Who watches "The Watchmen": part 1
Kyle Wilson
Issue date: 2/6/09 Section: Entertainment
Alan Moore's "The Watchmen" is the greatest comic book ever written. That may seem like a bit of hyperbole, but it has some awards and recognitions to back up that claim.
It won the Hugo Award in 1988 for best science fiction story in other forms, meaning work outside of the realm of novel or short story. It was the only comic found on Time Magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. It was found on Entertainment Weekly's list of the best 50 novels printed in the last 25 years, found in slot number 13.
And it is widely considered, along with Frank Miller's Batman tale, "The Dark Knight Returns," to be one of the works printed during the late 1980s that redefined the comic book industry. Now, this March, Watchmen will finally make its way to the big screen.
The world of the Watchmen is one radically different from our own, but still the same on several levels. In the early 1930s costumed vigilantes appeared, such as the executioner-themed Hooded Justice and the corporate-sponsored Dollar Bill. This began a trend in America where ordinary people could fight crime in silly costumes.
Things carried on this way until the 1950s, when an accident at a military testing base created the world's first super-powered human. Doctor Manhattan was a real life super man, and he was American. He single-handedly won the Vietnam War for America and helped President Nixon go on to four terms in office due to his overwhelming popularity.
However, by the late 1970s, regular masked vigilantes were becoming unpopular, with people frightened by masked crusaders fighting the fights that regular policemen should be fighting. In 1977 super heroes were outlawed. However, this might prove to be a bad decision; with the rapidly escalating cold war with Russia heating up, the Russians increasingly paranoid at the American threat of Doctor Manhattan.
The story in proper begins in 1985 with the murder of Edward Blake. Thrown through his high rise apartment window, the police can find no motive for Blake's murder. However, costumed vigilante Rorschach discovers that Black was the secret identity of the super hero known as The Comedian. Rorschach believes he has stumbled upon a conspiracy to kill super heroes, and from there the plot tumbles into a labyrinth of interweaving plot points, detailing how all of the world's super heroes, both new and old, active and retired, are tied together by the death of The Comedian.
Part two of this look into the world of The Watchmen will deal with the various super-heroes who populate a world where the atomic clock is set one minute until doomsday.
It won the Hugo Award in 1988 for best science fiction story in other forms, meaning work outside of the realm of novel or short story. It was the only comic found on Time Magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. It was found on Entertainment Weekly's list of the best 50 novels printed in the last 25 years, found in slot number 13.
And it is widely considered, along with Frank Miller's Batman tale, "The Dark Knight Returns," to be one of the works printed during the late 1980s that redefined the comic book industry. Now, this March, Watchmen will finally make its way to the big screen.
The world of the Watchmen is one radically different from our own, but still the same on several levels. In the early 1930s costumed vigilantes appeared, such as the executioner-themed Hooded Justice and the corporate-sponsored Dollar Bill. This began a trend in America where ordinary people could fight crime in silly costumes.
Things carried on this way until the 1950s, when an accident at a military testing base created the world's first super-powered human. Doctor Manhattan was a real life super man, and he was American. He single-handedly won the Vietnam War for America and helped President Nixon go on to four terms in office due to his overwhelming popularity.
However, by the late 1970s, regular masked vigilantes were becoming unpopular, with people frightened by masked crusaders fighting the fights that regular policemen should be fighting. In 1977 super heroes were outlawed. However, this might prove to be a bad decision; with the rapidly escalating cold war with Russia heating up, the Russians increasingly paranoid at the American threat of Doctor Manhattan.
The story in proper begins in 1985 with the murder of Edward Blake. Thrown through his high rise apartment window, the police can find no motive for Blake's murder. However, costumed vigilante Rorschach discovers that Black was the secret identity of the super hero known as The Comedian. Rorschach believes he has stumbled upon a conspiracy to kill super heroes, and from there the plot tumbles into a labyrinth of interweaving plot points, detailing how all of the world's super heroes, both new and old, active and retired, are tied together by the death of The Comedian.
Part two of this look into the world of The Watchmen will deal with the various super-heroes who populate a world where the atomic clock is set one minute until doomsday.