[This post contains spoilers]

Jon Osterman becomes Mr Manhattan

Shortly after Jon Osterman is appointed as a scientist at a particle physics facility, he meets Janey Slater. Janey and Jon immediately hit it off. She buys him a beer and Jon realises that this is the first time a woman has ever done this for him.

At one point, not too long after their initial encounter, Janey’s watch breaks. Jon, whose father was a watchmaker, knows how to fix watches. He offers to fix Janey’s watch.

He manages to fix the watch but then forgets it in his lab coat in the test vault. As he goes back to retrieve it, he gets locked in just as an experiment is about to take place. No one can override the time lock, and Jon is ripped apart by the intrinsic field separator.

Over the course of a few days, he reassembles into a blue being that has supernatural powers. He can now assemble and disassemble objects on an atomic level, which means he can create rare metals much like an alchemist. He can travel to any location in an instant. And because he can also render any lethal weapon useless, Jon Osterman, now called Dr Manhattan, becomes a sort of national defence entity.

Dr Manhattan is not omniscient, but he is close to all-powerful.

Knowing The Future

In sci-fi we’ve encountered quite a few characters who are (at times) able to tell the future. Desmond from Lost comes to mind. Isaac the painter from Heroes. And, of course, Dr Manhattan. A character who knows the future is often tasked with preventing catastrophes. This is burdensome. But Dr Manhattan doesn’t just have visions about the future—he experiences everything all at once: the past, the present and the future.

When I first encountered this idea, I thought it paradoxical. Mindfulness aids us in living in the now, where much of our worry, longing, wants, fears and whatever else can drop away. But Dr Manhattan is in a perpetual state of longing, even as he experiences the past and the future all at once.

A Watchmaker’s Son

Jon Osterman’s father was a watchmaker. Jon finds that he enjoys the craft of watchmaking. But his father feels that watchmaking is becoming obsolete. He pushes Jon towards science. According to him, this is the new “time is relative” era of Einstein. Science is far more important than simple crafts like watchmaking.

His father asks questions such as:

“Shall my son follow me into an obsolete trade?”

“If time is not true, what purpose have watchmakers?”

This is an archetypal sort of problem: will technology render human work and creativity useless, or worse, meaningless? It seems like we are tasked to answer this every time there is some sort of technological revolution.

Jon did eventually become a scientist. Even so, it was the simple human experiences that gave Jon meaning. It was the simple fixing of clocks and taking pride in that work that gave him joy. And it was his first encounter with Janey Slater and the touch of her hand that remains frozen in his mind as a sort of perfect moment. That moment contained all the joy he could feel. It contained the possibility of a rich but simple life. The accident in the vault changed all of that.

Surprise And Wonder

Alan Moore’s Watchmen is richly complex and, at times, deeply paradoxical too.

This strange accident gave Jon supernatural powers but left him without joy. One might even say that this state of being robbed him of the ability to ever be surprised. He always knows what’s around the corner. He knows the inner workings of all things, and so never experiences the joy of discovery. He never experiences wonder or awe. At one point, he even ponders whether or not things are predestined, like the clockwork of a watch.

He stays with Janey even though he knows that she will leave him. She complains that he is distant and detached. Now that Jon can go anywhere and change anything on a material level, he only longs for a simpler life.

Dr Manhattan is a cosmic force that will deter all wars. Arguably, someone (or something) who is very useful. Jon, as Dr Manhattan, is useful but lacks meaning. He’s a supernatural being who longs for a human existence. It is strange that a character who can do or be anything should experience longing to such an extent. He’s superhuman—but suffers deeply.

Useful Is Not The Same As Meaningful.

All the characters in Watchmen are complex. This is particularly the case with Dr Manhattan. His mere existence made other vigilante characters question their usefulness. Some give up the fight because, well, Dr Manhattan has godlike powers that can fix anything.

But usefulness and meaning are not the same. One can be useful while experiencing a deep sense of meaninglessness. And one can experience meaning without being useful. Sometimes though, these two overlap.

Whatever the case, I think that Dr Manhattan had at least one important message for the modern era: excessive control through power will not bring joy. Simple moments filled with love and meaning might.