We have a nice tasty cosmic versus for your this week! It’s a battle between two neigh-immortal, near-omnipotent beings. We have Dr. Manhattan from “Watchmen” vs. Q from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Who do you think would win this demigod-like showdown? Here is a little about each character….
Doctor Manhattan (Watchmen)
Doctor Manhattan (Jon Osterman) is a fictional character who appears in the acclaimed graphic novel miniseries Watchmen, published by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987. Doctor Manhattan was created by writer Alan Moore with artist Dave Gibbons.
Dr. Jon Osterman is a nuclear physicist, who in 1959 is transformed into a blue-skinned, radiated powerful being after initially being disintegrated in an Intrinsic Field Subtractor and later reconstructing himself. Following his reanimation, he is immediately pressed into service by the United States government, which gives him the name Doctor Manhattan, after the Manhattan Project. He is the only character in the story that possesses actual superpowers.
The Watchmen series has been noted for addressing metaphysical issues and questions, Doctor Manhattan being the primary recipient. He is often used as an example of a posthuman god and as a primary example of the potential side effects of superintelligence.
Reception towards the character is positive, and he has appeared and has been mentioned in various forms of media. Billy Crudup portrays Doctor Manhattan in the 2009 film adaptation directed by Zack Snyder. Doctor Manhattan later appears in the Before Watchmen comic book prequel, with his own individual issue miniseries.
Jonathan Osterman was born 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 His father, confronted with the undeniable facts of the theory of relativity, declares his profession outdated and throws his son’s watch-making parts out the windows, urging him to instead pursue a career studying nuclear physics.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 and foreshadows Doctor Manhattan’s ‘exterior’ perception of time as predetermined and all things within it as so determined, including Doctor Manhattan’s own reactions and emotions.
Becoming Doctor Manhattan: Jon’s intrinsic field being subtracted
Unable to open the door or override the countdown, Osterman’s colleagues – save for Janey, who cannot bear to see the last moment and flees the room – can only watch, horrified, as the countdown for the current experiment shortly reaches zero, and Jon has his ‘intrinsic field’ removed. Bathed in the radiant light, he is torn to pieces from the force of the generator, instantly vaporized and officially declared dead.
The following months see a series of strange events and apparitions at the research base, leading residents to speculate the area is now haunted. It becomes plain that Jon has been progressively reforming himself during this time. This progression is indicated by a series of partial bodily reappearances: first as a disembodied nervous system, including the brain and eyes; then as a circulatory system (November 10); then a partially muscled skeleton (November 14). Each time, the appearance only lasts for a few seconds. Jon fully reappears on November 22 as a tall, hairless, naked, blue-skinned man.
Throughout Watchmen, he is shown to be immensely powerful and seemingly invulnerable to all harm; even when his body is disintegrated, he can reconstruct it from atoms (in less than a minute the second time this happened). Jon has complete awareness of and control over atomic and subatomic particles. He can alter his body’s size, coloration, density, and strength. He does not need food, water, or air, and is, for all intents and purposes, immortal. He can teleport himself and others over great (even interplanetary and perhaps interstellar) distances.
Jon’s near-limitless powers are further amplified in comparison to the apparent lack of any other “super-powered” individuals. Although Veidt is obviously the second-most dangerous person, as Jon himself observes, “…the world’s smartest man poses no more of a threat to me than does its smartest termite.”
In addition to these powers, Jon is able to phase any part of his body through solid objects without damaging them, produce multiple copies of himself which function independently of each other, project destructive energy, disintegrate people (possibly by removing their intrinsic fields, which causes the target to come apart explosively), create force fields, transmute and create matter, move objects without physically touching them (telekinesis), reverse entropy, and, he suggests, create life and walk on the surface of the sun. At one point it is stated that, in the event of a nuclear war, he would be capable of destroying upwards of 99% of all Soviet nuclear missiles while at the same time ‘destroying’ large areas of Russia. As a result of these capabilities, Jon becomes central to the United States’ Cold War strategy of deterrence.
Due to his non-linear perception of time, he sees the past, present and future simultaneously, although he doesn’t claim omniscience.
Q (Star Trek)
Q is a fictional character in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager, as well as in related products. In all of these programs, he is portrayed by John de Lancie. The name “Q” also applies to all other individuals of the Q Continuum.
Q is said to be omnipotent and is continually evasive regarding his motivations. His home the Q Continuum is accessible to the Q and their guests, and the true nature of it is said to be beyond the comprehension of “lesser beings” such as humans so it is shown to humans only in ways they can understand.
Beginning with the pilot episode “Encounter at Farpoint” of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Q became a recurring character, with pronounced comedic and dramatic chemistry between himself and Jean-Luc Picard. He serves as a major antagonist in the beginning of The Next Generation. During the early seasons of The Next Generation and later over the later seasons of The Next Generation and Deep Space 9, Q’s motivations are never transparent, but while in some episodes he acts as a villain, in others he takes it upon himself to teach a lesson to the crew, albeit usually in destructive ways and subject to his own amusement. Other times, notably during “Deja Q” and Voyager, Q appears to the crew seeking assistance. Gene Roddenberry chose the letter “Q” in honor of his friend, Janet Quarton.
All members of the Q race are able to manipulate time and space virtually at will, wielding massive reality warping powers.?They have been known to teleport galactic distances of as much as seventy-five thousand light years and have created planets although it is unclear if this was an individual act or a number of Q working together.?They have moved moons, asteroid belts and completely altered the atmosphere of planets, traveled to the beginning of time and created pocket realities.
With all this cosmic energy going around, my head is spinning! So who would you think would rise to the top, and who would be laying flat on the ground? Would it be Dr. Manhattan from “Watchmen”, or Q from “Star Trek: TNG”? We want you to decide. Vote below, and let us know what you think in the comments. Want to hear more about this epic battle? You can listen or download episode 76 from www.podcastunlimited.com!