The DC Universe collides with its greatest threat: Dr. Manhattan. But nothing is hidden from Manhattan, and the secrets of the past, present and future will rock the very foundation of the DC Universe.

After Firestorm’s explosion and Superman’s defense of him, the world has turned on the superheroes and the superheroes have turned their eye on to what they believe is the cause of it all. The Earth’s heroes head to Mars to confront Dr. Manhattan as the series begins to finally come together.

Doomsday Clock #9 is the most straightforward of the issues so far as the picture becomes a bit clearer and story more focused. This is the fight issue with the heroes falling into the usual trope of confrontation and punching before everything is clear. Writer Geoff Johns delivers a bit more standard of an issue with lots of hints as to what we’ll see. Batman scrambles to get a message out. Superman lays in a coma.

The issue is a strange one in that it takes the homage/inspiration that has applied to the other eight issues and takes it into overdrive here. The first page reads like a page out of the original Watchmen using similar time jumps and language. The hints that Dr. Manhattan isn’t the villain and someone else set off the Tachyon blast is a bit too much the plot of the original story. Weirdly the issues riff on the original Watchmen feels like an echo that Manhattan, and us the reader, are experiencing.

The art by Gary Frank is solid as usual as he breaks a bit more from the nine panel grid he mostly has used. There’s a lot of characters to pack in on this issue and scenes and how it’s broken up so that it isn’t overwhelming is nice. Still, I’d like to have seen a splash page of everyone as they confront Manhattan at which point Frank could then have broken away from the constriction of page format that has plagued the series up to this point. It could have been a meta break from what has come before.

The issue is a pretty standard one with a confrontation, punch before knowing everything, and various other tropes. It’s also the first issue where everything begins to come together and become much clearer. It’s the beginning of the end but there’s clearly more twists and turns to come in the next three issues and questions we’ve had since Rebirth look like they’re finally going to be answered.

Story: Geoff Johns Art: Gary Frank
Story: 7.0 Art: 7.5 Overall: 7.0 Recommendation: Read

DC Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review