Chapter IV

What Happened in this issue of watchmen?

This issue mainly surrounds Jon Ostermans who is Dr.Manhattan and key issues and turning points that occurred in his life till date. In the beginning of this issue Dr.Manhattan is on mars holding a picture of himself and Janey Slater, while thinking about his past. While thinking about his past, he falls into a flashback. In this flashback he is sixteen years old and he is trying to fix a pocket watch and follow in his fathers footprints of watchmaking, when suddenly his father walks in with the newspaper. The newspaper has information about the bombing in Hiroshima. His father picks up the pieces of the pocket watch and throws it out a balcony, and says, “I’m doing what is best for you. This atomic science… this is what the world will need not pocket watches.” This line is like motivation for Jon, so after this conversation he goes to Princeton and gets a PH.D in atomic physics. After getting his degree, he gets a job at Gila Flats, which is located in Arizona. At his new job, he falls in love with a fellow worker who goes by the name of Janey Slater. Janey and Jon go to the carnival together while waiting for Janeys mom to call her back. While at the carnival Janeys watch wristband broke, and before they could pick the watch up from the ground a fat man stepped on it causing it to break. Jon tells her that he would fix it. The next day, Jon leaves the fixed watch in his coat pocket, which was in a test vault. When he goes to get it, he accidently gets locked into the vault. The machine starts and then a strong light disintegrates Jon. After Jon’s passing he started appearing as ghosts. He came in different forms at the beginning. First he was a circulatory system, then a muscled skeleton, and then he assembled as the blue person with all his cool features. Some of the features that he could take apart or put together objects with his head, duplicate, and even teleport. He is then assignment to work with the military, because he is an ultimate weapon. He is said to be a “real” superhero, this causes the other older super heroes to worry. The ones that were interviewed pretended that they didn’t mind but the reader could tell that in reality they were indeed worried. In 1966 Jon leaves Janey, for a sixteen-year-old Laurie. He then goes to Vietnam and saves the US. The government later banned the superheroes other then Dr.Manhattan and The Comedian. He is then sitting down in the pink sand of mars and a building type thing slowly starts coming out if the ground. This issue is then done.

Who was involved?

This issue, there was not a great number of characters that were involved. This issue mainly surrounded Dr.Manhattan and how he got to the point that he is at as of now. The other characters that were involved were; Janey Slater, who was the girl he fell in love with at Gila Flats which was his first lab. She is also the girl that Jon left. Another character that was involved was Laurie; Laurie is whom Jon left Janey for. Another key character in this chapter was Jon’s dad, Mr.Osterman. He is considered a key character because he was the one that convinced Jon to go and do science instead of becoming a watchmaker. If this scene did not take place, Dr.Manhattan would not have been in the graphic novel.

How does it tie what we already know together?

This issue was all about Dr.Manhattan, so ultimately this gives the readers incite of his background, how he became Dr.Manhattan and his past.

How does it possibly set things up for future events?

In our opinion, we think that this is foreshadowing that someone is trying to get rid of these superheroes one by one. This is backed up by evidence; first the comedian is killed; now Dr.Manhattan is exiled. We think that later on in the book we will find out that it was just an evil plot to get Dr.Manhattan to think that he gave all his loved ones cancer just so that he would leave.

Who are they, and how do they get involved into the plot?

Dr. Manhattan "Jon" Osterman is a nuclear physicist who was transformed into a blue-skinned powerful being after he was disintegrated in an Intrinsic Field experiment test chamber. in 1959. He had returned to the chamber to retrieve his girlfriend's watch (which he had repaired), and was accidentally locked inside then the chamber started automatically. Jon was blown into atoms, with nothing left of his body. Within a few months, his disembodied consciousness managed to reconstruct a physical body for itself. Following his reanimation, he is immediately pressed into service by the United States government, which gives him the name Doctor Manhattan. He is the only character in the story that possesses actual superpowers

What powers and abilities do the key characters possess?

Due to an accident involving a nuclear physics experiment, Dr. Manhattan was taken outside the physical realm and returned with god-like powers, including superhuman strength, telekinesis, the ability to teleport himself or others over planetary, and interplanetary distances, control over matter at a subatomic level. Furthermore, he perceives the past, present and future as happening simultaneously, but at least believes that he cannot act on that knowledge since his own actions and reactions to chronological events are apparently predetermined.

What is their background?

Doctor Manhattan was born Jonathan Osterman in 1929. His father was a watchmaker, and Jon planned to follow in his footsteps. When the US drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Jon is sixteen. His father, confronted with the undeniable facts of the theory of relativity, declares his profession outdated and throws his son's watch-making parts out the windows, urging him to instead pursue a career studying nuclear physics. The incident represents the turning point in Jon's potential future from watchmaker to nuclear physicist

Stand out scenehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Yw9Lf0z4N8

Do we like Dr.Manhattan?

We like Dr. Manhattan because we think he is a unique character out of all the characters. his extreme powers lets him out shine every individual. Even though he has emotional down falls when it comes to his physical characteristics he is very powerful. In this chapter we get to see his normal life, which tells us a lot about him, it lets us know that he would have been a normal human being if he did not go through the struggles in his life.

Reoccuring images and theme

Throughout this issue of watchmen, there was a common theme. This theme was that everything was being repetitive. For example, while Dr.Manhattan was on Mars holding on to the picture and he would keep letting go of it, and then picking it up. Another example of this theme was that Dr.Manhattan kept going back to that board in Arizona. This shows that the theme of this issue was repetitiveness. This picture was also a reoccurring symbol; throughout the entire issue we must‚ha

ve seen that picture at least ten different times. We think that this symbol was reoccurring to foreshadow that something will happen between Dr.Manhattan and Janey Slater, for the better or worse we will only find out.

 

Class Discussion

Do you think what Dr. Manhattan did to Janey was fair?

Do you think Dr. Manhattan has to help the world because he has powers?

Do you think Dr.Manhattan has the right to use his powers whenever he wants?

How do you think Janey feels?

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