After suffering from a horrific accident in an intrinsic field test chamber, physicist Jon Osterman disintegrates, and then is miraculously reborn as the all-powerful Dr. Manhattan. Because of his new status as a god-like being, Dr. Manhattan slowly but surely loses his compassion for humanity. However, there are points in the graphic novel in which Dr. Manhattan acknowledges the miracles that occur daily in the human race.
The most obvious point in which Dr. Manhattan...
After suffering from a horrific accident in an intrinsic field test chamber, physicist Jon Osterman disintegrates, and then is miraculously reborn as the all-powerful Dr. Manhattan. Because of his new status as a god-like being, Dr. Manhattan slowly but surely loses his compassion for humanity. However, there are points in the graphic novel in which Dr. Manhattan acknowledges the miracles that occur daily in the human race.
The most obvious point in which Dr. Manhattan discusses the miracles of everyday human life is in chapter nine. He calls his former girlfriend Laurie Juspeczyk, a fellow masked vigilante that fights crime under the moniker Silk Spectre II, a miracle:
“In each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter... until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged” (26-27).
While this is the most obvious instance, Alan Moore includes other subtle references in the climactic chapter twelve. When Dr. Manhattan and Laurie go back to earth and witness the destruction that Ozymandias has wrought on New York City, Dr. Manhattan excitedly admits that he is unsure what has happened:
“Not tachyons, surely... yes! Definitely! A squall of tachyons. Where can they be coming from? I'd almost forgotten the excitement of not knowing, the delights of uncertainty” (7).
Finally, after Dr. Manhattan kills Rorschach, he walks in to find Laurie and Dan Dreiburg holding each other after making love. His response is subtle, as he says nothing, but he gazes upon their naked bodies and smiles. He acknowledges the miracle of love and the way that humans comfort one another, even though he is removed from this experience. These are the three major instances in which Dr. Manhattan witnesses the miracles of the human condition.
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