Watchmen: Chapter IV - page 6

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Panel 2:  The remark “killing time” within the caption box highlights this chapter’s theme in a number of ways.  Two of these are: 

-      It is an allusion to the atomic bombs dropped on Japan that killed time for those within the blast area.

-      The fact that Janey’s watch breaks (time killed) results in the killing of time as a linear reality for Jon Osterman when he becomes Dr. Manhattan, a reality precipitated by Jon’s father negating his son’s desire to become a watch repairman (killing his dream to work with timepieces).

Panels 2-3:  The carnival barker getting Jon and Janey’s picture calls them “young lovers.”  Jon tries to protest but is unable to get the words out.  This is yet another example of other people dictating Jon Osterman’s reality/life.

Also, note the balloon flying away in the background of panel 3, which was lost by the boy in the background of panel 2 (you can see the balloon just below the word balloon, ironically).  This is something Jon is unable to see in the present, but something to which Jon, as Dr. Manhattan, will allude to as we progress through this issue, exhibiting how the breadth of his sensory perception expands after the transformation.

Panel 5:  The “Fat Man” that steps on Janey’s watch and breaks it is symbolic of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, which was nicknamed “Fat Man.”  This is the pivotal experience that results in the creation of Dr. Manhattan.  As an accentuation of that, note the way John Higgins bathes the panel in red, symbolizing the “death” of Jon Osterman.

Panel 6:  “Events mesh together with soft precision . . .” is a commentary on how Jon and Janey’s relation is being consummated in 1959, symbolized by the precise instruments of the watch in this repeated image, which would provide for a smoothly running timepiece when put back together correctly.

Panel 9:  This image of the cracked watchface and the time at which it stopped will be mirrored later in this issue by a watchface used as a cover image of Time magazine for a remembrance of the 50^th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.  These watches represent the death of innocence (represented by Jon Osterman in Watchmen and by our world prior to the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan) and the birth of a nuclear age (represented by Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen and the use of atomic bombs on Japan by the United States in the real world).  This broken watch is the final catalyst that forces Jon onto his path of godhood.

It is also ironic that Dr. Manhattan is discussing a variety of points in time over the image of a broken watch.

Watchmen: Chapter IV - page 5

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Panels 1-2:  These two panels mirror one another.  Panel 1 shows Jon as he first enters the bestiary at Gila Flats.  The second one shows us when he, as Dr. Manhattan, entered the bestiary in the previous chapter, just before leaving for Mars.  It is interesting to note that Dr. Manhattan comments in panel 1 that when he is remembering (from our point of view) this past event he feels a sense of déjà vu as a result of having “seen this place before.”  But that time before actually occurred almost twenty-five years in the future, at the point in the previous chapter when he retrieved the photograph before leaving Earth.  This is just another example of the quantum point of view Dr. Manhattan has, seeing the future as past, and the past as present.

Panel 4:  We discover that the pictures behind the bar, from which Dr. Manhattan took his in chapter III, are put there as remembrances of those who died at Gila Flats Research Center.

Panel 5:  Jon says, “Other people seem to make all my moves for me.”  This is accentuated when Janey replies with, “Can I get you a drink?” making the first move, deciding for Jon what he might like.

Panel 6:  This image, as with so many images in this issue, will show up again.

Watchmen: Chapter IV - page 4

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Panel 1:  Professor Glass represents the “old” with his white hair, his bowtie, and the slide rule in his pocket, while Jon will become something completely new as Dr. Manhattan – something undreamt of.

This is also the first appearance of Wally Weaver, alluded to by Doug Roth of Nova Express in the previous chapter as having been Dr. Manhattan’s “sidekick” who died of cancer.

Panel 3:  The exchange between Wally and Jon here is a classic example of irony.  Wally:  “. . . even [Albert Einstein] couldn’t figure women!”  This is also emblematic of Jon’s failed intimacies, especially after his transformation into Dr. Manhattan.  Jon:  “Well, I guess he’s just human, like everybody else.”  This is a statement from somebody who will soon no longer be human.

Panel 5:  This image of Jon looking through the glass will be mirrored later in this issue, and will also be mirrored in chapter XI when we will see Ozymandias doing something similar. 

Watchmen: Chapter IV - page 3

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Panels 2-3:  The discussion of Hiroshima is another symbol of the impending apocalypse (Hiroshima being one of the two cities upon which the United States dropped an atomic bomb to bring about the end of WWII) and it will be echoed by the “Hiroshima lovers” graffiti we will see later in the book. 

Panels 4-5:  Jon’s father is about to throw the pieces of his pocket watch out the window.  He wants his son to go into atomic science.  As we have seen thus far, Jon – as Dr. Manhattan – is a passive character, doing what others ask of him but rarely taking initiative, especially with respect – once he changes into Dr. Manhattan – to world-changing events that he already knows will happen.  This is another example of Jon doing what others tell him to do and failing to choose that which he wants to do. 

Panel 6:  “Professor Einstein says that time differs from place to place.”  This statement is an apt description of Dr. Manhattan’s quantum viewpoint of time and the world. 

Panel 7:   All three aspects of Dr. Manhattan’s time reality are expressed in this panel.  Jon’s father mentions his “profession is a thing of the past” while lamenting that his “son must have a future.”  And all of this is taking place in the present of 1945 as experienced by us and by Dr. Manhattan.

Panel 8:  Note, just off-panel – left, that this time when Dr. Manhattan speaks of the future, we are seeing him in the future as he stands on the glass balcony mentioned in panel 2 of the previous page.

