@Keith_Dooley
The mystery of the smiley button left in the Batcave is about to be unraveled this November, in a miniseries titled Doomsday Clock! Writer Geoff Johns, along with artist Gary Frank and colorist Brad Anderson, is going to continue the tale he began in DC’s emotionally explosive Rebirth Special #1. The final part of “The Button” storyline culminates in this week’s Flash #22, with events from that mini-crossover leading into Doomsday Clock. In an interview with SyFyWire, Johns gives us readers some enticing details about the miniseries with a nice amount of teases.
Johns says Doomsday Clock is his “most personal and most epic” story. This excites this geek, personally, as the Rebirth Special also felt like a very personal story and expressed a palpable love for the DC pantheon and its rich history. With the interaction between the moody Watchmen characters and the hopeful heroics of the DC heroes (especially Superman!), Johns has the chance to tell a nuanced story weaved within the bombastic expectations of a clash such as this one. He also mentions in the interview that he doesn’t know if this story could have been told had the U.S. election turned out differently. The “rise of extremism” in our society, according to Johns, is a timely issue that will further enrich the story. Politics, the personal, and superheroes sounds like a volatile and delectable mix to me.
I’m also extremely happy that Johns says Doomsday Clock will be a standalone story without placing added pressures on readers to buy endless crossovers that interrupt the flow of other books. Something this momentous deserves a spotlight all its own, anyway.
And before you think the Doomsday from Superman lore is going to be a part of Doomsday Clock, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Johns liked the idea of the title’s initials being “D.C.” See what he did? And he wanted to show how Superman is going to go through something that could be much worse than the creature who killed him. Superman seems to be deservedly a focal point of this story. With the amazing things Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason are doing in Superman, DC’s oldest hero deserves even more of a spotlight. The last couple years haven’t been too great for our hero, so it’s nice to see him gaining prominence.
I have faith in this team to wow us with this tale that is sure to be controversial. But these characters are in good hands. Johns states that, “We love Watchmen. We love the DC Universe.” Yes we do. – Keith Justin Dooley