In what could be Watchmen’s first standalone issue, “Watchmaker” jumps through time to show us the past, present, and potentially future of Dr. Manhattan. Does Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ most powerful character have emotions? Is he amoral, immoral, or neither? We explore that, and much more in this episode.

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The theme music for Watchmen Watch was written and performed by Jeff Solomon.

Plus, here’s a transcript of the episode for you to read through as you listen:

Alex:                         Welcometo Watchmen Watch a podcast all about Watchmen, where we watch Watchmen. Youwatch Watchmen, we watch you watching Watchmen. You’ll listen to Watchmen, youthink about Watchmen and sometimes you smell Watchmen. I’m Alex.

Justin:                     I’mJustin.

Pete:                        I’mPete.

Alex:                         Weactually have sum dues before we get into the show. Justin, what’s going on?

Justin:                     Yeah,sorry. The fourth host of our show is Alan Moore obviously, and he is committedto this podcast and he actually just texted me. We communicate via text.

Alex:                         Yeah.

Justin:                     Hejust texted me.

Alex:                         Sorry,iMessage does he have an iPhone or what’s going on?

Justin:                     No.You know how like on an iPhone, the texts come up blue or green?

Alex:                         Yes.

Justin:                     Hiscome up like hot pink. I don’t know what he’s, I think he may be texting fromsomewhere else-

Pete:                        Thefuture?

Justin:                     Thefuture, the past or in this case he texted me from the surface of Mars wherehe’s retracing the Doc Manhattan. He’s doing like a tour of all the DocManhattan. He said [crosstalk 00:00:59] –

Alex:                         Ishe running the tour, or is he taking the tour?

Pete:                        [crosstalk00:01:03] Juicy Couture?

Justin:                     NoI’m not doing [crosstalk 00:01:07]. That’s a good guess though, because I’moften talking about that.

Pete:                        Yeah,yeah.

Justin:                     Nohe said-

Alex:                         Hedoes, we should mention, he’s often, when he is here for the podcast, he’susually wearing those short shorts that say Juicy on the back.

Justin:                     Yes,but he has taken his name off the back of his short shorts. He is setting up alike in New York, there’s a Sex in the City tour for all of the locations whereSex in the City took place.

Alex:                         Sure,yeah.

Justin:                     He’sdoing that for Watchmen, so he’s on all smart scouting on the surface of Mars.

Pete:                        Ohsmart. That’s fun, you could see a newsstand, you could see a wall.

Justin:                     Apirate ship made of dead bodies. It’s going to be fun.

Alex:                         Yeah.Good time. Good time. Well hopefully he will be back for next week’s podcast.

Justin:                     Hedefinitely will, he said.

Alex:                         Ohhe did.

Justin:                     100%,he’s definitely here next week.

Alex:                         Wellthis week we are continuing our tour through Alan Moore and Dave Gibbonsclassic comic book series. We’re going to be talking about the fourth issue,Watchmaker of the book as we ramp up to HBO’s premier of Watchmen on October20th, so that’s pretty exciting.

Justin:                     Veryexciting.

Alex:                         Nowbefore we get into this book though, I did want to ask you, Justin, you’veworked at bars before, right?

Justin:                     Yes.

Alex:                         Doyou know-

Justin:                     Asa bartender.

Alex:                         Asa bartender-

Justin:                     Dancer.

Alex:                         Yeah.

Pete:                        Ohboy.

Alex:                         Exotic.

Pete:                        Don’t.

Justin:                     Well,both exotic and regular dance.

Alex:                         Regularyeah.

Justin:                     I’mthe stripper that does the macarena.

Alex:                         Yeah.I loved that when they have that outside where they’re like exotic ed, regulardancers.

Justin:                     Exactly.

Alex:                         Regularstyle.

Justin:                     It’sa full buffet, regular style dancing.

Alex:                         Yes,how do you make a Manhattan? What’s in a Manhattan?

Justin:                     Manhattan.I mean there’s some variations, but it’s you want to mix your bourbon, yourbrown, whatever it is whiskey, bourbon is sort of the popular one now, yoursweet vermouth, a little bit of bitters and a cherry.

Alex:                         Howwould you make a Doctor Manhattan do you think?

Pete:                        AddDr. Pepper on top.

Justin:                     That’s

[crosstalk 00:02:55]

–

Alex:                         Cool.

Justin:                     Hesaid that with such urgency. Yeah. I’ve never seen you speak so quickly. Yeah.No, you just make it regular and then stir it with your penis.

Alex:                         You’vegot to make your penis blue before you stir it?

Justin:                     Whatcolor is your penis? My bad.

