Doomsday Clock #12

[history79]

Comments

[tripodeca113]

Oh thank Christ, it's finally over.

[tcampbell1000]

Living down to Alan Moore's expectations. What an accomplishment that is.

I mean, I think Johns is trying to say something about Superman here that translates into optimism for humanity in general. The best thing about this always-questionable series is that it addresses the current political moment, while a lot of our pop culture still seems to be lagging behind. And I was pretty sure that any answer it offered to our real crises would be disappointing, but hey, at least it was trying, right?

But I never would've thought the answer would turn out to be "HEY, EVERYBODY, JUST KEEP BUYING AND READING THE SAME SUPERMAN STORY FOREVER, REBOOTED ENDLESSLY OVER AND OVER UNTIL THE 3000S AND SOMETIMES GIVING HIM AN OLDER SIBLING BUT NOT MAKING HIM OR HIS PARENTS BLACK OR GAY OR TRANS OR ANYTHING, DON'T WORRY."

This is all the more remarkably awful now that the Netflix show has proven an entirely respectable (not equal, but respectable) Watchmen sequel is possible. What am I doing even reading this when I could be watching that.

I mean... Jesus.

[jlbarnett]

you do realize people have been telling variations of the same Hercules stores and making new ones since Ancient Greece, right?

[scelestus]

Did they just reference JLA vs Avengers with Supes fighting Thor (and presumably the Hulk)?

[lucean]

I think this reflects one of the fundamental problems with Johns's crossovers as he seems to be so utterly committed that everything has to be about Superman, especially since it is such a simplistic take. Yes, Superman was a start, and an important one at that, but there were other pulp heroes already around back then and there have been characters introduced after who have been just as foundational for the DCU.

So if here, for example, Johns played up more the different origin stories of Batman and Wonder Woman as well, reflecting how they also represented the ages they came out of, it would have give really given that montage a stronger impact as it would have felt like it was saying something bigger.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, this might have been the time to pump up the importance of Zatara or the Crimson Avenger (Costumed adventurers who predate Superman) a bit more than ANOTHER "All hail Superman" moment.

[lordultimus]

Funny how a mini that was announced to so much controversy ends with such a whimper.

Looks like 5G is going to be a thing after all.

[agharta75]

So DC has announced all its future Big Crossover Universe Reshaping Crisis Events.

Nice.

[onsokumaru]

*translator note: "plan" means "keikaku"

[trooper924]

I assume it'll only take three to five years before DC announces "Beyond Watchmen" or whatever they'll end up calling it.

[scorntx]

Well, that was definitely a bunch of stuff that happened.

So all that stuff with Wally and abducting Tim Drake and saving Jor-El and splitting Superman in two which was apparently leading in to this was all... completely pointless.
Hrrn.

And poor old Professor Stein has been tarred up.
At least until the next retcon (so, according to this, that's either next year, or in five.)
Clone, evil duplicate, long-lost nigh-identical brother? Or just a wacky misunderstanding?

I'd swear I once joked DC did a Crisis / Big Multiverse reboot every five years since Infinite.
It's kind of alarming when one of them actually decides to just go whole hog and say that's the plan.
... though knowing how things go, chances are this won't happen.
(And that prediction of a Marvel / DC crisis seems a little too optimistic, really...)

I'm not absolutely sure if the ending actually counts as a sequel hook proper, but it's not the "see ya in the sequel, folks" I was expecting / dreading.

(... although, actually, the idea of seeing Superman with an adopted older brother / sister actually does sound a little intriguing.)

[zylly]

The Stein thing makes me incredibly angry. I’d hoped it would get reversed by the end of this.

[lordultimus]

Wait, is Wonder Woman going to start wearing pants again?

[thanekos]

Of the three responses to Watchmen that finished this year, this is the most corporate.

[akodo_rokku]

What's the third one?

[gnarll]

So I am hearing a sort of primal roar from DC, saying "We will never let our copyrights expire, we are keeping them for a thousand years!!!"

[jlbarnett]

as I posted above, Hercules, Ancient Greece, still talking about him today

[leahandillyana]

I honestly and unironically loved that issue. It manages to bring a happy ending to a very bleak story. I'm so happy. This is best comic I've read this year :')

[dcbanacek]

So does Looking Glass come up behind Ozymandias and lay him out with a pipe wrench then pithily remark "He talks to much." at the end of this one too?

