W A T C H M E N: A Retrospective

Words by The Curmudgeon. Title image compliments of Green Ornstein.

[WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Alan Moore's 1986 graphic novel, Watchmen. If you haven't read Watchmen, I SERIOUSLY RECOMMEND IT. If you have, or you don't mind the odd spoiler, read on!]

Special thanks to Green Ornstein for providing the title image!

I can’t help but feel a trifle trepidatious over the recent absorption of Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1986) into the rest of the DC Universe. Of course, Moore’s original text was always a property of DC comics, seeing publication under their banner in 1986-87. But it was never a part of the universe which DC had established. This could be taken as implicit, given that none of the flagship franchise heroes of DC’s monopoly make so much as a cameo in Moore’s world. Those familiar with Watchmen will know that there are even major historical events which unfold in its timeline – a major law, for example, which mandates the conscription of superheroes into governmental control – which set it at a tangent from DC’s ongoing mythos. Unfortunately, the fact of infinite earths and inter-dimensional travel – staples of DC’s expansive storytelling – make it so that the aforementioned absorption of Moore’s foundational text is completely possible, and absolutely canon.

The discussion here, however, doesn’t concern the literal possibility of blending Watchmen into the rest of the amorphous glob that is DC’s conglomerate. It’s a matter of whether or not it makes sense to do so. After all, in Moore’s own words, Watchmen seemed to take the mainstream comic “some place that was so completely off-the-map.” (Kavanagh, 2000)

In either case, not everyone is familiar with Watchmen, and some are only as acquainted as cultural osmosis will afford. Don’t worry, I won’t be presuming any prior knowledge. I AM, however, going to be digging in deep for this one, folks, and we’ve got a hell of a lot of ground to cover. So grab a cuppa, sit back, and contemplate the death of American mythology with me.

Oh, and one more thing (one…Moore thing? No? Ah, forget it) …

Curmudgeon Media started out as a film thing. Soon, it became a video games thing, too. And yes, I know, I’m the blog’s resident film guy. And no, I have zero intention of covering any of the cinematic/televisual adaptations in detail because they’re all vastly less interesting. Nonetheless, if y’all wouldn’t mind indulging me for a moment, I’d like to talk the hind leg off a donkey and ramble about the greatest comic book ever written.

Let’s rewind the Doomsday Clock and take things from the beginning, shall we?

**Setting the scene: Where did Watchmen come from?**

Watchmen writer, Alan Moore. Source, IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0600872/mediaviewer/rm4255139584

Our first stop is the mid ‘80s. Alan Moore is an unusual writer, one who cares little for reductive concepts like “high art” or “low art”, etc. As such, Moore “saw comics on the same continuum as novels and movies, and would apply the same critical and creative disciplines.” (Jensen, 2005). As a writer, he breaks the mould, especially where comics are concerned. While most writers were handing over 32-page documents, Moore consistently dealt in 150 pages or more (Jensen, ibid), and according to Watchmen editor Barbara Kessel, “Alan would give you the complete psychological profile of each character, plus the meaning of every object in the environment.” (Jensen, ibid). Moore concocts this revolutionary idea (well, revolutionary for the time): to write a superhero story utilising disused characters, with whom he could basically do whatever he wanted. It would be akin to being handed the keys to an empty block of apartments, and being told to decorate in whichever way pleases you most. Although the ultimate product of Watchmen would deviate from this initial plan, this was the preliminary idea which stoked the flames. Moore states: “Wouldn't it be nice if I had an entire line, a universe, a continuity, a world full of super-heroes—preferably from some line that has been discontinued and no longer publishing—whom I could then just treat in a different way” (Cooke, 2000).

“I'd just started thinking about using the MLJ [comics] characters,” says Moore, “just because they weren't being published at that time, and for all I knew, they might've been up for grabs” (Cooke, ibid). That is to say, Moore was initially planning on hijacking a slew of superheroes from MLJ comics – now Archie comics – with which he could spin a story that would deviate, in some way, from the traditional superhero narrative. Within the world which he would weave, Moore would reveal “a reality that was very different to the general public image of the super-hero” (Cooke, ibid).

