Bill Sienkiewicz gave us the variant cover and it’s disappointingly bland and generic. I just feel like everyone gave up trying to make this Before Watchmen project work by this point. I mean, how excited could you really be to work on something that had already worn out its welcome to such an embarrassing degree?
That’s why I was shocked to see that I actually enjoyed this issue. It begins with Dr. Manhattan completing his work of destroying all the alternate realities he inadvertently created. Everything is back just as he remembered it … with one major exception. His future is obscured by static. So he decides to seek out the only person in the world he believes is capable of comprehending his plight: Ozymandias.
Dr. Manhattan visits Ozymandias shortly after he apprehended some burglars at a museum. Seeking a more private meeting place, Dr. Manhattan teleports the two of them to Adrian’s office, which brings up an interesting discussion on how his teleportation powers work. Naturally, Adrians is fishing for clues so he can unlock this unfathomable ability for himself, but he also learns something about Dr. Manhattan’s overall philosophy. Adrian asks if the teleportation involves disassembling molecules and reassembling them somewhere else, but Dr. Manhattan says he actually keeps the “teleportee” in one piece while warping space around them. Adrian suggests this means that it’s easier for Dr. Manhattan to move the universe than himself, but Dr. Manhattan counters that his method is simply less destructive to people like Adrian.
Dr. Manhattan then tells his story about the alternate realities to Adrian, who does his best to keep his face completely neutral. He only slips up for half a second, allowing a twitch that Dr. Manhattan interprets as fear. He takes pleasure in being able to catch the self-proclaimed world’s smartest man with his guard down, even for so brief a moment. Dr. Manhattan then concludes his story by revealing the only things he can glimpse through the static of his future are death, destruction, and the feeling of being responsible for it. He concedes that it’s likely this static was (or will be) caused by nuclear war, but he worries about causing even more damage by trying to prevent this unknown future. So Dr. Manhattan has decided that Adrian should make those choices for him.
As Adrian accepts this offer, the comic book turns upside down and he becomes the narrator. We learn that Adrian’s little slip of emotion wasn’t that of fear, but excitement, which he hopes Dr. Manhattan didn’t notice. He works extra hard to control his pulse and facial expressions as he launches into his plan, believing (and praying) that the world’s most powerful man lacks the ability to recognize a lie. Adrian proposes that Dr. Manhattan’s staticky future may have been caused merely by an expansion of Dr. Manhattan’s own powers. He says that if they’re able to unlock the secrets of these abilities and spread them across Earth through various forms of technology, then that amount of energy at the same frequency could confuse Dr. Manhattan’s senses.
Dr. Manhattan agrees to help Adrian with whatever he requires, and we’re treated to a quick collage of Adrian’s master plan from Watchmen. Adrian believes he must destroy the village to save the village, and it all depends on him being able to maintain his lie to Dr. Manhattan. He acknowledges that there’s a high likelihood he’ll end up being killed by his manipulated collaborator, so he decides to take every precaution to preserve his own life — even while believing that it would be an honor to die for such a noble cause.
We then cut to my favorite part of the Watchmen story, where Adrian asks Dr. Manhattan if he did the right thing and it all worked out in the end. Dr. Manhattan only offers the vague answer that nothing ever ends as he teleports away, off to create his own world. Dr. Manhattan tells himself that death, life, and the universe itself are all just a matter of perspective. He travels to a strange, purplish world with two moons and he injects a little energy into some pond scum to get it to start combining proteins and accelerate evolution. He hopes this new life — and he, himself — will grow into something amazing together.
I really enjoyed this issue when I first read it. The upside down twist really surprised me, and it showcased the fun storytelling methods that are only possible in comic books — storytelling methods that this series should have been taking more advantage of from the beginning. I know Alan Moore’s Watchmen was devoted to the rigid nine-panel grid, but that doesn’t mean that this miniseries couldn’t have experimented with sideways, spiral, or backwards panels. Regardless, this tiny realization of this comic’s potential thrilled me. As well as the conversations about Dr. Manhattan’s teleporting and the idea that both he and Adrian were trying to manipulate each other.
Well … was Dr. Manhattan actually manipulating Adrian? It seemed like the comic implied that before the flip, but by the time it flipped back to his perspective, there wasn’t enough space left to explore his thoughts on how that whole relationship went down. And the more I think about it, the more I realize how much more I wanted out of this story. Yeah, it’s fine to portray Dr. Manhattan as a centipede frozen by the indecision of trying to figure out which leg it should move first. But that doesn’t really line up with the source material.
In Watchmen, Adrian’s plan hinged on the incredibly deep, yet buried emotional feelings that plagued Jon Osterman. To the world, Dr. Manhattan was a robotic, unfeeling creature devoid of all humanity. But Adrian’s careful study of his microexpressions revealed a world of profound love and pain. It was this buried emotion that caused Dr. Manhattan’s exile to Mars. And it was his genuine love for Laurie that convinced him to return. And it can be argued that the only reason Dr. Manhattan left to create a new world at the end was because he realized Laurie loved Dan more than him.
Unfortunately, J. Michael Straczynski completely ignored that aspect of Dr. Manhattan’s personality in this miniseries. I know he only had four issues to work with, but I felt like he wasted about half the pages he was given. Even in this one. Yeah, it’s always fun to dip into Ozymandias’ head to see what he’s thinking, but he was given his own miniseries for that — and that one had six issues! This is the Dr. Manhattan series, and I want to know what he is feeling. I also would have liked at least a little bit about his relationship with Laurie. I mean, it was kind of a big deal, right? Even the cover of this issue presented it as a big deal, making her front and center. But then Straczynski didn’t so much as mention her in the conclusion of this miniseries.
What a weird project this turned out to be.
