‘Doomsday Clock’ #5 Variant Brings in The Joker

During a Facebook video conversation with DC co-publisher Jim Lee, Doomsday Clock artist Gary Frank shared a pair of images from upcoming Doomsday Clock covers.

In what appears to be the standard cover to Doomsday Clock #4, a stack of pancakes are given the Rorschach treatment, with symmetrical syrup adorning the breakfast plate. In the variant cover to Doomsday Clock #5, The Joker appears.

On the cover, The Joker becomes the second major DC villain to be spotted in proximity to Watchmen big bad Adrian Veidt. The variant cover to Doomsday Clock #2 features Lex Luthor sitting with The Comedian’s blood-splattered button while Ozymandias puts a hand on his shoulder from off the page. The #5 cover shows The Joker applying Veidt’s Nostalgia-branded makeup.

So far, the primary covers to Doomsday Clock have featured static images of inanimate objects, not unlike the covers to the original Watchmen. Each issue has also had a variant cover, drawn by Frank, which features a DC Comics character interacting in some way with the world of Watchmen.

The series begins in the world of Watchmen, several years after Rorschach’s journal was discovered in the mail room at The New Frontiersman. Its mission statement, per the preview pages released during New York Comic Con last week, is to bring Doctor Manhattan back to his home from where he has been hiding — on the periphery of the DC Universe.

Rorschach will headline the mission, with Ozymandias seemingly off the board because he is the world’s most wanted man after revelations that he was responsible for the deaths of millions become public knowledge.

Doomsday Clock launches this November, with the first issue released to stores the day before Thanksgiving — something that has emotional significance for writer Geoff Johns, who recalls reading comics on the holiday as a child.