Happy 2018, fellow geeks. It was in the waning days of 2017 that DC Comics released their second issue of the Doomsday Clock mega-event. Apparently my Film Geek cred impossibly hard to get over, so I’m going to keep it super simple and just wear my Comics Geek cap this time around! Following up closely where Issue #1 ended, Doomsday Clock #2 finds Rorschach, Ozymandias, and the lover team of the Mime and Marionette essentially hot-wiring Nite Owl’s Owlship in an attempt to find the self-banished Dr. Manhattan. It’s hard to get into this without spoiling any details (and there are, as is becoming increasingly clear with each issue) many, MANY details in this issue, and it would do to read it with as little knowledge of what to expect as possible, although…as the cover art suggests…the meeting of Ozymandias and who he believes is the smartest man in the DC Universe leaves one eager with anticipation for where this story is going. And while the Mime and Marionette are more passive characters this time out, they’re still a pair of the single most interesting new additions (thus far) to what is already a rich pantheon of characters.
Instead, once again, writer Geoff Johns is reconstructing the very deconstruction that the original Watchmen undertook, while subtly (ever so subtly, and it took more than one reading) commenting on our current culture of nostalgia porn (given in a throwaway line my the Marionette…fittingly, while administering an Easter egg from the original Watchmen). Gary Frank continues his great work with this maxi-series, channeling Brian Bolland in more than one way, and making me impatient for the rest of this series to come out so I can study the layout.
The closing pages hint that a change in history for both the DC and Watchmen universe has taken place at some point in the near past of this story, and the final few panels exude such anticipation of further commentary about our current superhero landscape (think about the image of Batman staring across at Rorschach, what that means, and how it comments more on Batman that just being a “cool, EPIC!” moment). 4.5/5 Pancake Breakfasts.