[cyberghostface]

That was utterly obnoxious, like something out of a lesser Marvel movie. And a complete cop-out to not even hint at the ramifications. Trump getting impeached for Ukraine is tearing the country apart, imagine the effect on society if the sitting president was complicit in the cover up of the deaths of thousands of New Yorkers. Which would probably make for a more interesting story than evil rich white people trying to steal (black) Dr. Manhattan's powers because they're pissed off about reparations.

[caivu]

So what happened to everyone who went to Mars?

[kurenai_tenka]

(I haven't read any issue of this in full)

Has this actually changed anything? Also, how legit is that 2025 crisis prediction do ya reckon?

[leahandillyana]

Justice Society and Legion of Superheroes are back now and Kents are alive, while on Watchmen world Doctor Manhattan is dead and his powers were transfered to a small boy he brought up and Ozymandias will be held responsible for his actions.

[cyberghostface]

One good thing about this is that this (and Before Watchmen) is utterly irreconcilable with the HBO show. So it's easier for me to dismiss both as elaborate fanfic as opposed to actual canon for Moore's story.

[alicemacher]

I think that's a good way to look at all non-Moore Watchmen efforts. And I say this as someone who did enjoy a couple of the Before Watchmen minis (the Minutemen and Silk Spectre ones). While those two projects alone show that it's possible -- regardless of the ethical questions about DC vis-à-vis Moore -- for new Watchmenverse works to be good, the original 1986 work is and always will be one of a kind. Not only for its influence (both good and bad) on the superhero genre, but for its precise, intricate plotting; for its multiple layers of story and meaning (inter- and intra-textual), and most of all because each time I read it (and I've read it many times), it yields at least one insight I'd missed before.

The rest, regardless of approach or quality, is indeed fanfic. Certain Watchmenverse fics just happen to be official and for profit, is all.

[mazway_75]

A lot here already said but me, just one bit:

I SO want an Earth-1985 ongoing series.

[an_idol_mind]

I am fairly concerned that the current adult generation (people aged in their mid-20s to 50-ish) has a certain degree to which they refuse to grow up. I try to balance this with the fact that growing up doesn't have to mean giving up the things you loved as a child.

My general conclusion is that, ideally, you don't "grow out of" your childhood hobbies, but your understanding of them evolves. Adults with a healthy relationship to their childhood media might get ticked off about the new Star Wars film that doesn't live up to their expectations, but realize that life goes on. Those with a less healthy relationship to the media might instead decide that it's okay to harass random actors in those films because they ruined this super important thing forever.

My thoughts and feelings on this issue are complex and evolving. However, it also makes me feel weird to read a comic book that celebrates its heroes and its very business model as inherently necessary to modern society. There are a lot of Superman/Batman/Captain America/Spider-Man/what have you comics that repeat the same theme of, "This character is very important not only to the comic book universe but to the world as a whole." And what I really read those as is the creative team saying, "This character is very important to me, and I need to explain why the character should be important to everybody else as well."

I absolutely cannot argue that Superman is a very iconic and significant character in modern society, but I'm skeptical of the idea that he will retain his significance 100 or 1,000 years from now. A comic that seems to exist primarily to stress how important these characters are without touching on a higher theme doesn't do a lot for me.

[jlbarnett]

he's already made it 81 years. Sherlock Holmes has managed 132

The concept of characters who last has not died in the last few centuries

[silverhammerman]

I have judiciously avoided articles and posts about Doomsday Clock, for probably a year or so now, waiting, biding my time, just so that I could swoop in at the end and see how this all played out. I am absolutely prejudiced against this entire endeavor, so I can be readily ignored, but still, I feel like I can reward myself with a post on the matter.

