Watchmen's Exquisite Corpse: Doomsday Clock

but when troubles about you'd best watch out for the watchman oh hi you caught me engaging in gross commercialization of watchman speaking of that let's talk about the sequel to watchman Doomsday Clock hello welcome to comic tropes I'm your host Chris about a hundred years ago the surrealist movement created a group game called exquisite corpse and in it a writer or an artist would start a piece of work but then show the next person in line only the end of it and they would continue that artwork from what they saw it would result in something totally absurd cut to today and there's a sequel to Watchmen that results in an exquisite corpse exercise in more ways than one one of the best regarded comics of all time is Watchmen a groundbreaking story that aimed to answer the question what if superheroes lived in the real world over 30 years later writers and publishers are still taking lessons from it but not always the right ones it was always intended to simply be a self-contained story but with its success DC Comics has started expanding on it in more recent years and this past month DC Comics just wrapped up a sequel story to watchman called doomsday clock in it the characters from The Watchmen universe are transported to the world of DC Comics so they're standing side by side with superheroes like Batman and Superman let's talk about its successes and its failures alongside looking at the techniques of its writer Geoff Johns if DC was going to make a sequel to Watchmen Geoff Johns was the natural choice it's an important comic and Johns has made his name at DC writing and contributing ideas to their biggest events John's got his start by working for film director your daughter who had made everything from Superman to lethal weapon during the filming of Donner's 1997 movie conspiracy theory Jones met DC Comics personnel during the New York filming including editor Eddie Braganza Braganza invited John's to pitch some ideas which led to him writing the book stars and stripe from there John's was invited by writer James Robinson to co-write JSA about the Justice Society of America the first superheroes in the DC Universe he worked on that title for a long time and also began writing for flash and Superman his biggest break came in 2005 when he was selected to write Green Lantern and was tasked with bringing Hal Jordan back as the hero Jordan had been the hero of the title for decades but it turned into a villain back in the 1994 story Emerald Twilight John's retcon the story to say Jordan had been possessed by an entity based on fear his runs were noted for getting to the core of an idea JSA focused on family for instance and Green Lantern focused on overcoming fear as part of his run he built an expanded mythology that included other lanterns powered by emotions across the light spectrum for instance the red lanterns are powered by rage and blue lanterns are powered by hope personally I'm not a big fan of the event comic blackest night that Green Lantern built up to where they've got all the different lanterns and all sorts of other superheroes battling against the Black Lantern Corps which could revive dead heroes and villains it was just too many characters for me but a big part of Jeff John's appeal is that fanservice and it was successful so it led to DC actually promoting him to the chief creative officer and president of the company even with his added management responsibilities John's remained a prolific writer for DC writing up to four monthly titles at a time but when Johns became president and Paul Levitz stepped down that's when DC began looking to monetize Watchmen aggressively so let's briefly recap why that's a big deal in 1986 1987 DC published the 12 issue series watchman by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons Moret pitched the idea as a murder mystery using the Charlton Comics characters DC had purchased in 1983 including the question Blue Beetle and Captain Atom among others editor dick Giordano countered that Moore should consider making analogs since DC had just spent a lot of money acquiring those characters and they weren't too interested in killing some of them off the original watchman book tells the story of an alternate world where Nixon is on his third term as president and the world has superheroes although only dr. Manhattan truly has superpowers and vigilantes have been outlawed as the cold war between Russia and America draws towards nuclear war superheroes and villains are being killed off eventually the remaining superheroes discover that superhero Ozymandias is behind this and he came up with a plan to kill millions with a fake alien attack designed to unite the world powers and avert Armageddon the great twist is that Ozymandias is successful it leads to dr. Manhattan deciding to leave earth behind after killing Rorschach who planned to reveal everything to the press the book ends with a tabloid considering looking at some mail which Rorschach had sent before he died it's a fantastic comic that works on several levels you've got a great murder mystery you've got commentary on the tensions between the Cold War powers of Russia and America and it takes a new look at superheroes grounding them in a world of logic it also satirizes the Objectivist views that a lot of superheroes from the Golden Age tended to have it was also intended to be a single story owned by its creators that didn't happen when Maura Gibbons signed