Doomsday Clock: What is your verdict by half-time?

[Serd]

Hello,

with today's issue six we are half way through Geoff Johns' sequel to Watchmen, Rebirth,etc. What is your early verdict? Are you invested?

I think you have to separate two things: The hype and the book itself.

I think the book itself is very clever, a intellectual read, looks great and feels meaty. Viewed objectivly this must be one of the top five books from Johns. It is a very well done and shows good craftsmanship.

BUT although i always want to continue to read, there is never real excitement. You can always wait the months till the next issue and to be honest, you kind of forget the title in the breaks. Other books like Bendis new Superman titles always give me the feeling, that i need the next issue right now. And to be honest, not much has happened in six issues.

I have the feeling, that it is almost to clever and tries to be so special, that it forgets to be exciting. I thought the king of blockbuster comics would be better at combining intellect and excitement. Instaed it just feels dry.

I think this is also the reason why the hype has been cut short. Just think about it: Is this how you imagined the conclusion to the story, that startet in the wonderful and full-of-heart "Rebirth"?

[Bossace]

I feel like much hasn’t happened. I mean we’ve gotten in depth origins for Rorschach, mime and marionette but I feel like besides that and explaining the Superman theory nothing has really happened that they built this event up to be.

[astro@work]

Hello,

with today's issue six we are half way through Geoff Johns' sequel to Watchmen, Rebirth,etc. What is your early verdict? Are you invested?

I think you have to separate two things: The hype and the book itself.

I think the book itself is very clever, a intellectual read, looks great and feels meaty. Viewed objectivly this must be one of the top five books from Johns. It is a very well done and shows good craftsmanship.

BUT although i always want to continue to read, there is never real excitement. You can always wait the months till the next issue and to be honest, you kind of forget the title in the breaks. Other books like Bendis new Superman titles always give me the feeling, that i need the next issue right now. And to be honest, not much has happened in six issues.

I have the feeling, that it is almost to clever and tries to be so special, that it forgets to be exciting. I thought the king of blockbuster comics would be better at combining intellect and excitement. Instaed it just feels dry.

I think this is also the reason why the hype has been cut short. Just think about it: Is this how you imagined the conclusion to the story, that startet in the wonderful and full-of-heart "Rebirth"?

I'd say this is a good assessment. A smart, intellectual read. I enjoy it when I read it. But the story doesn't have a lot of urgency and so I'm not on the edge of my seat waiting for the next issue. However, I'm interested to see the next issue.

I do enjoy Mime & Marionette as great additions to the mythos. And I'm most interested in the Johnny Thunder/missing-JSA/Imra story...what little we've seen of it.

[kilderkin]

I was hyped when it started

Only 1 issue felt like filler

Love the art

I like the story, but so far it's just plodding along a bit

The schedule has rendered this a non event for me

That will probably change in the last couple of issues but when I see it in my pull it's like " Oh yeah, I forgot dc did this"

It went from must read to being just any other book

Big error on DC's part as far as it's impact goes imo

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I like this story and the Wild Storm but both feel like they are better off in trade.

[Weapon X]

I feel like I've been cheated a little somehow. After DCU: Rebirth and The Button storyline in The Flash & Batman, I was hyped for another "Crisis" level event. With the God-like powers & potential threat of Doctor Manhattan, I was so curious to see how Johns would explain exactly how time was stolen and why it was stolen. Instead we've gotten a very well done Watchmen sequel. I know there's 6 more issues left, but at this point I've lost some interest/hope in waiting for the "Crisis" part of the story and just resigned myself to the fact that it's just a Watchmen-centric story.

I'm still a big G. Johns fan. I loved Infinite Crisis, Green Lantern: Rebirth, Flash: Rebirth, Flashpoint, and Legion of 3 Worlds. However, Doomsday clock is like Deja Vu for me. I felt this way with Final Crisis. After Morrison's JLA Run, I was excited for Final Crisis. Then the book came out and it turned out to be 7 Soldiers of Victory Part II more than a "true" Crisis. Yeah it had the multiverse and Monitors, but it just didn't have that "feel" that COIE and Infinite Crisis had. Same with Doomsday Clock. It has Superman, Batman, and hopefully the JSA, but it feels more Watchmen than anything else too me. Maybe Johns's 2nd part of the story will ramp things up.

Luckily, we've got Scott Snyder and his Justice League book. After Metal and No Justice, I can't wait for each issue of Justice League to see where the story is heading.

[scribbleMind]

I think it's always well written. I always look forward to it, but, I was excited because this was sold as a Superman story. This is NOT a Superman story. This IS a Watchman sequel more than anything else. As a Watchman sequel I think it's as good as one could possibly expect in the hands of anyone other than Alan Moore. So, I always enjoy it, but afterwards I always have to take a moment to bathe in my shattered expectations. Expectations I would not have had if they advertised it more accurately. It reminds me of how a few movies as of recent have been advertised like horror movies, and they aren't, and so even though they're decent or arguably good movies they get bad reviews because they're not horror movies.