Alex:                         Oh,bye. All right, let’s get into the book. Now this issue as we implied is allabout Doctor Manhattan, go back and tell his origin. The things that havehappened very briefly in the book so far, Edward Blake, the comedian has beenmurdered Rorschach, a vigilante, one of the few remaining vigilantes has beeninvestigating his murder. Through a series of circumstances that we don’t knowexactly how they come together unless you’ve read the book already like wehave, like most of our listeners probably have, have led to Doctor Manhattanfleeing earth after he was accused of giving multiple people, including his oldlove, Janey Slater, cancer that he is headed to Mars. He’s hanging out on Marswith an old photo of him in his human guise of Jon Osterman before he waschanged into Doctor Manhattan and Janey Slater. That’s kind of where we lefthim a little-

Pete:                        Janey.

Alex:                         JaneySlater, excuse me, alone on Mars. Now, here’s the thing that I thoughtstructurally was pretty fascinating about this issue in particular. We weretalking a lot about the juxtaposition that Moore and Gibbons’s have beenworking throughout. This is the first issue that had a certain sense, doesn’thave that juxtaposition, doesn’t have panels that are describing differentthings that are dialogue, that is describing different things that’s happeningin the panels because it’s all juxtaposition. It’s all happening at the sametime for Doctor Manhattan and it almost in that way takes a step back andpauses in terms of the pacing.

Justin:                     Justtailors the story to the character-

Alex:                         Yeah.

Justin:                     Imean this standalone issue, this comic series is amazing obviously. We talkabout that a lot. The first three issues are very good, lot of setup, greatmystery juxtaposition, but this issue as a standalone issue is I think amasterpiece. This is like the masterpiece of the series.

Alex:                         Yeah.

Pete:                        Reallya masterpiece?

Justin:                     Truly,like the way this story is told is so smart and other comics have used thistype of storytelling, but this was like the first issue that used all these bigphysical ideas, physics ideas and-

Pete:                        Isit because we finally get the black g-string in this issue that you were nothaving to see just the junk. It’s covered up a little bit. Is that why you-

Justin:                     Yes,that’s what I mean.

Pete:                        Okay.

Justin:                     It’sthe, again Juicy Couture and g-strings is what we’re all about on this podcast.

Pete:                        Yep.

Justin:                     No,it just such a unique way of telling the story that fits in with the characterand also just keeps us guessing while also getting out a ton of exposition andhaving this anxiety that just runs through the whole issue. That plays into thelarger series, which is all about tension and the stress of impending disaster.

Alex:                         Right.Well the other thing that we’re dealing with a lot here that we’ve talked aboutagain earlier on the podcast is what is Doctor Manhattan and can he feelemotion? That’s something that we’re wrestling with a lot in this issue becausethere were moments where it feels like even in his Doctor Manhattan guise, thathe is doing things emotionally, he is spurred on by humanity, but the way thathe describes it, because almost this entire thing is through his own internalmonologue. He is saying, “No, this is all just inevitable, this is alljust happening at the same time for me. I don’t feel anything about any ofthese things.” I take it pretty clearly as that’s not true. I think thereis, one of the things that this issue emphasizes that Doctor Manhattan, despiteeverybody being terrified about him, and about him being God-

Pete:                        Yeah.

Alex:                         Heis at best a God and not even that he has limitations.

Justin:                     WellI think he just has Godlike powers. He has the power to sort of see everythingat once and manipulate the world around him. It’s all science-based it’s notlike he has a mythical mystical God powers. I also think it’s just a functionof the way his life is now where because he’s aware of everything, only the bigimpact moments sort of reach him. Everything evens out because he sees it alllike reading a book. When we’re reading a book, reading a comic, like rarely dowe cry, only like a huge moment gets us to really feel that emotion. Otherwisewe’re just sort of watching these characters.

Alex:                         Now,that’s an interesting point to think about it as a comic book because whatMoore and Gibbons are doing is dealing with the structure of a comic book andthe impact of comic books and superhero comic books in particular through the12 issues of Watchmen. Here, you could probably argue that Doctor Manhattansees the world as a comic book, but he sees it as-

Justin:                     Yeah,but he’s authoring in a way.

Alex:                         Right.He’s seeing it as these various still panels, that depending on how you readit, you read one panel at a time, or you’re looking at the entire page andseeing nine things at the same time.

Justin:                     Rightand I think that’s what it is because he’s not omnipotent. He is just aware ofmuch more at once. Because that’s why I do think he does still have, like whenhe is confronted with the idea that he killed all these people that are closeto him, he’s affected by it and it caused him to run away. I think thoseemotions are real. He’s suffering, he’s feeling this horrible guilt, but it’sonly these emotions like guilt that are powerful and get him in that way.

