Doomsday Clock #1: 10 Things Everyone Totally Missed
6. Never Had A Nightmare
After waking with a start from a terrible nightmare of the night of his adoptive parents' death, Clark Kent makes a bold claim to his wife, Lois Lane, that he doesn't think he has ever had a nightmare before.
This is perhaps the only piece of juxtaposition we get between the two worlds of the Watchmen and the DC Universe. After all, could it be said that anyone in the Watchmen universe doesn't have nightmares? They're practically living one.
Apparently, in the DC Universe it is possible for someone, especially someone who embodies hope for so many, to never have a bad dream.
But these worlds are on a collision course now, and the pessimism of Moore's world is infecting Superman et al.
It's worth noting that one can argue this already happened: when Watchmen proved to be so wildly successful, so many other comics started tried to mimic it's dark, gritty and 'realistic' tones and world view, sometimes even with characters and concepts where it wouldn't make sense.
This may be a way of making it more overt in the context of the comic itself.