[blunt_eastwood]

It's way too slow. I'm bored. And what does any of this have to do with the New 52 and Rebirth??

[Dreaded Porcupine]

I didn't like this issue as much as last issue. The pacing overall is a tad to slow. After the JSA tease I was expecting a little more this issue. I'm sure a lot is going to happen at this point. Still think by the time it is completed Johns will have knocked it out of the park.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I think this story is trying to serve too many masters. First off, Johns is trying to sort out the continuity mess created by Didio's New 52 reboot. On that, the story has largely been a letdown because what should have taken a year to two years to resolve is now three to four years, with little payoff so far. For readers who are only interesting in getting back some semblance of the Pre-Flashpoint DCU, I really don't think this is the story for them.

Doomsday Clock, thus far, seems mostly concerned with examining today's global chaos through superheroes in the same way that Moore used Watchmen to examine the tumultuous 1980s. In that respect, I think the story is far more successful. Johns & Frank are doing a great job holding up a mirror to our own world through the use of these characters and they've made some great points about the superhero genre itself by contrasting Moore's deconstructed ethos with the DCU's more traditional approach.

My final problem with Doomsday Clock may well be addressed in the back-half of the story, but it has left me feeling unsatisfied with each consecutive issue. This is not, as we were told, a Superman story. The character has barely appeared in the story so far, which is now 50% done. If Johns had not explicitly stated that Doomsday Clock is not a Watchmen sequel and was going to be a Superman story, I probably wouldn't be having such a big problem with this, but he did and it is simply not true. It is a Watchmen sequel and Superman has thus far not been a major player in the story. That may change, of course, but it is disingenuous to state that "Superman is the story" when that character doesn't really appear in the first half of the story.

It it's a shame that Johns saddled this story with all the continuity nerd/Superman fan baggage that has made an otherwise incredibly well-written and drawn comic book somewhat disappointing to me. Had he been a little more honest about the story he was really telling, I would likely be enjoying it much more.

[RepHope]

It's an entertaining story, but so far it hasn't really been what it was advertised as. Supes has barely shown up, this is a Batman book more than a Superman book. The focus is more on the Watchmen characters interacting with the DCU than on the DCU characters. They haven't made any real progress in finding Dr. Manhattan.

Watchmen was similarly slow-paced however. I believe by issue 6, all we got was Dr. Manhattan leaving Earth and Rorschach getting arrested. I hope the next issue kicks it up a notch.

[Batgrayson]

I think it is so far a very good story. Johns has really surprised me after years of average stories like Shazam's origin, the first-half of his JL run, or Rise of the Third Army, among others.

Delays suck, but the series values the wait. Frank's art is awesome. And I like how the Cold War theme from Watchmen was changed to the Metahuman Arms Race. Mime & Marionette are funny, and even if issue #4 was completely about Reggie's past, it was a very good story about the consequences from Veidt's plan, something that wasn't explored at that time. I'm always exciting to read next issue.

But as people said, the hype is another topic. Johns said this was a Superman's story, but he has barely appeared so far on it. He should have said that Superman was going to be a key player during the second half of the story. Also, we were expecting Rebirth's resolution, but it looks like Doomsday Clock is another kind of story.

I would say it is a story with the quality we deserve, but it's not the story we were expecting, nor the one we wanted.

[married guy]

It's...………………………………………………………………. so …………………………………………………………………………...slow.
Six issues in, and VERY little has been given away in terms of story.
The art is top notch, and I can't argue that Geoff Johns is solid - it's just that there is ZERO excitement when I read this book.
Not a single issue has finished with me chomping at the bit to read the next issue.
Unless it SERIOUSLY picks up for it's second half, I'm afraid I'm going up with 12 issues of "meh".

[Orf with his head]

I’ve given up and dropped it from my pull list.

Art is gorgeous but just can’t be bothered with the delays and the wait, so trade waiting and will read it in its entirety next year.

[BohemiaDrinker]

It feels like a waste of time right now.

I don't know how something can have so much text and yet feel so decompressed, but somehow it does.

I've failed to establish any connection to the new characters Johns want to push whatsoever. The plot seems like it's been on hold for six months now, I feel like we should have a pretty good idea about the setting and the status quo at this point, but we don't. So instead of feeling like something important, it feels like the DCU got douchey. The one part of the story which could be interesting, the Doc Manhattan plot and misterty, took a backseat to ome origin stories. Rorschach's was ok, not great. Mime and Marionette: they're psychos, they've got traumas, the world is oppressive, yadda, yadda, yadda, I get it. I didn't need a whole issue dedicated to them, I needed this to move the hell along to the meat.

Emulating Moore is just not a good fit for Johns: he can do it for an issue or two, but at this point I actually expected the story to be in some intermediary point in it's commentary, whatever it is. Instead it's boring ass origin stories.

It's just really hard to care about anything here, and a shame that this is what holding some many characters hostage: feel like it's going nowhere, and it's hard to care at all.

Shame, really, I thought the start of it was pretty strong.