YMMV / Doomsday Clock

• Adorkable: Despite Reggie's greater insanity, he manages to be much more likeable in his social ineptitude than his predecessor. He has a Cloudcuckoolander-ish fondness for food and is very enthusiastic when Batman reads Kovacs' journal, eagerly asking which page Bruce is on like a child.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Exactly who or what Doctor Manhattan is supposed to stand for tends to vary wildly based on who you speak to. It’s either the influence of Watchmen, writers who were unable to understand why Watchmen worked, Alan Moore, or as one reviewer suggests, an Author Avatar of Geoff Johns himself. As the book itself says, people see what they want to see.
• Ass Pull: While Jon could see his past, present and future simultaneously, he never had the ability to see beyond his own viewpoint, much less INTERFERE with the timeline. Him being able to do this also goes against his very character, as it means the future is not set in stone. Considering he was disillusioned with Carver's fate, we later find out that he could have changed it at any time.
• Anvilicious: The first issue deliberately uses language and buzz-words from 2016-2017 (the crowd protesting against Veidt being called "undeplorables") and the overall news montage on TV parlays into The New '10s foreign policy fears (such as the EU collapsing and an emboldened Russia encroaching on Eastern Europe) even if it is fairly anachronistic. Much of this goes against the spirit of the original which was able to criticize Reagan's America without directly mentioning or depicting it (considering the Misaimed Fandom of Watchmen who enjoyed the dark and grittiness and completely missed the idea that it was criticizing it, it's probably deliberate).
• Arc Fatigue: While (most of) the characterization and artwork are widely acclaimed, the biggest criticism for most reviews is how the plot seems to be moving very slowly, with it taking time showing the Watchmen universe characters' backstories and how things have changed for the worse in the seven-year Time Skip since the original maxiseries, with only some progress on the series' biggest draw (namely, the DC universe characters encountering the Watchmen characters) gradually being made. The Legion of Super-Heroes and Justice Society of America stuff especially is drawn out and receives very little focus. Compounding matters is the series' shift in publication schedule.
• Broken Base: Saying that this is one of the most polarizing books in DC history is putting it mildly:
  • Johns' creative decision to make the book standalone from the rest of the DCU. Many find it frustrating since it arguably renders much of the build-up in Rebirth somewhat meaningless (with only the threads acknowledged in The Button actually meaning something in the book itself). Others feel that making the book a more typical Crisis Crossover would've cheapened the narrative and that it isn't the readers' responsibility to read tons of earlier material just to have an inkling on what's going on.
  • How much, if any, should the events of this book affect the rest of the DC Universe? Should writers continue telling their stories as they were, or should they start to reflect the effect of the events on this book on the ongoings as soon as possible?
• Common Knowledge: Rorschach's journal did not immediately expose Ozymandias. It was instead ignored and treated as a fringe conspiracy theory for many years before President Redford latched onto it in a last desperate bid to win re-election and led a highly-secretive investigation into Adrian Veidt, which ended up stumbling onto the truth.
• Continuity Lockout: Knowledge of Watchmen, Superman: Secret Origin, Superman Reborn, The Oz Effect, The Button, Charlton Comics, DC Rebirth and others is needed to truly enjoy the story. Superman Homepage gave the long list of Rebirth titles that led up to the miniseries (and even that list missed one or two stories, like "Panic in the Microverse").
  • The coda segments are especially bad in this regard. One needs a truly insane knowledge of DC history to get all the references, many of which are to obscure characters and/or elements. How many casual readers will get the reference to Ferro Lad of the Legion of Super Heroes sacrificing himself to defeat the Sun Eater, way back in the Silver Age? He isn't even named here. We just see his ring.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Many people have taken to The Mime over his bizarre personality and antics (like breaking out of his handcuffs with an apparently literal mimed lockpick, or forcing the party to go back to retrieve an apparently nonexistent case of weaponry) as well as the fact that he's heavily hinted to be the Watchmen-verse version of The Joker.
  • People are already finding Bubastis II to be incredibly adorable. Someone from DC was listening, because the cover to issue #8 has Bubastis II giving her best Puppy-Dog Eyes. Issue #12 shows that Bubastis II has grown to adulthood and is a loving, loyal pet.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Quite a few fans believe that Saturn Girl being erased from history wasn't part of the story but Geoff Johns being forced to pull an Author's Saving Throw in the light of Brian Michael Bendis' relaunch of Legion of Super-Heroes. They believe that Geoff was intending on wholeheartedly relaunching the Legion via this story, but the delays in releasing the story lead to Didio giving Bendis full reign.
