I dressed up like an owl and I fought crime because it was fun.
One thing that the Watchmen movie left me wanting more of was information on the Minutemen, the original superhero team that sparked the costumed vigilante craze. In the early issues of the comic series, much of their backstory was covered by the inclusion of chapters from Under the Hood, the autobiography of the original Nite Owl, Hollis Mason. I knew going in that this material was unlikely to make the transition to the big screen, so I was pleased when I learned that it was being adapted as a companion piece to Tales of the Black Freighter, the pirate comic that runs as a counterpoint to the action of the main story (and which was likewise excised from the theatrical cut of the film). And after picking up the DVD this afternoon I knew which co-feature I would be gravitating to first.
Presented as a vintage segment of a 60 Minutes-like newsmagazine program called The Culpeper Minute, Under the Hood features interviews with the retired Hollis Mason (Stephen McHattie) and the original Silk Spectre (Carla Gugino), which build on their roles in the film, and it also makes more time for weird-eared villain Moloch the Mystic (the always-welcome Matt Frewer) and the pint-sized Big Figure (Danny Woodburn), not to mention a number of other supporting players we didn't get to see much of on the big screen. (Hello, Captain Metropolis! Nice of them to give you some lines this time!) And I was amused by the inclusion of vintage Seiko watch and Sani-Flush commercials along with the one for Veidt's Nostalgia perfume. My only real complaint is that at 38 minutes it's well short of how long a program of this sort would have run in 1985 and there was more of Under the Hood that they could have used to extend it. (Personally I could have done with more on Hooded Justice, but as he was such a secretive character I can understand why he wouldn't have spent much time parading around for newsreel cameras back when he was active.) Then again, they probably didn't want this to upstage the 26-minute Black Freighter too much. That is what's meant to be moving this release after all.