Alex:                         Well,the omnipotence thing is underlying pretty well. One of the scenes that we getin the comic book is we go back to that meeting, the one meeting of the crimebusters that happened. In it, wait, actually, I don’t know if it’s in themeeting of the counter busters or it’s somewhere else on the issue. He seesMoloch but he doesn’t know who Moloch is like he doesn’t recognize it.

Justin:                     Right.

Alex:                         It’snot that he’s omniscient, he doesn’t know everything about everything all thetime. He can’t identify everything all the time. It’s just that he understandsthings in his own lifetime.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Alex:                         I’llthrow something else out at you that just occurred to me but there’s that big scenetowards the middle where they’re trying to give them a symbol and they’regiving him the atomic bomb signal. He’s like, “No, that’s ridiculous. Thatdoesn’t exist. Instead, I’ll use this thing.” Instead he draws, I believeit’s a hydrogen molecule. Right?

Justin:                     Hydrogenatom.

Alex:                         Yeah,hydrogen atom, which was just a singular thing. What’s being emphasized here isthat all he sees is his own life through himself. That’s it.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Alex:                         Hecan’t see through Janey Slater’s life. He can’t see through Laurie’s life. Hecan’t see through Eddie Blake’s life or anything like that. He’s not readingpeople’s minds. He’s just experiencing all these things that happened to him atthe same time. A corollary note that I’ll throw out there is on the throwingagainst him being a God front, is he’s only jumping through his own lifetime.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Alex:                         He’snot being like, “Now, I’ll go back to medieval times or going into the farfuture.”

Pete:                        Yeah

[crosstalk 00:09:52]

go kill Hitler or something.

Alex:                         Right,exactly. He’s just existing in the span of his own lifetime, which granted ispotentially forever at this point from the point that he’s created on. He’s notgoing backwards or forwards any farther than that.

Pete:                        No.

Justin:                     Healso, the way it’s written, it almost feels like he’s just going backwards. Hetalks a little bit about, because the narration he’s doing is looking back andhe’s talking about how in that time, he was aware of the future but you don’tsee him, he never is aware of the future in the present of the comic we’rereading, if that makes sense. It’s almost like he’s just remembering shit.

Pete:                        Right.

Justin:                     Itdefinitely is not, he’s not as strong or as powerful as he’s positioned in thebook.

Alex:                         Right.I think you could argue that that’s all of us, right? I mean I don’t know ifyou guys experience this, but certainly I’ll spend a lot of time, likecertainly when at my most restful where my brain will immediately like flash onsomething that happened 30 years ago, that potentially I was embarrassed aboutor I felt bad about or maybe sometimes a good experience as well.

Justin:                     Getinto it. Get into it Alex. [crosstalk 00:10:57] Flash.

Alex:                         Realquick. Here’s my top five most embarrassing experiences.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Pete:                        Yeah.

Justin:                     There’salso, oh go ahead.

Pete:                        Iwas also just going to talk a little bit about the paneling a little bit andlike how, when it does break from the panel it doesn’t in such a dramaticfashion. The stuff where you see him as this giant during war time is such apowerful huge thing that really kind of showcases, well the damage that he cando. I think one of the reasons that like he retreats and kind of starts his ownlittle world that he creates on Mars is like this is his kind of like safe placeand it kind of shows how vulnerable and how child like he is and how you know,affected he is by all the things that he maybe did wrong in his life.

Justin:                     Hejust needs to go to his little special secret place and build a crystal andcastle and let it go.

Pete:                        Right.Because he has really clearly let go of the fact that his dad threw a watchover the balcony back when he was younger. He builds an entire watch castle onMars-

Justin:                     Thatcool.

Pete:                        Asone does.

Justin:                     Asone does.

Alex:                         Speakingof children, let’s talk about Laurie a little bit. Let’s talk about SilkSpectre. Jon Osterman, AKA Doctor Manhattan, he’s kind of an older man, right?

Justin:                     Yes.

Alex:                         Kindof an older gentleman.

Justin:                     Hesays how old he is. He is very old.

Alex:                         Yes.He’s very old. He starts dating Laurie seemingly when she is 16 according tohis story.

Justin:                     Yes.Well, that’s what Janey says, “What is she, 16, 17? It’s not 100% clearhow old she is, but young is the watch word.

Alex:                         Right,well she says, “What is she, 16, 17?” Then they give the year andthey jumped forward a certain number, I think four years to her 20th birthday.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Alex:                         Youcan kind of figure out that she’s 16 when they first make out on the roof.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Alex:                         That’spretty fucked up.

