The reason why Doctor Manhattan is in HBO’s Watchmen on Mars
There was a big, burning question that came out of the sparkling connection between Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons comic series and Damon Lindelof’s HBO sequel Watchmen: What’s up with Doctor Manhattan and Mars?
(Ed. Note: This piece contains spoilers for HBO’s Watchmen TV series through the sixth episode.)
In the first episode of the Watchmen television series, viewers catch a glimpse of a television news screen that features satellite images of Doctor Manhattan romping around on Mars, making things of sand. In the sixth episode, we learn that he secretly lived as Angela Abar’s husband Calvin. The mystery is so deep that Calvin does not even recognize the truth. To wake him up, Angela takes a hammer into her husband’s face to pull out a strange metallic atomic symbol. We do not see Doctor Manhattan’s blue face, others are light, but his identity is clear.
But why was he on Mars at all? Is it just the color contrast or is there something else? Let’s flip through the pages of the original comic again.
Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons / DC Comics
Doctor Manhattan just likes Mars, okay?
Dr. Jon Osterman / Manhattan’s connection to Mars goes back to the original comic of 1986, in which he spends much of the book alone on the Red Planet in self-imposed exile.
The physical distance reflects his emotional state. After the accident, by which he was functionally recognized and able to change everything at the atomic level, Manhattan surprisingly grew ever further away from his own humanity. Just before he left for Mars, the last thin chain that bound him to humanity broke.
In a rare television show on a talk show, a reporter has grilled Manhattan about evidence that some of his former acquaintances, including an old friend, have terminal cancer – suggesting that he accidentally irradiated the innocent people around him for years. A few hours earlier, his current partner, Laurie Juspeczyk, stormed out of their common government district, angry at him for keeping her at bay.
Laurie had left him, and trying to get her back only seemed to hurt her.
Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons / DC Comics
So he goes to Mars
Well, first he goes to Arizona – which can be very similar to Mars – to visit the place where he gathered his powers, and a photo of himself and Janey Slater, the woman he saw at the time has to retrieve.
Then he teleports to Mars.
But why Mars?
After examining the graphic novel by Watchmen, we will say . comfort. Thoughtfully, he is tired of the world, of people and of being “involved in the tangle of their lives”. There are no humans on Mars – it’s a planet that has no life, shaped only by the absolutely predictable and impressive majesty of inert particles.
Mars is also one of the closest planetary bodies. The moon is obviously closer, but it also has some NASA stuff on it (so people). Venus is nearby, but the planet’s super dense atmosphere would interfere with one of the activities that Doctor Manhattan seems to enjoy in the bright Martian atmosphere: star view.
But why is he on Mars in the TV show?
We have no idea because it directly contradicts the end of the Watchmen comic.
The last time we see Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen, he tells Ozymandias that he plans to leave the entire galaxy for “a less complicated” one. And he has a funny plan when he gets there.
Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons / DC Comics
Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons / DC Comics
Why is not Doctor Manhattan still in this distant galaxy, creating human life? After we’ve already dealt with flashbacks (and Damon Lindelof has been a fan since Lost), it’s possible that we’ve seen old footage and could present more backstory from Manhattan. Judging by the trailers, Manhattan shows HBO’s Watchmen in one way or another.
