Doomsday Clock issue #11 Preview

[Vordan]

Well that was a waste of time. Whether the blame lies with Bendis for derailing everyone’s plans so he could force his Legion into canon, editorial for screwing with Johns plans, or with Johns for setting something up he could never deliver on, I’m extremely disappointed with how he handled Saturn Girl. Frankly I’m pissed to be perfectly honest.

spoilers:

She gets freaking wiped from existence before she can even TALK to Superman? What the ****? And this isn’t like Spider-Man in Infinity War because she’s never coming back. This utterly blows. **** whoever is responsible for this.

end of spoilers

I just want Doomsday Clock to be over at this point. Whatever was the initial plan is clearly not in the cards anymore. I’m guessing Superman gives some saccharine speech about how Jon just needs to “hope more” and then Manhattan undoes everything and gives Supes his parents back so he can go eat apple pie and salute the American flag with them.

[DragonPiece]

Well that was a waste of time. Whether the blame lies with Bendis for derailing everyone’s plans so he could force his Legion into canon, editorial for screwing with Johns plans, or with Johns for setting something up he could never deliver on, I’m extremely disappointed with how he handled Saturn Girl. Frankly I’m pissed to be perfectly honest.

spoilers:

She gets freaking wiped from existence before she can even TALK to Superman? What the ****? And this isn’t like Spider-Man in Infinity War because she’s never coming back. This utterly blows. **** whoever is responsible for this.

end of spoilers

I just want Doomsday Clock to be over at this point. Whatever was the initial plan is clearly not in the cards anymore. I’m guessing Superman gives some saccharine speech about how Jon just needs to “hope more” and then Manhattan undoes everything and gives Supes his parents back so he can go eat apple pie and salute the American flag with them.

Its a tough give or take, but I’m glad they chose to have it work within continuity than do a moment like Saturn girl and Superman talking and then have it not make sense in continuity. I do agree with wanting the story over though lol.

[Superlad93]

Well that was a waste of time. Whether the blame lies with Bendis for derailing everyone’s plans so he could force his Legion into canon, editorial for screwing with Johns plans, or with Johns for setting something up he could never deliver on, I’m extremely disappointed with how he handled Saturn Girl. Frankly I’m pissed to be perfectly honest.

But that was the delivery that was set up in this book issues ago. Saturn Girl says she's from the 30th century (ie Pre-Crisis), and Johns sets up that the DCU has older timeline that no longer exist.

The narrative payoff is the act of doing away with what we thought was hope and assurance. We had Manhattan's vision of the future, and Saturn Girl's telling of it clashing. The idea being that more certainty is put on Saturn Girl's version of the future because she's so sure and confident of it, while Manhattan can't decide between two options, so obviously we think that the option where Manhattan doesn't destroy everything is most likely. But the big tuning point is when the bread crumbs of who Saturn Girl really is come to an apex.

She was a plot device representing the DCU's concept of hope, because she is a literal promise that there will be a tomorrow.

spoilers:

Having our villain reveal that her future hasn't been part of the timeline for quite some time is crafted to be a blow to the reader especially when her boundless certainty and optimism are taken into account.

end of spoilers

[superduperman]

Reading what everyone else has written (I haven't gotten it yet) it sounds like Bendis is being given free rein to do whatever he wants and everyone else has to work around him. I have no idea what Johns original plans were for Saturn Girl but it sounds like the delay was definitely a rewrite and redraw to work around whatever Bendis has in the works. Why do I get the feeling Kahn never would have let this happen? DC editorial just seems to be changing plans midstream at this point with no idea what to do. If there is some sort of big Crisis type event coming next year, it sounds like it's being hashed out at the last minute. I have no idea what DDC was originally meant to be but it sounds like it's not going to be that now.

[Vordan]

Its a tough give or take, but I’m glad they chose to have it work within continuity than do a moment like Saturn girl and Superman talking and then have it not make sense in continuity. I do agree with wanting the story over though lol.

spoilers:

I knew the old Legion wasn’t coming back after the Bendis reboot got announced, but my hope was that Supes could have one last conversation with his friend before she gets wiped out. My hope was that Irma would at the end travel back to the future and thanks to Hypertime we’d see that future still exists out there. But instead she never meets Supes, and she’s pretty much a red herring. She never actually does anything to advance the plot forward at all, so it’s hard for me not to look back at DC Rebirth #1 and feel like I got baited and switched.

end of spoilers

But that was the delivery that was set up in this book issues ago. Saturn Girl says she's from the 30th century (ie Pre-Crisis), and Johns sets up that the DCU has older timeline that no longer exist.

