My review of Watchmen (and it ain't pretty)
Watchmen by Alan Moore
My review
rating: 2 of 5 stars
With all the hype around this legendary comic book, I was fully prepared to be wowed.
Color me disappointed.
Okay, it wasn't all bad. It did a very nice job of saying what it wanted to say-- that if comic book heroes were more fallible, it would truly suck. The trouble is that observation was obvious to anyone. The whole point of comic book heroes (indeed, of heroes of any kind) isn't that they have super-powers, but that their human frailties get in the way, no matter how many tall buildings they leap in a single bound.
What made these heroes compelling was that they rose above their baser instincts. In Watchmen, the message seems to be that no-one can overcome their human nature (which is understood a priori to be selfish and cruel) unless one gives up all human values altogether. It's a sophomoric view held by many an embittered liberal arts major and was all in vogue during the time Watchmen was written.
And therein lies the trouble with this book: It's an artifact. It's a good artifact, but an artifact nonetheless. It is an artifact of all of the worst excesses of left-wing paranoia at the height of the Regan years. Unfortunately the events of the late 20th to the beginnings of the 21st century have made those threats seem quaint in the aftermath of the Cheney administration.
All of this wouldn't be bad at all, had not Watchmen had the pretense of "serious literature" and called "the first graphic novel." No, it's a comic book, and there is no shame in liking comic books. Many comic book heroes were compellingly human characters. There's nothing compelling about the characters in Watchmen-- except perhaps how much they resemble reality show participants. I don't want to see what kind of heroes fucked up relatives and friends would have made. I want the ones who overcome their weaknesses-- not wallow in them.
If I want comic book heroes deconstructed, I'll read The Tick. It does at least as good a job with a lot more humor, and a hell of a lot more respect for its subject matter too.
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