One of the most influential graphic novels of all time - nuff said
Writer: Alan Moore
Artist: Dave Gibbons
Colorist: John Higgins
Letterer: Dave Gibbons
Trade paperback published by DC Comics 1986
$19.95
Reviewed by Michael Tymczyszyn;
additional material by Gregory Dickens
It is a fairly daunting task to review WATCHMEN. This is simply because it is probably the finest work of fiction ever published in superhero comics. That's right, ever. A tremendous amount has been written on this series, and to contribute something new to this immense body of work is at best difficult, and at worst impossible. I shall attempt it, and provide some history and context to the work as I go. But the main thing is, read it. No matter what I say in this review, WATCHMEN is something any fan of comic books should read.
The Characters
WATCHMEN began life as a story using characters DC had recently purchased from Charlton Comics. Charlton was a prominent company during the Golden Age of comics (circa 1938-1956). The characters in the original proposal were Captain Atom, Peacekeeper, Judo Master, the Blue Beetle, Nightshade and The Question (to see an alternate use for all these characters pick up the awful miniseries The L.A.W. currently published by DC).
Plans fell through, and the characters originally being proposed were moved to other projects. Undaunted, Moore slyly changed the names, and created a new world, with a new history, using these characters and the original proposal question, giving us Dr. Manhattan, The Comedian, Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias while in costume), Nite-Owl, Silk Spectre, Rorschach... and WATCHMEN.
Dr. Manhattan is the only true super-powered being in the series. He is what Captain Atom would have been were he created in the 1980s. A god-like being with complete control over molecular structures, he can literally do anything from teleportation to synthesizing elements like lithium (useful for creating high-capacity batteries) to actually seeing nuclear particles like gluinos. He is central to the story, an integral piece of the puzzle that is WATCHMEN.
The Comedian, another linchpin of the story, is the ultimate soldier. He kills without reservation. He is the fighter, the archetypal warrior. His career began in 1940 as a founder of the Minutemen, this alternate world's first and only real superhero team. We never see him alive - the book begins with the investigation into his murder. He and Dr. Manhattan are the only costumed operatives left legally active at the start of the story. Both work entirely for the US government and are therefore exempt from the Keene Act, which outlawed masked vigilantes in 1977. His symbol is a smiley badge, and when it is found with a rivulet of blood caked on it after his death, it becomes a recurring a symbol throughout the story.
Adrian Veidt is the world's smartest man. He was once the costumed hero
named Ozymandias (the Greek name for Ramses II, an Egyptian pharaoh).
He retired some years before the Keene act and began a company which sells
almost every commercial product seen in this world. Look closely at the
items shown in the book and a small Veidt symbol can be seen in almost
all of them. When the symbol is absent, the name of the company is often
some sort of derivative of Ancient Egyptian or Greek history and mythology,
such as Pyramid Deliveries, Prometheus Cabs, Gordian Knot Locks, etc.
Nite-Owl is actually two different men. The original Nite-Owl, Hollis Mason, was active in the '40s and a member of the Minutemen. The other, Dan Dreiberg, is an inventor and bird lover, who took over the mantle of Nite-Owl when Mason retired. This mirrors what happened to Blue Beetle, who was active in comics in the '40s and later in the '60s as a far more scientific character, with a different name. He and Rorschach (see below) uncover the plot to save the world.
Silk Spectre is also two people. The original was a woman named Sally Jupiter, and the second her daughter Laurie Juspeczyk (Sally changed her name to disguise her Polish lineage). Laurie is Dr. Manhattan's lover, and lives with him in a military research base outside New York City. Sally lives in a retirement home in California, where it never rains.
Rorschach is the final hero, the impetus for the story, the driving narrative device behind everything we discover. He was based on The Question, a detective in the mold of Batman, with a blank mask, giving the appearance of having no face. Rorschach's mask, on the other hand, has two layers of translucent white fabric containing a black liquid that is heat and pressure sensitive, so his face continually changes from one Rorschach ink blot image to another.
A Rorschach ink blot is created by dripping ink on a page and folding it in half. The resulting random, abstract image is shown to a subject, who is asked to relate what they see in the image. Their response is analyzed by a psychiatrist to give a window into the patient's psyche (you may well have made crude Rorschach images in elementary school.). This allegory for Rorschach's psychiatric condition is strongly emphasized throughout the book. Rorschach is the first hero to discover the murder of the Comedian, and the story begins.
The Story
Superheroes, as fictional elements, perform a number of simple actions.
They provide escapism for their perceived target audience: teenage (and
pre-teenage) boys. They provide excitement, spectacle and entertainment.
Superheroes also support and indeed reinforce the status quo.
Superman does not change the world he lives in; he introduces enough danger that his stories are interesting to read, but he literally can not change his world. The superhero as a genre is unchanging and eternal. Heroes don't age and they don't die (even when they do it is almost always transient, as in the 'death' of Superman). They can do this because they are not taken as reality by the reader.
If the superhero was taken as real, his world would diverge from our own very quickly, since a super-powered being would change everything. He would not, if taken in a realistic sense, be unable to change the world around him. Of course, the commercial nature of comic books today means that the superhero must be in his monthly comic every month, and the reader must be able to relate to that world. So the superhero is left in limbo, utterly a failure in any realistic sense. By their very nature, a superhero should make the world a better place; that is his purpose. And yet he can't, because of the nature of the format in which the character is published.