The narrative payoff is the act of doing away with what we thought was hope and assurance. We had Manhattan's vision of the future, and Saturn Girl's telling of it clashing. The idea being that more certainty is put on Saturn Girl's version of the future because she's so sure and confident of it, while Manhattan can't decide between two options, so obviously we think that the option where Manhattan doesn't destroy everything is most likely. But the big tuning point is when the bread crumbs of who Saturn Girl really is come to an apex.

She was a plot device representing the DCU's concept of hope, because she is a literal promise that there will be a tomorrow.

spoilers:

Having our villain reveal that her future hasn't been part of the timeline for quite some time is crafted to be a blow to the reader especially when her boundless certainty and optimism are taken into account.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

Alright well here’s the thing: I don’t believe Johns planned for Saturn Girl to do nothing and then get erased when he was initially doing this project. I 100% instead believe she was going to restore Clark’s memories of his time with the LoSH, especially given that Johns made sure HIS origin was the one that got recanonized and his origin had the Legion in it. And the gut punch of Irma getting erased is kind of ruined by Bendis Irma being around. It feels less of “there is no future” and more “that future you liked? Gone.” Maybe I’ll feel better about it later but my initial knee jerk reaction is “This feels like editorial stepping in and forcing Johns to do rewrites” more than an organic end to what he planned. If this book had come out on time I might feel differently but after essentially 3 years of waiting for that Saturn Girl payoff... this kinda sucks to be honest. It’s not helped that I don’t really think Bendis is going to do a good job on Legion given how his Guardians of the Galaxy was the worst thing he’s ever written imo.

end of spoilers

[Superlad93]

I knew this would ultimately happen. Doomsday Clock was never official billed as this continuity "fixing" story. That's a weight fan's mainly put on it. What it has been called, and it has been is a Watchmen followup. They Watchmen characters are the focus, and the DCU is essentially the medium that their story is being told in. They're fighting by using the DCU and its rules as a tool.

The continuity shifts and reintroduction are totally incidental. It's an evergreen book that has the primary goal of being something that a person would pick up at a proper book story like Watchmen before it. It legitimately doesn't matter that Bendis' Saturn Girl is out and about around the same time of its original publication. I mean, like Batman Year One, somethings will be directly informed by it or be inspired by it (even directly followed up) but it's intent is to be largely as evergreen as possible.

[kingaliencracker]

Reading what everyone else has written (I haven't gotten it yet) it sounds like Bendis is being given free rein to do whatever he wants and everyone else has to work around him. I have no idea what Johns original plans were for Saturn Girl but it sounds like the delay was definitely a rewrite and redraw to work around whatever Bendis has in the works. Why do I get the feeling Kahn never would have let this happen? DC editorial just seems to be changing plans midstream at this point with no idea what to do. If there is some sort of big Crisis type event coming next year, it sounds like it's being hashed out at the last minute. I have no idea what DDC was originally meant to be but it sounds like it's not going to be that now.

I think it's really presumptuous to assume that anything was rewritten to accommodate Bendis. We simply don't know.

Having said that, Rebirth came out in 2016? 3 years later we're still waiting on Johns to finish a 12-part series to move forward that initiative, which DC had pretty much moved passed, if not a year or two ago then certainly following HEROES IN CRISIS? I mean you can't expect DC to wait forever and a day for Johns to get moving on this. Had Doomsday Clock been written & published in 2016 or heck 2017, he wouldn't have had to worry about Bendis or DC changing course on him.

[Vordan]

I knew this would ultimately happen. Doomsday Clock was never official billed as this continuity "fixing" story. That's a weight fan's mainly put on it. What it has been called, and it has been is a Watchmen followup. They Watchmen characters are the focus, and the DCU is essentially the medium that their story is being told in. They're fighting by using the DCU and its rules as a tool.

The continuity shifts and reintroduction are totally incidental. It's an evergreen book that has the primary goal of being something that a person would pick up at a proper book story like Watchmen before it. It legitimately doesn't matter that Bendis' Saturn Girl is out and about around the same time of its original publication. I mean, like Batman Year One, somethings will be directly informed by it or be inspired by it (even directly followed up) but it's intent is to be largely as evergreen as possible.