Front cover of The MLJ Companion: The Complete History of the Archie Super-Heroes (2016). Copyright - 2016 TwoMorrows Publishing

Obviously, Moore’s proposal was a success, but with one major caveat. Moore wanted to use pre-established, seemingly-abandoned characters which DC had obtained from Charlton Comics. Given the direction in which he planned to take the plot, however, he was met with resistance from Dick Giordano – then vice president/executive editor of DC. Giordano had no intention of handing over a bunch of characters who likely wouldn’t have survived the story. “DC realized their expensive characters would end up either dead or dysfunctional” (Jensen, ibid), thus “couldn't have really used them again after what we were going to do to them without detracting from the power of what it was that we were planning” (Cooke, ibid).

That whole thing about “detracting from the power” of the story is important, but we’ll come back to that. In either case, on with the story!

By Giordano’s recommendation, Moore began shaping his own, original characters using the Charlton superheroes as a template (Cooke, ibid). It’s pretty straightforward to map this out, actually – you can quite easily draw a line connecting Captain Atom to Dr. Manhattan, for example. Both characters are superheroes with a nuclear edge and “the shadow of the atom bomb” looming ominously above them (Cooke, ibid).

Dr. Manhattan (left) and Captain Atom (right).

With the indispensable hands of artist Dave Gibbons and colourist John Higgins, Moore brought Watchmen into fruition.

In Gibbons’ own words, the crew realised that they could create their own archetypes “and tell a story about all superheroes. What were their motivations? How would their very existence change the world?” (Jensen, ibid). Conjunctionally, Moore stated that “the ’80s were worrying. ‘Mutually assured destruction.’ ‘Voodoo economics.’ A culture of complacency… I was writing about times I lived in.” (Jensen, ibid). It can be said, then, that there’s a realist dimension to the story as well as a socio-historical one – two facets which are essential to the fabric and identity of Watchmen.

**What is Watchmen?**

[This segment is aimed specifically at those who aren’t familiar with Watchmen beyond the title, so if you’ve read the comics, feel free to skip ahead to the next section. Otherwise, read on, folks!]

Watchmen begins with a murder. Eddie Blake, the alter-ego of ex-hero The Comedian, is found slathered all over the pavement beneath his skyrise apartment like a disgusting piece of toast. Enter Rorschach (aka Walter Kovacs), the character whose image is most synonymous with Watchmen. Next to the blood-stained smiley, the formless, shifting blobs of Rorschach’s mask are something of an icon. The character’s centrality to the story is befitting of his iconography, though – Rorschach provides most of the narration, and is thus our way-point into the narrative.

Rorschach. Copyright - 1986 DC Comics Inc.

Rorschach is a ruthless, unforgiving vigilante with a penchant for incredible violence. Think The Punisher, but with more film noir, detective-y vibes. At the time of Blake’s death, Rorschach remains the only active masked hero. After surmising that Blake is The Comedian, Rorschach theorises that someone is out for blood – superhero blood. His suspicion of a hero killer throws him into contact with old associates, fellow members of a (now defunct) team of vigilantes called Crimebusters. Among them: Jon Osterman (aka Dr. Manhattan) and his lover, Laurie Juspeczyk (aka Silk Spectre II); Dan Dreiberg (aka Nite Owl II); and Adrian Veidt (aka Ozymandias). For the sake of…I don’t know, time (?)…I’ll leave the plot at that, and visit specific plot elements as and when the occasion arises.

Let’s have a quick look at the rest of these characters!

Nite Owl II is your typical Batman-type deal. He’s got the most elaborate costume of the bunch, he makes his own gadgets, hell, he’s practically got his own Batcave, if not a little toned-down. Beyond that, his abilities mostly revolve around his advanced combat skills. Similar in this regard is Silk Spectre II, though she doesn’t come equipped with a vast array of devices or a utility belt. I lump these two characters together for the fact that they’re the most ordinary of the bunch. They’re basically acrobats with superior aptitude in battle.

Silk Spectre II. Copyright - 1986 DC Comics Inc.

Nite Owl II. Copyright - 1986 DC Comics Inc.

Ozymandias, while also an unparalleled hand-to-hand combatant (and a literal acrobat), is a cut above on account of his ridiculous intellect. Dubbed the “smartest man alive” – a title which he humbly brushes off, for the most part – Veidt’s brain could be considered somewhat superhuman.

Ozymandias. Copyright - 1986 DC Comics Inc.

