Robot Panic Book Club: Watchmen, Week 2
It’s time for week 2 of our six-week series, the first-ever Robot Panic Book Club. The week we’ll be discussing chapters 3 and 4 of Alan Moore’s novel Watchmen. Please keep in mind that the comments below will contain spoilers for the first four issues, but please use spoiler tags when discussing anything beyond chapter four.
The following are the plot synopses for chapters 3 and 4.
Chapter 3: The Judge of All The Earth
Laurie argues with Dr. Manhattan about him becoming more distant to her. She storms out to go see Dan while Dr. Manhattan prepares for a rare public appearance on a television talk show.
Laurie arrives at Dan’s apartment and starts venting her relationship problems. While out walking, the two head down a dark alley and are attacked by a “knot-top” gang. Their old crime fighting training kicks in and they make short work of the attackers.
Meanwhile, back at the talk show, a reporter from the Nova Express accuses Dr. Manhattan of giving cancer to individuals who had been close to him. When the issue is pressed by the media, Dr. Manhattan becomes angered, and in a psychic outburst, he teleports everyone in the television studio into a nearby parking lot. The story causes the media to go crazy.
Feeling that his continued presence on earth would be harmful to humans around him, Dr. Manhattan decides to leave for Mars. He then teleports himself to an abandoned shack, taking a photograph of a man and a woman at a carnival. After studying it briefly, he teleports himself to Mars.
His departure makes headlines across the media, as Russia invades Afghanistan, a possible precursor to a nuclear war.
Closing Quotation: “Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right?” – Genesis, Chapter 18, Verse 25
Chapter 4: Watchmaker
This chapter covers key events and turning points in Jon Osterman’s, aka Dr. Manhattan’s, life.
In the wake of the bombing of Hiroshima, Osterman’s father, a watchmaker, pushes his son to give up a career in watchmaking and become a scientist.
Jon attends Princeton and then, in 1959, becomes employed by a research lab in Gila Flats, Arizona. There he meets and falls in love with a lab worker named Janey Slater.
At a carnival, a fat man steps on and breaks Janey’s watch. Jon later fixes the watch, but forgets it in his lab coat. When he goes to retrieve his lab coat from a test vault, he gets accidentally locked inside. When his fellow scientists return from their lunch break, Jon asks to be released, but to everyone’s horror, the vault has automatically time-locked and generators have already began warming up to begin an intrinsic field removal experiment.
Waiting to die, Jon is disintegrated in a flash of light. A month later, “ghosts” of Jon begin to appear at the research site. First a circulatory system, then a muscled skeleton, until finally, he is assembled as a full being, complete with blue skin and fantastic super-human abilities.
Even though he retains his memories, he becomes distant and apethetic to those around him. He argues frequently with Janey, but pretends to still love her. In addition to his new, purely scientific outlook, he now has the power to telekinetically assemble and disassemble objects, teleport himself or others great distances, alter his size, duplicate himself several times, and more.
He’s quickly recruited by the United States military, and re-named “Dr. Manhattan.” They dub him the first “real” super hero, which worries the remaining costumed heroes. Although he is the U.S. Government’s ultimate weapon, he is unable, or unwilling, to prevent certain disasters, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. However, Jon’s incredible intelligence allows him to develop new futuristic advancements such as electric cars, safe dirigible airships, and more.
In 1966, Jon leaves Janey for a sixteen-year-old Laurie. He becomes the savior of the Vietnam War, and is allowed to remain an active superhero even after vigilantism is outlawed. The only other sanctioned hero left is The Comedian, who has also been drafted for government work.
As Dr. Manhattan recalls Laurie leaving him, he creates a giant glass structure that rises from the soil. He then stands on its balcony to ponder a meteorite shower.
Closing Quotation: “The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking. The solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I would have become a watchmaker.” – Albert Einstein
Table of contents for Robot Panic Book Club: Watchmen
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Tags: alan moore, Book Club, Watchmen
February 4th, 2009 at 10:31 am
To me, Chapter 4 is brilliantly constructed as you go from point to point to point in Osterman’s life and it all is woven together leading up until the end of the story.
I know I’ve said it a billion times here, but the motion comic on iTunes is great, and this story chapter is probably the most effective. If you don’t want to download the whole $20 set, at least check out this chapter.
What struck me most about these two chapters, beyond what I already mentioned, is how Dr. Manhattan is supposedly omnipotent, yet he is unable to change the outcome of not only the book, but of little things that happen. It’s a strange paradox because he seems to know everything that’s going to happen, but he can’t (or won’t) do anything to change it. Perhaps it’s because he realizes how one tiny thing has the ability to alter the fate of the entire world, like his father’s decision to force him into becoming an scientist. Without that one decision there would be no Dr. Manhattan and without Dr. Manhattan the US wouldn’t be the power it is, wouldn’t have won Viet Nam, Nixon wouldn’t still be president, etc., etc.
