So far, I’ve kept this blog to movies and TV shows. Even
though I’m a fan of comic books (in case you couldn’t tell from the amount of
superhero fare on here), I don’t really review them. The biggest reason for
this is that I’m one to wait for the collected TPBs, rather than immediately
scarf up every monthly issue. But I’ll make an exception for Before Watchmen, because if there’s any
comic that could be discussed and written about significantly, it’s Watchmen.
What can I say about Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ opus that
you haven’t heard? It’s considered the greatest comic book ever written, and
not just by comic readers. Time put
it on its list of the 100 best novels, alongside George Orwell’s 1984 and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. For me personally,
it was the book that forever hooked me onto comics. Once in a while, I pull it
out and look at it again, and even after so many times, it still amazes me. To
use a cliché, it really is a masterpiece of art, storytelling, realism, imagination,
and deep, heavy themes.
But, it’s not my favorite comic. It’s not even my favorite Alan
Moore comic (that would be his run on Swamp Thing). When I look it
over, I usually just appreciate the structure and artwork, rather than actually
sit to read it from start to finish. It’s one of those works you more admire
than enjoy.
Why is this? Well, the narrative told in the actual comic
panels is, at most, only half the story. Much of it is told in backstory,
in extended flashbacks and the prose sections that follow each chapter. Using
exposition to this extent wouldn’t seem like it would work, but it does because
the characters aren’t exactly characters in the traditional sense. The main
heroes in the book obviously aren’t meant to be flesh-and-blood people, with a
wide range of emotions and different angles to them. Rather, they’re each an
embodiment of a different theme that the work seeks to explore, themes like
nihilism (The Comedian), moral absolution (Rorschach), omnipotence (Dr.
Manhattan), and megalomania (Ozymandias). It’s fascinating to think about these
themes, but it takes longer to read, reread, and reflect to get the full
experience; for just some fun entertainment, there are dozens of Batman yarns out
there that fit the bill much better
It’s for this reason (among others) that the film adaptation
didn’t work, and likely was doomed to fail in anyone’s hands: these characters
are themes incarnate, and themes don’t punch people very well. This is also why
the prospect of prequels intrigued me. Why provide backstory to characters when
their depth as human beings isn’t the point of the narrative? Then again, the
original series hinted at a rich alternate history with these characters that
had potential for many good stories to tell. So, with some cautious optimism, I
read through the four hardbacks collecting the several miniseries in this comic
event.
**SPOILERS HEREIN!**
Minutemen
The Minutemen, the team of the original costumed heroes in
the 1930s and 40s, are seen only briefly in Watchmen,
in flashbacks or as retirees. Mostly, they’re just described in the chapters of
original Nite Owl Hollis Mason’s memoir Under
the Hood included at the end of the first few chapters. They mainly serve
as tools to set up the main characters and the events of the story, as well as
to establish that world history in this comic is quite different from ours,
because of them. But they also serve as a metaphor, not just for a golden age
that seems to have long passed in the comic, but also the Golden Age of Comics
in our world, which was becoming more distant at the time of the series’
publication.
Well, like many great past eras that people talk about
fondly, it turns out this golden age was a fiction agreed upon to keep public
relations positive. And like so many tell-all biographies, Under the Hood was an embellished, happy nostalgia tale, not the
truth. That truth gets told here.
The narrative is structured around Mason sharing the first
draft of his book with his former colleagues (who all hate it), intercut with
the real story of the Minutemen narrated by his prose. In these flashbacks, we
learn what drove these different people to take up costumed crime fighting.
Some, like Mason and the Silhouette, really wanted to do good. Some, like the
original Silk Spectre, only wanted to cash in on the hero craze for the fame. Some (The Comedian and Hooded Justice)
were just violent psychos looking for a way to vent their urges.
This series does what Watchmen
didn’t by giving the characters character—that is, real human qualities other
than just the ones necessary for thematic analysis. The cast of the original
work fascinated me to no end (and still do), but the characters in this I
actually cared about, and had emotional investment in.
