Declared Dr. Manhattan’s full power in Watchmen
Doctor Manhattan is known to be the only character in Watchmen with real superpowers that allows the venerable comic book series to retain the fan-awarded label of a “realistic superhero story”.
In episode 8 of HBO’s Watchmen, Doctor Manhattan’s abilities were spearheaded after exposing Calvin, the husband of main character Angela. But even if you watch the superhuman navigation in time and space, the understanding of Doctor Manhattan does not get any easier. What are his powers? Can he be killed? When and where is he at a given time? Good questions, and we have answers.
(Ed. Note: This track contains spoilers for Watchmen’s eighth episode “A God goes to Abar.”)
Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons / DC Comics
Doctor Manhattan can manipulate matter
There are a lot of things that Doctor Manhattan does in the Watchmen comic. He creates glass clockwork castles on Mars, teleports organic and inorganic matter and blows up members of the Viet Cong with lasers from his hands. And while it may be different for other superheroes, all of this works for Doctor Manhattan in the same way: he can manipulate matter at a subatomic level.
Doctor Manhattan got his hands on a scientific accident at Gila Flats Test Base, Arizona, investigating the “inner field” of matter (not a real deal, if you ask yourself).
“What is it like to keep a few other things together besides gravity?” Explains Wally Weaver, an assistant to Gila Flats.
The creature known as Doctor Manhattan was born when Jon Osterman stepped into the test vault of Gila Flats to fetch his watch and was trapped there while automatically performing a planned experiment. The test chamber removed its intrinsic field and decomposed it at the atomic level. In return, it seems to have given him the ability to manipulate the very field of a thing with a thought.
His first use of this ability was to build a new body; It took him three months to manifest himself in the middle of the cafeteria of the employees of Gila Flats. From there he was quickly tied up in the American war machine. The American propaganda machine later called him “Doctor Manhattan,” an association with the independent force of the atomic bomb that was to frighten the hearts of America’s enemies.
Doctor Manhattan can dismantle weapons wisely, make lithium out of thin air, and make duplicates of oneself. But his other ability to really be out there has to do with his perception of time.
Doctor Manhattan does not spend time as we know it
From the moment of his accident, Jon Osterman stopped experiencing time as linear progress. At the same time he experiences his own past, present and future. He describes this first to his then girlfriend Janey Slater after the assassination of President John Kennedy. As he does so, he looks at Dali’s “Consistency of Remembrance,” which is a bit on the nose.
Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons / DC Comics
Doctor Manhattan can appear to others as a person who knows what’s coming and cheerfully participates and makes no choice. Just because he is aware of the future does not mean that he can change it.
“Everything is predetermined. Even my answers, “he tells Laurie Blake in the Watchmen comic.
“And you just go through the movements and play them out?” She replies, “Is that you? The most powerful thing in the universe and you’re just a puppet following a script? “
“We’re all puppets, Laurie,” he says, “I’m just a puppet that can see the strings.”
You see, he does not predict the future. He is experiencing it right now. For him, all the experiences and actions of his life – even his recognition of future events for himself and other characters – have already happened. And just happened. For him, there is no difference between past, present and future.
When his powers are neutralized, he experiences time linearly. The effect also retreats through linear time, making it impossible for him to “see” the times when his powers have disappeared until he “reaches” them. In the graphic novel by Watchmen, Ozymandias neutralizes the powers of Doctor Manhattan by shrouding his retreat into the Antarctic with a shower of tachyons and preventing Manhattan from knowing that someday he would discover Ozymandias’ plan until he actually did discovered.
When Jon realizes in the comic that something has clouded his “vision” of the night of November 2, 1985, he exclaims, “I almost forgot the excitement of not knowing the joys of uncertainty .”
It was the first time in over 25 years that he did not know what would happen next. Yes, there are even times when Doctor Manhattan does not watch the guards.
