Another
well-known limited comic series written by Alan Moore in the ‘80s and adapted
into a film in the 2000s, which I finally picked up after reading V for Vendetta. For me, a major difference in the reading
experience here was that I hadn’t already seen the film adaptation of Watchmen – it’s one that I just never
got around to, but now that I’ve read the graphic novel, I’m sure I’ll be
checking it out sooner or later.
In the mid-80s
of the US in a slightly-altered reality, the days of the caped crusader have gone. After the passage of the Keene Act, most
so-called “superheroes” have been forced by law into retirement, with the
exception of a few costumed heroes who are allowed to work for the
government. Among them are the Comedian,
an amoral rogue with mercenary leanings, and Dr. Manhattan, a scientist who
acquired incredible, godlike powers in a nuclear accident, the only legitimately-powered
person in the book. When the Comedian
turns up murdered, Rorschach, a shadowy figure who never gave up the masked
vigilante life, begins to suspect that someone is deliberately going after
heroes. He approaches a number of
associates from the old days in the hope of getting to the bottom of the
mystery.
There’s
some really interesting stuff going on here.
I like that most of their characters don’t
have powers. The story explores
superheroes more as a social phenomenon than as comic-book marvels, and the
various ways it shows the incorporation of retired heroes into everyday life
and society is intriguing. It also looks
at the sort of things that drive an “ordinary” person to put on a costume and
fight crime, and it dwells excellently on how the creation of Dr. Manhattan
really changed the nature of the superhero game and made many of the characters
question what it still means to be human, let alone what their purpose as
heroes is. I love the retired hero
concept and all that goes along with it, from secret crusading to tell-all
books. The plot is dense but
engrossing. I feel like it holds
together pretty well and peruses its major themes with complexity. Most of the characters are interesting in a
dystopian comic-book noir way (in other words, messed up, tragic, and/or
morally compromised.)
Unfortunately,
I’m even less impressed with the female characters here than I was throughout
much of V for Vendetta. There are two female heroes, a mother and
daughter who used the same persona and hypersexualized costume in two different
eras. The mother, Sally, seems to have
gotten into it mostly for fame and now acts like a cross between Norma Desmond
and Momma Rose, equal parts faded star and overbearing show mother. The daughter, Laurie, was groomed to take up
Sally’s mantle and never seems to have been all that interested in being a
hero. The sexual entanglements of both
characters over the years seem to get the main focus in their plots. I like Laurie better than Sally – there’s a
nice scene in which she reminisces about her favorite part of crusading, a
particular patrol route she used to take at night – but the way her character
is used throughout the book still leaves kind of a bad taste in my mouth. An unfortunate mark on an otherwise pretty engaging
book.
Warnings
Graphic
comic-book violence, sexual content (included attempted assault,) language,
drinking/smoking/drug references, and thematic elements.
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