Here's a review. I dunno, I'm not really for picking apart something to see why it's "good", not even sure what the defintive standards for "good" is. Not sure what the point is, you'll either like something or you won't.

http://www.januarymagazine.com/artcult/watchmen.html

I'm of the belief that you like something, and then later you rationalize why with hundred dollar words as a way to intellectually validate why you do. I believe you like something on an emotional level, and the rationale comes later.

For example, I liked Watchmen as a kid.  I had no idea who the Charlton Action-heroes were or that Watchmen featured their imitators, and I still liked it.  I thought it was very interesting and thought provoking.  I enjoyed seeing what it might be like for heroes after hanging up the tights.

Today, I love it.  I read it again recently, with the release of Absolute Watchmen, and knowing what I know about its origins now, I like it more, and I do not know why.  One reason is because it was done in the appropriate format, seperate from mainstream comics, where it belongs.  It is the only comic book story where I think using the Charlton heroes and "changing" them would have been ok, and that is simply because of what has happened to them instead.  I would rather they live forever as the Watchmen than die or become Monarch!

I look forward to the movie.

"Do I contradict myself?  Very well I contradict myself."

I have got an extra Watchmen TPB (1st print) if anybody needs one.

JB, you can have it for free if you would like to try it again.  Seriously.

The death of Gwen Stacy made for a dramatic story at the time. I happened to be the issue with which I returned to reading Spider-Man after a hiaitus of about five years, and there was sufficient emotional wallop in the the story that I "got it" even tho I had no idea who Gwen Stacy was,

That said -- what the death of Gwen did was draw an immovable line thru Spider-Man's growing mythology. Every story done after the death of Gwen happens after the death of Gwen. If she, like Liz or Bette, had merely drifted off, there would not be a permanently etched reference point that screams out "time has passed!" We have no clear way of knowing just when Peter and Bette broke up, or when Liz ceased to be the love of his life -- but with Gwen, the moment of her death is inescapable.

It is no coincidence, I am sure, that in the post-Gwen world, we began to see more and more fans who insisted that the comics must occur, if not in real time, then at least with a noticable passage of time. And, of course, writers and editors who were more than willing to go along with this.

The death of Gwen unleashed a cascade of toppling dominoes that even to this day continue to crash thru Spider-Man continuity, and, by association, the continuity of all the other books.

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Exactly.

As some of you know, I did an intense amount of research on this topic for my much-mocked essay (link in my signature).

By the time of Amazing Spider-Man # 121, Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy had gotten locked into a cycle. She gets mad at him for one reason or another (almost always because of Spider-Man), they reconcile, and then the cycle starts all over again. Stan made a big, dramatic change with the death of George Stacy, and this injected some life into the book (by having Gwen think that Spider-Man killed her father, with Peter stuck in the middle of it all), but that energy quickly dissipated.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the Spider-Man letter pages, both some time before and subsequent to Gwen's death, began to show an increasing amount of fans debating about whether Peter Parker should grow and change or not. Should he get married to Gwen? Graduate from college? Have kids? Get a real job? Stay young forever? These debates continued to escalate in the letter pages after Gwen's death, which is indicative of the impact that event had on fan perceptions of time in Spider-Man's world.

Anyway, Gerry Conway and company had four options:

1. Continue the cycle of never-ending break-ups/reconciliations, and risk angering the growing fanbase, which had already started to stick around long enough to be angered by the formula in the first place.

2. Have Peter marry Gwen. This would have completely altered the makeup of Spider-Man's world, and, since these were the days when writers still looked before they leapt, it was decided that this would be a bad idea.

3. Have Peter and Gwen break up for good, and move her out of the book (or keep her on in a minor role, as had been done with Betty Brant). However, this would have seemed problematic to fans, since the idea that Peter and Gwen were deeply in love and would eventually marry had been built up for quite some time. Also, Gwen had been Peter's love interest for some 7-8 years, far longer than Betty Brant had. To suddenly sweep her away would have angered fans, and they would probably have begun to clamor for her return after a while.

4. Kill Gwen, which would eliminate the whole "Should Peter get married?" question, provide a great story, and make room for Mary Jane as Peter's love interest (since Conway and John Romita had always favored her over Gwen).

Option # 4 was chosen, and I think it was the right decision at the time.

Conway also did a great job with the aftermath, which featured Peter working through his grief, Mary Jane transforming from a vain, shallow party animal into a more 3-D character, and the Jackal's use of Gwen's clone as a psychological weapon against Spider-Man.

