A review by some_okie_dude27
Watchmen by Alan Moore
5.0
(EDITED REVIEW)
“It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.” - Alan Moore
Many people, even I, have questioned why Watchmen is great and even what it's about. In hindsight, Watchmen is a murder mystery and overall an alternate take on superheroes, but its also a deconstruction and a borderline satire of the superhero, although with the costume crime fighters asides from the super gods like Superman or Shazam (which Moore already had done with his Miracleman run) or redefining the superhero run with his game changing run on Swamp Thing, turning a simple monster comic into an existential journey and a meditation on humanity, the environment, and the difference between monster and man. Watchmen is also a meditation on broken people trying to find meaning in a world that often doesn't give them any, it also is an exploration of Cold War paranoia and power, it also explores the loss of humanity in such characters like Rorschach, Doctor Manhattan, and The Comedian as well as in society in general. So now I'm back to my question: what is Watchmen about?
There is much to be discussed about Watchmen, such as Alan Moore's view on the status of the superhero genre, the characters themselves and their ideologies, how Moore and Gibbons changed comics forever with Watchmen and how people ate it up and tried replicating it, yet often failing. What annoys me about imitation is that many of the people who do imitate don't understand what made the book at hand work so well. Don't get me wrong, there are some people who've 'imitated' and found their own voices within their attempt to replicate the original's voice. But most tend to fall short because they try so hard to be Watchmen, but don't have any of the complexity and nearly endless layers that Watchmen has nor the time that Moore and Gibbons took to subvert audience expectations and make them do the impossible and actually think about what they were reading. But I still find myself coming back to the question at hand though: What is Watchmen about?
I dislike the term 'graphic novel' when referring to comics, but I have to say that Watchmen is the only comic book that I can think of that lives up to the name of 'graphic novel,' as it feels very much like a novel in comic book form, which is a rare thing for a comic book to do. Moore's work is littered with references, allusions, and symbolism, along with strongly developed characters and a storyline that keeps on building and building. Moore is an author who never ceases to have me in awe with his imaginative scope and his ambition to do as much as he can with the comic book medium, without becoming too outlandish or silly. Though, in the bits that are outlandish and silly, Moore somehow manages to bring a sort of realism to it. A sense that others can make to where they can suspend their disbelief for long enough to treat them as if they were normal.
But back to what Watchmen is about, I think a good place to look is in the characters, who are as human as they are unforgettable. Moore's subversion isn't just about making his superheroes dark and gritty, as some have come to believe, but rather see these heroes as human beings, full of flaws, complexities, and issues that make us sympathize for them, but also heavily question their actions.
Like with Rorschach, a character whose split people down the middle, with those thinking him a misunderstood anti-hero, and some thinking him as a deranged maniac, with both sides having justifiable reasons to believe what they do. Despite Moore's intent to make Rorschach into a parody of the superhero ethos, one can't help but feel sympathy for Rorschach. Like Milton's Satan, we pity and empathize with Rorschach, yet we cannot forget who he is.
There's also The Comedian, who's so broken by the world that he chooses to become a parody of it, committing atrocities without remorse or guilt, but it's all part of the joke, I often see him and Rorschach as dark mirrors to each other, both becoming so broken by a cruel and unfeeling world that they force themselves to become cruel and unfeeling in order to cope with it.
Then there's Doctor Manhattan, who has the power to change everything if he wanted to, yet his perspective on time and humanity has been changed so much to the point where he can only view humanity as a pesky interference in the grand scheme of the universe. The heart of the story, for me, is in these broken characters and how they've tried to find their own meaning in a world that doesn't always have one, Rorschach chooses to inflict violence on people in order to serve out his version of justice, The Comedian becomes a misshapen parody of the worst of humanity, and Doctor Manhattan is just a puppet, albeit one who can see the strings.
I find that Watchmen is about all of those things I mentioned above, but it also is about none of those things. Considering Alan Moore's notorious flakiness on the subject of what Watchmen is really about, I think that finally after all of these years, I've found why I think Moore's Watchmen is so great, as well as why it's so important to the comics medium as well as graphic storytelling in general. It's because Moore allows the reader a rarity in comics by letting them decide what Watchmen is about instead of just spilling it out for the reader, he allows the reader to do the impossible and think about what they read and what it means and allowing them to come to their own conclusions, in the end, there is simply no other comic that is like, or will ever be like Watchmen.