So yeah, this looks like saccharine, self-serving garbage. A corporate shill lionizing the IP he gatekeeps, talking about how it's just so, so important (and by implication and extension, so is he). I knew from the start that this whole series would be utterly masturbatory, but it's still extremely funny to see how it played out. I'm flabbergasted that Johns thinks forecasting fucking centuries of Superman, an endless treadmill of reboots and bullshit, is somehow an inspiring statement about the meaning of the character and not a sad indictment of the fact that DC and Warner Bros will never, ever, let anything die, and that no story (including Watchmen!) will ever be allowed to rest, instead dug up over and over and over again, not in the name of mythic reinterpretation, but because a faceless, soulless corporation, built on exploitation and abuse, will do so to attempt to squeeze just a bit more blood from a stone. Never mind the fact that both Superman and Watchmen, are prime examples of DC Comics knowingly and deliberately fucking over the creators, and Johns' Doomsday Clock is an example of the kind of cynical rot at the heart of the industry. If this is Johns' attempt at a response to Moore's deconstruction, it's utterly pathetic, a limp, whiny "But I like superheroes!" in response to Moore's "Superheroes are a little messed up, if you think about it."

As you can probably tell, I'm still big mad over the whole thing, so my statement on the matter is more than a little hyperbolic, which hopefully you'll all excuse. It's just that the vitriol over this whole thing has been building up for a while now.

[locuatico]

Reading this made me think of Avengers: No Road Home. Which, sure, you could argue it's conclusion is also a masturbatory "this is how great we are", but at least it feels more sincere and earnest than this.

[christianconnor]

I'm getting more than a little tired of Johns' pattern of writing. He usually writes an event story that says everything is grimdark and overly complicated. The story resets the entire universe, and we get Johns' brand-new universal architecture.

Except that's somehow even more grimdark and people don't like it. Then Johns comes back with another big event.

Infinite Crisis, Flashpoint, now this. Rinse and repeat.

[silverhammerman]

It remains extremely amusing that this series was about Johns refuting/rejecting "gritty/realistic" storytelling in comics when he, personally, has been largely responsible for its application to the DCU in the 21st century. Like, you can't blame Alan Moore for your own writing, Geoff!

[lordultimus]

Wait, if the Kents are alive again, did Clark put them in danger by revealing his secret identity?

[mastermahan]

Great, now Ma Kent is going to get shot, and Clark will sell his marriage to Neron.

[zylly]

There’s something to be said for the overall message of “hope wins” and Manhattan’s attempt to shift the narrative causality of his home universe to that.

But between the tie ins that weren’t (Wally, Mister Oz) or at least fizzled on their connectiveness and the delays, I can’t even work up as much enthusiasm for the return of the Kent’s or the JSA that I should.

And I’m still livid about the unnecessary retcons to Firestorm and the corruption of Martin Stein.

[matrix_dragon]

... Well, that all happened.

[shadowpsykie]

so... what happened?

[locuatico]

So, remember how Jon made a big deal about how the furthest he could see ino the future was an angry Superman charging against him? (which turns out doesn't make sense, not just because Jon can't "see into the future" it's just he lives outside of time and... nevermind) It turns out it was Superman saving Jon from someone attacking him from behind.

this is because a bunch of metahumans from different countries are going against SUperman believing he was responsible for the attack on Russia.

Jon tells Superman "ok, but you have to either kill me or I destroy your universe. that's what I saw" and Superman is like "but what if there was a third option? also, that photo you keep summoning, maybe it means something special to you?" and that somehow inspires Jon to sacrifice himself for his world? also to understand that Superman is always bringing the best in people and yada yada yada.

And then Jon undoes the death of Alan Scott and allows him to become Green Lantern.
This has the domino effect that now the justice society of America always existed and WAS around WW2, so people knew of Metahumans a lot sooner and that inspired Clark to be Superboy (so superboy is canon again). This also retroactively changed the Legion to the version Bendis version (I think?).

This also means the Kents are alive again, BTW. Because SUperboy was able to save them from their car accident.

So now, with the help of the Justice Society and the Legion, Superman is able to fight back the metahumans attacking him? because I guess the attack on Russia still happened?
But everythings fine because they are able to clear up superman's name really really quick so within the next day people don't hate him anymore?
Also, they meet with The Kents at the doors of the daily planet. so that's one good thing out of this mess.

and apparently this was Ozymandias plan all along? somehow?
Also, Jon took a baby and raised him to be his world's version of Superman, I guess, and left him at Owlman and Silk Spectre's door before... dying?