Problem is, as JB stated, it created a "moment in time", something neither fans nor writers could forget. After all, the violent death of one's true love isn't something that happens to everyone. This death turned out to be so important, it eventually became something that scores of Spider-writers would dredge up time and time again. Which led to a whole slew of stories and events that completely undercut the story (and the Spider-Man mythos itself). The Clone Saga, the return of Norman Osborn, the revelation of Gwen's bastard children, and so on.

While Stan did, indeed bring a level of "realism" to supeheroes, and while Gerry and Chris and I did, undoubtedly, do "dark" stories with the deaths of Gwen and Phoenix, the intent was not to "darken" the books or the characters. The intent was not to tell "grim and gritty" stories, but to tell exciting, action packed stories that happened to have unhappy endings. (As some will recall, this was not even the original intent of what became the death of Phoenix storyline --- but that's a whole 'nother thread!)

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Absolutely. Although both stories dealt with the tragic deaths of key characters, both stories are still page-turning romps, and each has something important to say about humanity (as opposed to featuring the deaths just to be gratutitous). Phoenix's heroic suicide showed us how powerful a force for good the human spirit can be. Spider-Man's refusal to kill the Green Goblin, depsite what the Goblin had taken from him, showed us that heroism is all about doing the right thing, instead of taking the easy path of revenge.

Also note that neither title fell into a dark morass after those deaths. The X-Men remained what they had been after Jean died (aside from Cyclops' melancholy departure). Spider-Man did not fall into a deep depression for 12 issues after Gwen died. Rather, he worked through his grief while going through the same kinds of fun adventure stories he'd been involved in prior to Gwen's death (battling Luke Cage, the Man-Wolf, the Vulture, etc.).

Today, there'd be a year or two of grim moping and characterd disintegrating emotionally after a major death like those mentioned.

3. Have Peter and Gwen break up for good, and move her out of the book (or keep her on in a minor role, as had been done with Betty Brant). However, this would have seemed problematic to fans, since the idea that Peter and Gwen were deeply in love and would eventually marry had been built up for quite some time. Also, Gwen had been Peter's love interest for some 7-8 years, far longer than Betty Brant had. To suddenly sweep her away would have angered fans, and they would probably have begun to clamor for her return after a while.

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SER: I have to say that this would have been preferable -- even allowing for 20/20 hindsight. Having Peter and Gwen break up would up the angst factor -- either she sticks around, and there's the tension of the two dating other people or trying to be friends but denying their true feelings. Or Gwen is gone for good (in London or whatever, trying to get over the death of her father). There's still the option for her return.

Having Gwen and Peter marry would have been disastrous. It would have been similar to when couples in bad relationships get married to "fix it." The boredom that fans might have felt regarding Gwen was probably because she and Peter were a couple without any real tension.

Killing her accomplished nothing, really -- at least nothing positive.

Not being snarky here -- but what makes WATCHMEN a "terrific story"?

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***SPOILER WARNING***

Well, on one level you could say it's a terrible story, or a terrible premise - a guy decides to fake an alien invasion to unite the world against a common foe.  That's kind of silly, and it's (admittedly by Moore) stolen from an Outer Limits episode from the tv series.  But that's not really what the story is about - it's just a vehicle used to tell the stories of the characters.

As for why it's good, I would say the same reason any story is good - it's intelligent, interesting, complex, funny, sad, raises intersting questions, the art is beautiful, but above all I would say it's entertaining.  Every time I re-read it, I notice different things.  For example, upon the last reading, I noticed* chapter 5 "Fearful Symmetry", which is about the character Rorschach, is actually laid out as a rorschach.  Meaning, if you go to the center of the chapter (pages 14 and 15), you will see that the panel layouts mirror each other.  If you turn forward one page and backward on the other (pages 16 and 13 respectively), those pages mirror each other as well.  Same goes for the rest of the chapter.  I'm not saying that makes great storytelling, but it is kind of cool, and one of the things you discover as you dig deeper into the book.

*I didn't actually "notice" this; I read it somewhere.

Even if there are, indeed, enormous differences between the two approaches, it is irrlevant to the effect they had. Should the Death of Phoenix, and her subsequent, clever return, never have been told because of the endless parades of killing and bringing back characters? Or Watchmen because it inspired endless pale imitations.

QUOTE: Ironically, tho, we can actually see the shadows forming in the effect WATCHMEN had on DARK KNIGHT. Frank was working on DKR when the WATCHMEN stuff started coming in. Jeanette made sure everyone got xerox copies. I stopped reading with the fifth issue (the one that revealed Rorshach was crazy to begin with), but what Moore was doing clearly had a profound effect on Frank's magnum opus. Frank always treats his stories as organic things, allowing them to carry him off in directions quite different from what he originally planned, and DKR shows this clearly. The first two issues are set in quite a different world from the last two. What happened? Frank read WATCHMEN.

That explains DKSA.