Justin:                     Yeah.Especially, he’s like 50.

Alex:                         [crosstalk00:12:53] Yeah, I just wanted to point out that it’s fucked up.

Pete:                        Yep.

Justin:                     Yes,I agree and he straight up just bails on his wife because she’s too old forhim.

Alex:                         Right.

Justin:                     Theygo so far to say that he is so powerful and so aware of everything, yet he doesthis like total scumbag move.

Alex:                         Well,why do you think that is? Why do you think that is character wise? Because Iget the way the day Gibbons draws it and the way that he draws theirexpressions forgetting about Laurie for a second. It does feel like there’shonest emotion happening on Doctor Manhattan’s face. Whether he’s faking it ornot, whether he’s saying this is a simulacrum of a human being that I’mimpersonating right now or not, I don’t know. To me it feels like he truly isreaching out for that companionship that Laurie is providing on the roof, notjust giving her what he thinks she wants, like he does later on when he givesher the threesome that ultimately breaks them up.

Justin:                     Right?I mean, I guess if you’re taking his powers for what it is, it makes sense thathe would want to keep consistency because he remains constant. He’s trying tohave the same thing he had with Janey is with this now. He’s having the youngerversion so it’s all constantly the same like young wife that he’s had andthat’s where the time … He is stuck in that time.

Alex:                         Isthat your take on it Pete?

Pete:                        Well,I mean it’s interesting. I don’t know. I mean Doctor Manhattan is a tough read.He is so stoic and so powerful. It’s kind of tough to know what’s going on. Ikind of just, it’s a little too creepy to think about for me, but I think thatlike-

Alex:                         Ithink a good thing to do on our podcast is not confront the problematic partsof the comics.

Pete:                        Ohcool.

Alex:                         Yeah.Just avoid them as much as possible.

Pete:                        Yeah,definitely, definitely.

Alex:                         No,I mean like if you really … It’s not necessarily about the creepiness. I’mwondering now what is Doctor Manhattan thinking when he hooks up with Laurie?Forgetting about her age a moment, which is a whole other can of worms.

Pete:                        Yeah.It’s hard to separate it.

Alex:                         Okay.

Justin:                     Ialso think it could be if you want to, if he is fully aware of everythingthat’s happening in this story, then it is important that he be with her to setup the narrative structure that saves the world.

Alex:                         Ithink that’s possible. I think he’s just honestly looking for emotion. He’slooking for that purity of emotion that comes with youth, of being 16 or 17when you feel things so much stronger. Something that really hit me very hardis his repeated flashes back to that first moment when he touches fingers withJaney.

Pete:                        Yeah

[crosstalk 00:15:30]

the mug of beer. Yeah. What’s crazy when rereading thiscomic for the, you know, second or third, fourth, fifth time. It’s like-

Alex:                         Allright, no need to brag.

Pete:                        Well,I’m just saying that like-

Alex:                         Lotof time on his hands over here.

Pete:                        Sometimeswhen you’re repeating things like in movies or television or other comic books,I get mad when the repeating things, when it’s like undercutting. It feels likethey’re undercutting my ability to retain what’s happening in the story. Hereit’s done in such an artistic way that it’s like when you see it again, it’skind of an aha moment and really kind of makes it a little bit more powerful.

Justin:                     Ina lot of ways he’s trapped in the life he had before he became DoctorManhattan. He’s always trying to replicate the cogs of a clock. The firsthand,the first relationship, when he first fell in love, he’s continuallyreplicating that despite the fact that he’s the most powerful person in theworld.

Pete:                        Idefinitely think that’s it, but I also think it gets back to that thing I wasmentioning earlier with those still moment bringing back those memories. I willdefinitely get you my most traumatic memories by the end of this podcast.

Justin:                     Gotto get there, got to get there. I have some photos.

Pete:                        Ihave a whole countdown. Oh you’ve got a bunch of photos?

Justin:                     Ihave a bunch of photos, I want to have you just drop them onto the surface ofthis room we’re in.

Alex:                         Oh,which is Mars.

Justin:                     Whichis Mars as we said.

Alex:                         Ithink at the same time you have those positive feelings like, do you, I don’tknow if you ever think about this, but when you are with a person you love, youdon’t necessarily sit down and be like, let me review our entire relationshipas it has happened thus far.

Justin:                     Everyconversation with my wife begins and ends with how we met up until that exactmoment.

Alex:                         Ohokay, you just recap it.

Justin:                     Yeah,it’s like a recap. [crosstalk 00:17:09] Everybody loves this.

Pete:                        Boring.

Justin:                     No,no.

