Watchmen Characters Collide With the DC Universe in November's Doomsday Clock

DC has finally announced the project that will bring the heroes fo the DC Universe up against the [...]

By Russ Burlingame

DC has finally announced the project that will bring the heroes fo the DC Universe up against the characters from Watchmen -- and it will be in stores in November, just in time for the Justice League movie.

Titled Doomsday Clock, the series will be written by DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns and feature art by his frequent collaborators Gary Frank and Brad Anderson.

The Doomsday clock was a recurring visual in Watchmen, and one that we have spotted repeatedly since the start of the Rebirth era of DC Comics.

Clocks (usually oriented to a few minutes to midnight) have appeared in a number of DC titles in the last year, from Geoff Johns's Justice League to Dan Abnett's Titans to Dan Jurgens's Action Comics and beyond.

The Doomsday Clock story itself, though, will not be a typical event book.

"We're not going to do a story like this unless we one-thousand percent believe in it. It is all about the story; it is only about the story," Johns told SyFy Wire. "There are no crossovers. No watered down one-shots or mini-series on top of this one. This is a standalone story. There is only Doomsday Clock. We had no interest in doing a crossover with this. We didn't want to see Doctor Manhattan facing off against Superman in Action Comics, with all due respect. That is not what this is about. It is about something different … It will have an impact on the entire DC Universe. It will affect everything moving forward and everything that has come before. It will touch the thematic and literal essence of DC."

He further said that the story will largely be about the clash of ideals between Superman and Doctor Manhattan -- Manhattan is a man who has become so disconnected from his humanity that he sees the world almost as an abstraction. Superman is an alien who embraces humanity more than most humans.

Johns acknowledged the challenges inherent to writing a follow-up to Watchmen, and said that it took him months to decide to actually pull the trigger.

"I believe in the power of these icons. I believe in the power of hope, and optimism," Johns told Aaron Sagers in the piece. "I don't think it's fake. People tend to say if it's grim, and gritty, it's real, and grounded. I refuse that … And I don't care if it stirs up drama. But I want it to be drama in the right way. I think Gary and I have earned the right to do a story we believe in. With Rebirth, I think we proved we care, and take this seriously. We love Watchmen. We love the DC Universe."

More information on this is likely to come out soon; the image itself will apparently appear in this week's The Flash #22, the final part of the four-part Batman crossover "The Button," in which the two heroes have been trying to figure out the origins of the bloody smiley face button that appeared in the Batcave during DC Universe: Rebirth last May.

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