The Comedian is easily the most morally reprehensible of the roster. Murderer, attempted rapist, gun-toting lunatic - he's made plenty of enemies, and he doesn't care. Even more so, he actively revels in the nihilistic brutality of life. To him, it's nothing but a big joke - hence the name. Next to Dr. Manhattan, The Comedian is among the only masked vigilantes to be willingly conscripted by the government. As such, to describe him as militaristic would be an understatement.

The Comedian. Copyright - 1986 DC Comics Inc.

On a different level entirely is Dr. Manhattan, the only true super-hero of the roster. Boasting an omniscient consciousness and the ability to literally manipulate matter on a molecular level, he’s more-or-less a god. He also perceives all of history at once, he can teleport, and he’s immortal. So…yeah. More-or-less a god.

Dr. Manhattan. Copyright - 1986 DC Comics Inc.

Franchising Watchmen

The intricacies of these characters will be revisited where it’s necessary, but for now, a question: what about this story makes it so that it just doesn’t fit within DC’s mythos?

Well, I suppose we could start with the surface-level stuff. For instance, we’ve established that Moore’s propensity for writing unfathomably detailed and lengthy scripts for his comics was – and still is – a rather unique quality. One might go as far as to say that the depth of his stories make them alien to the standard set by the rest of DC’s canon. This seems a little reductive, though – after all, it’s not like Moore is the only writer capable of delivering a good script. You might also recall that he produced The Killing Joke in 1988 – a take on Batman which has become a staple of The Caped Crusader’s milieu, and a definitive depiction of The Joker. It’s doubtless that Moore’s writing style meshed pretty perfectly with the DC universe in that case; why should Watchmen be any different?

Cover page for The Killing Joke (1988). Copyright - 2008 DC Comics.

If I were to try and put my finger on it, I’d say that Watchmen is an entirely different beast from anything Moore has written before or since. Indeed, he’s got a flare for the gritty and the realistic, but we’re not trading in terms of angsty, edgy, Zack Snyder-brand grit. That kind of grit lacks teeth. What Moore imagines is dour, yes, and it’s violent and sad. But it’s also extremely sincere and serious. Where Snyder overpopulates his stories with angry men growling at each other, and an abundance of the colour grey, Moore tops off every issue of Watchmen with an essay or a biography excerpt. Is this the kind of writing which gels with the rest of the DC?

There’s also the idea (which I promised to revisit) that reusing characters from Moore’s decisive vision would result in “detracting from the power” of their plan. This is a much more sensible explanation – Moore had a definitive idea of what he was going to do, the direction he’d take, who’d live and who’d die, etc. It might be reasonable to suggest that introducing these characters into the overarching world of DC would be “disrespectful” to Moore’s artistic integrity. As far as that’s concerned, no one’s to say but Moore himself. More importantly, however, Moore’s take on superheroes is scrutinising down to their very fabric. The world he creates not only primes the very concept of superheroes for criticism, but carefully calculates a realistic depiction which just doesn’t mesh with anything else in DC’s various, sprawling story lines – or any other comic, for that matter. I’ll expand on this realism soon enough.

Above all, though, there’s the matter of contemporaneity. As previously discussed, Moore was drawing upon events entirely specific to the zeitgeist of the times. His writing was, therefore, grounded inseparably in cold war history and anxieties. Carl F. Miller asserts that “just as crucial as the graphic novel form to the success [of Watchmen]…was the historical moment in which these works were written” (Miller, 2010, p.51). Frankly, that’s all there is to it – the story he imagined is so deeply rooted in the cold war, and depriving it of that context would be to take a wrecking ball to its potency.

That said, you can understand my unease seeing these characters propped up next to the likes of Superman and the rest of these traditional hero-types. Recent instalments like Doomsday Clock (2017-2019) exemplify this. The biggest head-scratcher, I must admit, was seeing that Wally West (The Flash) will become Dr. Manhattan in Generation Zero (forthcoming). Hopefully, as I delve into the next section, the wide berth between the “heroes” of Watchmen and those of traditional comic books will become clear.

Doomsday Clock (2017-2019). Copyright - 2017 DC Comics.

Alan Moore’s Realism and the Death of American Mythology

Cover page for Watchmen (1986). Copyright - 1986 DC Comics Inc.