Alex:                         Youthink about those moments. You think about those moments when your hands firsttouched. That’s where that spark that the throb of emotion came out of you, andI think that’s what, all right, buddy … That’s what [crosstalk 00:17:22]yeah, it’s true.

Justin:                     Robof emotion.

Alex:                         It’srob of emotion.

Justin:                     Okay.

Pete:                        Yeah.That big vein of emotion.

Justin:                     Ohwow. Porno Shakespeare over here.

Alex:                         Guys,I’m trying to say something real here.

Pete:                        Ohokay my bad.

Justin:                     Sorry.

Alex:                         I’mtrying to have a moment with you guys.

Justin:                     Yeah.Cool.

Alex:                         Ithink that’s what Doctor Manhattan is trying to get back in a certain way. Heremembers that. He remembers those strongest moments. Those are the things thatget him back to his humanity. I think it’s the same thing with Laurie on thatroof. I think it’s the same thing through various points of this issue, notnecessarily when he’s acting as Doctor Manhattan, but when he is trying to getback to Jon Osterman and it’s just not working. Ultimately he goes to Mars tocompletely escape his humanity. That’s the least human thing you could do isteleport yourself to Mars and build a castle there. What does he build a castleof? He builds a castle out of cogs of a watch going back to his formativemoment when his father threw it off the balcony.

Justin:                     Ithink he’s just a huge fan of Frozen.

Alex:                         Ohyeah.

Justin:                     Yeah.He’s Elsa-ing a castle.

Alex:                         Areyou saying this right now, that Watchman ripped off Frozen? Do you think?

Justin:                     DoctorManhattan can see the future so he back loaded that rather-

Pete:                        Ithink it’s reversed? I think Frozen ripped off Watchman.

Justin:                     Youthink so? Why? Because just that’s how time works.

Pete:                        Yep.

Justin:                     Interesting.

Alex:                         Interesting.I will say that there is that panel right at the end where he’s on Mars and hesings the entirety of Let It Go.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Alex:                         Itfeels like-

Justin:                     Itfeels like a direct reference.

Alex:                         Itdoes.

Justin:                     Itdoes feel a little, it feels purposeful.

Alex:                         Itdoes feel like a connection there. Yeah and the fact that his sister is namedAnna.

Justin:                     Yeah,and the tiny snowman that’s stupid the whole time.

Alex:                         Hey.

Pete:                        Aw,come on.

Justin:                     Sorry,I’ve seen that movie-

Alex:                         Hisname is Rorschach.

Justin:                     Yeah.Great. I’ve seen the movie too many times.

Alex:                         Yes.Same here. Should we, what else should we talk about in this book? I mean, trueto form, we’ve been jumping around in time here as we’ve been talking throughit, rather than walking through it page by page. We could probably talk abouthis origin moments as well.

Justin:                     Yeah.Just from a pure superhero origin standpoint, I thought this was great.

Alex:                         Yeah.

Justin:                     Theorigin itself of the character, he gets [inaudible 00:19:28], he’s going backinto this radiation chamber to get the watch that he repaired for his truelove. He gets trapped in there and everyone has to watch him be destroyed andthey slowly come, but this is a just a great character origin, outside of allof the secondary commentary about the world and everything around it.

Alex:                         Nowthere’s been a lot of arguments about what the characters in Watchmen arereferences to what Alan Moore was working for here. Because the way that Iheard it was originally this pitch happened with the Charlton characters, whichincludes Blue Beetle and Captain Atom and other characters like that. UltimatelyDC said, “No, you can’t use those.” He created these other charactersthat were semi-[analogs 00:00:20:11] to them, which is why Rorschach is likethe question and a Nite Owl is like Blue Beetle and of course Doctor Manhattanis like captain Atom in terms of that. I also think like there’s, even with thedarkness here, there’s kind of a sense of Superman going on a little bit thathe’s riffing on.

Justin:                     Yeah,I mean they call him Superman.

Alex:                         Right?

Justin:                     ThatAmerican has its own Superman.

Alex:                         Rightand as we know from reading Under the Hood, they did have Superman as a comicbook that existed. That reference does exist in the world of Watchman for themto pull on.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Pete:                        Plus,I think it’s a good point here is if you have somebody you care about and thenyou have some object that you care about, you’ve got to give up on the objectsand stick with the people. Because otherwise you’ll just die in a horriblescientific accident.

Justin:                     I’venever thought that. People over objects?

Pete:                        Yeah.

Alex:                         Ijust love objects.

Pete:                        Nahman.

Alex:                         Well,I’m just saying if it was a choice [crosstalk 00:21:05] you someday. If it wasa choice to throw my phone in a ravine or you guys, I would pick you guys everytime.