WATCHMEN said to hell with that. In this book superheroes are presented as real beings, and their world shows vast changes from our own. Dr. Manhattan's very existence has revolutionized everything, allowing electric cars to become the norm, outrageous architecture (the geodesic domes shown in every cityscape shot) to flourish, and science to advance exponentially.
And yet the world, for all the work of this super-powered being, does not become a better place. WATCHMEN is as much a story of humanity saying it doesn't need superheroes as anything else. The story revolves around making the world a better place, but mainly through the actions of normal humans.
This is of course done in a way you won't suspect, by a character who has decided to make the moralistic choice to help the world - even though it means one tremendous, heinous act. It is a choice that mainstream comics will never, could never make. WATCHMEN is the story of a hero becoming the villain in order to save the world, from both itself and the superhero.
Someone has murdered the Comedian, and Rorschach aims to find out who. His first thought is that it was a 'mask killer' (due largely to the fact that Rorschach is intensely paranoid, brought upon by a life as an outlaw and being wanted for murder and several other violent crimes). So Rorschach sets out to warn all the former costumed vigilantes he knows.
He contacts the other major players in our drama and begins a quest to uncover the identity of the mask killer. He has no idea what his quest will lead him to, and indeed that he is the key to undoing it all. He drags Nite-Owl out of retirement, and reintroduces costumed heroes to the world.
The story follows the archetypal detective tale, with all the twists and turns one expects, and has enough clues that the reader can discover the ending before the characters, if you're paying attention. Abductions, midnight confessions, attempted assassinations and even earthly banishment are but the merest highlights of this tremendous story. Will the villain succeed? What is his true goal? Can the world become a better place? Does it even want to? When the dust settles we are still left seeking answers... just like life.
The Creators
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, two British creators, had exported themselves
to the USA in the early eighties. Moore had been working on SWAMP THING
(for DC), and V FOR VENDETTA and MIRACLEMAN (MARVELMAN
in the UK) for British publishers. Gibbons had been working for 2000AD
(the British comic magazine) for years and had also recently worked on
GREEN LANTERN for DC.
In WATCHMEN Moore wrote something morally questioning, completely ambiguous and achieved what some would almost think impossible in superhero comics; he created something new. Gibbons drew the whole story in what many consider the hardest format ever conceived, a nine-panel grid. Each page is divided into nine equally sized pictures, the only derivation from this being when two or more of the panels are joined to form a larger one.
It worked beautifully. WATCHMEN is a work of synthesis; the partners played on each others strengths to such a great degree that it is almost impossible to tell Watchmen wasn't created using a single mind, rather than a partnership.
WATCHMEN was Moore's ultimate statement on superheroes (odd since it is mostly a science-fiction series pretending to be a superhero book) and was possibly the peak of Gibbons's art. The book saw both creators at the height of their careers, a time when they could get away with anything. Call it fate, call it kismet, call it goddamn lucky that we got to see WATCHMEN at all.
The Impact
WATCHMEN is probably the most influential comic book in the last 20 years. I would say of all time, but ACTION COMICS holds that honor and probably always will. WATCHMEN launched comics on a new age of realism, with both good and bad implications. It gave us a more realistic view of superheroes, upped the ante on what a story could cover, and introduced notions of symbolism, myth, and narrative devices that until then comics had largely ignored or used in very different ways. Unfortunately, it also gave us the Dark Ages of comics.
The Dark Ages is a loosely defined term for the last 15 years of comic books. The age of Punisher, Wolverine, and so on -- the age that let heroes kill. It affected every comic book on the market, and has been wrongly blamed for much of the substandard storytelling in the intervening years. WATCHMEN was not about violence, but it has been used to justify books that are.
On the other hand, WATCHMEN also led to smarter comics and kickstarted the 'British Invasion' that gave us such renowned creators as Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis. It helped comics achieve a better image in popular culture and mainstream media. It did a lot for the industry. I fear that it will always be remembered as the cause of the Dark Ages, the killers and anti-heroes, but don't let that stop you from reading it. WATCHMEN is a book that demands to be read by every comic book lover there is.
Editor's note:
WATCHMEN was not the first self-contained graphic novel; THE ADVENTURES OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT holds that honor (see this month's PRO FILE). WATCHMEN, however, was far more commercially successful and brought the possibilities of the self-contained, "Non-Universe" comic story to a worldwide audience.
The book proved there was a viable market for comics which had no basis in the mainstream, and also began the "cult of creator" proper, now best exemplified in Todd McFarlane's SPAWN. Moore's infamous permanent absenteeism from conventions came partly as a result of being hounded like a Hollywood celebrity wherever he went, culminating in the (possibly apocryphal) tale of when he was followed into the toilets by star-struck fans.
WATCHMEN's impact was also felt in terms of presentation,
as mature works such as Morrison and McKean's ARKHAM ASYLUM, and
Moore and Bolland's
Additionally, WATCHMEN can be seen as the forefather of DC's Vertigo imprint. Shortly after the book's incredible success American publishers, and DC especially, began to look upon the UK as a source of creators. These writers had little or no connection to the mainstream superhero genre, no desire to work within it, and very few reservations about confronting disturbing subject matter head-on.
WATCHMEN also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that comics as a medium were capable of handling material, both in terms of subject and density of plot, which were previously regarded as the exclusive domain of prose novels. It is entirely probably that we would never have seen HELLBLAZER, DOOM PATROL, BLACK ORCHID, SANDMAN or even PREACHER without Moore and Gibbons to pave the way.
In short, WATCHMEN is Strongly Recommended.
Michael Tymczyszyn is a freelance writer living in Toronto Gregory Dickens is a member of the PopImage staff
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