‘Justice League of America’ Connects ‘Doomsday Clock’ to the Microverse

At the tail end of their adventure in the multiverse, Batman’s unconventional Justice League of America uncovered clues that will tie plot elements in the comic to DC Universe: Rebirth #1 — and the forthcoming Doomsday Clock story.

In the Microverse, Ray Palmer was palling around with his old Sword of the Atom cohorts while investigating a dark mystery. Along the way, he battled his opposite number — an evil being who was using Palmer’s size-changing technology — and it was a last-minute gambit from Ray’s protege Ryan Choi that eventually won the day.

Moments later, though, Ray showed Ryan, Batman, and the rest of their team what he had found: something had come through from another universe into their own, and while it had started small, it had been spreading at the speed of light, leaving a permanent imprint on the sky above: the imprint of a blue hand.

There are two elements at play here: the image of a giant hand reaching through the fabric of reality itself is one that is not uncommon to DC’s big, cosmic events: when Krona looked back in time and accidentally created the multiverse, the thing he saw there (in the moment before it all went to hell) was a hand holding a cluster of stars. Was it God? Something else? It was left unclear, becuase the whole point of Krona’s folly was that characters should not have the hubris to try to stare into the face of the creator.

During Crisis on Infinite Earths, the “hand” was that of The Spectre, who literally ended up armwrestling the Anti-Monitor for the privilege (that’s the very short version). The hand would appear several more times in similar events like Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time and Infinite Crisis.

Arguably the more significant thing in this case is that the hand is blue, suggesting that it is a manifestation of the hand of Doctor Manhattan. In the Rebirth one-shot, it was implied that Doctor Manhattan had something to do with the changes made to the DC Universe following Flashpoint. In the time since, Manhattan has been a lingering presence in the background of numerous DC stories, but has not yet taken center stage.

That will change in Doomsday Clock, which launches in November and sees Ozymandias and Rorschach attempting to bring “God” back, “kicking and screaming if we have to,” while Manhattan himself has a conflict of ideals with Superman.

It is the latter that Batman calls out, asking Palmer to continue observing the Microverse and citing his recent experience with The Comedian’s wayward button, which came from another universe and appeared in the Batcave during Rebirth bathed in energy that matches the signature on the blue handprint.

You can get Justice League of America #17 at your local comic shop, or pick up a digital copy here.