Watchmen

You may not like comic books but you will love this one. I didn't enjoy the art in Watchmen, but the writing I loved it. Buy this book if you like a good story.

I have read a lot of reviews, and I just wanted to put in my 2 cents incase it helps anyone out.

the book starts out very interesting. It gets a little boring in the center. It ends strong.

All together it is a brilliant piece. Be careful with the bad reviews. Many of them didn't finish the book. They just quit in the middle.
The end is worth it. Its an amazing piece. Watchmen

Watchmen is arguably the most important graphic novel ever written. It established the medium of the graphic novel henceforth as one to be taken seriously and placed alongside film as the new pictorial artform in which complex stories with rich thematic material could be displayed upon a reticulated grid of visual images. And so a new cycle of American pop can be regarded as having begun with its appearance in 1986 (the graphic novel itself was, by then, only a decade or so old, beginning with Richard Corben's Bloodstar in the mid-seventies).

However, within the larger and already (by 1986) very long running cycle of the mythology of the comic book superhero, Watchmen belongs to the end of the particular development that began in the 1930s with comic strip heroes like Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Tarzan. For the main theme of Watchmen is that the universe of the comic book hero is coming to an end, and so Watchmen represents, as it were, a vision of its Kali Yuga or, in Wagnerian terms, its Twilight.

Watchmen, the first serious graphic novel (after Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, that is) opens up a window into the twilight of the superhero universe which had begun with its Golden Age in the 1930s, its Silver Age in the 1950s and its "Bronze Age" during the Marvel Renaissance of the 1970s. During the 1980s, with the appearance of The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen and Neil Gaiman's Sandman, the universe of the superhero entered into its sunset years, for all three works are based upon a serious questioning of many of the basic premises of the comic book universe taken for granted by its creators.

One of those premises is that superheroes do not die. Another is that they do not grow old and retire. Another is that they are not psychotic, but sane and rational individuals whose ability to discern good from evil can be generally relied upong. And still another is that they always (eventually) win the battle against evil.

In Watchmen, Alan Moore discards all of these premises, for the story begins like a classic noir novel with a murder and then proceeds to spend the rest of its narrative investigating the causes of that murder. In this case, the murder in question is that of a superhero named Edward Blake, a.k.a. the Comedian, who has been found dead, while the superhero known only as Rorschach has decided to investigate. Rorschach does not have a face, only an ever changing rorschach blot, and his investigative methods immediately demonstrate to the reader that he is a psychopath and a sadist, for he tortures people in order to get information out of them, and takes pleasure in murdering those whom he believes to be criminals. Rorschach discovers that there is a plot to do away with superheroes, for his former acquaintance Dr. Manhattan soon exiles himself to Mars in shame as a result of learning from the media that his superpowers have given cancer to all his friends and former lovers. Adrian Veidt, formerly the superhero known as Ozymandias, who is the head of a huge transnational corporation known as Veidt Industries suffers an attempt upon his life; and Hollis Mason, the former and earlier incarnation of a Batman look - alike known as Nite Owl is murdered by an angry mob. Rorschach himself is arrested and put into prison.

In the universe of the superhero as envisioned by Alan Moore, we are introduced to a series of wash ups, sell outs and retirees. Dan Dreiberg, the recent incarnation of Nite Owl, is fortyish and has hung up his costume; the mysterious, Silver Surfer - like Dr. Manhattan works on physics projects for the United States Government (prior to his murder, the Comedian had also been employed by the U.S. Government, who sent him out on routine missions to topple Latin American dictatorships). An official bill known as the Keene Act, furthermore, has recently been passed, which outlaws all superhero vigilantism.

The call for the retirees to return to action comes when Laurie Jupiter walks out on her superhero husband Dr. Manhattan and goes to stay with Dan Dreiberg (the second, and most recent, incarnation of Nite Owl). The two fall in love and become nostalgic about their former status as superheroes and soon decide to break Rorschach out of jail and find out who has been killing off their friends. Eventually the trail leads them to the former superhero Ozymandias, a.k.a. Adrian Veidt, who is a sort of cross between Howard Hughes and L. Ron Hubbard, for Veidt is one of the richest - and also most intelligent - men alive, and from his fortress of solitude located at Antarctica runs a corporation that manufactures superhero action figures, toys, games and also a self-help cult called the "Veidt Method," a sort of Tony Robbins - style pep talk designed to make any man into an effective fashioner of his own destiny.

When Nite Owl and Rorschach travel to Antarctica in Nite Owl's Bat-mobile style air ship, they confront Adrian Veidt and discover that he had killed the Comedian because the Comedian had already figured out Veidt's master plan of ending the Cold War by launching an attack on New York City in an effort to bring the nations together. Veidt has designed a bizarre giant monster with tentacles and has learned the technology of teleportation, and decided to teleport this giant monster right into the middle of New York City, instantly killing off half its population. By the time Nite Owl and Rorschach have confronted him, they learn that this event has already taken place and that Veidt's plan has been successful, for Russia announces its intent to withdraw from Afghanistan immediately and call off hostilities towards America. Dr. Manhattan, hitherto at work on building his own fortress of solitude on Mars, materializes at the last moment for a showdown with Veidt, but once he has realized the success of Veidt's plan, he disappears into another dimension, vowing to leave humanity behind and work on creating his own worlds.