Anyway, to me, this is where the story really started to hook me.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I think that Chapter 4 is one of my favorites. That isn’t to say that the rest are bad, but this one still stands out in my memory. I especially loved the line about the “cogs raining on Brooklyn”, sending Jon down an entirely different path. I also loved it because it provides what is essentially an abnormal superhero origin story. I thought this was a significant departure from the standard origin story, as it focused a great deal on the tragedy of Manhattan’s greatness. Even with something like Batman, while his parents do die, he overcomes it to become something better than he was. But with Dr. Manhattan, he never returns to the person he was before, he becomes something that is physically and technologically magnificent, but is largely a shell of a man.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
@John,
you are so dead on with Doc Manhatten, and his inability to do anything to change the oucome of things to come. I believe as you do that he does so because that is WHO HE IS, he gains all this power and never really uses it to better mankind. Perhaps it was his experience in Nam that changed him, or perhaps it’s because he is losing touch with his own humanity. Note in Chapter 3 when he sends the reporters away and then smirks before going to Mars. It’s as if he is saying…
“Finally, this time has come, and I can escape the bonds of humanity.” He knew the time was coming and I believe he is Happy about that.
This is never more appearant than when he proclaims that he will go and make some lesser beings of his own in issue 12
For me I think this begs a lot of other questions about other omnipotent beings and their choice to NOT always save humanity from itself…
February 5th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Chapter 4 is probably my favorite single comic of all time. The writing style is so original and different: giving you a taste of what it’s like to be inside the mind of Dr. Manhattan. Alan Moore wrote it differently from all the other chapters of Watchmen, and it really stands out I think.
The time period jumps all over the place, illustrating Dr. Manhattan’s ability to see all of time at the same time. John, I see what you’re saying about the fact that he can (basically) see what is going to happen, but I have a different theory for why he doesn’t change things around. It seems Alan Moore doesn’t believe in free will – and he shows this through Dr. Manhattan’s actions. The atoms of the universe began moving at the Big Bang in a certain way, and there’s no way to change that. What happens, happens – the difference with Dr. Manhattan though is that he knows where the atoms are going to go and where they’ve been.
He actually says something along these lines in a later chapter I’m pretty sure, when he’s talking about humanity either all dying out or living on. He knows something big is going to happen to humanity, but it’s “fuzzy” to him what that might be. Perhaps he’s still getting used to figuring out how to “read” atoms at this time?
I think though that he can’t see it all at once – he has to concentrate on one thing at a time, which kind of maintains his connection with humanity. If he’s on Mars contemplating meteorites, he’s not going to know what happens to the humans on Earth. If he’s on Mars thinking about a certain person, he probably will be able to tell what will happen to that person.
February 5th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Slightly off topic, but:
Jesus…these promos for the movie just keep getting better and better.
Check this out.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
@John, dude that clip was totally BAD ASS!!! We got to see the original Night Owl and Hooded Justice!
Two things in that clip I find interesting…
1. The first vigilante listed with The Comedian. How quickly America forgot his involvement in the Vietnam War. He was a big part of the success over there and now he’s hunted.
2. They show a lot of Rorschach which seems to indicate that perhaps HE is the reason for the Keen Act in the first place. Based on behavior we will see later, I don’t doubt that this might be true.
While I dig Issue 4 and it’s unique storytelling; issue 5 is my favorite with issue 6 a VERY close second. Can’t wait for next week so we can discuss all things Rorschach!!!
February 6th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I’m in agreement with Ryker that Issue 5 was my favorite of the bunch we’ve talked about so far. There’s just something about Dr. M just sitting on a barren planet, looking at an old photo and remembering his life that has such..heart and feeling, I guess.
And his final act, one that helps him deal with the chaos that his life is to build a perfect glass sculpture. Something purely mathematical, organized and artistic. It’s like a representation of how he views the universe from an atomic level. Despite all the craziness, at it’s heart, life is comprised of organized beauty and simplicity.
I thought it was awesome and pivitol. I find it interesting as well, that despite “knowing” all the things that have happened and are going to happen, he is dealing with all the events at a very human level. The need to find order in the chaos is something everyone knows about.
February 6th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Um, I think you meant issue 4 Hilden. Issue 5 (Symmetry) is coming up.
BUT, love that insight on Dr. M. Good Shit!
February 6th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Yeah, Issue 4 is what I meant. Mistype.
Ok…I can’t read.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:55 am
S’ok, I do that shit all the time. Hey check out my cool post…wait oh crap someone already said that…I’m a moron.