While the groundbreaking graphic novel Watchmen (1986) responded to Cold War paranoia with a nihilistic critique of a benevolent God, recent spinoffs have taken radically different approaches to race and Christology in the Trump Era. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ original Watchmen has spawned two unlikely and unauthorised—by Moore, at least—quasi-sequels in different media: HBO’s limited TV series Watchmen (2019), created by Damon Lindelof, and Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s graphic novel Doomsday Clock (2020). Like estranged siblings, HBO’s Watchmen and Doomsday Clock take the same source material in opposite directions. HBO’s Watchmen explores themes of racial justice by foregrounding 1921’s Tulsa Massacre and vesting Black characters with divine power. In contrast, Doomsday Clock departs from the original Watchmen’s cynicism about cultural and political change, embodying its message of hope and renewal in a white saviour. This article contributes to the growing body of literature examining how pop culture circulates Christological concepts by exploring the racial and theological significance of two of DC Comics’ most iconic characters—Superman and Dr Manhattan. I examine how Black theologians conceptualise Christology, discuss the deistic portrayal of Dr Manhattan in the original Watchmen, analyse the character’s incarnational iteration in the television series, and contrast this with how moral influence Christology underpins the relationship between Superman and Dr Manhattan in Doomsday Clock to show that superhero comics in particular, and pop culture more broadly, are crucial sites of Christological imagination and negotiation over race.

中文翻译：

---

超人是万物的衡量标准：《守望者》和《世界末日时钟》中的黑人神和白人救世主

虽然开创性的图画小说《守望者》（Watchmen，1986）以对仁慈上帝的虚无主义批评回应了冷战偏执，但最近的衍生作品对特朗普时代的种族和基督论采取了截然不同的方法。艾伦·摩尔和戴夫·吉本斯的原创《守望者》在不同媒体上衍生出了两部不太可能且未经摩尔授权的准续集：由达蒙·林德洛夫创作的 HBO 限定电视剧《守望者》(2019)，以及杰夫·琼斯和加里·弗兰克的图画小说世界末日时钟（2020）。就像疏远的兄弟姐妹一样，HBO 的《守望者》和《末日时钟》以相反的方向采用相同的源材料。HBO 的《守望者》通过突出 1921 年的塔尔萨大屠杀并赋予黑人角色神圣的力量，探讨了种族正义的主题。相比之下，《世界末日时钟》背离了原版《守望者》对文化和政治变革的愤世嫉俗，在白人救世主身上体现了希望和复兴的信息。本文通过探讨 DC 漫画最具标志性的两个角色——超人和曼哈顿博士——的种族和神学意义，为越来越多的文献研究流行文化如何传播基督论概念做出了贡献。我研究了黑人神学家如何概念化基督论，讨论了原版《守望者》中曼哈顿博士的自然神论描绘，分析了电视剧中角色的化身迭代，并将其与《末日时钟》中道德影响力基督论如何支撑超人和曼哈顿博士之间的关系进行了对比表明特别是超级英雄漫画，以及更广泛的流行文化，