Veidt is successful and the Cold War ends. The superheroes retire for good. Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Jupiter marry (Rorschach has been killed in the battle by Dr. Manhattan) and all is well that ends well.

So what's Watchmen really about and why is it so great?

Watchmen is about the conflict between globalization and the local mythos of the New York - centric cult of the superhero. Superheroes were called into being during the Great Depression in order to defend the cosmopolis of New York from attack by mythical beings from the astral plane. It is a local and very particularly regional myth born, grown and shaped within and for the city of Manhattan.

But former superhero Adrian Veidt, the novel's villain, is the head of a transnational corporation - that is, a corporation that is not wed to any particular geography -- Veidt Industries, and intends to wipe out his former superhero friends so that they will not attempt to forestall his global plan of ending the Cold War. We note that not only is Veidt successful in ending the Cold War, but he is also successful at ending the entire world of the superhero, for by the story's conclusion they have all disappeared into retirement, death or alternate dimensions as the direct consequence of the success of his plan.

Also take note that Veidt attacks New York from his fortress of solitude which is located in a sealed off glass dome on the continent of Antarctica, so it is very much as though New York were being attacked by planetary energies.

Alan Moore, as a British artist sensitive to changes in the ether, is here dramatizing before our very eyes the coming death of the superhero mythos at the hands of transnational globalization, for the two are apparently completely at odds with one another. The myth of the comic book superhero is local to New York, for it was born in the 1930s prior to the globalization forces that World War II brought into being, since one of the end results of that war was the launching of the Russian satellite Sputnik into orbit in 1957, which effectively globalized the planet by placing it inside a dome of electric technology. (The superhero was designed to protect New York, not the entire planet). Just as Adrian Veidt places a simulated tropical environment inside a glass dome at his fortress on Antarctica, so we have placed the entire planet since Sputnik inside of a technological dome. That very act already announced the end of the superhero mythos, since it relativized New York's importance on the global stage to that of merely one city state amongst many others all now gathered together under the single umbrella of global capitalism.

Insofar as the superhero fails to adapt himself to the new global circumstances - James Bond, for instance, is a new adaptation, for he is the world's first truly global hero - his mythology and way of life are in trouble. The downloading of superhero comics into celluloid narratives, furthermore, is not the beginning, but rather the ending, of his popularity, for once the download is complete - in about one more decade - interest in superheroes will wane and eventually vanish, exactly as predicted by Moore's Watchmen.

Finally, let us not forget that Moore's novel has already made at least one prediction that has come to pass, i.e. the assault on New York City by a giant monster with tentacles in the form of Al Qaeda with its delocalized network of sleeper cells distributed over the planet.

The moment of the supreme popularity of a cultural form marks the advent of its disappearance, not the height of its development. This is known as a "sunset effect," - the most elaborate suits of armor, for instance, came in during the 16th century, just when armor was made irrelevant by the arrival of gunpowder - and Moore's Watchmen is a text that can be set aside as marking the senescence of the New York cult of the superhero.

Watchmen is a mighty, Wagnerian achievement and has so far not yet been surpassed in the history of the graphic novel as a medium.

--John David Ebert, author of Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons: Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society

Better late than never on Watchmen; since this is going to be a blockbuster next summer (saw the previews on The Dark Knight), thought I'd better get around to reading this one, which was the first graphic novel I've ever read.

Time included Watchmen on their list of 100 best novels. While I thought that Watchmen was definitely a great, fun read, I don't know that's it's quite on the level with some of the other novels on their list. That's not to say Watchmen isn't good work: it's a compelling character study of a handful of heroes. The fundamental theme explored through the book is the question behind all superhero/vigilante stories: do the ends justify the means? Watchmen delves into the personality types that answer this question in the affirmitive.

That being said, I thought Watchmen had a weak ending, despite the outstanding buildup. The tone of the ending seemed far too ambivalent, especially after so much emotional investment in the plot, which borders on, but doesn't actually become preachy.

I'm curious to see what kind of a movie this will make, since the emphasis isn't on action, but on the inner lives of the characters. The trailer looked great; I just hope the writing lives up the visuals.

This is a superb story that is incredibly well told and for the most part surprisingly realistic. The writing is excellent with a great deal of variety of cross reference to give a more detailed, fleshed out tale.

This is very gripping and entertaining with a lot of well drawn characters. There's a lot of deep reaching into the minds of the costumed heroes and it is very realistically put together.

I found this an incredibly good read and it couldn't come more highly recommended.