It's hard to talk about
Watchmen, a graphic novel by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins. As with some of the other books I've talked about, it seems like everything worth saying has already been said. And all everybody really wants to talk about right now is the movie. But I did finish reading
Watchmen recently and I'm committed to writing something about everything I read, so I'll give it a shot.
The first thing I should mention is that this post will be spoiler free. I've spent a long time thinking about the types of things I'd like to say about
Watchmen and much of it involves spoilers. In fact, much of it is more approaching a critical analysis of the work rather than my standard mini-review. So those who haven't read it yet don't need to worry about me ruining anything.
The best thing I can say about
Watchmen is that if you haven't read it, you should do so. And with the movie coming, you should do so
as soon as possible. It's that good and it's that important. It's won countless awards and critical praise and is generally considered to be one of the best graphic novels ever written.
Watchmen is an alternate history graphic novel telling the story of several decades of superheroes and their adventures. In particular, it mostly tells the story in the past of the Minutemen, the first organized group of costumed crime fighters, and the Crimebusters, a name representing the few remaining superheroes of modern day in the story. Somebody is out killing the remaining Crimebusters and Rorschach, one of said heroes, is investigating to find out who is responsible.
Along the way, there are many revelations for the reader. These revelations are about the heroes of the past, the heroes of today, and about what it really means to be a masked crime fighter, what it means to be a superhero. Only a single person in the entire story has any form of actual powers and only one other person seems to have the technical expertise to be a Batman-type character with unlimited resources. So the heroes in
Watchmen are not heroes by default. When you look at comics like X-Men or Spider-Man, it seems that simply earning powers will put you into one of two categories: good guy or bad guy. It's black and white. Only one character fits into that mold in Watchmen. Everybody else is painted with many shades of gray, or at least a moving inkblot like on Rorschach's costume.
There are a number of things worth noting about
Watchmen that are unique besides the very human nature of its characters. After every chapter except the last is supplementary material. This includes book excerpts from one of the characters, letters, and other things that help to flesh out the world. They aren't as entertaining to read as the comic itself, but they really help in understanding everything that goes on. There's also a comic within a comic that one of the characters reads. It's a pirate story, very simple on the surface. It can actually seems distracting in several spots. But it is important to the story on multiple levels. Lastly, the time line tends to jump around a lot. It doesn't tell the story of one hero or set of heroes. It tells the story of several decades of events. It's not a fluff piece with crazy powers and goofy villains, not that I don't love those to death as well.
To leave things off, I'll simply say that
Watchmen is really worth reading even if you don't read most comics. Many feel it starts off slow and still others lament the lack of action that's in traditional comics. But it's a great read that will be well worth your time.