Title: Watchmen
Writer: Alan Moore
Illustrator: Dave Gibbons
Publisher: DC Comics
Publication year: 2014
Language: English
Pages: 414
One night, a man named Eddy Blake was murdered and thrown from his apartment. A guy in a strange mask then went to investigate this murder. What interested him about this murder was because Eddy Blake was the real identity of a superhero called The Comedian. The Comedian and the masked man, Rorschach, used to be in the same superheroes team before Keene Act was passed. Keene Act is a national law in the United States that made any form of costumed vigilantes as illegal. Rorschach suspected a conspiracy behind this murder. He believed that someone was out to get the superheroes. He contacted his old superhero team members and went around town to investigate. As he inspected the case, turned out the truth might be more complicated than what it seemed.
Watchmen is one of the most influential graphic novel in history. In Watchmen, Moore put superheroes in a real life setting and see the consequences of it, creating an alternate history. For example, America wins the Vietnam War, the Soviet’s invasion to Afghanistan is postponed for a few years, and America is on the verge of world war III with Soviet. These superheroes in Watchmen, even though they are called superheroes, none of them have any superpowers except for Dr. Manhattan. They are presented as flawed human beings which makes it all the more interesting.
To fully understand what Watchmen really is about of course we must examine its characters. First, we have Eddy Blake or The Comedian. His death triggers the course of Watchmen storyline. Although apparently, it’s just a small part of a bigger picture. After the Keene Act was passed, he joins the government and helped them win the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, he raped, murdered people and did what he liked. While back in the states, he was praised as hero despite of the horrible acts he’s done. He likes to do as he likes because he thinks that life is meaningless and what he does won’t matter.
It don’t matter squat because inside thirty years the nukes are gonna be flyin’ like maybugs
The second character is Dr. Manhattan. He is the only character who actually has superpowers which he got by accident. Besides the superpowers, the accident also makes him see things differently than normal human being. He perceived time simultaneously. To him, there’s no past, present, and future. Because of this, he feels that he has no free will. Whatever that he does won’t change anything since to him it’s all happened anyway.
Then there’s Rorschach. He wears a mask which has pattern similar to the ink blot in the Rorschach test. The mask consisted of black fluids on a white fabric which remained in constant motion, being affected by heat and pressure. The mask reflects Rorschach’s view throughout the book. He’s the character with the strong sense of justice. He sees justice as black and white, just like his mask in a way that the fluid in his mask never combined to form grey.
Watchmen is a story within story. There’s a fictional pirate story called Tales of the Black Freighter. It’s a famous comic series in the Watchmen world. One of the side character in Watchmen is constantly seen reading one of the Tales of the Black Freighter story titled ‘Marooned’. The story is a reflection on the main storyline. Marooned is a part of Watchmen that I want to go back to later because I don’t think I got it the first time.
In addition to the layered story, Watchmen has symbolism throughout the chapters. For example the doomsday clock which seen after every chapter. As well as the smiley face which become the main symbol of this graphic novel. Again, I feel like I need to read it again to really grasp them and their meanings.
The only negative thing that I could think about this graphic novel for now is how Laurie Juspeczyk’s (Silk Spectre II) is not fully explored. She just kind of existed in the graphic novel. She only become superhero because her mother taught her to, though in the end she’s the one who’s excited at the prospect of doing another adventure. I feel like she can be much more than that.
Overall, Watchmen is an incredibly complex and layered graphic novel. It’s that book that we’ll get something new every time we read it. I feel like when I read it, I was only scratching the surface. The title itself is a reference to a Latin phrase from the Roman poet Juvenal’s Satires “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” which translates into “Who watches the watchmen?”. The superheroes are watching out for us but who’s watching out for them? I definitely will reread Watchmen and of course I highly recommend this book.
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