'Watchmen' Episode 8 will add yet another chapter to Dr. Manhattan's complicated romantic history
For a god-like being who transcends mortal desires and motivations, Dr. Manhattan sure does fall in love a lot. Then again, when you're immortal, it must be hard not to try and find comfort in someone, even if you already know they're going to die and you aren't.
Of course, Manhattan's romantic history starts long before he actually became the posthuman god he is now. Back when he was still Jon Osterman, he fell in love with a woman named Janey Slater, a fellow scientist.
It was while trying to retrieve Janey's watch from the intrinsic field experiment test chamber that they worked on that Jon was seemingly killed. However, as we know now, he was actually transported to a space beyond the physical universe and returned as the big blue god of the postmodern era.
Unfortunately, being with a god didn't agree with Janey and she soon started to fear that the man she knew was slowly transforming into something else. What she didn't realize was that that transformation had already happened.
As much as people tried to humanize Dr. Manhattan by calling him a superhuman, he was already so much more than that and their relationship wouldn't last much longer.
Soon, Manhattan met Laurie Blake, the second Silk Spectre, whose older self is played by Jean Smart on HBO's 'Watchmen'. She fell madly in love with him and that's where we meet them in Alan Moore's graphic novel.
Eventually, Laurie and Manhattan would also grow apart and even though he knew this would happen, Manhattan was still powerless to stop it. She left him for Dan Dreiberg, the second Nite-Owl by the end of the comics, and Manhattan departed, seemingly to either terraform Mars or to explore the rest of the universe.
Now as of Episode 7 'An Almost Religious Awe', we know that's not what he did, or rather that if he ever did leave the Earth, he eventually came back. And in 2009, Dr. Manhattan would meet Angela Abar (Regina King) in Saigon, back when she was still a police officer in Vietnam and not the vigilante known as Sister Night.
What happened at that meeting? How did Manhattan happen to transform himself into Calvin Abar (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) and marry Angela?
That part of Manhattan's history is yet to be revealed but we should be getting answers soon, once the next episode of 'Watchmen' hits our screens. 'Watchmen' Episode 8 'A God Walks Into Abar' will air on HBO on December 8.