A review by samdalefox
Watchmen by Alan Moore

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

I'm lucky to have reached 29 year's old and not watched the film or TV show, or know pretty much anything about the plot of Watchmen. I'm glad, because it made my reading experience much more enjoyable not having any spoilers, I whizzed through it I was so eager to keep reading. I love Alan Moore's 'V for Vendetta', I've rated this the same because I couldn't pick a favourite, both graphic novels have their own strengths and weaknesses and cover important topics in unique ways. 

Pros
  • The artwork was impeccable. Not only in style (classic superhero), but in it's design; how it illustrated and foreshadowed the story. The 'blood' stained smiley face appeared in at least three different scenarios throughout the novels as a motif, and I liked the way the artwork would alternate between two different views/colour pallettes on a page so you get a holistic snapshot of what's going on, (for example a concersation between two cops and spliced between are panels enaacting the crime they're describing) it felt much more natural to read though it does mean you're bombarded with a lot of information at once.  Once you reach the end of the series you notice that there are clues in the artwork to the political mood and
    the pyramid company
    throughout on posters, plaques, advertisements and graffiti.
  • I enjoyed the inclusion of scrapbook and novel excerpts at the end of each comic to complement the main graphic novel panels.
  • The subject matter itself is important and interesting e.g., dystopia/utopia, relative morality and phenomenological existence, authority and power.

Cons
  • Female characters a bit thin in the ground and not developed beyond their relationships (direct and indirect) to men and male violence.
  • Personally, I didn't enjoy and question whether the black freighter 'story within a story' sub-plot was necessary. It was very obvious storytelling. I've seen other people say it was excellent, and maybe maybe necessary to complement the more subtle grey-area of the main storyline (e.g., part of you gets attached to these despicable people so maybe you'd miss the point). Either way it took me out of the story and I sighed when I saw those panels. 
  • Justice for Bubastis.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. // Who watches the watchmen?

samgoodale's review:

"Our sense of awe [of super heroes] is no match for our selfishness and self-destructive tendencies. Especially when the watchmen are just as selfish and self-destructive as we are."

"Watchmen really explores the relativity of heroism. There isn’t a hero in this book. It’s both a love letter to the Golden Age of superheroes and a criticism of it. Nobody does the right thing, but most characters are sympathetic. Who you sympathize with most will probably say a lot about you, which is pretty cool.

To oversimplify the plot of Watchmen, it’s basically just the trolley problem: do you kill some people to save even more people and become mean, or just do nothing? It’s very interesting because heroism is usually predicated on actually doing something. But sometimes, doing nothing is the most heroic thing you can do.

It’s also very Camusian and Sartrean—the novel shows us how a bunch of characters deal with the lack of meaning within the world. Everything has already happened, but nothing is really real. Rorschach is nothing. Nite Owl is nothing. The word “nothing” is kinda crazy. It’s a compound word, really, but I’ve never thought about it that way. Regardless, everything the characters do is useless and futile, but they do it anyway. That’s pretty cool.

And in spite of this, we still try. We still try to do the right thing, even if it doesn’t make any difference at all. We still love other people despite our ending, or maybe because of it. So, I don’t think Watchmen is really about people doing anything. It’s about people trying. Trying to be good how they see it and trying to love other people. Maybe just trying to be a hero is the most heroic thing of all.,"


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