Panel 9:  The first two captions are key pieces (or cogs) in Jon Osterman’s history – points on his road to becoming a physicist.  The cogs are a visual representation of the puzzle pieces that will make up Jon Osterman’s/Dr. Manhattan’s life.

Watchmen: Chapter IV - page 2

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Panel 3:  In ancient times, the flight of comets through the sky were seen as bad omens, and the appearance of Halley’s Comet at this time, as it was actually sailing through the sky in 1986, would be yet another symbol of the approaching “end of days” within Watchmen.

Panel 4:  Jon’s fascination with watch repair and, in a broader sense, the workings of the universe has been seen in previous chapters with Dr. Manhattan’s work at Rockefeller Military Research Center.  In Chapter I, Page 23 we see Jon manipulating the various parts of a large machine with his mind (very similar to his watch repair work) and also learn of his interest in discovering a gluino, which would help advance the understanding of the infinitesimal aspects of the universe itself.

The cogs of this watch, and the specific order in which they must be connected in order for the watch to work, also represent the small, yet precisely ordered, decisions in Jon’s life – as in all our lives – that lead to him becoming Dr. Manhattan.  And they could also symbolize the many disparate pieces of the puzzle needed to solve the conspiracy against “masked adventurers” that has been put forth by Rorschach.

Watchmen: Chapter IV - cover image + page 1

Cover Image:  Again, the cover image is a more detailed close-up of one of the first panels within this particular issue.  In this case, the cover is a close-up of panel 2 on page 1.  

PAGE 1

Panel 1:  The photograph in Dr. Manhattan’s hand – the photograph seen on the cover – is of him (as Jon Osterman, before the accident that changed him into this godlike being) and Janey Slater, his former lover and the woman that exposed him in the Nova Express interview from the previous chapter.  The manner in which Dr. Manhattan views the photograph – “It is the photograph of a man and a woman” – again shows how far removed from humanity he has become.

Panel 2:  This panel, with its caption stating what will happen, is the first time we as readers experience the manner in which Dr. Manhattan views and experiences time.  He is seeing the picture in the sand twelve seconds into his future, but he – along with us, the audience – is also experiencing it in the present.  All things occur in the present for Dr. Manhattan.  This all-encompassing experience of time – having the past, present, and future all happen at the same time – is how we, the audience, will experience this story over the next 27 pages.

Panel 8:  “I am going to look at the stars.”  The stars are a metaphor for the photograph he just dropped in the red sand.  For us, and for Dr. Manhattan, the fact that it takes so long for light to travel across the galaxy means, in essence, we are only looking at “photographs” of stars.  We are seeing a snapshot from some distant past, showing us how the stars looked millions of years ago.  But, we are unable to visualize them in their present state, even if they are still burning today.  The photograph in the sand represents the same thing.  A snapshot – formed by the reflection of light upon film – of a moment in time, a moment in the past, that will show only what was and not what is.

Panel 9:  That previous insight is stated concretely here.

Watchmen: Chapter IV - thematic overview

CHAPTER IV:

WATCHMAKER

Thematic overview: 

This chapter focuses on Dr. Manhattan, the only true super-being in Watchmen.  Dr. Manhattan is a unique character in that he can see the universe on a quantum level.  Nothing, or almost nothing, is hidden from him, not even the future.  That is because Dr. Manhattan experiences all time at once – past, present, and future.  Time, like humanity, is irrelevant to him, a concept that has no meaning – which is why time is such a central theme in this chapter.

Moore & Gibbons attempt to offer us a glimpse of what it must be like to perceive things in the fashion Dr. Manhattan does.  They construct this chapter with that quantum perception in mind, and do a brilliant job of conveying, as best they can, this sense of uber-consciousness.  This chapter is told in a non-linear fashion, jumping from past to present to future from one page or one panel to the next – similar to the films of Alejandro González Iñárritu or TV shows like LOST – while managing to propel the narrative forward.  It is a masterful job that rewards with subsequent readings, which offer insights into earlier portions of the chapter and reveal the rich tapestry produced by Moore & Gibbons.

Another element of this chapter that heightens our understanding of Dr. Manhattan’s world-perception is the repetition of panels, whether in full or in part, that accentuates this sense of seeing everything at once (because if Dr. Manhattan does see all times at once, it only stands to reason that all of these images are on a continuous loop).  I don’t know if Gibbons utilized a photocopier to achieve this.  If not, his background in architecture, where plans and drawings must be precise, certainly helped. 

Many of the elements repeated hearken back to this time motif.  We see the falling cogs of the watch Jon worked on the day after the Hiroshima bombing – an act that prompted his father to push Jon into being a scientist.  The image of the broken watch – both Janey’s and the one salvaged from the rubble of Hiroshima after the United States dropped the atomic bomb – is seen many times.  Both of these watches symbolize, in different ways, the birth of Dr. Manhattan.  And the photograph of Jon and Janey at the circus – a frozen moment in time – which is left in the red sands of Mars by Dr. Manhattan, repeats many times, symbolizing the loss of a life Dr. Manhattan may have wanted when he was still human.   

Ultimately, Dr. Manhattan is the demarcation line in this alternate world.  Like Jesus Christ, there was “before” Dr. Manhattan and there was “after” Dr. Manhattan.  His time brought about a revolution in the world, and his exodus from our planet ushered in yet another new era.  Dr. Manhattan is the ultimate watchmaker, creating reality by either being, or not being, present on the world of Watchmen.