In contrast to the Golden Age comics of the 1930s and ‘40s, these three Dark Age comics [Crisis on Infinite Earths, Watchmen, and The Dark Knight Returns] spawned a standard of moral ambiguity and the demolition of heroic mythology. (Miller, 2010, p.50)

Initially, I had planned to divide this article into nice, clean sections. My original idea revolved around talking about Moore’s realistic take on the superhero archetype, and then delving into the death of American mythology, separately. But, as my extremely unsuccessful career as an asphalt-paver has taught me, things rarely work out so smoothly. Indeed, Watchmen is not a story so simple as to be neatly picked apart like a fresh corpse, ripe for the autopsying. It’s more like a corpse that’s been stewing underground for a few months, mystifying the cause of death and…uh…

I think this metaphor is getting wildly out-of-hand.

In either case, here’s my point - the realistic take which Moore adopts in Watchmen is so closely intertwined with American mythology that the two can’t reasonably be considered apart from one another.

The question all seven of my readers may be asking is this: what, exactly, does ol’ Curmudgeon mean by mythology? Are we talking about mythology the likes of ancient Greece, something Herculean? Well, the answer is: yes and no. When I say myth I refer to a story with a somewhat folk tradition, belonging to a particular culture. This can mean a Herculean myth, but it could also mean something a little more amorphous. The American Dream is an excellent example of this. In fact, the good ol’, star-spangled, American Dream is something which we’ll return to in subsequent portions of this article.

Superheroes are a form of myth. Umberto Eco’s 1972 text The Myth of Superman outlines this in fairly simple terms:

In an industrial society…where man becomes a number in the realm of the organization which has usurped his decision-making role, he has no means of production and is thus deprived of his power to decide…In such a society the positive hero must embody to an unthinkable degree the power demands that the average citizen nurtures but cannot satisfy. (Eco, 1972, p.14)

So the mythical identity of a superhero is – as you could probably guess – a method of wish-fulfilment for the disenfranchised masses. Eco goes on to state:

…from a mythopoeic point of view…Clark Kent personifies fairly typically the average reader who is harassed by complexes and despised by his fellow men; through an obvious process of self-identification, any accountant in any American city secretly feeds the hope that one day, from the slough of his actual personality, a superman can spring forth who is capable of redeeming years of mediocre existence. (Eco, 1972, p.14)

In the modern world, the flights of fancy of fantastical fables – like those of Superman – are mythological in their fulfilment of a mass, cultural desire. This is something which Moore seemingly recognises and voices in the text itself. Let’s return to Dan Dreiberg, Nite Owl II, for a moment.

In Issue 7, A Brother to Dragons, Dreiberg and Juspeczyk engage in an…awkward sexual encounter. After a fall-out with Dr. Manhattan, Juspeczyk takes refuge in Dreiberg’s home, and the two grow closer by the day. The more we hover the magnifying glass over Dreiberg, the more he resembles Clark Kent, though he isn’t acting. He’s nervous and neurotic in many ways. He’s timid, like a deer in headlights. Most importantly, however, he has long since dropped the cape-and-spandex act for a fairly regular (if not plain) lifestyle. He and Juspeczyk share a romantic moment after she notes his “ravishing” good looks without glasses (perhaps another poetic symmetry with Clark Kent). One thing leads to another, and pretty soon, the clothes come off.

But, like most men his age, he suffers a little…engine trouble, to put it delicately. He’s the real Clark Kent, he’s the disenfranchised, white-collar man of Eco’s musings, his existence is “mediocre.” His impotence is more than just literal – it’s an analog for the impotence experienced by the average Joe.

This is the impotence…I mean…importance of the superhero myth. It’s a manifestation of the desires of the impotent. It’s fitting, then, that it takes a return to vigilantism to cure Dreiberg of his…engine trouble.

So, we’ve explored the mythological aspect a little. How, then, does Moore’s realistic depiction of superheroes tie into mythology, or the death of mythology, as I so absurdly suggested? Well, folks, in for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. Let’s dig deep and dive in.

For the sake of simplicity – or as much simplicity as I can afford with a text as complicated as Watchmen – I’ll hand-pick two characters which I feel perfectly embody Moore’s realistic take. After we have a peek at their respective realism, I’ll try my utmost to explain how they entail a death of mythology.

Dr. Manhattan

There is a prophetic quality to the death of Jon Osterman and the subsequent birth of Dr. Manhattan from his ashes. The non-linear manner in which Dr. Manhattan experiences time makes it so – the events, as he calmly (if not indifferently) narrates to us are inevitable.

