What was the point of Mr. Oz? *Doomsday Clock #12 spoilers*

[Patrick Gerard]

I’m fairly certain Oz was intended to be Veidt but the whole Jor-El thing was developed by Jurgens, Bendis, and/or editorial.

DC’s tie ins never sync up with the intent of the main story.

Look at Countdown to Final Crisis. Or the Identity Crisis tie-ins. Or Infinite Crisis.

I’ve given up on trying to reconcile them.

[Sacred Knight]

Honestly I think Veidt was the smokescreen from the simplification to the name to the logo. The real Ozymandias would still be linked to him because I think Johns created Oz with his Watchmen sequel already in mind to some degree and a connection therein, but it wouldn't actually have turned out to be Adrian. The stronger hint in Johns' early writing of him was that he was Jonathan, or some version of.

But then again all we can do is speculate what was in the man's head at the time. Only way to ever know for certain is if he opened up and told of his original thoughts at the time.

[Montressor]

Deleted message nevermind

[manwhohaseverything]

We'll have to disagree about that. I don't think they had to be made of this earth, since they had already managed to live in it just fine for 10 years in California. Yes, they were living other people's lives, but Superman's fellow super-heroes had overcome their initial distrust and had come to accept the replacement Superman as a "real" Superman. Lois's colleagues at the Daily Planet accepted the "impostor" Lois Lane as genuine. They could have continued to live as pre-Flashpoint aliens in a post-Flashpoint world. (After all, what is Superman anyway, if not an alien from another world?) Even if it <i>were</i> necessary for the two versions of Clark and Lois to be merged, then the reason for the merge would be simply the necessity of making them one with the new environment, and <i>not</i> their love for each other (which would have continued without the merge)!

Who said merge's goal was love between clois? It isn't. It is the contributing factor in their survival. They survived the merger only because of the love they had. If it wasn't for that they would have been dominated by the new52 clois. The goal was to be part of main continuity new52 earth.

[JAK]

They were inhabiting the same body. The love clark and lois had for each other and jon was the reason they won the 'negotiations' so to speak for the body with new52 clois. Since, superman changed the timeline changed as well, due to metaverse rule.
No, preflashpoint clois didn't get their identities. They were treated like a virus by the new52 earth. Swamp thing interfering and changing superman had given some reprieve. But, they were really living other people's lives. They were not of this changed new52 earth. They had to be made of this earth. For that they took in some of new52 as well.

Interestingly enough, Swamp Thing "fixed" Clark's frequency to be with the then-New52 Earth, but they were technically the same Lois and Clark, just minus the changes/historical subtractions of Flashpoint. So they actually were of the same Earth, just not the same continuity.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I'm pretty sure it was explained that he wanted to break Jor-el's hope. Well, it wasn't outright stated to be Manhattan at the time, but it was heavily hinted and breaking his hope seems to go alongside the experiments he made here.

Also, he didn't do a single change. Aside from the death of Clark's parents, there was at least taking away Alan Scott's lantern.

According to Doomsday Clock, Dr. Manhattan made one change, that had many ripple effects.

Because Alan Scott didn't grab that lantern, he never became the linchpin of the JSA, which meant the JSA operated covertly and thus Pa Kent couldn't tell young Clark about them, which would, in turn, give him the idea to become Superboy, who would save the Kents from their premature deaths. Without Alan, there's no public JSA, which means no Superboy, which means the Kents die and Superman becomes more lonely and "relatable", and, without Superboy, there would be nobody to inspire the creation of the Legion of the Superheroes a thousand years later. Like I said, one change with lots of unforeseen effects.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I’m fairly certain Oz was intended to be Veidt but the whole Jor-El thing was developed by Jurgens, Bendis, and/or editorial.

DC’s tie ins never sync up with the intent of the main story.

Look at Countdown to Final Crisis. Or the Identity Crisis tie-ins. Or Infinite Crisis.

I’ve given up on trying to reconcile them.

It definitely wasn't Bendis's idea to bring make Jor-El back. He stated on a few occasions that he never would have brought back Jor-El, but later viewed the concept as a gift because it played into his plans for Superman with the whole "losing his father to the past and his son to the future" thing.

From what I heard, it was Jurgens and editorial who looked at the various suspects for who Mr. Oz could be and they chose Jor-El, which was before Bendis had even signed with DC.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Do you think Bendis or anyone else should even bother trying to explain this away or should they just move on?

[Sacred Knight]

Move on. They're going to be too busy setting up 5G to try and shoehorn this back in to try and explain it, and then, if Johns' pulse of the situation is right in DDC, all that stuff will be retconned out in the end anyway. The "Jor-El was alive on Earth" stuff can just safely stay in limbo until that next reset, at which point it can be deleted with a lot of other stuff.

