Watchmen Paperback – April 1, 1995

After a long time of not reading this novel, and after reading the first 50 pages of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen," I immediately thought of another recent "superhero" story of sorts, "Hancock," and a quote Cherlize Theron said very matter-of-factly in the film - "(We've been called) gods, angels, and different cultures and different eras have called us many things - in this place and time we are called super heroes."Alan Moore's depressing and outright blasphmeous story of the "superhero" and their struggles with humanity, as they also deal with the after-effects of modern day god-worship, the ordinary people's eventual fear and hatred of them, etc. made me wonder if Alan himself didn't realize that he was showing us a mirror to ourselves and our blind worship of them, and for this I love his idea and the concept, stretched out originally over 12 "chapters," now all collected here for the first time together.This is not the story of a Super-man, or a Spider-man, who do not exist here in this world (except as minor comic book characters pasted on the wall as a sad reminder) and as we all know, these 'heroes' were created by an foreign & alien environment. This is a very real story of regular people who are dealing with their chosen fates - they have chosen stand up to the corruption of the world and to defend and protect the common citizen as they were once themselves, with the exception of the only one "true" superbeing of the bunch, Dr. Manhattan, who has problems of his own. They all had noble ideas and the spirit to try, but in the end are exiled, murdered or shuttered up and driven into the shadows by the very people they once defended.This story, set against the angry and unsettling backdrop of an alternate world of 1985, where Nixon (!) is still President, the Cold War is growing hotter and hotter by the page, Vietnam was won unconditionally by the U.S. (thanks in part to Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian), America invades Afghanistan against protective Russia, and the entire backdrop melts away and is boiled down to one main subject - this is a mystery novel wrapped up in a bloody American flag.Someone is killing off or trying to destroy the former members of "The Crimebusters," a group formed right before World War 2. One of the remaining active (and illegally practicing) members, Rorschach, is not only trying to solve the whodunit of who's ding it but is also trying to possibly get the remaining forced to retire members (due to 1977 government legislation outlawing them) to band together one last time to discover why it's happening.But there's a problem - some of them are just too afraid to try any more. Once revered, they hide in shadows, living boring and uninteresting lives or shilling their once-fame to sell action figures of themselves. Along the way there are flashbacks, using a manuscript from a 'tell-all' book revealing the ugly truths about some of the members written by one of them ("Under the Hood") and very very strange and hidden clues along the way, the story gets more and more negative and paranoid.In this universe there are instances of out-and-out murders of characters, attempted rape, racism, horrible forms of gung-ho vigilantism, homophobia and xenophobia and so much more depravity unheard of in comic books seen in any form like this until this was written.The comic was drawn by Dave Gibbons in a classic style, using a fictional comic book ("Tales of the Black Freighter") to tell an even more horrible story, strange newspaper headlines and interviews to propel the story to it's hard and stunning climax.However, it's the story by Alan Moore who debunks the myth by prying open the ugly dark side of the "superhero." In each chapter each former member has a moment to shine, to see and hear their story, and then the rest of the world comes crashing down on them again.I don't want to keep droning on and on about too much more, as I don't want to give anything away and besides, any comic reader worth his salt has already read it, or if you haven't, you should. Every preconceived notion you've ever had about "superheroes" will be torn away from you, every backstory you think you've ever read that you thought was fascinating about a "superhero" will wither and dissipate against the weight of this.I first read this back in 1986 when it first came out and I was a whopping 22 years old, and I was shocked and angry at the way Alan rattled the cages, but now, looking back in retrospect, I applaud him as he taken strands of different stories like this that were laying around (parts of this comic made me think of an earlier attempt to "tug on Superman's cape" titled "Superfolks" from 1977 - look for it, it's hard to find) and laced together the greatest of all comic novels.I'll even go so far as to say it's better in scope and feel than "The Dark Knight Returns."This series pulls you in and won't let you go, and every time I've read it since, I still get those pangs of anger and uneasiness from knowing that comic books, originally designed for kids, doesn't mean that they'll understand subtlety or violence in it's own context.To understand this novel is to get the whole idea of the new comic book as they had a re-birth in the late 80s - they're not just all "wham" and "bam" anymore. We go behind the masks into the very soul of the hero, and to say he or she is not flawed at all is the same as saying we aren't, either.These heroes bleed, they have real problems, they use drinking and drugs to blur it out, they fight amongst themselves (as most of humanity does in most instances), yet pull it together just long enough to save the world. Or in the case of "Watchmen", do they?This is essential reading for anyone who wants to go beyond the flashy costumes and the garish colors to feel what our modern-day gods are feeling as they kill for their view of righteousness, and this is as close you'll ever get to that.

