I Used to Hate DC’s Doomsday Clock, but Now I Think It Could Be the DCU’s Biggest Movie Yet

DC Comics is hitting new levels of popularity, both in general pop culture and in the comic industry. The DCU has been putting out quality work that has been getting praised from critics and fans alike (although the Paramount merger and the lose of James Gunn and Peter Safran in charge has all of us a bit nervous) and DC is whupping Marvel in comic sales like it ain’t no thang. The publisher has the greatest back catalog of stories in comic history (sorry Marvel fans, but DC has put out superior comics over the years; call me when Marvel has anything rivaling Watchmen or All-Star Superman), giving them so many adaptation options. There are numerous stories that fans want to see on the big screen, but this particular (crusty old) fan has a weird one: Doomsday Clock. That’s right, Doomsday Clock.

This 12-issue maxiseries from Geoff Johns and Gary Frank was set up starting with 2016’s DC Rebirth #1, teasing the role that Doctor Manhattan played in the creation of the New 52. Stories like “The Button” would push the plot forward, leading to Doomsday Clock itself. The book was meant to be the next big DC event, leading into a bold new future, but delays meant that the company had to move forward with their overall narrative, making Doomsday Clock a rather maligned piece of comic book ephemera. My opinion on the series has changed a lot (people who have been following me since CBR might remember it on some of my worst of all time lists) and I think it could be the ultimate DCU movie.

Doomsday Clock Is Better Than It Gets Credit For and Would Be an Amazing Film

Watchmen is widely considered DC’s greatest masterpiece, a story that has gone down as one of the greatest of all-time. However, the book itself is rather controversial within the DC fandom. It all comes down to Alan Moore’s relationship with DC. He signed a contract, thinking he would get the rights to Watchmen eventually, but was hoodwinked by DC corporate. This is why Moore no longer works for DC. Among the fandom, there are some out there who think that Moore was disrespected and as such, DC has no right to create sequels. The rest of us only care if the stories are good.

So, when DC Rebirth #1 dropped, there was a massive outcry. Some were yelling that DC shouldn’t be making Watchmen sequels, let alone crossing them over with DC heroes and the rest of us just wanted the whole thing to make sense and be a good story. The book dropped in 2018 and immediately became a lightning rod among the fandom, including this one. Fan reaction was mixed, even among the people that wanted the series, like me.

Johns aped Moore’s writing style completely for the book, with very mixed results. It feels like the story takes a while to get going and many of the events in the book felt like they were surprising weightless when I was first reading it. While I loved several issues of book – especially #10 and #12 – I was overall disappointed with it. Like many, I had high hopes for it and back then, as the book ended, it felt like it didn’t live up to any of them. I put it away, disappointed, and didn’t think about it again. However, a few years ago, I decided to sit down and re-read the whole thing in one sitting.

This is when my opinion on the series changed. The long delays between issues did massive damage to the tone of the book and its overall flow during my initial readthrough; those events that had seemed weightless when I read it when it was coming out felt more substantial. Mime and Marionette are amazing characters, Rorschach II’s story is honestly pretty cool, and the tale of Carver Coleman is brilliant, especially when we find out how it all turned out. The final issue was even better than before for me, a love letter to Superman and DC Comics that will always be one of my favorite single issues ever.

If you hate the very idea of Doomsday Clock, I won’t be able to convince you otherwise, but I sincerely believe this could be the perfect DCU movie. Watchmen is well-known and beloved; even the movie has its share of fans (and they’re not even all Zack Snyder fanboys) and we live in a pop cultural landscape where crossovers like this would be huge. Superman showed that fans liked the hope punk aspects of the character, something that is at the core of Doomsday Clock.

Doomsday Clock appealed to me because I understood what Johns was trying to say with the book – that Watchmen brought darkness and maturity to DC and that led inexorably to the excesses of grim and gritty storytelling (many of them written by Johns himself). He just took this idea and made it literal canon to DC Comics. The book is all about the juxtaposition of Doctor Manhattan – a “realistic” superpowered character who spends the book trying to figure out what makes Superman tick – and Big Blue himself, a hero that is looked at as the living embodiment of hope. Doomsday Clock isn’t about Superman and Manhattan fighting, it’s about how each of them affects the other.

We are living in a world where hope and reality are constantly butting up against each other and hope is in short supply. Doomsday Clock is a story about the brutality of the real world and how acts of kindness and love can help us transcend that, that we don’t have to let the horrors of reality control us, that we can choose and in that choice make a better world for everyone. Doctor Manhattan learns the lesson of Superman – that sometimes, people with power can fight against the darkness of reality, that we’re all in here together and we’re all we have– and I think that’s a message we need right now.

Doomsday Clock Could Make Avengers: Endgame Look Like Small Potatoes

I hate House of M. I hated it when it was coming out and every year, I used to read it, just to make sure I still hated it. See, as you get older, sometimes stories that you used to hate gain a new appreciation. You can see what the creators were doing or something in it speaks to you that didn’t before. You’ve changed and that has changed the story. It’s always a good idea to give stories you don’t like another chance. My opinion on Doomsday Clock changed because I gave it another chance and I’m happy it did. It’s honestly an excellent story and it’s about time it got more praise.

The DCU is in flux once again, but as far as we know, we’re keeping these versions of the characters. The DCU needs that killer moment and I think that Doomsday Clock could give it to them. The juxtaposition of Superman and Doctor Manhattan is one of the coolest ideas in the comic industry and it’s one that belongs on the big screen. A crossover between the DC Universe and Watchmen at the multiplexes would be amazing, giving DC Studios the kind of massive success that made the MCU a pop culture juggernaut.

What do you think about Doomsday Clock? Do you think it’s underrated or are you in the hate brigade? Do you think a movie would work? Sound off in the comment section below.

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