the contracts for the story it said the rights would revert to the creators one year after the book was published this was 1986 and there was no reason to think it would still be in publication by 1988 except it's sold incredibly well so DC helped pioneer the new AI of compiling the comics and publishing them in a trade paperback in 1987 and they've kept it in print every year since then so while DC has the legal right to print and merchandise Watchmen I would argue they've never really had the ethical right to do so that was not the creator's intent to give that away and so uh it soured their relationship with Allen Morton he vowed never to work with DC comics again and he kept his word they even came after him at one point and said look we will give you the rights to watch men back if you just write us a sequel and he said no thanks he rejected them that said except for reprinting The Watchmen comic DC actually did hold off for a very long time in terms of creating any additional merchandise or news stories part of that decision was thanks to an unwritten rule by President Paul Levitz but when he stepped down in 2009 the Watchmen movie was in the process of being released following that Geoff Johns gave the go-ahead to a prequel series before Watchmen you started seeing Watchmen action figures t-shirts and Funko pops and then John's elected to use Watchmen as a part of a DC continuity reboot formally making a sequel and pulling the Watchmen characters into the DC Universe at this point the differing goals between the two projects become apparent Moore wanted to use the archetypes of superheroes to tell a more grounded story that focused on a new mystery and ended with questions for the world at large but pretty conclusively ended for all the characters John's opted to use the characters as a way to give DC Comics a soft reboot and focus on the changing tone of DC's superhero titles his goals with the title were to imitate and revise without getting too bogged down in the details Geoff Johns had rebooted DC's comic continuity in 2011 with a series he wrote called flash point which restarted the DC superhero continuity flashpoint was successful it brought in the age of what DC called the new 52 and it updated all the superheroes also gave them a slightly darker edge so in 2016 Geoff Johns decided he wanted to walk some of that back and he rebooted things again with DC rebirth and he decided the mechanism for rebooting things with rebirth would be using Watchmen DC has rebooted its continuity several times and what's interesting is seeing how the villains of the stories tend to represent the goals of the editors at the time in crisis on Infinite Earths the anti-monitor wants to destroy the universes and editors at the time wanted to kill off characters canceled titles and streamline their continuity in the 90s zero-hour was a reboot that involved keeping the continuity for most titles but rebooting others and this time we have Hal Jordan as parallax as the villain trying to remake the world the way he thinks it should be these are apparently unintentional meta commentaries on the editors visions Geoff Johns wrote Infinite Crisis where previous alternate versions of Alexander Luthor Superman and Superboy felt the world was too dark and they needed to make it right that seems to still be John's goal with Doomsday Clock and we'll discuss some of its success in a while but what he seems to fail to grasp is that just because comics characters are saying things are dark and need to be restarted does it make the real-life creators of the books change what they're doing if you want your comics to be lighter or more engaging with a new audience you don't need to tell a fictional story that's telling us the readers that things need to be lighter you just need to talk to your editors and have writers make comics the way you want them to be made you don't require a fictional story to make that change so we know the goal was to utilize the godlike dr. Manhattan to reset DC's continuity let's talk about doomsday clocks plot and how it gets there the story spends hardly any time in the world of watchmen and why would it that story is basically over we spend just enough time for us to learn that Rorschach's letter made it to press and the world is back on the precipice of nuclear war Ozzie man has a new plan to save the world and it involves convincing dr. Manhattan to fix everything Ozymandias learns that dr. Manhattan is in another reality and creates technology to visit DC's universe taking with him a new Rorschach and the new characters of marionette and mine to give Doomsday Clock some credit where it's due marionette and mime are pretty awesome and engaging new characters they're a romantic and villainous duo marionette uses razor sharp wire as a weapon and mime has invisible guns I'd argue that that might not have worked too well in the world of Watchmen but it works just fine in the DC Comics superhero universe I would also argue that it did not require Doomsday Clock to add these cool new characters to that world Ozymandias brings along marionette because dr. Manhattan once spared her life and it was revealed that she was pregnant at the time that said the story later explains that is not the reason he spared her life and that tracks because in Watchmen we saw the increasingly detached dr. Manhattan watch comedian kill a pregnant lady during the Vietnam War he did nothing to intervene comedian is back - why are the