Geoff Johns: Doomsday Clock (2019, DC Comics)
416 pages
English language
Published June 13, 2019 by DC Comics.
A superposition of 1-star and 5-stars. There's honestly no other way to describe a book this boneheaded and ambitious.
Reader beware, though: if you want to pick this up because you're interested in the pitch, know that it is not a critique or engagement with Watchmen as a text. It is Geoff Johns yelling at Alan Moore for several hundred pages.
Doomsday Clock is much more a DC comic than a Watchmen sequel like fans were expecting. A lot of people are hating this comic because they feel a crossover event is disrespectful to the original Watchmen and Alan Moore... But once you just accept that this is a thing, it's easy to enjoy this event. Doomsday Clock is a great love letter to both universes, and returning characters like Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias are just as brilliant as I remember. It's not quite as good and focused as the original Watchmen is, but it's easily one of the best few DC comics in recent years.
Zero stars? An exercise in auto-fellatio by trinket vendors that is peddled to nostalgia-mongers desperate to recapture a thirty-year-old lightning in a bottle.