Pete:                        Wow.

Justin:                     Wow.

Alex:                         Ilove my phone.

Justin:                     Youknow you can get a new phone.

Alex:                         I’vegot to play my Candy Crush. Can’t go a day without hitting my levels.

Justin:                     Allright, we’re skipping our trip to the ravine this weekend. I have a feelingAlex is saying no, nope. We’re not going to the ravine. We’re not go to theravine this year again Pete?

Pete:                        Allright.

Justin:                     Alexis going to kill us.

Pete:                        It’ssmart.

Alex:                         Well,to your point though, it is him returning to these moments to hold onto hishumanity, right?

Pete:                        Yeah.

Justin:                     Yes.Which is tenured, like getting away from him.

Alex:                         Yes.

Justin:                     Why?Why is he losing? Is he losing more humanity as he goes on because his powerswork that way or is it what? What’s making him lose his humanity?

Pete:                        Thepowers yeah.

Alex:                         Ithink it’s growing up honestly, like it’s getting older, like as you get olderyou get further and further away from the person you once were. If you feellike your formative time was in your 20s, you do constantly want to get back tothat. You want to grasp at that again.

Justin:                     College.

Pete:                        Really20s?

Alex:                         No,I’m saying if you feel that way, like he does-

Pete:                        Ohokay. [crosstalk 00:22:16] Like eight, 10 was my sweet spot.

Justin:                     Thatshows.

Alex:                         Eightto 10 years old, that was your peak?

Justin:                     That’sa 100% true.

Pete:                        Yeah,that’s where I’m constantly trying to get back to.

Alex:                         Ohmy God.

Justin:                     You’rerooted in the eight to 10.

Pete:                        Yeah.

Alex:                         WellI’m not there yet. I haven’t reached my peak. It’s just been an uphill theentire time.

Pete:                        Ohmy God.

Justin:                     Yeah,no exactly.

Pete:                        I’vegot some bad news for you-

Alex:                         What?I’m sitting in a back room in a theater, taping a Watchmen podcast.

Pete:                        Wow.

Justin:                     That’snot news. Couple of things I want to talk about. I feel like this … I’m a bigfan of Kurt Vonnegut, the writer.

Alex:                         Ohhere we go.

Justin:                     Thisfeels very much like [crosstalk 00:22:51]-

Alex:                         Iwent to college with it.

Justin:                     Yeah,no. With him?

Alex:                         Wellat him?

Justin:                     Okay.

Alex:                         Iwent to Cornell, he went to Cornell. It’s no big deal. Go on with your

[crosstalk 00:22:59]

–

Justin:                     Actuallywent to Cornell to see him speak.

Alex:                         Ohgreat.

Justin:                     Whichwas very cool.

Alex:                         Youshould’ve said hi.

Pete:                        Yeah.Why didn’t you say hi?

Justin:                     BecauseAlex didn’t know that we knew each other then but I did because I’m DoctorManhattan.

Pete:                        Ohsnap.

Justin:                     I’mDoctor Manhattan for upstate New York so I’m like Doctor Syracuse, it’s muchworse. It’s much worse. I can only see SU basketball scores for the future.Great. Everyone was [crosstalk 00:23:25]-

Pete:                        Alot of money that way.

Justin:                     InSlaughterhouse-Five there’s a similar device used in that story, where thecharacter is slipping through time. I liked, I don’t know if that’s a specificreference that Alan Moore was making, but I love that book. I love theconnection here. I think the point of it in the book is that in times of likeWorld War II and these times where the world is sort of being shattered, itshatters time itself and the narrative and I think that’s what we’re seeinghere a little bit as well. The stakes are high for all the characters. Theworld’s may be coming to an end, both the World War and pending World War IIIor Doctor Manhattan or whatever’s happening that we don’t know yet, causes thisloosening of time.

Alex:                         Yeah.

Pete:                        Ijust want to get back to something we’ve talked about. You know, if you droppedsomething on the tracks, just leave it. You know your phone, it’s not reallyworth your life. Okay? Just if you are standing on the subway platform and youdropped something, don’t try to go down to get it.

Alex:                         We should mention Pete works for the MTA. That’s important to establish here. Let’s talk about another aspect that’s just fascinating in terms of the world building of this whole series. There’s certain points that deviate not just from DC comics, superhero history, but also from our history and everything else that’s going on. One of the first points where it deviates is when Hooded Justice shows up, this real vigilante superhero shows up in the quote unquote real world that starts to deviate things on a path away from superheroes and comic books, brings in these masked heroes that Doctor Manhattan of course is another big leap forward here. Something that he adds in and that Adrian Veidt AKA Ozymandias pivots off of, is that he is able to completely technologically change the world. He’s able to bring back dirigibles, he’s able to add different power and technology-

Pete:                        Electriccars.

