Dr. Manhattan a.k.a Dr. Jonathan Osterman
Abilities
- Twelfth-level Intelligence
- Super-human strength
- Telekinesis
- Teleportation
- Full control of matter at sub-atomic level, can create and destroy matter
- Reactive adaptation/evolution
- Duplication (Ability to create fully independent copies of himself)
- Force-field creation
- Projection of destructive energy
- Full perception of time (perceiving past, present, future simultaneously)
- Physiological manipulation
- Omni-linguism
- Physical immortality (able to walk on surface of the Sun)
- Resurrection
- Healing Factor
- Ability to reverse entropy
- Ability to create life/Animation
- Intangibility/phasing
- Cross-dimensional awareness
- Psionic blast
- Gravity manipulation
- Dimensional travel
- Flight
- Size shifting
- Precognition
- Disintegration
- Density control
- Mass manipulation
- Superhuman tracking
- Ecological empathy
- Ability to reconstruct himself on the atomic scale
- No need for air, food or water
Dr. Manhattan, though supremely powerful, suffers from a decreasing ability to relate to normal humans. Perhaps due to his perception of time and realization of the deterministic universe, he begins to show symptoms of apathy. From his radically altered perspective, almost all human concerns appear pointless and without obvious merit.
The character of Doctor Manhattan is one that invokes thought on metaphysical philosophy. There are various themes addressed throughout the
Watchmen series from philosophy of time and eternalism, to determinism and its relationship to ethics, to addressing questions such as
what it means to be human? and
do the means justify the end?The character is primarily cited as the representation of the potential side effects and dangers of a superintelligence. Side effects which include detachment from the rest of humanity and potentially characteristics of apathy.
