Watchmen is one of those books that I've read several times and just didn't like ANY of the times that I read it.  I've always thought that maybe I was too young the first time, too naive the next, not educted enough, etc...I finally just realized that I, in fact, didn't like the book.  I have a friend who thinks it is the greatest super-hero story ever published, but I just don't like it and I don't "get" it.

Matthew Hansel
matthewphansel@mac.com

I think the things that separate WATCHMEN from all the crap it inspired is...

1.  The superb craftsmanship of Moore and Gibbons.

2.  The humanity that Moore infuses into the book.  Compare the way rape is used as a story element in WATCHMEN vs. IDENTITY CRISIS.  Compare Asshole Batman with Rorshach painfully thanking Nite-Owl 2 for being his friend or crying in the face of his own death.  Moore makes these characters into real people, or at least he tries to extend the "reality" all the way through them.  Just about everybody following in Moore's footsteps isn't trying to write super-heroes as real people, they're just grafting a bits of reality onto unreal characters.

I think Kurt Busiek's ASTRO CITY is really in the image of WATCHMEN, even if it's tone is much brighter (or at least it was until the last few ASTRO CITY projects).

Mike

Nice points, Mike. For all that Moore's comics often reflect a jaundiced view of humanity, I've yet to read a work from him that wasn't sympathetic to his struggling characters and I've never felt his darker moments to be exploitive. Even in THE KILLING JOKE, I was always taken with the moment where Batman tries to talk to the Joker in Arkham, tries to convince him their struggle doesn't have to end in death, that it's not too late.

I can only assume moments like that come across as phony to some of the folks here, but they've always seemed wholly heartfelt to me and they pervade Moore's writings. In fact, Moore can be a big 'ol softy. Just look at "Rites of Spring" in SWAMP THING, a 22-page ode to pure love. Or the surprisingly uplifting final hours of the cosmic gamemaster in TOP TEN.

It's painfully true: most who've aped Moore or been influenced by him have managed only to duplicate his jadedness - and that rarely with any depth - capturing none of the humanism that's always lurked beneath.

First of all, let me just say it's hard for me to see the words "mea culpa", and not think of the play "Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street".

I really enjoyed the Watchmen series, but I didn't see it as anything other than what it was; a fairly written mystery involving the superhero genre. It wasn't some defining moment of comics history that shaped all the worlds to come, nor did I feel it was schlock just tossed onto pages. I agree with Matt wholeheartedly that it is a very good thing that these characters were pale, jaded refelctions of the Charleton characters, and not actually them. I do think that it was alright for Rorschach to be crazy before wearing the mask, as I remember he never fit in anywhere being the way he was... until he put on the mask. Suddenly his "crazy" made sense in a weird sort of way. Nevertheless, mask or no, he was still certifiable.

I read Watchmen back when it first came out, that summer after I graduated college, and really enjoyed it. Denied the use of the Charlton heroes, Moore created a handful of characters very clearly based on them and then used them as he wanted. Along the way, he said an awful lot about society, the vigilante mindset (I thought his comments in EW about Rorschach were very interesting), and what price is one willing to pay to "save the world." It may have been a grim and dark setting, but... so what? They have hang-ups and don't show much of a heroic ideal... that's okay.

As with DKR, the problem of Watchmen casting a shadow over comic books is that other writers tried to do the same thing without understanding why the book worked or used characters for whom that kind of storytelling is inappropriate. Should Captain Atom be morphed into Dr. Manhattan, or Peacemaker into the Comedian? Should The Question be twisted to resemble the character based on him? No.

I'm encouraging my wife to read it and see what she thinks. I've re-read it here and there over the years and believe it holds up very well.

They are not superhero archetypes (except possibly Ozymandius*, who set himself up to be one), but they are all dramatic archetypes bordering on (and sometimes crossing into) cliché.



* "I know! I'll call myself 'Big Loser'."