Doomsday Clock #1
Geoff Johns (w), Gary Frank (a)
DC Comics

Liz says: Whether you’re for or against it, you’ve been hearing the tick, tick, tick of the countdown to Doomsday Clock. Now the time has arrived and the verdict is in: It’s actually pretty good.
If you’re in grave opposition to besmirching the sanctity of Watchmen, Doomsday Clock probably isn’t for you. But should you choose to read it through the lens of an Elseworlds story (which is what I’m doing) it’s an enjoyable book, and so far it stands up to scrutiny as a respectful follow-up.

It’s also the best bit of writing Geoff Johns has done since his surprisingly great DC Rebirth #0. He and artist Gary Frank have put a lot of care into the presentation and tone of Doomsday Clock as an official sequel to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ masterwork. The nine-panel grid is adhered to, as is the exposition-heavy, fragmented voice-over of our unreliable narrator.

Watchmen took a dark look at superheroes, humanizing them by treating them as flawed individuals. It’s too early at this stage to say, but Doomsday Clock may be a response to that idea. Wouldn’t it be kind of neat to see the most symbolically cynical heroes in comics confronted with the irrefutable goodness of Superman, for example? I’m interested to see if that’s the direction we’re headed in.

Watchmen is a complete, self-contained story, and revisiting the characters thirty years later through the eyes of a different creative team does nothing to change that. Doomsday Clock is a reminder that in comics, nothing is sacred, and no one ever really stays dead, so you might as well join the party as long as it’s fun.