Alex:                         Yeah,but part of what we’re seeing, and we’ve talked about this, we’ve touched onthis throughout the podcast, is just like superheroes didn’t necessarily makethe world better, I don’t think Doctor Manhattan’s technology made the worldbetter either because what we see is a world very close to anarchy. We see aworld on the brink of destruction on the brink of World War III. Also we’veseen a lot of grimy downtown New York, places that are very out of theseventies and eighties in real New York, but it’s not a great place to live.It’s not a good place to be.

Justin:                     Yeah.Yeah. I think, I mean, I think that’s some somewhat the point.

Alex:                         Right.

Justin:                     Thisis in an anti-superhero book in a lot of ways.

Pete:                        Ithink anti-New York book.

Alex:                         No,I don’t think it’s that.

Justin:                     Hewouldn’t.

Alex:                         Allright, MTA official.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Alex:                         Yeah.Yes, absolutely. It’s pointing to the fact that all this technology is workingfor the wealthy and it’s making that part better because in any scenes withrich people, we see they’re living the high life. While downtown, even somebodylike Dan Dreiberg is living in a really bad part of town. His lock keepsgetting busted, mind you mostly as by Rorschach.

Justin:                     Yeah,who hates locks.

Alex:                         There’sgangs everywhere. There’s graffiti everywhere. Doctor Manhattan hasn’t made theworld better at all.

Justin:                     Yeahand I think that’s because of his lack of, he’s just solving problems. He’s notthinking about the larger issues. He’s not helping people. He’s like justworking on equations.

Alex:                         Wellthat’s something that gets emphasized. His first superhero encounter is withMoloch, the mystic, who is this fun character, very out of the 60s very AdamWest Batman. Every other masked hero talks about how much fun he was to fight.These clearly are very nostalgic about it, but Doctor Manhattan goes in andimmediately just blows up one of his goons heads.

Justin:                     Thispanel I think is like, so it’s like a perfect panel.

Alex:                         Yeah.

Justin:                     It’sso good. Also, so I want to talk about this, he has a line here where he says,“The morality of my activities escapes me.” Meaning like I blew thatdude up, whatever.

Alex:                         Right.

Justin:                     That’sthey wanted me to fight crime so I did. Then like five, seven pages later, he’sflashing to when he’s in Vietnam meeting comedian and there’s another line,“Blake is interesting. I had never met anyone so deliberatelyamoral.” I thought that was an interesting choice of amoral as opposed toimmoral because Doctor Manhattan is amoral. He loses his ability to understandmorals or like humans in general. I think he’s scared of the comedian becausehe’s worried he’s sort of, he could become that.

Alex:                         Yeah.

Justin:                     Ithink it’s weird that he calls him amoral because I think the comedian isimmoral. He’s someone who knows morals and he’s like, I do the opposite.

Alex:                         Yeah,I think you’re right about that.

Justin:                     Ithink that’s such a weird moment there. I just noticed that on this reading,like he’s calling the comedian amoral when he himself is amoral, and thecomedian is actually immoral.

Alex:                         Right.

Justin:                     Ithink it’s like-

Alex:                         Doyou think that has something to do with the fact that he understands therealization that the comedian eventually came to potentially?

Justin:                     Ithink-

Alex:                         Thatthe comedian met the end of his life, did understand good and bad and thatthere was none of that? Like there’s no gradation there that it’s all fuckedbecause ultimately the world is going to get blown up no matter what they do. Iguess to the point we were making earlier Doctor Manhattan might not know that,like you might not know that because he wasn’t there.

Justin:                     Yeah,right.

Alex:                         Yeah.I don’t know. I’m not sure. Another thing that I think I want to touch on alittle bit, is his relationship with Adrian Veidt here. We know where the comicbook is going to end up. We know where the series is going to end up. He meetsAdrian Veidt and if he’s really living every single bit of his life all at thesame time, when he meets Adrian Veidt, he knows exactly what’s going to happen.There’s an interesting panel in here of them shaking hands for the first time.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Alex:                         Thatmakes me wonder in that moment, how much does Doctor Manhattan know? The answeris probably all of it, right?

Justin:                     Imean it’s hard. That’s the thing is we don’t really know, I would think, no,no, he doesn’t know that. That’s why I like, it’s hard to tell what his powersare.

Alex:                         Right.

Justin:                     Howmuch he sort of talking up his Godlike powers when it really is sort ofretroactive, as opposed to him actually, in this moment when he’s sitting withhim and his Antarctic fortress. He’s like, “This dude is going toeventually try to destroy the world.”