I have to say, this is just the best comic I have ever read. The art was just to die for, the characters were well thought out, and a brilliant plot was implemented into the comic. I have read many comics where the story seems jump around to useless side stories for no typical reason other than to show that the writers want to make a long ass story, but this was different. Sure the story jumped around a lot in this but there was some point to it; it helped me understand when, why, and how the heroes became who they are.For example, Jon a.k.a. Dr. Manhattan, was not always an immortal bipedal h-Bomb, he was once human. He had a life once before where he was human. He grew up a the son of a watch maker so he was always around time. Things changed and he became a scientist in Nuclear- Atomic- Atoms- whatchamacallit. He met his first love and he offered one day to fix her watch because someone stepped on it. He left it in his lab coat one day, and his lab coat was left inside a room where objects were de-atomized. He went to fetch the lab coat and an accident occurred, causing him to be trapped inside the room and he was De-Atomized. Thought to be dead, everyone tried to think as if it never happened. Then Jon appeared, living and well but had changed. He was glowing bright blue, his skin was like a blueberry threw up on him, and he now had abilities unlike anyone. He had become God, which he denied to every extent. But he was also fixated on how time flowed. He always knew what would happen before it would happen, and it made him quite a pain in the ass to be around since he seemed to never be impressed or seemed to care. However he at times does wish to be normal, but he blames three people for his transformation, but never could he choose the main person to blame. He blamed the man who stepped on the watch, he blamed his girlfriend who he offered to fix her watch, and he blamed himself for ever leaving his coat in the De-atomization chamber in the first place.Another example of a well thought out character (which is one of my favorite heroes of all time) is Walter Kovacs a.k.a. Rorschach (pronounced: Roar•Shack). Rorschach is more or less the character that actually knows when stuff is going on, and he knows how to get the information he wants. He doesn't need fancy gadgets (although he does have a Grapple Hook launcher), he doesn't need superpowers, he doesn't need the force, and he sure as hell doesn't need money. He used something called breaking limbs. It works to the very least, and that's how he found out about WW3 (which was about to happen but events at the end of the book caused the world to stop all war). He did find out about a plot to stop the war by interrogating a retired villain who was dragged into the whole mess. But how did Rorschach become like this? How did Walter Kovacs become the cold, paranoid vigilante that he is? Walter grew up in a broken home, raised by his whore of a mother that treated him like garbage and he was bullied by the other kids because his mother was a whore. At some point he grew tired of all of the worlds evils. He, when he became an adult, started working at some package-fashion store place, and a package with a dress that was specially made came in. The dress was an ink blot dress which meant that the dress design 'moves' via body heat reacting with ink in between special fabric. They were holding it for a celebrity who died before she could ever pick it up. The way she died caused Walter to break. The Celebrity had been raped and murdered, and bystanders watched as it happened. The cold injustice that happened to the lady created Walter Kovacs's alias. But, through a confusing explanation on how Rorschach truly began, he tells a doctor the birth of Rorschach and the death of Walter. According to Walter, Rorschach began the night he promised to find a kidnapped girl. He found the kidnapper, but no girl. The girl was dead, chopped to pieces and fed to dogs like kibble. He changed drastically, and instead of arresting the kidnapper, he killed him. As Walter said: "whatever was left of Walter died that night with little girl." He now kills those who dare to cause injustice. He even hates the politicians (for going on with war as the only answer) and prostitutes (because of his childhood).But to truly understand the story, YOU. MUST. READ. IT. You'll be sorry if you don't. I will cherish my copy and pass it down for future generations to experience an era of comics from before my time. Thanks for reading!Famous Quote from Rorschach:"Dead dog found in alley way, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me, I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters, and the gutters are filled with blood until the drains finally scab over and all of the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of their sex and murder will rise up around their waists, and they will look up and scream: Save us! And I will look down and reply: No."