dead characters of comedian and Rorschach back I guess just because they're popular Doomsday Clock has the DC Universe in a similar predicament - Watchmen the world powers are on the brink of war but instead of nuclear weapons tensions run high because of the so called Superman theory it has the world and especially Russia convinced that the u.s. is creating superhumans I see where that idea comes from and it makes a certain amount of sense I don't mind the idea of the Superman theory of course in real life the reason there are so many American superheroes is because the comics are made in America and obviously we're telling stories with characters in a setting that we can relate to and understand for the most part you could just as easily say that there are tons of other superheroes out there in the other countries and we just don't get to see their adventures but that is not the way it's presented in said it's presented that there's a relatively small amount of superheroes in other countries Ozymandias decides to use these tensions between the other world powers and America the so called Superman theory at the heart of this story he uses that as part of his new plan and his new plan sucks Ozymandias his plan is multifaceted and would depend on tons of things going just right he also has to come up with a large portion of it in a short period of time since he didn't know anything about DC's universe until he arrived but he arranges for it to look like firestorm turns hundreds of Russians into glass when Superman investigates and stands up for firestorm it brings Russia and the u.s. to a superhuman war that somehow gets the interest of dr. Manhattan it is at this point that Ozymandias brings forward marionette to try and reach out to dr. Manhattan's remaining human compassion instead Ozymandias learns that dr. Manhattan spared marionette because she's pregnant again and he foresees that this child will be adopted by Silk Spectre and Nite Owl from the original Watchmen comic story and it will make them happy meanwhile dr. Manhattan can only see his own future up until confronting Superman he believes that this means that either Superman will kill him or he himself will destroy the universe how he can see the child's life past this blank spot is never explained along the way the story is frequently told from dr. Manhattan's perspective this is both annoying and essential for Doomsday Clock to work issue four of Watchmen was the origin and life of dr. Manhattan it was told non chronologically and in first-person narration boxes it was a clever unique way of showing us a glimpse into his mind but what was cool for one issue is used throughout Doomsday Clock in addition to dr. Manhattan not being able to see past the conflict with Superman we see that he came to the DC universe back in the 30s and moved a magic lantern a few feet away so that Alan Scott never became the Green Lantern in turn this led to a world that did not have the Golden Age superheroes from the Justice Society of America to inspire them and led to the darker world of new 52 and if you thought that the new 52 was explained by the goddess Pandora merging all sorts of realities together to fight something for the future just completely forget about that story dr. Manhattan blows her up in another side comic so just forget that whole thing about Pandora once dr. Manhattan comes into conflict with Superman the theme of Doomsday Clock becomes clear dr. Manhattan is a human who has lost his humanity and created a darker world Superman is an alien but it's the most human of us all and will always represent hope and so Superman proposes to dr. Manhattan a third option for why dr. Manhattan can't see the future perhaps he uses his powers to fix both universes dr. Manhattan gives his life to do just that so Ozymandias his plan works but by accident because he didn't count on Superman inspiring hope within dr. Manhattan and so dr. Manhattan corrects the DC Comics timeline and creates a world that brings back the Justice Society of America and everything is right and happy and hopeful hopefully it's worth noting that this 12-issue series was hit with multiple delays and ultimately took a little over two years to release the entire story now this was designed to explain the rebirth reboot but it ended up coming out well over a year after that had already been established continuity in the various superhero titles John's probably got in over his head with his managerial duties as well as writing this story but he had stepped down by the time the final few issues were coming out and in my opinion the final three issues are far superior suddenly the story isn't bogged down in continuity and establishes relatively quickly its theme of alienation versus hope and wraps everything up Doomsday Clock is functional but rarely fun or engaging it also highlights the differences between Alan Moore and Jeff Jones as they use the same characters Alan Moore makes pre-established characters work for him he took the archetypes of the Charlton comics superheroes so that they were easily understandable to comics readers and he told an original story Jeff Jones is beholden to continuity he loves characters like the Justice Society flash and Green Lantern but feels an obligation to reference them and create a story that explains why upcoming comics will be different and ideally more hopeful instead of just going ahead and writing more hopeful stories even his biggest ideas in Green