Doomsday Clock #12

[history79]

16.33 pages of 49

Comments

[thanekos]

At least one draft of this ended with an optimistic twist on " Nothing ever ends. "

[tripodeca113]

Almost certainly.

[cyberghostface]

In related news HBO has decided not to go ahead with season two of Watchmen because Damon Lindelof thinks the story should end and they’re respecting the wishes of the writer.

*laughs in Alan Moore*

It does seem very...

[stubbleupdate]

[mazway_75]

Actually, it's a damn good show, Regina King is stunning and great turns on the original story. Sure a lot better than this comic has been....

[cyberghostface]

That’s arguable but the comment was just pointing at the irony of HBO not continuing without the original showrunner in contrast to Damon Lindelof’s exact words to Alan Moore being “Fuck you, I’m doing it anyway.”

[silicondream]

Actually Lindelof was fine with them doing a second season without him, but HBO doesn't want to. So almost the exact opposite of Alan Moore's situation.

[lordultimus]

"Endless reboots aren't a bug - they're a feature!"

[jlbarnett]

fine by me

[mazway_75]

Okay, a lot of problems but this means JSA and the Kents are alive again? I'll say worth it now.

[lordultimus]

Yeah, but this means Clark revealed his identity knowing that it puts his parents in danger.

[laughing_tree]

No more in danger than Wally West's parents were in all those years he had no secret identity.

[lordultimus]

You mean the time Wally's ID was revealed without his consent? Not really the same thing.

[laughing_tree]

My point is his parents ended up just fine, not targeted by villains every other month.

[lordultimus]

Wally's parents are barely characters. No one cared enough about their well-being. Whereas the Kents are important enough to get resurrected.

And, y'know, plenty of Wally's loved ones were targeted by super villains all the time, which is why he made a deal with the devil to get the secret identity back.

[laughing_tree]

Writers will put loved ones in danger if they want to and won't if they don't. Whether or not the character has a secret identity isn't going to stop them either way. It's not an inevitable consequence of a public identity.

[lordultimus]

It certainly increases the chances, especially when there was no connection to Superman before.

[laughing_tree]

I guess? I just don't see why fans suddenly feel the need to apply that level of realism when they've always been fine with characters like Wally West, Steel, John Stewart, etc. not having their loved ones in constant danger.

[deepspaceartist]

We can assume that in the new timeline Clark consulted Jonathan and Martha before going ahead with the ID reveal, just like he did with Lois, Jimmy, Perry and the rest. So the Kents likely knew and consented to the increased risk.

[tripodeca113]

I glad I read Watchmen when I did in 2011.
Before the prequel comics , before Doomsday Clock and before the TV show.

[buttz]

I'm indifferent about the series as a whole, but I *really* enjoyed this issue. At the end of the day I'm just not sure why the Watchmen characters all needed to be in Doomsday Clock -- all of story lines that grew from the Ozymandias, Rorschach, and Comedian plots played ZERO role in the eventual outcome (and weren't terribly interesting).

[cricharddavies]

Writing thinly veiled 'fix fic' about celebrities whom you admire and who died decades before you were born is not the act of a well man. I'll leave it at that.

[alicemacher]

I didn't like this series either, but personal attacks on the creator are uncalled for and against the community rules.

[icon_uk]

You know the rules. Comment on the work, not the creators.

[strejdaking]

Look... I'm not an American. In general, I think "try to understand people on the other side are still people, and why they believe what they do, don't only ever read fom people you agree to" are good guidelines.
But... Is the real problem right now really that people are too divided and shouldn't be fighting? That the goal shouldn't be to fix world's injustices but to stop people from arguing? Because to me, this isn't a message of hope of understanding, it's empty platitudes presented as deep moral wisdom. "Why can't we all just get along" because any form of conflict is bad, because "the truth is always in the middle". Because there are Very Fine People on Both Sides.

[stubbleupdate]

I was listening to the Finding Fred podcast yesterday and they got to Megan Amram's line about how "You can't be nice to everyone because being nice to certain people is inherently cruel to others"

[remial]

this was one of the better Watchmen fanfics I've seen, but it is still fanfic.

[informationgeek]

Been an interesting ride, that's for sure. Ultimately, my final thought is simple: time to get the trades. I like what I saw and want to read it in full from start to finish.

Maybe my thoughts would be different if I liked the original Watchmen, which I reeeeeeally don't, but I liked what I saw here.

[deathcrist2000]

There are loads of reasons why I hate this comic, but among them is the panel where Superman punches the sandguy. Said guy was introduced in Doomsday Clock and is in fact a child who escaped from slavery. That's kinda fucked up. Not to mention that the optimistic future this comic hypothesizes hinges on Superman forever being a white guy from Kansas.

[scorntx]

Really feels like this wasn't what Johns was going originally for (at least, the bit with the Legion and the Justice Society.)

This was a wild ride of nearly three years.

... to his credit, Johns was clearly giving the writing some serious welly, but at the same time... a good deal of that writing is trying to imitate Alan Moore. And all the usual Geoff Johns habits tend to sneak in anyway (looking at you, Black Adam).

And Frank's artwork is good (his habitual problem with expressions aside. Just look at Lil' Sally's face in that panel. Stuff of nightmares.)

You've got a story with a dozen ideas, all mushed up into one, which in the last third starts turning into a love letter to Superman, and a final issue which consists of a good chunk of the writer apparently just jotting down every idea that springs to mind.
(I mean, some of those ideas do sound intriguing, in a mini-series sort of way. "What If... Superman had a sibling?" rather than "Post-Apocalyptic Bat-Future No. 472" sounds worth a gander.)

Not to mention all the pointless lead-ins DC had going, which we're presumably supposed to forget forever.
What was up with erasing Wally? Was that even him? Or was it Abra Kadabra? Saving Jor-El? Frazzling Pandora? Eh, who cares.

And the almost requisite "now everything's over and it's going to be all hopeful forever" part. Yeaaah.
Sometimes it does feel like (crude comparison ahoy) the end of that episode of Red Dwarf.
"The diseased menace that threatened this world is no more!"
"No it's not, pal, you're still 'ere."

Like at the start of Rebirth. And Blackest Night. And Final Crisis. And Infinite Crisis.
In two or three years, we'll be at the next reboot to try and demurk everything.
Should be fun.

(And still trying to make a reboot of Global Guardians happen. Gosh, remember how that went after the New 52 JLI went belly-up.)

[werehawk]

I don’t know. Rebirth worked pretty damn well for the hopeful soft reboot. This seems like it will be ignored though - mostly.