Doctor Manhattan seeks solitude by hiding out on Mars, but returns to Earth in part thanks to his attraction to Laurie Juspeczyk, known as the second Silk Specter, and a war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan that breaks out partially due to his absence as a threat. It is then that Doctor Manhattan is framed for a staged fake alien attack by fellow Watchmen Adrian (Ozymandias) that kills more than 3 million people in New York. Doctor Manhattan confronts Adrian, but decides not to reveal his scheme once he realizes that it has brought peace to Earth. Doctor Manhattan is then, however, forced to kill his fellow crime-stopping teammate Rorschach, whose black-and-white politics (get it?) make him determined to expose the secret attack. Doctor Manhattan leaves Earth again after the events of the comics, so he has likely spent 30 years off Earth at the beginning of Lindelof’s Watchmen series.