Lantern were based on short stories Alan Moore had written in the 80s including the Green Lantern Corps falling in a war the prophecy of a Green Lantern with the power of Superman the planet of the Red Lanterns and much more when watchmen came out and was a huge success many writers tried to copy its success but they took away the wrong lessons instead of telling an original story in a different way they mimicked the surface level realism and grittiness when Geoff Johns wrote Doomsday Clock he made literal the thematic problems Watchmen created he explicitly stated with the comic that there supérieures had become too dour and that they needed to be fixed time will tell if he was successful did DC need Doomsday Clock to fix itself I'm not so sure of course every publisher needs to tell good stories but I'm not sure that they needed a story explaining why they need to tell good stories that's a little bit on the nose that said Jeff John's not really my favorite writer but he is very successful and I think I understand why he's definitely good at fanservice he brings in a lot of characters too big action set-pieces he's good at set pieces he's good at character work he's not bad at character work but I would call his dialogue functional and basically what I wish I would say more is original ideas out of him that's just my take your mileage may vary I've got a few more thoughts on Watchmen in general but let's hold off take a quick look at the fan art that came in this week and then I'll wrap up with a few thoughts about Watchmen in general that just didn't apply specifically to the Doomsday Clock review Tom motley illustrated this gorgeous piece which encourages me to review more indie comics thank you Tom good idea Forge grass injure sent in some cool art featuring me as a superhero or maybe that's just me the ABS are accurate if you would like to have some fan art featured on this channel as long as it has something to do with comic tropes I'm happy to feature it just send it into this address Kermit tropes at gmail.com and I will feature it and then I will pick a winner to get a gotcha Phan prize out of the gotcha pond machine that was donated by lunar shine store there were two entrants Tom and Forge so I've got this cool coin that a fan sent in let me see it focuses right about there we've got heads that's me and tails that's info Tron so tom is heads for jizz tails and the winner is heads Tom I'm gonna send you a gotcha pun let's see what you got I got these out of Japan pretty recently I'm pretty excited looks like this is a miniature old-fashioned telephone this is this is only gonna focus on my face so I can just sort of hold it back here and you can get a rough idea pretty pretty intricate detail that's pretty fun I like that hopefully you like it Tom I'll send it your way yeah so I said I had a few more thoughts on Watchmen what's depressing is if DC was going to go to all this time and effort and expense to finally create a sequel of sorts to Watchmen the year comes out isn't even the best sequel to watch men I would argue that the HBO TV show is a much better take on the material because it does tell something very new and different so you know Doomsday Clock I'm not sure that people will even remember this one about two years from now I do think that if you take the time to sit down and read it you will enjoy it if you're already a fan of DC comics if you're a fan of DC comics you'll get something out of it if you're not this story has way too much going on to engage a new reader whereas Watchmen is something you could give to a new reader and they'll pretty much get it so another comparison you know I just don't think that I don't think Doomsday Clock has staying power I do think it got a lot better in its final third it it ended well it did end well it made its theme clear and I liked it and overall the artwork by Gary Frank yeah that's pretty good Gary Frank was not always my favorite artist when he drew Incredible Hulk I felt like he made Incredible Hulk look just too human he was just like a bulked up regular guy didn't look like a monster that's okay it just wasn't for me it wasn't bad it wasn't bad I read those stories and I liked them but I wasn't a huge fan I think his artwork has evolved I think that if you're going to try to mimic the Dave Gibbons style Gary Frank did a very admirable job so the artwork is good too I'll definitely give it credit there but this idea of merchandising The Watchmen has never sat right with me I waited until all 12 issues were out before I read it because I didn't want to have my comic book store ordering extra copies for me and contributing to to that I didn't feel it was right so now that they have older copies on the shelves I picked those up and I read the story you've heard my take on it but this idea of merchandising the hell out of Watchmen that's not a new idea Harry Partridge made an incredibly funny animation about this a decade ago so I will have the link to that video in the description below check that out for a good laugh that's a good way to close things out thank you so much for watching I'll see you soon and until next time keep reading comics [Music] you

Channel: ComicTropes

Views: 228,573

Keywords: comic books, watchmen, doomsday clock, alan moore, geoff johns, dave gibbons, gary frank, comic tropes, dc comics, new 52, flashpoint, rebirth

Id: _KzhYw_59_A

Length: 24min 24sec (1464 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 14 2020