True but it does rely heavily on you reading the Rebirth lead up to it to understand what’s going on. They’re going to have to bundle the Rebirth one shot with Doomsday Clock I feel, otherwise you’re going to be wondering what the hell Lex is talking about when he talks about Wally’s return. And while the intent might have been for it to be evergreen it was also talked about in the marketing lead up as the conclusion to the Rebirth plot which did run through the DC line.

I never thought DDC was going to bring all the old continuity back (nor did I want it to frankly), but it was positioned as being far more important than its ended up being and that’s something that can be blamed on the delays.

spoilers:

Also given that Clark’s parents are most likely coming back at the end of this, I don’t know if it can be said that Doomsday Clock was never meant to do some continuity “fixes”.

end of spoilers

[kingaliencracker]

I knew this would ultimately happen. Doomsday Clock was never official billed as this continuity "fixing" story. That's a weight fan's mainly put on it. What it has been called, and it has been is a Watchmen followup. They Watchmen characters are the focus, and the DCU is essentially the medium that their story is being told in. They're fighting by using the DCU and its rules as a tool.

The continuity shifts and reintroduction are totally incidental. It's an evergreen book that has the primary goal of being something that a person would pick up at a proper book story like Watchmen before it. It legitimately doesn't matter that Bendis' Saturn Girl is out and about around the same time of its original publication. I mean, like Batman Year One, somethings will be directly informed by it or be inspired by it (even directly followed up) but it's intent is to be largely as evergreen as possible.

I don't agree with this perspective. I don't think fans thought this would "fix" DC's continuity. However, there is no denying that REBIRTH was clearly leading towards a restoration of many things that were lost with NEW 52, and that DOOMSDAY CLOCK was going to be the culmination of that. But with the delays, DC has decided that they're just going to bring back some things but with their own spin on it - not rehash the old Legion, the old Wally, or the old JSA.

[manwhohaseverything]

I knew this would ultimately happen. Doomsday Clock was never official billed as this continuity "fixing" story. That's a weight fan's mainly put on it. What it has been called, and it has been is a Watchmen followup. They Watchmen characters are the focus, and the DCU is essentially the medium that their story is being told in. They're fighting by using the DCU and its rules as a tool.

The continuity shifts and reintroduction are totally incidental. It's an evergreen book that has the primary goal of being something that a person would pick up at a proper book story like Watchmen before it. It legitimately doesn't matter that Bendis' Saturn Girl is out and about around the same time of its original publication. I mean, like Batman Year One, somethings will be directly informed by it or be inspired by it (even directly followed up) but it's intent is to be largely as evergreen as possible.

What the management intended didn't matter. The minute og wally was back. He became the promise of return of dc history and continuity fix up for the fans that were quiet frankly unhappy with new52 set up and status.superman reborn furthered that promise. People genuinely wanted to see the first ever deboot on a large scale by dc.
The thing is believe as you they were happy letting it be evergreen story like you said. The first snyder interview regarding jsa return was proof of that. Then didio began to realise reader expectations for ddc during panels where he was bombarded questions regarding it. And then didio began his pr of ddc still being important to continuity and having huge implications. Suddenly, snyder corrects his stance and says "everything is connected".I am sorry, but i believe these are all connected. They got reactionary after that.
It's my strong belief that imra and clark meeting was set in stone. She might have been the original one to snap clark out of his rage on dr.Manhattan.

[Superlad93]

True but it does rely heavily on you reading the Rebirth lead up to it to understand what’s going on. They’re going to have to bundle the Rebirth one shot with Doomsday Clock I feel, otherwise you’re going to be wondering what the hell Lex is talking about when he talks about Wally’s return.

Not really. I mean, they could add in that one-shot and it would still be evergreen, but they wouldn't have to. Issue 10 introduces Wally's return, and frames it as the DCU's "immune system" kicking in. Lois even lays on some exposition by just calling it the return of Kid Flash.

spoilers:

Also given that Clark’s parents are most likely coming back at the end of this, I don’t know if it can be said that Doomsday Clock was never meant to do some continuity “fixes”.

end of spoilers

If that comes to pass, even that in the story is set up pretty explicitly in issue 1. You know they're gone. It would then function as bookending and a "reword" of sorts.

spoilers:

But in Saturn Girl's case, she's presented as having already known Superman, and we have no reason at that point to assume that he doesn't know her or that there are cracks in her story. We only get the small 30th century hint at first that means nothing by itself, but then when you couple it with the explanations in issue 10, it starts to fit as something that isn't quite right. Then in a surprisingly inspired move we you realize the cold truth that Saturn Girl was suffering from delusions regarding her own existence. She the doctors said that she suffered from delusions, but we and they just assumed it was about the whole talking about being from the future.

end of spoilers

[LordUltimus]

It is an odd apparent end to her arc.
Sit around in Gotham PD for several years, then break out, get beaten up and... erased from existence?