The beginning of Osterman’s trajectory is the atomic bomb. August 7^th, 1945: 16 year-old Jon Osterman practises repairing a pocket watch with the aim of becoming a watchmaker (Issue 4, Watchmaker). His father bursts into the room brandishing a newspaper, its front page distinguished by the shape of a mushroom cloud.

“Forget pocket watches, have you seen the news?” his father says. “They dropped the atomic bomb on Japan! A whole city, gone! … Ach! These are no times for a repairer of watches …”

“This changes everything”

By 1958, Osterman graduates with a PhD in atomic physics. The coming of the nuclear age is codified into the character from the start.

By ’59, Osterman falls in love with Janey Slater – a character who’s something of a footnote, but important nonetheless in depicting the inexorable flow of events leading to the incident that changes everything.

Jon Osterman (left) and Janey Slater (right). Copyright - 1986 DC Comics Inc.

“It’s July, 1959. I’m returning to New Jersey on vacation, visiting old university friends. Janey shares the trip from Arizona. Her mother lives in Jersey. She calls home from the station, but nobody answers. We visit the amusement park, killing time until her mother returns.”

When Janey’s watchstrap breaks, “a fat man steps on it” before they can retrieve it. The fat man – obviously a nod to the nuclear bomb of the same name – is the next piece of the puzzle. Osterman fixes her watch, but leaves it in his lab coat in the I.F. chamber.

He returns for the watch, but the chamber door shuts behind him and locks automatically. “The generators warm up for this afternoon’s experiment…”

Indeed, Osterman is fried in the nuclear testing facility. “There’s nothing left to bury.” Shortly after, Dr. Manhattan pieces himself together out of nothing. A news anchor declares: “the superman exists, and he is American.” Janey is scared because “everything’s changed.”

The various references tying Dr. Manhattan to the nuclear phenomenon are numerous, deliberate, and incredibly relevant. Even his name is a reference to the famous Manhattan Project which yielded the first nuclear weaponry. But we’ll come back to that. For now, another question:

What about Moore’s depiction of this “superman” makes it realistic, per se?

Well, let’s revisit ol’ Umberto Eco for a moment:

Each of these heroes is gifted with such powers that he could actually take over the government, defeat the army, or alter the equilibrium of planetary politics. On the other hand, it is clear that each of these characters is profoundly kind, moral, faithful to human and natural laws, and therefore it is right (and it is nice) that he use his powers only to the end of good. (Eco, 1972, p.22)

We’re dealing with beings in possession of astronomical levels of power, yet their undoubtable code of ethics maintains their humanity. But is this not a paradox? Eco goes on to state that an “immortal Superman would no longer be a man, but a god, and the public's identification with his double identity would fall by the wayside” (Eco, 1972, p.16). More important than the public’s identification with the god would be the god’s identification – or lack thereof – with the public. Surely, a creature of superman’s sheer magnitude wouldn’t be human. Dr. Manhattan isn’t human, and Moore is certain to realise this. “It’s February, 1960, and everything is frozen”, says Osterman. “I am starting to accept that I shall never feel cold or warm again.” (Issue 4)

Dr. Manhattan’s divine levels of power make it so that he loses his grasp of humanity. With it, he loses his ability to care. “The morality of my activities escapes me,” he declares as he separates a mobster’s head from his shoulders (Issue 4). To him, we are nothing.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than in Issue 2, Absent Friends. As the remaining ex-members of Crimebusters watch Eddie Blake’s casket descend into the earth, they reflect on their experiences with him. Having both been conscripted to assist with Vietnam war-efforts, Osterman and Blake listen to distant fireworks from the interior of a bar on V.V.N. Night.

The two are approached by a pregnant, Vietnamese woman, carrying Blake’s child. Blake – being the upstanding citizen that he is – shirks his responsibility, aggressively so. “I cannot walk away from what grows in my belly,” she says to him. “Well, that’s unfortunate, because that’s just what I’m gonna do…forget you, forget your cruddy little country, all of it.”

In a blind rage, she slashes Blake’s face with the greeting end of a broken bottle. Mutilated and bleeding, Blake shoots the pregnant woman to death, right before Osterman’s eyes. Osterman weakly protests: “Blake, don’t do it.”

Blake does, however, make a pertinent and harrowing point. Indeed, he shot her dead, but what did Osterman do? What did the most powerful being on the planet do to stop him?

