I bit behind on my posts. Since I finished Watchmen a month or so back, I’ve loaned it out and back to about six different people.
This is one of Time’s Top 100 Novels for a reason. Written back in 1986, this is the comic ‘blamed’ for dark comic stories. This had the raving Conspiracy Theorist before they were popular. A world without heroes when Batman still wore Blue and Gray. An alternate Cold War history changed by the concept of heroes now long retired. Watchmen is a story about people and their faults as much as the overall plot.
The cast of characters is both deep and interesting. You may not like some of them, but they are not designed to be liked. For each great, heroic characteristic, they have an equally great flaw. This combines with a strong overall plot that has both over the top action and romance, and down to earth stories of a newsstand owner and the kid who freeloads comics off of him.
The art style is initially a little off putting just because it is so old. Still, the plot is best as a comic book (and now a comic book movie). Also, as the novel progresses the art direction finds its pace and improves. Or I just got used to it.
I strongly recommend Watchmen to to just about anyone. It is a mystery story with a unique setting, unique characters, unique plot.
Ozymandias was an essentially thin, stupid, throw-away character for the first 11 volumes and then huh? What? I didn’t like that one damn bit.
Overall I didn’t love it and won’t really recommend it either, but it wasn’t a bad way to spend 2 hours. Alan Moore is a great writer in some ways but everything I’ve read from him has left me feeling nothing.
Well, originally all of the characters were going to be real DC characters. Then they had to come up with originals. Can’t remember who is who other than Niteowl = Blue Beetle, and Rorschach = Question. Ozymandias is basically Iron Man (despite the fact Iron Man is marvel).
I felt it started really slow in the first arc (introductory), but was sold when they started to do one issue per character. The one with Doctor Manhattan in particular was really interesting, showing how he existed rather than lived.
Also, I really liked the overall plotline, especially the end. I don’t want to go into any great detail here, though.
I do need to figure out how to create passworded posts….hmmm….