Dr. Manhattan

Figure 1. Dr. Manhattan working to isolate a "gluino."

“…and he’s American” (IV.13).  His backstory comes straight out of a Marvel comic, a company famous for its heroes who are made so by exposure to some form of atomic energy.  He begins life as Jon Osterman, a kid predisposed toward ingenuity.  He becomes a physicist, working in high-tech tests for the federal government concerning “intrinsic fields.”  An accident in the lab one day disintegrates his body, but leaves his consciousness intact, which begins reassembling its parts:

It’s November 10th now.  There is a circulatory system walking through the kitchen…

November 14th: A partially muscled skeleton stands by the perimeter fence and screams for thirty seconds before vanishing…

Really, it’s just a question of reassembling the components in the correct sequence…  (IV.9) [click to continue…]

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