Wouldn't be the first time someone's work with a character went sideways because of Bendis just not giving a damn...

[Vordan]

Not really. I mean, they could add in that one-shot and it would still be evergreen, but they wouldn't have to. Issue 10 introduces Wally's return, and frames it as the DCU's "immune system" kicking in. Lois even lays on some exposition by just calling it the return of Kid Flash.



If that comes to pass, even that in the story is set up pretty explicitly in issue 1. You know they're gone. It would then function as bookending and a "reword" of sorts.

spoilers:

But in Saturn Girl's case, she's presented as having already known Superman, and we have no reason at that point to assume that he doesn't know her or that there are cracks in her story. We only get the small 30th century hint at first that means nothing by itself, but then when you couple it with the explanations in issue 10, it starts to fit as something that isn't quite right. Then in a surprisingly inspired move we you realize the cold truth that Saturn Girl was suffering from delusions regarding her own existence. She the doctors said that she suffered from delusions, but we and they just assumed it was about the whole talking about being from the future.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

I can see that, but it feels jarring to me to end on Clark getting the Kents back when an entire timeline with trillions of lives in it gets erased, including people who were dear friends of his. I just wish Clark could’ve gotten one last conversation to say goodbye. I guess we’ll see how Johns handles things in the final issue. I hope Clark is at least made aware of the “Metaverse” and all the lives he’s lived. That would be a small comfort for me, to let him at least know what he’s lost.

end of spoilers

[Robanker]

can you list which you think are retcons? I can't think of one major one, but I only skimmed through the issue my first read.

spoilers:

The mention of then-current event Sanctuary cements the book in 2018-19 and serves no purpose other than to add some prestige to Heroes in Crisis, but you can argue that for Jon Kent too I suppose. I just find it suspect. No, what's damning is the dusting of Imra from the retrobooted Legion and their relevance. I firmly don't believe that Johns, who moved heaven and Earth to reintroduce then years back and force their relevancy in Superman and the Legion/Legion of Three Worlds, would have her meander for 11 issues only to die an unceremonious death while symbol of DC's past Johnny Thunder weeps in terror. Two years ago I don't believe Johns was thinking "and she'll die in jail so we can introduce a new Legion." Bendis came aboard, has stated that he really wanted to do Legion and editorial made Geoff work it in. This happens so late in the book, but so uncharacteristically, that it is clearly a plan that changed and needed to tow the company line. It makes me question what else is reflective of that. Yes, Alfred is alive, but if Bleeding Cool is to be believed (and, frustratingly, they often are in some fashion), his recent death was to be an illusion and it's only right now being changed.

end of spoilers

I don't know, man. I could be dialing in to that instance too much, but it makes zero sense for the book thus far and is so not a Geoff Johns move... But it does sound like Dan "Countdown is 52 done right" Didio, who is all about the towing company line at expense of story, character, history and creators.

[Flash Gordon]

Well that was a waste of time. Whether the blame lies with Bendis for derailing everyone’s plans so he could force his Legion into canon, editorial for screwing with Johns plans, or with Johns for setting something up he could never deliver on, I’m extremely disappointed with how he handled Saturn Girl. Frankly I’m pissed to be perfectly honest.

spoilers:

She gets freaking wiped from existence before she can even TALK to Superman? What the ****? And this isn’t like Spider-Man in Infinity War because she’s never coming back. This utterly blows. **** whoever is responsible for this.

end of spoilers

I just want Doomsday Clock to be over at this point. Whatever was the initial plan is clearly not in the cards anymore. I’m guessing Superman gives some saccharine speech about how Jon just needs to “hope more” and then Manhattan undoes everything and gives Supes his parents back so he can go eat apple pie and salute the American flag with them.

LOL yeah I figured that's where this book was always headed. No thank you, for me.