Spoilers ahead for Doomday Clock #4, on sale now.
Decades after being institutionalized due to chronic alcoholism and deteriorating mental health, former Minuteman Byron Lewis — the Watchmen character who had been known as Mothman — died in 1992, according to his obituary printed as backmatter in an issue of Doomsday Clock. The implication was that he had died during a fire at his asylum, although it was not clear whether foul play might have been involved.
Videos by ComicBook.com
In this week’s issue, fans learned the truth: he burned to death, yes, but it appeared to be willingly — that he felt his journey was through.
Lewis had been committed to a mental institution after a steady decline in his faculties, as detailed briefly in Watchmen and then explored in more (and seemingly contradictory) detail in Before Watchmen.
It seems likely that Before Watchmen is largely apocryphal as far as Doomsday Clock‘s Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, and Brad Anderson are concerned, but that is merely speculation on our part.
Around 1985, Byron befriended a newly-committed patient — Reggie Long, the son of former prison psychiatrist Malcolm Long. Reggie was a survivor of the New York City Massacre, suffering severe mental trauma and psychic afterimages of the alien. Byron first met Reggie on the roof of the asylum, during one of a number of times that he fashioned wings out of material around the facility and used it to fly away and briefly escape before being brought back. This process, later, would prove valuable as a way of smuggling contraband into the hospital.
After Reggie was beaten by an abusive orderly at the asylum, Byron taught him how to fight, imparting the techniques and methods of each of the Minutemen to Reggie. He also repeatedly returned with family keepsakes and information pertaining to his father’s final case: the vigilante known Rorschach. The two became close friends over the years.
After Adrian Veidt was exposed as the perpetrator of the New York massacre, Reggie became determined to take his revenge. Byron escaped with him when Reggie set fire to the asylum, however, Byron turned back and walked into the fire to his death, leaving Reggie a warm note and a final parting gift: Rorschach’s mask, and the means to find Veidt.
Doomsday Clock #5 hits the stands in May. In the meantime, Doomsday Clock #4 is on sale today at comic book stores and online.