Like Mason, who only appears as an old man in Watchmen and is brutally and gratuitously killed. Here, in costume as the protagonist, he’s an everyman, a white knight in a world so dark. He’s trying to do the right thing, but his hands are repeatedly tied from doing anything very meaningful by the world around him. Much more relatable than a naked blue god. After reading this, his death in Watchmen is much sadder. The Silhouette, who was only a throwaway character in the background before, is alike given a noble depth, and her arc’s conclusion is also deeply sad. We forget that before now we didn’t even know her. But the newfound humanity also works in reverse, as some of the characters display the worst qualities of humanity. Particularly Hooded Justice, who we learn was no hero at all.
Darwyn Cooke tells a succinct yet compelling history of the Minutemen, and his brightly colored retro artwork (similar to that in his Justice League: The New Frontier) is a beautiful contrast to the dark events depicted. And he veers into plenty of new territory instead of just going over what Watchmen already covered, and it’s quite entertaining. But most importantly, he makes the characters human, not just living themes. This arc is by far the best of the whole Before Watchmen series, as it enriches and adds to the mythology of the original work while making for a good read on its own.
Unfortunately, with this arc (the first chronologically), the project peaks very early.
Silk Spectre
People who complain about the depiction of women in comics often do have a point, in my opinion. Even the comic hailed as the greatest of all time isn’t kind to the female gender
For one, a major plot point involves Sally Jupiter, the original Silk Spectre, falling in love with her would-be rapist The Comedian. Is this a possible result of Stockholm syndrome? I don’t know, but there’s no denying the misogyny. If a major film release or television program featured this as a plot turn, you can bet the blogosphere would be abuzz about it.
Laurie Juspeczyk, the junior Silk Spectre, doesn’t get assaulted, but she’s relegated to somewhat of a second-tier protagonist. She’s a main character, and gets a whole chapter to reflect on her origin story. But the end of that story doesn’t reveal much deeper detail about the character, other than who her real father is. Rather, the resulting epiphany belongs to Dr. Manhattan, who realizes the value of human life thanks to her. Her biggest moment, her reason for being in the comic, is to help another character fulfill his arc (that, and providing a soul mate for the second Nite Owl). When you put it that way, Laurie’s arc is kinda sexist.
After Minutemen gave more depth to some characters who were mere supporting roles previously, I was hopeful that Silk Spectre would give Laurie her due that she didn’t quite get in Watchmen. Instead, it's a story of her early years as consequential to her history as a random arc of any ongoing comic might be to that character. The disappointment at that fact admittedly affected my view of the comic. But even so, it was at least readable.
It takes place in the 1960s, with teenage Laurie training relentlessly to take over the mantle of Silk Spectre from her mother. To this end, the now-retired Sally forbids her from having a normal childhood or friends, in one scene even telling lies to a neighborhood kid to keep him away (this martinet stage mom attitude, combined with her prima donna behavior in Minutemen, reveal the sweet old lady who was in Watchmen as an unlikeable witch). Sick of her excessive boundaries, Laurie runs away with a boy named Greg to San Francisco. Here, the two board in a house full of hippies (I know, a big cliché). While experiencing the hippie lifestyle by day, Laurie spends the nights fighting a villainous plot to use LSD and subliminal messages in music to get people to buy things they don’t need.
The comic resembles one of those nostalgic arcs you see from time to time, which place the hero firmly in another era and style them accordingly, sometimes at the expense of their established continuity. In this case, the romanticized 60s, so Amanda Conner’s art is very colorful and trippy. As is the story at times, almost to the point of being hard to follow. There’s a little bit too much going on, with other Watchmen characters making appearances that don’t quite fit. The narrative fails messily when it strives to be serious and emotional.
The not-so-serious and psychedelic stuff is likewise messy, but it’s hard to criticize it for that because I think that was the idea. Even though some of it drifts so far out that it has nothing to do with the story, it’s still rather enjoyable in its weirdness (an amusing parody of the Beatles even gets thrown in, for reasons I cannot discern). And because Watchmen is so meticulously structured and dead serious, it’s an experience to see some of its characters in a work that’s gleefully neither. Even though it’s far from perfect and adds little to the aura of Silk Spectre, that much alone will make for some enjoyment for fans of the original work, and the bright colors are pretty to look at.
**Tomorrow: Comedian/Rorschach**
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