Book Review - Doomsday Clock' #1 is a Stunning Accomplishment

Building on the foundation of DC’s greatest masterpiece, Doomsday Clock has the beginnings of a classic in and of itself — and there is something exciting about that.

Later this week, DC will publish Doomsday Clock #1, the first canonical sequel to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s classic Watchmen, and the start of a story that will put the antiheroes of that series on a collision course with Superman, Batman, and other DC characters.

Subtracting the Watchmen of it all, if Doomsday Clock #1 were the first issue of a new comics event from writer Geoff Johns, artist Gary Frank, and colorist Brad Anderson, fans would likely be over the moon. It is a technically excellent comic book; it is a well-written, well-conceived, gorgeously-illustrated book that definitely deserves your attention.

It also accomplishes arguably the most important thing: it manages to follow up "The Citizen Kane of comics" without embarrassing itself, its creators, or DC; and without diminishing what came before. 

As faint as that praise might sound, it is not: Doomsday Clock roars to life in arguably the most captivating single-issue superhero comic since DC Universe: Rebirth #1.

There is a heart, and humor, to Doomsday Clock which cuts through the bleakness of the world in which it is set and the apocalyptic stakes -- "The End is Here," the cover reads -- that the characters face from the first page. 

These characteristics are born both of Watchmen and of Johns; there was more humor in Moore's work than many probably recall, and more soul to (most of) his characters, too. Johns, for his part, manages to speak with a voice clearly his own, which is no mean feat while also striving to channel Moore (and mostly succeeding).

Johns, of course, currently works with the DC Films division and you could put a mirror up to some of Doomsday Clock's character-driven humor and reflect the best moments of this week's Justice League film. Unlike Wonder Woman, Johns did not have a hand in writing Justice League, but it seems to reflect his "humor, heart, and heroics" ethic more than almost any of DC's previous movies.

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