Contributed Notes for Chapter IV

In an interview I have, Alan Moore had this to say about that issue, which sheds some interesting light on why it is done the way it is done: ...Dr. Manhattan "does not perceive time the same way we do. We have a character who's post-Einsteinian, who seeems to accept that all time is happening at once. Past, present, and future. And to him, the past is still there, and the future is there right now. And we tried to adapt that into comic storytelling. To show his worldview and there's something magical that happens in that issue." Issue IV is, incidentally, Moore's favourite of the series.

Kennedy
October 10, 1997

IV.17.1 Liquid-filled spheroid near Laurie.

IV.27 The crystal palace has the most outdated time keeper of all (well, maybe not as bad as say, a sundial, but still primitive) as its main pillar.

Duncan Shea
February 2, 1998

Isn't that Walter Kovacs/Rorschach who appears in one panel of Chapter IV? It's one of the panels on the page about relocating to New York and "Hiroshima Week." The panel features Dr. Manhattan's narration: "In New York, we go walking." And you see Dr. Manhattan and Laurie walking along the street going from the left of the panel to the right, and walking in the opposite direction towards them is a man wearing an odd, helmetlike hat, carrying an issue of The New Frontiersman under his left arm, smoking a ball-pipe, and it looks like he's holding a dog's leash. He looks a little too much like Kovacs for it to be coincidental.

Adam Noble
July 17, 1998

IV.4.3 By Jon's own admission, he is human. "He couldn't figure women." Ironic, considering women are Jon's main tie to humanity. This kind of frustrated me the whole way through IX, when he was debating the destiny of the Earth and talking about human life being worthless.

Adam Noble
July 17, 1998

IV.5.5 "Other people seem to make all my moves for me."

Compare with Jon's thoughts in IV.27.2, when he tries to decide whose moves are most responsible for the outcome of things now. Also, this is true because the government's control over Dr. Manhattan for years.

Eric Weidhorn
December 31, 1998

IV.6.4 Rorschach's line in IV.6.4, "Sorry about mess. Can't make omelette without breaking few eggs," not only sums up Veidt's mentality when his plan was finally exposed, but many of the major themes of the book including the "Gordian knot" motif.

Brix Lichtenberg
January 1, 1999

IV.13.1 IV.13.1 Dr. Milton Glass is quoted as saying, "The superman exists and he's American."

I think it's no coincidence that the TV anchorman saying this has a strong resemblance to Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent, who in the stories of the 1970's also was a TV anchorman. The same TV guy appears later two times, both times looking aged. I think once during the 1977 riots and once again in the present (on one of Ozymandias's many TVs?).

Adam Noble
January 20, 1999

IV.5.5 "Other people seem to make all my moves for me."

This is apparent both in Jon's reluctant attacks on Moloch's vice-den (IV.14.2) and his participation in Vietnam (IV.21.1-2). It is echoed again later in IX.5.4: "We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings." Jon's long-term manipulation by the American government is one reason he's so bitter about humanity. "Bitter" is also used in I.25.2 and III.10.4 to describe Laurie (directly and in an allusion, respectively).