[Patrick Gerard]

Move on. They're going to be too busy setting up 5G to try and shoehorn this back in to try and explain it, and then, if Johns' pulse of the situation is right in DDC, all that stuff will be retconned out in the end anyway. The "Jor-El was alive on Earth" stuff can just safely stay in limbo until that next reset, at which point it can be deleted with a lot of other stuff.

I would like to see someone go back through and weave together a take that makes sense of some of the classic dropped stuff.

You may recall that Ignition had a secret master who wasn’t Zod from Pokilistan and that he was neither a creation of the Russians or the Joker. Never followed up on but there’s a line there like, “My master is greater than any universe, any timeline.”

I can tell you who Ignition was GOING to be but not his mystery master.

And I’d rather stuff like this be swept aside and open to another writer than shoehorning it in here when we have momentum away from it.

Although my hope is that when somebody revisits it that they:

A) Retcon or steer away from the implication that Manhattan was using Jor-El and Thomas Wayne as henchmen. So far they’ve implied Dr. Manhattan but they haven’t said it.

B) Have them team up Jor-El and Thomas.

[SuperCrab]

Do you think Bendis or anyone else should even bother trying to explain this away or should they just move on?

Explain it. This story line has been going since the New52 (Not in a ret-conned way, New52 Clark Kent got a package on his desk from Mr. Oz (Much later revealed to be Jor-El in the post-New52 world.), who is shown watching him in an issue back then, and has been present in every incarnation of Superman since. Fans deserved some kind of closure. I agree with the implication that they've made a mess of this whole Mr. Oz thing, and a 40 issue "event" would be a really bad idea, but one regular issue to put it to bed is I think reasonable. My feeling is that they don't need to keep bad ideas going indefinitely, but to just abandon long-running story-lines without an explanation is sloppy writing and not fair to the fans invested in them. So, it's much better to just do an issue that answers the questions and wraps it up than to leave it hanging.

If nothing else, I think fans hesitate to get themselves hooked on new mysteries and buying the titles that have those type of story-lines the more a line develops a track record of not providing endings to existing ones.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I am torn. Given how Bendis has finally wrapped up the Jor-El/Rogal Zharr, and how poorly received that subplot was, the last thing I want him to do is start picking at that scab again. Bendis currently has some really interesting stuff cooking in the Superman books. For the time being, I'd rather he move forward.

That said, I think it would be interesting for DC to do an Avengers Forever-style book that tries to go back and explain away all the dangling subplots that have built up over the years, like Mr. Oz and the characters that survived the ending of Convergence, and, sure, throw Ignition's master in there for good measure.

[Stanlos]

I’m fairly certain Oz was intended to be Veidt but the whole Jor-El thing was developed by Jurgens, Bendis, and/or editorial.

DC’s tie ins never sync up with the intent of the main story.

Look at Countdown to Final Crisis. Or the Identity Crisis tie-ins. Or Infinite Crisis.

I’ve given up on trying to reconcile them.

I don't know about that. The tie-ins leading up to INFINITE CRISIS were very well executed.

[Ascended]

I don't think Jor-El/Oz really needs to be revisited. Ultimately it didn't amount to much, made damn little sense even by comic book standards, and although it's not satisfying we can write the whole thing off as Manhattan setting controls in place to make sure his experiments didn't get screwed with. Want to take the hope out of Superman and see what happens to the metaverse? Make Jor-El a villain; that'll ensure Clark doesn't get his feet back under him.

I'd love to hear what the original plans were, not just for Clock but all the other stuff tied to it. Remember that Multiversity arc Tomasi did, where Supermen were being drained of energy by the villain so that villain could fight a even bigger threat? What the hell was that about?

Between the delays on Clock and Johns' position in the company changing it seems like a lot of plans got tossed half-way. But I doubt we'll ever know the truth and.....honestly I don't care. DC couldn't stick to a plan. In other news; water is still wet.

I don't know about that. The tie-ins leading up to INFINITE CRISIS were very well executed.

Agreed. I thought things were handled pretty well during Infinite Crisis, as far as continuity goes. Sure, some of the tie-ins didn't really deserve the name but we can't begrudge the company a little excess marketing. But it felt like those events (OMAC, the Secret Society, etc) were really happening and you could see it, or at least hints of it, everywhere, even in books that weren't actually dealing with it. Probably the last time DC actually had a solid, cohesive grip on continuity.

Now, the tie-in miniseries for Final Crisis were utterly stupid and pointless and were connected to Morrison's story on the thinnest of threads, but Infinite Crisis? Say what you will about the story itself but DC felt really tight knit during that time.

[Vordan]

Do you think Bendis or anyone else should even bother trying to explain this away or should they just move on?

Move on. The constant obsession with trying to clean up continuity has only hurt DC. Their continuity is never going to 100% “fit together”. Also does anyone really care? What purpose would knowing serve at this point besides tying up loose continuity threads?