Watching the Watchmen

[viridian5]

With Watchmen coming out on film soon, I figured it was time to take a look at the whole, since I'd only seen parts of it over the years. I know people who really like it.

I give it full credit for being the first mainstream book to really put the pedal to the floor on darkness and cynicism in superheroes, especially from DC Comics. (I'm

Comments

[lady_ganesh]

See, I always figured that neither the Heroes nor Watchmen Great Plans were ever supposed to work-- that was part of the sheer batshittery of it all.

I liked both the Silk Spectres, actually.

[viridian5]

With Heroes it should have been more obvious that it was batshit, because as I said NYC went through something like it already. In Watchmen's Nixonian world I give it maybe two months. Ozymandias planned everything else out so intricately and didn't foresee the ultimate result?

I liked Laurie a bit, but like her mom she pinballed between men. The revelation about the Comedian and Silver Spectre I, with her kiss at his photo image, soured me on the mother.

[lady_ganesh]

Ozymandias was an optimist, though, and had been successful enough to think he could do it. His arrogance pushed him over the edge.

The girl in the dorm room next to me was dateraped by another guy on the floor my freshman year. By the end of the year she was convinced she hadn't even been raped. In Sally Jupiter's world, there was even more pressure to deny and diminish. So I found it believable on that scale.

[viridian5]

So what was the others' excuses? *g*

I suppose. Though I wouldn't go back for more to a guy who broke my ribs. But even so, a story which featured all the prostitutes in Rorschach's life, had Laurie defining herself by men since she was an early teen (before that she was her mother's creature), and focused on Sally's sexy outfits, softcore roles, and how she attached herself to one unsuitable man after another makes me less inclined to feel good about a "she came to love her rapist" twist.

[ext_59120]

I wonder if it says something about the individual reading if they come out of reading Watchman having clung to Rorschach's morality as a guiding line?

I know I did feel as if he were the only pro-active individual / paying attention to bigger pictures than his wounded pride.

But I might have to re-read, it's been about 2 years or so.

[viridian5]

Everybody I know who read it came out of it feeling that Rorschach was the one with a moral code, as dark and batshit as it could be. He really was the only one of them trying to do something.

[andartha]

I LOVE Rorschach ^_^

[viridian5]

He was definitely a standout character for me.

[neotoma]

Ugly and dated art? I think it holds up pretty well, especially compared to '90's art -- all that Liefield-inspired uglyness makes those comics very hard to read. At least in Watchmen, the characters are on-model all the time, and not suddenly deformed or lacking feet.

I agree with people that the extras are worth reading -- for one, you miss the gay relationship in the Minutemen if you don't read the extras, and also where they got the brain of the monster.

[viridian5]

I think I would have minded the Watchmen art less if I hadn't found the color palette so jarring and ugly. I totally see Liefeld, McFarlane, and Liefield-inspired art as dated and ugly. (Anatomy, guys. Learn it.)

I must have skimmed over the part about where they got the brain, but I did get the stuff about the gay relationships.

[kasha]

I'd hate it, wouldn't I? :)

[viridian5]

Probably. *g*