“You coulda changed the gun into steam or the bullets into mercury or the bottle into snowflakes…but you didn’t lift a finger!” … “You’re drifting outta touch, Doc. You’re turnin’ into a flake…”

“…God help us all…”

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Dr. Manhattan might be acquainted with the increasing distance between himself and the human race as the story progresses. Unlike the archetypal superman, Dr. Manhattan is not all-good or all-noble. The moral fabric of the superman upon which the myth is teetering has totally collapsed. Moore doesn’t just subvert the “myth of superman” of which Eco writes – he kills it.

Moore’s choice to synonymise Dr. Manhattan with the nuclear phenomenon is also noteworthy, here. In this sense, it could be said that he uses the real world reaction to the atomic bomb as a way of rendering his fictional world’s reaction in a more realistic light. This is written into the text in various ways, both subtle and overt. Little details, such as the ‘fat man’ who shatters Janey’s pocket watch, or the parallel reaction of Osterman’s father and Janey to Hiroshima and Osterman’s transformation, respectively (both declaring that “everything has changed”). Arguably, the most essential parallel occurs in Issue 4, after Dr. Manhattan is conscripted by the US government to intervene in the Vietnam war.

“It’s May. I have been here two months. The Vietcong are expected to surrender within the week. Many have given themselves up already…”

“Often, they ask to surrender to me personally, their terror of me balanced by an almost religious awe. I am reminded of how the Japanese were reported to have viewed the atomic bomb, after Hiroshima.”

Much akin to the world’s sublimation of the nuclear phenomenon – in a horrifying sort of way – the coming of Dr. Manhattan is met with a very real sense of awe and dread, in equal measure. Moore’s deliberate employment of nuclear iconography makes Dr. Manhattan’s effect on the world significantly more real. Consequently, it completely shatters the popularised depiction of the superman who sees naught but adoration and praise. The myth is beginning to rot.

There’s more to be said of Moore’s nuclear references, but we’ll come back to that in due course. In either case…

It’s also worth noting that the concept of change – hard, irrefutable change – is as central to Dr. Manhattan as the atomic metaphor. However, this change and the nuclear age cannot be considered separately. As Mary C. Brennan suggests, “The development of hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union seemed to make the world a more dangerous place by creating the potential for armed conflict. In a nuclear age, that potential threatened even to include civilians in small towns and large cities in the American heartland” (Brennan, 2008, p.13). Simply put, the event of nuclear armament ushered in an age of anxiety for the potential of worldwide destruction. This destruction, as Brennan recognises, is felt in its totality by the domestic masses. With that in mind, “1986 stands as a point in the future [in Watchmen] … a future whose very existence is threatened by the possibility of nuclear annihilation” (Miller, 2010, p.51). What myth, exactly, is being killed in this instance?

This question is a little harder to answer, and is a whole lot more…nebulous. In this case, it’s less of a myth that’s being sent to the chopping block so much as it is the death of a way of living – the fabric of American life itself. As Prof. Milton Glass suggests in Issue 4, “I do not believe we have a man to end wars. I believe that we have made a man to end worlds” – echoing the sentiment that the nuclear bomb was the “weapon to end wars.” In this light: “We are all of us living in the shadow of Manhattan.

As Brennan so aptly points out, the anxiety over nuclear oblivion - which even permeated domestic life - is expertly woven into Moore’s depiction of the superman. It wouldn’t be unusual to draw a connotative link to the haunting words of J. Robert Oppenheimer – the ‘father’ of the atomic bomb – “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

As you’ve probably noticed, there’s an almost religious stigmatism surrounding Dr. Manhattan – from the sublime terror thrust upon him by the Vietcong, to the sheer sense of divine cataclysm evoked by his connection to Oppenheimer’s famous quote. Glass provides a particularly redolent statement:

God exists, and he’s American. If that statement starts to chill you after a couple of moments’ consideration, then don’t be alarmed. A feeling of intense and crushing religious terror at the concept indicates only that you are still sane. (Issue 4)

This brings us neatly onto the final – and in many ways, most disturbing – aspect of Dr. Manhattan’s application to the death of mythology. The thing with Jon Osterman is that he represents more than just the death of the superman myth. He embodies the death of the greatest myth of the Western world – the death of God.

