includes a recap of the Supermen Theory and the heroes and villains relating to it. The next part gives multiple lists of non-American superheroes by country. There is such a massive amount of DC characters mentioned that there’s no space to go through them all here. The Chinese heroes appeared in the “New Super-Man” series and a lot of the Batman stand-ins during Grant Morrison’s “Batman” run.
A myriad of Russian characters has made appearances throughout the issue and Russia has become one of the key players in the metahuman controversy. The situation has escalated to a metahuman arms race, where multiple countries are recruiting metahumans to work for their government. Another country that deserves closer inspecting is Markovia, as the Supermen Theory was created by Markovian scientist Dr Helga Jace. Geo-Force aka Prince Markov is publicly admitted to having been created by Dr Jace and now denies having worked with Batman in the Outsiders. So far at least metahumans Killer Frost and Geo-Force have supported the Superhuman Theory, but Killer Frost is quite untrustworthy and Geo-Force has the interest of his own nation in mind. The last part of the report is devoted to Black Adam. The article suspects he might have offered metahumans asylum in Kahndaq to create a metahuman army of his own. The metahuman arms race is now a global crisis that might grow to the proportions of the Cold War’s nuclear threat, which was the doom hanging over “Watchmen.”
“Doomsday Clock” #5 was very DCU-focused and didn’t have much parallels to its “Watchmen” #5 counterpart compared to the previous issues. With Joker and his gang, an angry mob, an injured Batman, Marionette and Mime and the Comedian all colliding, we will most likely see a big fight the next time around. The series continues with a slow schedule, so come back after a few months to see “Doomsday Clock” #6 annotated!