Alex:                         Right?

Justin:                     Becausethe way it’s played, I feel like maybe he sort of in the last panel, he startedtouching his chin like, “Huh, what’s up with this guy?”

Alex:                         Yeah.

Justin:                     Itfeels like he’s questioning as opposed to being like-

Alex:                         Rightso maybe he isn’t able to actually see the end of all things. Maybe he doesn’tnecessarily know.

Pete:                        Whichkind of undercuts his intelligence a little bit. Because if you go to a giantAntarctic layer, that should be a very big sign that says this guy is evil.

Alex:                         ExceptAdrian Veidt, even if he’s not super naturally smart, he really is the smartestman in the world or he’s a very smart man. Right?

Justin:                     Yeah.

Alex:                         Ifhe knows that Doctor Manhattan knows everything that happens around him, he hasbeen very careful to make sure that Doctor Manhattan sees nothing other thanwhat he wants to see. The other thing that’s interesting about that is in acertain sense, Doctor Manhattan is complicit in what Adrian Veidt is doingbecause as we find out, Adrian Veidt’s technology is based on what DoctorManhattan was able to do.

Justin:                     Right?

Alex:                         Perhapsthere’s a sense of Doctor Manhattan pushing that down, using his humanity,being embarrassed by the fact that he is going to help bring about thisapocalyptic scenario.

Justin:                     Also,isn’t Doctor Manhattan sort of, he is, all the imagery and all the clocktalking here, he’s a big cog in the clock of the universe or of earth orwhatever you want to say.

Alex:                         Right.

Justin:                     Imean a cog doesn’t know what time it is. A cog is doing its job in the clock tomake sure it ticks. I think maybe that’s a better sort of way of understandinghis power. It’s like he may be aware of the passage of time and that it’s goingto be noon later, but the cog is incapable of changing its actions. It’s onlycontinuing to tick.

Alex:                         Whatyou’re saying is in a certain sense they ripped off Beauty and the Beastbecause he’s the Cogsworth of this particular comic.

Justin:                     Yeah.

Pete:                        Ohwow.

Justin:                     Thinkabout it, it’s a tale as old as time.

Alex:                         Pete,anything additional you want to say about this book? About this issue?

Pete:                        Ijust think it’s interesting that there’s like notes of Doctor Manhattan shouldbe more aware of what’s happening. It’s kind of his humanity that is dumbinghim down a little bit.

Alex:                         Ido think part of that, I was thinking about this while I was reading the issueand I do think part of that is the artifice of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbonsreleasing a monthly comic book that’s based on a mystery. They can’t be likeDoctor Manhattan flashes to the end and be like, and here’s what Adrian Veidtwas doing. Because that’s approximately eight issues to earlier so-

Pete:                        Yeah.

Alex:                         Theycan’t show you that. He may know, but we’re only seeing what they want us tosee at this particular time. I understand what you’re saying, but I think likeit’s a structural thing as well.

Justin:                     You’resaying he’s bullshit though.

Alex:                         Yeah.

Pete:                        Yeah.

Justin:                     Wellyou just can’t throw, you just threw a doctor in front of his name. He’s not-

Alex:                         No,he’s not a doctor.

Justin:                     Ifwe called you doctor Pete, it would make you good at surgery.

Pete:                        That’strue.

Alex:                         Wedid, by the way. That’s why I don’t have this arm.

Pete:                        Yeah.

Justin:                     Neededan armectomy.

Pete:                        Sorryabout that.

Alex:                         Hey,it’s all good, bro. I only need one arm to read comic books.

Pete:                        Yeah,that’s cool.

Alex:                         Pages.

Pete:                        Yeah.

Alex:                         Ifyou want to support this podcast, patrion.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a liveshow every Tuesday night at 8:00 PM at the People’s Improv Theater Loft in NewYork. Come on down. We’ll chat with you about Watchmen. A couple of things wecan plug, you can check us out socially at Watchmen Watch One on Twitter. AlsoWatchmen Watch podcast on Facebook and Watchmen Watch podcast on Instagram. Youcan subscribe a bunch of places. iTunes, Android, Stitcher, Spotify, or the appof your choice. Remember, we taped this podcast 35 minutes ago.

Justin:                     Oh,sorry to interrupt. Alan just texted me-

Alex:                         Ohgreat.

Justin:                     Avideo of him on Mars singing, Let It Go.

Alex:                         Oh.

Pete:                        Oh.

Justin:                     Hesaid, he’ll definitely be here next week.

The post Watchmen Watch: Issue #4, “Watchmaker” appeared first on Comic Book Club.