WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Doomsday Clock #2

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Dr. Manhattan has a role to play in DC's Rebirth, but will the Doomsday Clock series make him a father, as well? To be clear, we're not referring to an abstract 'Creator' role, like many have theorized given the evidence that the Watchmen star may have literally created the DC Comics Universe. We mean to ask the question literally: having learned the value of human life in the original Watchmen story, did Dr. Manhattan head off to a new universe with hopes of becoming a biological Creator, and fathering a child to save a new world?

As outlandish a theory as it might sound - and may be - the latest issue of Doomsday Clock may be guiding readers to consider it. And despite how cold, distant, and inhuman Dr. Manhattan tends to be remembered, he didn't start that way. In fact, it was love at first sight that made him a superhero - and eventually, convinced him humans were worth saving. Now that Dr. Manhattan's value for the potential of an unborn child has become a Doomsday Clock plot point, it's time to ask the hard questions.

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No, not whether Dr. Manhattan having a child would impact the legacy of the original Watchmen story (that time will come). But if he did come to the DC Universe with that in mind, what happened to the child? And do we already know Dr. Manhattan's child by a different name?

Dr. Manhattan Left Watchmen's Universe to 'Create Life'

As a quick reminder for Watchmen fans, there have been plenty of clues that Dr. Manhattan is responsible for creating something in the DC Universe. Doomsday Clock confirms Dr. Manhattan came to DC's reality after Watchmen, and Geoff Johns and Gary Frank have gone a step further, recreating his final panels as a memory of Adrian Veidt's. Specifically, the moment in which Dr. Manhattan conceded Veidt's murderous mission was not for him to judge... and that he was "leaving this galaxy for one less complicated."

But it's the lines exchanged after that quote that might prove more telling. Adrian asks why Jon would leave, having assumed his return from Mars meant he had "regained interest in human life." And in some of his final words Jon Osterman reveals that 'interest' to be of a different, higher nature, responding: "Yes, I have. I think perhaps I'll create some. Goodbye, Adrian." A thought that needs re-examining after Doomsday Clock #2 suggests a different kind of curiosity.

The handful of panels solve a mystery that was barely established in the first issue of Doomsday Clock, when Rorschach helps a pair of costumed criminals escape from prison: Marionette and The Mime. He's following Adrian Veidt's orders, even if Ozymandias, the world's smartest man hasn't explained why they're needed. Well, technically, it's just Marionette who's needed, with Adrian using her young son as leverage. A son that she was carrying, it just so happens, when she crossed paths with Dr. Manhattan prior to his departure from the universe.

A growing human that stopped Jon Osterman in his tracks - and gave Adrian Veidt his only hope of convincing the blue god to save humanity once and for all. But even Adrian may not understand the true meaning of the moment like Doomsday Clock readers...

Dr. Manhattan's Value For a Child May Be The Key

The comic doesn't make it explicit, and Marionette seems to be oblivious to the importance of her meeting Manhattan, as well. As Rorschach and Veidt observe the surveillance footage of Marionette and The Mime robbing a bank, it's the masked vigilante who notes that Dr. Manhattan chose not to kill the pair when he caught them. Despite having killed almost forty people, Marionette stepping in to die with her lover stopped Manhattan from disintegrating them. Well, as the comic's captions show, it was the heartbeat of her unknown child that gave him pause. Without uttering a word, Manhattan left them to be captured, and the child to be born.

Readers must assume that Adrian Veidt did the math, working backward from her son's age, and deduced that Marionette was pregnant when Jon was caught off-guard. In fact, it seems he's counting on Jon's memory of the event to remind him that he once deemed a completely unknown, untarnished human life worth sparing. But it's what's not said by the characters that seems to be just as important, both in the fictional sense for the characters, and the larger narrative being crafted by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, and Brad Anderson.

If Adrian Veidt has connected this moment of Jon pausing to preserve an unborn child, and his final farewell, he doesn't mention it. In fact, Jon's lines are never referred to at all. Of course, Adrian Veidt doesn't know that he's in a sequel to Watchmen, or that Dr. Manhattan has already left his controlling fingerprints all over another superhero-filled universe. To him, the ideas that Manhattan would 'play God' and that he pondered an unborn child at least once seem separated.

But when viewed as the direct Watchmen sequel it is, this Doomsday Clock moment sheds new light - potentially - on Jon's "interest" in human life... and the idea that he might "create some" of his own.

It's pure speculation on our part, but the idea that Dr. Manhattan is disguised as a DC hero has already been put forth by Johns. Our theory isn't going much farther, even if it gives the creative team a much greater leap to land without enraging comic fans everywhere. And honestly, if readers are willing to hear Johns out after suggesting Dr. Manhattan left Watchmen's reality for DC's, rebooted it into the New 52 as part of a larger plan, and made fictional heroes from his Earth living, breathing ones on DC's, what's one more possible twist?

Across the DC books, it's already been essentially confirmed that Dr. Manhattan saved Superman's father moments before Krypton exploded. He also kept Batman's Flashpoint father alive long enough for the two to meet. The themes of fatherhood (and motherhood, too) and its powerful, even dangerous influence permeate the Rebirth mystery, so seeing it in Doomsday Clock is no accident. Including the first dream Superman ever had in Doomsday Clock #1, recalling the moment his human parents were killed in a tragic accident(...?).

Even if Dr. Manhattan isn't Superman's literal father, the line between creating a superhero and engineering one might be slimmer than fans realize. And what the difference may be to someone like Dr. Manhattan... well, that's the kind of question that the right writer could build an entire Watchmen sequel around.

Doomsday Clock #2 is available now.

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Header art from LudoDRodriguez @DeviantArt