“It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.” - Alan Moore
Many people, even I, have questioned why Watchmen is great and even what it's about. In hindsight, Watchmen is a murder mystery and overall an alternate take on superheroes, but its also a deconstruction and a borderline satire of the superhero, although with the costume crime fighters asides from the super gods like Superman or Shazam (which Moore already had done with his Miracleman run) or redefining the superhero run with his game changing run on Swamp Thing, turning a simple monster comic into an existential journey and a meditation on humanity, the environment, and the difference between monster and man. Watchmen is also a meditation on broken people trying to find meaning in a world that often doesn't give them any, it also is an exploration of Cold War paranoia and power, it also explores the loss of humanity in such characters like Rorschach, Doctor Manhattan, and The Comedian as well as in society in general. So now I'm back to my question: what is Watchmen about?
There is much to be discussed about Watchmen, such as Alan Moore's view on the status of the superhero genre, the characters themselves and their ideologies, how Moore and Gibbons changed comics forever with Watchmen and how people ate it up and tried replicating it, yet often failing. What annoys me about imitation is that many of the people who do imitate don't understand what made the book at hand work so well. Don't get me wrong, there are some people who've 'imitated' and found their own voices within their attempt to replicate the original's voice. But most tend to fall short because they try so hard to be Watchmen, but don't have any of the complexity and nearly endless layers that Watchmen has nor the time that Moore and Gibbons took to subvert audience expectations and make them do the impossible and actually think about what they were reading. But I still find myself coming back to the question at hand though: What is Watchmen about?
I dislike the term 'graphic novel' when referring to comics, but I have to say that Watchmen is the only comic book that I can think of that lives up to the name of 'graphic novel,' as it feels very much like a novel in comic book form, which is a rare thing for a comic book to do. Moore's work is littered with references, allusions, and symbolism, along with strongly developed characters and a storyline that keeps on building and building. Moore is an author who never ceases to have me in awe with his imaginative scope and his ambition to do as much as he can with the comic book medium, without becoming too outlandish or silly. Though, in the bits that are outlandish and silly, Moore somehow manages to bring a sort of realism to it. A sense that others can make to where they can suspend their disbelief for long enough to treat them as if they were normal.
But back to what Watchmen is about, I think a good place to look is in the characters, who are as human as they are unforgettable. Moore's subversion isn't just about making his superheroes dark and gritty, as some have come to believe, but rather see these heroes as human beings, full of flaws, complexities, and issues that make us sympathize for them, but also heavily question their actions.
Like with Rorschach, a character whose split people down the middle, with those thinking him a misunderstood anti-hero, and some thinking him as a deranged maniac, with both sides having justifiable reasons to believe what they do. Despite Moore's intent to make Rorschach into a parody of the superhero ethos, one can't help but feel sympathy for Rorschach. Like Milton's Satan, we pity and empathize with Rorschach, yet we cannot forget who he is.
There's also The Comedian, who's so broken by the world that he chooses to become a parody of it, committing atrocities without remorse or guilt, but it's all part of the joke, I often see him and Rorschach as dark mirrors to each other, both becoming so broken by a cruel and unfeeling world that they force themselves to become cruel and unfeeling in order to cope with it.
Then there's Doctor Manhattan, who has the power to change everything if he wanted to, yet his perspective on time and humanity has been changed so much to the point where he can only view humanity as a pesky interference in the grand scheme of the universe. The heart of the story, for me, is in these broken characters and how they've tried to find their own meaning in a world that doesn't always have one, Rorschach chooses to inflict violence on people in order to serve out his version of justice, The Comedian becomes a misshapen parody of the worst of humanity, and Doctor Manhattan is just a puppet, albeit one who can see the strings.
I find that Watchmen is about all of those things I mentioned above, but it also is about none of those things. Considering Alan Moore's notorious flakiness on the subject of what Watchmen is really about, I think that finally after all of these years, I've found why I think Moore's Watchmen is so great, as well as why it's so important to the comics medium as well as graphic storytelling in general. It's because Moore allows the reader a rarity in comics by letting them decide what Watchmen is about instead of just spilling it out for the reader, he allows the reader to do the impossible and think about what they read and what it means and allowing them to come to their own conclusions, in the end, there is simply no other comic that is like, or will ever be like Watchmen.