Doomsday Clock #2 Review and *SPOILERS*

Break On Through To The Other Side

Written By: Geoff Johns

Art By: Gary Frank, Brad Anderson

Cover Price: $4.99

Release Date: December 27, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

The countdown continues as we transplant the characters of the Watchmen Universe into our own DC Universe, where they're on the hunt for Dr. Manhattan so that he can come back home and save the day one more time.  Things aren't going too well though and as we saw in the previous issue, Ozymandias and the new Rorschach have recruited The Marionette and her husband Mime to assist them in hunting down the allusive god of their world........ which is odd as hell because they're convicted killers.  On top of all that though, the world is about to be plunged into nuclear devastation and back on the DC front, Superman has had his first nightmare.  Yeah, that was a weird way to end the book, but let's jump into this issue and see if things start coming together for this year long event.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with the backstory about why The Marionette and the Mime were originally caught by the police, which also gives us the reason that Ozymandias recruited them....... Well, at least The Marionette because apparently Dr. Manhattan stopped them from robbing a bank and while he was at it, it looks like he may have been a little warm for Marionette's form.  Yeah, it's a weird reason to recruit her, but she and her husband are on the team and now that the missiles are about to drop, our foursome board the augmented Archimedes and travel to our world to escape being nuked.  

Things seem to have gone tits up for the Watchmen Universe, but when we get back to the one we're more familiar with.......... Well, it seems that in a year's time the DCU isn't doing much better.  Actually, things seem to becoming pretty Watchmen, where Batman is now hated by the people of Gotham, where they're protesting in the streets, sort of like "Who Watches The Watchmen" and the world itself is going pretty bananas over the idea that the majority of the meta-humans in the world are being created by the US Government.  So yeah, the world isn't happy and back on the Gotham front, Bruce Wayne may be losing his company to a takeover by Lex Luthor, who appears to have gone straight up villain again after the Imperious Lex arc of Superman........ Still, we're dealing with a year ahead in time so who knows what really set him off.

In the end, Ozymandias and Rorschach handcuff Marionette and Mime in Archie so that they can split off and talk to the two smartest men in the world about what's going down and what they're looking for and that takes Ozy to Lex Luthor and Rorschach to Bruce Wayne.  With this meeting we have Lex thinking Ozy is a nut job and Rorschach getting Bruce's full attention since he discovered the Batcave while he was waiting on Bruce to return home........... Oh, and I guess I should mention that The Comedian is alive and seems to be in Luthor's employ.  Yeah, I don't get it, but he's seems all about getting revenge on Ozymandias for killing him.

That's it for this issue of Doomsday Clock and while we do spend more time in the DCU this issue, which may make people happier than they were with the previous issue, since that was a big gripe going around, this backstory to Marionette and Mime didn't really do much for me because it just showed up Dr. Manhattan looking at Marionette's breasts and if that's the entire reason that she was brought along......... Well, that's just dumb.  I hope something more comes out of it, but right now it just comes off weird.  As for the DC side of things, I can't say that I'm into a world that hates Batman and is in turmoil over where meta-humans come from, but I am intrigued to see how we got there from where we are in the continuity right now.  The art in this issue is great and I love what Gary Franks is bringing to the table, but even with that I'm a little disappointed that all we did was get a brief glimpse at what our world is up to and that's about it.  I'm still all about this series and can't wait to see what we get next, I just think that this issue was a little slow for how big it's supposed to be.

Bits and Pieces:

While I'm all about this event, I can't say that this second installment did all that much for me.  Yeah, you get great art, more of the story that we've wanted to see, but things just seem off for why certain characters are involved at all.  Hopefully things pick up as they go, but right now I'm looking at a world that I don't like for the DCU, while wondering how the hell it even got that way........ but even with that, I can't wait to find out and whether that's going to come from this book or the rest of the DC title working their way forward to this time, I'm all for it.

7/10