  • On the other end of the spectrum, some believe that other titles are simply stalling to allow for Doomsday Clock to make its reveals and give them the go-ahead with certain plot developments. The likes of Tom King, Scott Snyder, and the aforementioned Bendis have all clarified that they are taking Doomsday Clock into account while writing their respective books, leading to some anticipating Authors Saving Throws for the likes of Heroes in Crisis to appear in this series.
  • The exact nature of the 'Secret Crisis' mentioned in the story: does it refer to an actually planned DC x Marvel crossover or was it just a throwaway line? At the very least the idea of Secret Crisis is heavily discussed in comic circles since it was referenced.
• Fanfic Fuel: The "Secret Crisis" Manhattan mentions as part of Superman's future, where he'll fight Thor and "a green behemoth stronger than even Doomsday", a not-so-subtle crossover between Marvel and DC. Go nuts.
• Fanon Discontinuity: This applies to fans whom insist anything involving Watchmen that is written without the approval or involvement of Alan Moore is not part of the Watchmen continuity. This is mainly motivated by ongoing disputes between Alan Moore and the heads of DC. This mindset exists to various different degrees for the Before Watchmen comics, their involvement in DC Rebirth and the Button, and various film and television adaptations. Interestingly, the Watchmen Wiki has decided that this comic is instead canon with the Before Watchmen comics, and take place in what is considered the DC timeline.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In issue #3 there's a throwaway line about the Nathaniel Dusk movies where the speaker reveals that at the ending of the particular movie in question, one of the murdered men is revealed to be the killer. This is harsh for those who were following Heroes in Crisis as its issues dropped where the last two issues reveal Wally West, one of the dead, to have been the killer as a result of OOC writing decisions and a bunch of out of nowhere continuity changes.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Byron Lewis donning his Mothman outfit and walking into the flames of the burning asylum is undeniably tragic. But it becomes rather amusing after the sudden popularity of moth-related memes in September 2018. One can almost picture him saying "Ya'll got any lamps, bröther?"
  • The manner in which Saturn Girl was erased from history would have been shocking and original if the original schedule had been adhered to. Now all people can think of is "Mr. Veidt, I don't feel so good..."
  • It became a lot harder to take seriously the reconstruction of the DC multiverse as the Metaverse in this book when viewed in light of two other things: Dark Nights: Death Metal doing the same thing again the next year with the Omniverse, but especially the revived usage of The Metaverse in a completely different context starting in 2021.
• Ho Yay:
  • Veidt knows Dr. Manhattan physically and intimately. There's also him finding interest in Lex Luthor and considering him the smartest between him and Bruce Wayne for no apparent reason. And his intrigued observation of Leon Bonnat's painting "Jacob fighting with the angel" in Luthor's office. "Must remember to investigate further" indeed.
  • The revelation that Carver Coleman was Armored Closet Gay makes for some interesting rereading when it comes to his interactions and encounters with Manhattan, a naked blue man with quite the muscular build.
• I Knew It!:
  • Readers ran afoul of the preview pages seemingly showing Rorschach alive and well (as well as he can be) and began theorizing that he was actually a Legacy Character. They were right.
  • Many readers also deduced fairly early on that Rorschach II was related to Dr. Malcolm Long. They were proven correct.
  • Once Rorschach II was placed in Arkham Asylum, many readers correctly deduced that Saturn Girl would play a big role in the series.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Because it's the first Geoff Johns work regarding the DCU's rebooting, some who are otherwise uninterested in the Watchmen Myth Arc are reading because of Saturn Girl and the potential for more Legion of Super-Heroes stuff.
  • In the same vein, Johnny Thunder's presence means that a lot of Justice Society fans are reading the series just for them.
    • And for bonus points, Saturn Girl and Johnny Thunder have teamed up.
• Magnificent Bastard: In the sequel to Watchmen, Ozymandias is as deadly as ever. When the exposure of his crimes brings the world to the edge of war, he immediately sets about trying to find Dr. Manhattan to persuade him to come home and fix everything. Manipulating the second Rorschach into aiding him by pretending to have cancer and playing up his guilt, he has Rorschach II rescue the criminal duo Mime and Marionette before traveling to the DC Universe. Overcoming numerous obstacles he successfully summons Dr. Manhattan to try and persuade him to return. When Dr. Manhattan refuses to come home Ozymandias brings the world to the edge of war and engineers the defeat of the entire superhero community at the hands of Dr. Manhattan, all to ensure that Superman will be able to meet Dr. Manhattan and persuade him to do the right thing. While he is ultimately jailed for his crimes, Ozymandias's plan does ultimately ensure the survival of two worlds.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "A sequel to Zack Snyder's Watchmen." ^Explanation Many readers found that Doomsday Clock only follows up on the most surface-level readings of the original series, joking that Geoff Johns must be writing a sequel to Zack Snyder's 2009 adaptation, which was criticized for having a very shallow interpretation of the graphic novel.
