Doomsday Clock #12 Review

Resetting The Clock

Written By: Written By: Geoff Johns

Art By: Gary Frank, Brad Anderson

Cover Price: $5.99

Release Date: December 18, 2019

It's finally here, the end of a two year event that was delayed, changed and taken in and out and then back into continuity throughout the progression of this series, but with all these hiccups in the road to the end, it didn't take away the enjoyment factor of this series in my mind......... Well, maybe some of the delays, but for the most part, enjoyment was had throughout.  We're here now though and it's time to see if Superman destroys Dr. Manhattan or if Dr. Manhattan destroys the Universe.  Let's jump into this issue and see the conclusion to the Doomsday Clock.  Let's check it out.

For our conclusion we finally have the showdown between Dr. Manhattan and Superman...... Well, they're at least standing around each other here because while you think you're going to get that big toe to toe fight between the two or a reason that Dr. Manhattan couldn't see beyond the point where Superman starts swinging at him, you instead have the heroes of different countries from around the world show up to take Superman down for his perceived attack and collusion against Russia.  Yeah, this ending becomes a bit rough throughout the beginning of the issue because it really doesn't have anything for our Watchmen characters to do until the big time altering reveal at the end, but even then a lot of the Watchmen stuff here doesn't really serve any purpose and you're left wondering why they were really even in the book in the first place. 

The big part of the story though, with Jon changing the timeline of the DC Universe and the idea of the Metaverse is still intact here and really is the main focus on the book and speaks less about the idea of what we've been dealing with and more with the idea that Superman will always prevail and inspire people no matter how many times someone reboots the timeline or how many Crises there are and that in itself is really appreciated not only here, but in general because it brings an overwhelming bit of optimism going forward, especially for how dark this story has been.  There's a lot of stuff in this issue which changes the timeline and brings new aspects to the Universe that we didn't have before, but because of how weird this series has been and because of the changes in it, I don't know how much of this will actually translate into the regular DC Universe.  Right away in this issue I was thrown off because it seemed like Azrael in his Knightfall batsuit was there with Geo Force representing Markovia and that doesn't make any sense at all to me so I have no idea how any of what we get here will actually affect our world overall, especially since a lot of the time travel aspects to this story feel like they should have rewrote most of what happened during this twelve issue series......... I just hope it does because this ending is pretty much the promise we were given at the beginning of Rebirth.

All in all, There were a lot of great characters that were shown off in this issue to get you excited for what our current DC Universe could look like when it finally acknowledges Doomsday Clock or when it catches up to this point in time....... it's still kind of hazy about what DC's plan with this event is, but the biggest problem here is that the Watchmen aspect to this story totally took a backseat here and made it feel like everything we read about these characters getting to this finale was all for nothing because for the most part they really serve no purpose here.  Now, I'm not going to tell you that this finale is weak because the inspiration "Geoff Johns" speak at the end that gives you all the feels for what Superman not only means to the world, but for what he'll mean to everyone for all time really works well here in giving you the feels, but beyond that we do have a conclusion that pretty much says, "let's undo everything that was done here, while keeping everything Watchmen in the background because now they really don't matter to the story.  So yeah, that's a bit disappointing, but we do have some amazing art and by the end of the story I was completely happy with the way the world turned out because for the most part, it's everything that I've wanted from DC Comics for the better part of the last decade.  Here's to hoping that it sticks at some point, but for right now I'm happy that it's here and at least an idea that it can come back to being what it once was.

Bits and Pieces:

While I was completely hyped by the ending we get here, the majority of the issue really showed us that for the most part none of the Watchmen characters really mattered to this story and served as merely filler to get this story to twelve issues.  Yeah, that's a bit harsh, but even with that fact I was happy by the end for what this says we may get down the line, not to mention that I loved the art throughout.  I had a great time with this series overall, I just wish that beyond the inspirational narrative ending that we got that it would have stuck the landing a little more with the other aspects of the story that were used throughout.

7.3/10