Action Comics #986 Reveals Mr. Oz is Not [SPOILER]

Spoilers ahead for Action Comics #986, out today.

For two years, Superman fans have been eager to learn the true identity of Mr. Oz, the hooded stranger who has toggled back and forth between being a silent ally or antagonist to the Man of Steel since he was first introduced -- and today, one major suspect can seemingly be removed from the board.

That would be Ozymandias, of Watchmen fame, who has been the leading candidate to be "Mr. Oz" for quite some time. What happened to take him off the board?

Turns out Mr. Oz isn't human. And that's kind of a deal-breaker.

Ozymandias, known as the "smartest man in the world," was the secret antagonist of Watchmen, playing all of the other characters against one another in order to trick world governments into ending the Cold War. At the end of the day, though, like every character in Watchmen except Doctor Manhattan himself, Ozymandias was a human with no real powers other than above-average strength, intellect, and the like.

A tattoo on one of Mr. Oz's helpers led some fans to speculate that he might be Ozymandias, way back before DC Universe: Rebirth formally introduced the idea of Superman squaring off against Doctor Manhattan. That speculation revved into high gear when Ozymandias and Doctor Manhattan had dialogue appear in DC Universe: Rebirth, a comic that also featured Mr. Oz.

During a subsequent story in Action Comics, writer Dan Jurgens told ComicBook.com that readers should "read "a lot into" Mr. Oz speculating about danger coming from Mars.

it now appears as though Mr. Oz is not Doctor Manhattan's oldest ally, though; perhaps he could be an enemy to the character, who will square off with Superman in Doomsday Clock this November?

If you wanted to get really technical, "Doctor Manhattan" and "Mister Oz" are names that seem at odds with one another right away: one is an honorific followed by a real place, while the second is a conventional title followed by a fake place.

For folks thinking that Mr. Oz might have Kryptonian origins, there's a bit there too. Beyond the obvious fact that Oz (in the L. Frank Baum books) has an Emerald City -- perhaps an allusion to Kryptonite, which is green, crystalline, and often glowing -- there's something else.

Mr. Oz's revelation that he isn't human -- he calls Lex Luthor "only" human and repeatedly trash-talks the human race -- comes on the heels of an action that would pretty much have clued in the audience even if it wasn't spelled out for him: he attacks Lex with what appears to be an optic blast or possibly heat vision, slicing the House of El's sigil off Lex's Apokoliptian armor.

In two weeks, "The Oz Effect" promises to reveal the truth to Superman...!