Watchmen & Doomsday Clock Review

With the animated movie coming out next month, I decide to review two Watchmen comics. Those being Watchmen and Doomsday Clock. I'm while aware of the Before Watchmen prequel comics, but I decided to keep it to these two, because I didn't want to this post to be too long. Having said that, let's get to it.

Watchmen is a twelve issue comic book limited series. It was written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons, and published by DC Comics.

The story is, police are investigating the death of a man named Edward Blake but have no leads. Vigilante Rorschach finds out Edward was the hero known as "The Comedian", and believes it's part a plan to kill costumed heroes. While everybody is struggling with their own personal demons, the Watchmen will soon realize that there's a bigger plan at play.

• Negatives

I've got nothing.

• Mix

Now, let's get one thing straight, the story is great and I'll touch upon those aspects later. For now let me get out some grievances. One, there's a story within this story called The Black Freighter. Its basic thing is it parallels one of the Watchmens turn to villainy. The problem is it takes up so much space it slows down the story. So the pacing gets messed up. Not to mention, but we are gonna know why this guy turns into a bad guy by the end. So now The Black Freighter story feels pointless. 🚨 !SPOILER ALERT! 🚨: I'M GONNA GIVE AWAY THE ENDING! SO IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS, JUST KEEP SCROLLING! Okay, so by the end of the story, the villain makes a giant squid appear in the middle of New York. My issue with this is it just comes right out of nowhere. Sure Dr. Manhattan is an all-powerful god, but he's primarily base in science. Not too mention but the story is based in a dark, gritter, and reality based world. So again, this squid is one big WTF! compared to everything else.

Alright, now let's get into the good stuff. One thing that's amazing is Alan Moore originally wanted the story to center around DC Comics characters, specifically characters from Charlton Comics, but that got rejected. So instead of characters like Blue Beetle and The Question, you get Nite Owl and the fan favorite Rorschach. I bring this up and praise it, because not only did Moore not let the set back stop, but he managed to not only make original characters, but a fully established world. I mean it you would of thought these characters and the world they live in has been around for years prior to this comic. We get backstories to our characters, how the emergence of superheroes affected real world events, etc. Just some top notch world building. Another praise goes towards the tension. As the story goes on the tension from another world war breaking out just keeps building and building and building, and you just feel that. So in a way this can be a very stressful read. Then there's the characters. They're very well written. We get entire backstories, we see how the impending doom is changing them as while as how the murder mystery is effecting them. And in the end, we also read about their moral dilemma about what they should do regarding what happened in New York. Speaking of the murder mystery, it's also really good. I already went into detail about the ending, so I'm not going to go into detail about the mystery. What I will say is there's plenty of twist and turns that'll keep you guessing.

• Positives

While I had slight issues with the story, one thing I know for a fact everybody can agree is Dave Gibbons' art. His work on the story's use of a nine-panel grid layout is brilliantly done. He also has great clean lines, and all of his character designs are very different from one another, so there's no way you're mistaken one character for another.

While I do have a some issues with the story, Watchmen is one of many essential comics you need to read.

My final rating is, A Must Read.

Doomsday Clock is a twelve issue limited series, that concludes a long storyline established in The New 52 and DC Rebirth, and a direct sequel to Watchmen. It was written by Geoff Johns and drawn by Gary Frank, and published by DC Comics.

The story is, after the events of Watchmen, Rorschach's journal has been published and now everybody knows the truth of what really happened all of those years ago, with that world put into chaos, Ozymandias travels to the DC Universe to find Dr. Manhattan in the hopes of saving their world. But things aren't that easy, especially since Dr. Manhattan sees a vision in where he and Superman are on the path towards a collision course.

• Negatives

I've got nothing.

• Mix

Let me start off by saying I'm a big fan of Geoff Johns comics. I love his Rebirth comics with Green Lantern and The Flash, I thought what he did with all three volumes of Batman: Earth One was entertaining, his Superman: Brianiac story was awesome, I'm quite fond of his Teen Titans run, and etc, etc, etc. So I did get a kick out of Doomsday Clock. One aspect of the story that was really good, was much like Alan Moore before him, Geoff wrote a story where the world is on the verge of a powder keg that's about to blow. But with Doomsday Clock is not about nuclear bombs about to go off like with Watchmen. It's which side is gonna have the most powerful group of metahumans. Which is an idea I really liked, for not only being interesting but fitting perfectly in the DC Universe. But what also made the story really good was on Superman focused it was. The story is greatly telling us why Superman is so important to the DC franchise. The story is saying he's the center and without him there is no DC. Which is true. If Action Comics #1 didn't feature Superman, I don't think comics would have superheroes. Now previously I said I'm a Geoff Johns, but even then I'm not a blind fanboy when it comes to his work. Sometimes he does have a flaw or flaws even if his stories are great. Doomsday Clock is no expectation. While Johns did great with the DC half of the story, the Watchmen half was a bit iffy. Dr. Manhattan was written really well, even redeeming himself thanks to Superman's words and actions. The villain from Watchmen is also given a pretty good story, because yet again he believes because of his high intelligence he thinks the world needs his form of "saving". Then we have the new Rorschach. His story arc was fairly simple, nothing to mind blowing, but I guess it did work. The worst part was The Comedian. He didn't really do much and I think Geoff Johns just part him in there because he's such a popular character.

• Positives

Once again, the truly positive thing is the art. Gary Frank is not only one of my many favorite Superman artist, but one of my favorite artists. Even though there's times he's emulating Dave Gibbons, Gary still managed to make the art his own thing. He's also got great details, and whether the moment is dramatic, quiet, action-driven, etc. Gary's art is just plain beautiful.

While I can see others people's problems with it, I really enjoyed Doomsday Clock. It wasn't a perfect sequel to Watchmen, but it's still worth a read.

My final rating is, Great.

That's all for now. Come back on Thursday, Jul 25th, for my Cinematic Disasters review of, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.