Book Review: Watchmen by Alan Moore
At its basics, Watchmen
It just so happens that the deceased happens to be a costume-wearing adventurist.
They don’t call them superheroes, because these guys don’t have any super powers. They’re just regular people with something that makes them viable as masked vigilantes—intelligence, a thirst for fame, a psychosis, or a desire to be more important than they otherwise are.
To us, masked vigilantes are staples in fiction, but in the alternative world of this novel, these do-gooders gained acceptance and celebrityhood. They even enjoyed government employment and official statuses.
But what society will put on a pedestal, society will also knock down.
At the start of the book, unregulated adventuring has been banned. The ones who refuse to give it up are fugitives.
One such fugitive, Rorschach, is convinced that the death of The Comedian is far more significant than just the random break-in story that others are telling.
As the mystery progresses, we meet other characters, learn about their back stories, and become more acquainted with the details of the United States in this alternative universe.
I think what’s really impressive with this book is the mood and atmosphere it sets. Everything’s a little dirty, a little jaded, and a whole lot sad.
The writer (Alan Moore) and illustrator (Dave Gibbons) combined their talents to create a world in which I can almost hear the smoky and plaintive saxophone score.
I know this work is a classic in the world of comics because it turns superhero conventions on their heads. For me though, I would put it in the genre of gumshoe-noir mysteries.
Given Rorschach’s penchants for fedoras and trench coats, it’s hard to believe that the artistic team also did not have this in mind.
Get Blade Runner
I read the whole thing in one sitting because once I got into the mood of the novel, I didn’t want to break out of it. The story is engrossing and the mystery—compelling.
There’s a very modern story-within-a-story feature that gave me nightmares for two consecutive nights.
Unfortunately, the ending lost it for me. After spending all this time in the gross realities of this world, I felt as if the ending reached for something too lightly “comic book,” too sci-fi basic.
Of course, I’m not going to tell you the ending. I’m just going to recommend this book to any book/novel/story junky out there.
I think you’ll see the possibilities that such a presentation has with regards to storytelling. It’s pretty much a multi-media experience that requires an interestingly different set of skills from its reader than those that a word-based novel does.