  • "Why would Alan Moore / Doctor Manhattan◊ do this?" ^Explanation Many DC fans found that it was hypocritical for Geoff Johns, Dan Didio, and Jim Lee to blame the "darkening" of superhero comics on Alan Moore's Watchmen, given that those three were behind many of the Darker and Edgier creative decisions at DC in the first place.
• Moral Event Horizon: Dr. Manhattan murdered Alan Scott by making it so he couldn't reach the Green Lantern during that train wreck. Not only did this have catastrophic effects on the time stream, but by engineering Alan's death it also meant Jade and Obsidian, Alan's daughter and son, were never born.
  • If that doesn’t count, issue #8 definitely does, what with framing Firestorm for killing hundreds of innocent people, manipulating Superman into ruining his reputation, and finally setting off an explosion that kicks the tensions over the Superman Theory into high gear. Though that one was later proven to be courtesy of Ozymandias trying to frame Manhattan by making it appear Manhattan was framing Firestorm.
  • Issue #10 keeps that ball rolling by showing Manhattan callously meddling with time itself, continually wrecking entire universes with repeated applications of for-want-of-a-nail, finally killing Clark's parents outright to create the Darker and Edgier New 52 Superman. However, Manhattan may be one of the few to escape the horizon (YMMV, of course) by essentially undoing or reframing all these changes.
  • Ozymandias is still there in the horizon. While trying to preserve his popularity, even after the revelations in Rorschach's journal have pretty much demolished it, and save the world from nuclear armageddon once again through an insane scheme, he has manipulated a fragile young man with a probable mental illness into taking on the mantle of Rorschach by lying to him about having cancer just as the man was about to kill him. In the DC Universe, he plays everyone like a fiddle, hijacking the pre-existing Supermen Theory, kills hundreds in Moscow by causing a tachyon explosion to frame Doctor Manhattan, kidnaps Johnny Thunder and Saturn Girl (and literally talks the latter out of existence) — all to try and preserve his precious place as humanity's savior by getting Dr. Manhattan to come back and clean up his mess. He gets his wish at the end. Doctor Manhattan does come and eradicate all the nukes in the world before the war could start, but then also lays bare all of Adrian Veidt's crimes, leaving him to be imprisoned by the world in his own tower.
• Narm:
  • The usage of "EEEYYYIIIAAAA"/"EEYYYAAHH!" whenever a character gets injured or screams.
  • Is the ending hopeful and uplifting as Doctor Manhattan rediscovers his humanity? Sure. But why did there have to be a scene of him still fully naked while holding a baby in the middle of a playground full of children?
• Narm Charm: Mime indicates Batman has arrived by putting his fingers by his ears.
• Older Than They Think: This is hardly the first story to reconstruct superheroics in a manner that contrasts with Watchmen. Legends was the first, coming hot of the heels of Watchmen. DC: The New Frontier also served a similar role as a Spiritual Antithesis to Watchmen. As did Kingdom Come, Alan Moore's own Supreme and his America's Best Comics label. Doomsday Clock is merely the latest attempt to confront the challenge of Watchmen's Genre-Killer legacy on the pre-Dark Age comics, albeit the first one that is a direct sequel to the original.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: Just like Watchmen, Doomsday Clock opts for a slow burn. Like the prior work, it's not til the last third of the series that everything that went before comes together as the speed of the plot increases.
• Spoiled by the Format: Due to continuous Schedule Slip, the majority of the DCU essentially moved on without this series, showing how little of an impact it would ultimately have. The most prominent example is issue #11's Ret-Gone of Saturn Girl... who appeared in the pages of a Legion of Super-Heroes revamp that very same week, meaning the claim she was "erased from history" is difficult to take seriously at best. (Then again, no one thought the DC Universe itself would be Ret Goned itself, so it's more a matter of Like You Would Really Do It.)
• Unexpected Character:
  • The prominence of characters associated with The Outsiders is this even more so in light of their appearance in the separate storyline Dark Nights: Metal especially since the writers of that book explicitly stated how the two events were unconnected to each other.
  • While he hasn't directly appeared yet, no one was expecting Alan Scott to be referenced that much since the lead-up to this series used Jay Garrick as the JSA's representative. And, lo and behold, come to find out that the plot was jumpstarted originally by Dr. Manhattan engineering Scott's death by moving the Green Lantern just out of his reach, causing him to die in the train wreck where he had originally become the Lantern for the first time.

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