Watchmen (2019)

I can’t remember what I had going on when this miniseries was initially airing, why I didn’t take the time to pick it up, but I didn’t get around to it until recently. I thought the original comic story was flawed but fascinating, and this adaptation is one of the boldest that I’ve ever encountered, using the source material as a jumping-off point to tell its own story set in the same world.

Set decades after the Watchmen comic, we follow characters through a world that’s been shaped by what came before it. There are special recording booths to send messages to Doctor Manhattan on Mars, commuters treat a downpour of tiny alien squids as a minor weather event, and the only masked crime-fighters around are on the police force. Angela Abar works anonymously as a police officer, the costumed Sister Night. A mysterious death and the arrival of a strange man leads Angela to investigate the Seventh Kavalry militia and unlock the secrets of her own past.

I realize I’m more than a year-and-a-half late on all the discourse for this show, so I can’t really say anything that hasn’t already been said. I love that the miniseries doesn’t adapt the story of the comic for modern times – instead, it extrapolates a new story using the information we have about this world, in which the events of Watchmen the comic are history that informs life in Watchmen the series. Laurie, the young woman scarred by her connections to the hero world, is now a hard-nosed investigator with little time for costumed heroics, and Adrian Veidt, once touted as “the smartest man in the world,” now works to fill his days in exile in a mysterious locale. Other characters from the comic are referenced rather than shown, such as the Seventh Kavalry wearing Rorschach masks, while plenty of the major characters in the series weren’t in the comic at all.

Just as the miniseries tells its own story, it also uses the backdrop of the comic to explore its own themes. We still get into the nature of humans, of heroes, of symbols, of powers, of how society views heroes and the effect of larger-than-life threats on the populace. But while the comic was written near the tail end of the Cold War and employed its superhero premise to explore the threat of nuclear war, the miniseries uses that same premise to examine the threat of white supremacy. From its opening scenes depicting the ravages of the Tulsa Massacre, it’s clear that this is a political show with something to say about racism, violence, and America, in history as well as in the present.

You probably don’t need me to tell you that this is a cool, engrossing show, albeit a dark and disturbing one. Its big swings don’t always land, but plenty of its risks pay off, and the ideas it puts forth are backed up by fantastically-good visuals and masterful acting. Regina King tears it up as Angela from start to finish, and her fantastic performance is joined by the likes of Jean Smart, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Hong Chau, and Jeremy Irons. I’m also really impressed by Tim Blake Nelson, who plays a colleague of Angela’s, Don Johnson is great in a smaller role, and the show also features Tom Mison and James Wolk, who I loved in Sleepy Hollow and The Crazy Ones, respectively.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements, strong violence (including lynching and references to rape,) sexual content, language (including slurs,) drinking/smoking, and disturbing images.

Watchmen (1986-1987)

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.