The sheer religiosity with which people view and describe Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen leaves a lingering sense that he has usurped God. What’s unique about the above quote (“God exists…etc.”) is that Osterman has quite literally taken God’s place, semantically. He has killed God, and now he wears his skin, whether he chooses to or not. But his omniscient, all-knowing, all-encompassing consciousness makes him privy to that which some do not want to know. Perhaps the single most essential quote from Osterman throughout the entire saga is this:

Who makes the world? Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there. A clock without a craftsman. (Issue 4)

What of this death of God? What does it matter? A quote from J. Edgar Hoover comes to mind. “Without God as the center,” he stated, “there would be no moral guidelines, and society would fall into chaos. Not only would Americans lose their everyday freedoms, but their families would be destroyed as well.” (Brennan, 2008, p.16) Of course, such a notion is reactionary and just a little bit…you know…stupid. But, the point remains: in a cold war world, the existence of such a being as Dr. Manhattan means the usurping of God. And, without God, the mythological framework begins to fall apart. In other words, “This scenario contrasted sharply with the American ideal” (Brennan, 2008, p.16). You might also recall Nietzsche harbouring this very belief (yes, I’m referencing Nietzsche, as pretentious and edgy as it may sound). Warburton helpfully summarises:

If God is dead, what comes next? That’s the question Nietzsche asked himself. His answer was that it left us without a basis for morality. Our ideas of right and wrong and good and evil make sense in a world where there is a God. They don’t in a godless one. Take away God and you take away the possibility of clear guidelines about how we should live, which things to value. (Warburton, 2011, p.172)

I’d like to say “that’s that” as far as this whole death of God business is concerned, but really, we’re just getting started. There’s a hell of a lot more to discuss, and it doesn’t end with Dr. Manhattan. Next up on the agenda, it’s the face (can I call it a face?) that most people would associate with Watchmen: Rorschach.

Rorschach

The life of Walter Kovacs is something of a tragedy. Before we get into the thick of things, it’s important to map out the key bullet points…

His mother was a prostitute. The silhouette of her writhing body in the embrace of a (yet another) nameless man is an image etched into his brain since youth. That particular mental picture is perhaps one which has been hammered into his memory by the back of his mother’s closed fist.

His childhood isn’t exactly the epitome of the dream, urban landscape. It seems that Kovacs was exposed to the seediness of humanity from day one. Next thing you know, it’s 1951. Little, innocent Wally is putting out a lit cigarette in the eye of a teenage tormentor. They grow up so fast…

Fast-forward to 1956. “When informed of his mother’s brutal murder, he restricted his comments to one word…”

“Good.” (Issue 6, The Abyss Gazes Also)

1956 is the same year he finds “unskilled” manual work in the garments industry. He’s 16 years old. Fast-forward again to 1962: he finds himself entranced with a fascinating dress – “viscous fluids between two layers latex; heat and pressure sensitive. Customer young girl, Italian name. Never collected order. Said dress looked ugly.” (Issue 6)

In case you were curious, it is from this bizarre, shifting-pattern dress that Rorschach creates his iconically unusual mask. It’s his observations of the shapes, however, that are most interesting:

“Not ugly at all. Black and white. Moving. Changing shape…but not mixing. No grey. Very, very beautiful.” (Issue 6).

In case you hadn’t guessed, this is symbolism. “No grey,” he says…hint hint…Regardless, we’ll come back to that in due course.

It’s 1964, now, and the same woman who abandoned the dress makes the front page of the New York Gazette. The chalk outline of a body punctuates the headline: “WOMAN KILLED WHILE NEIGHBOURS LOOK ON.” (Issue 6)

“Raped. Tortured. Killed…Almost forty neighbours heard screams. Nobody did anything…some of them even watched. I knew what people were, then…” (Issue 6)

It is this epiphany which seems to allure Kovacs into fighting crime. In many ways, Kovacs represents how Moore’s methodology seems to invite realism. He imagines, deeply, exactly what kind of person, what kind of psychology, it would take to drive someone into compulsive vigilantism. In Rorschach’s case, the answer is quite simple: he's insane. This hearkens back to editor Barbara Kessel’s sentiments on Moore’s tendency to methodically explore his character’s psyche and cognition (Jensen, ibid). The realism in this case is more an example of realisation. That is to say, Moore very thoroughly realises his characters before the ink hits the paper. The sheer, violent extremes of his life experiences have driven him into an almost nihilistic degree of pessimism. “I think you’ve been conditioned with a negative world view” says his psychoanalyst – “It’s as if continual contact with society’s grim elements has shaped him into something grimmer, something even worse.” The realisation of these extremes through Kovacs’ development are integral to his philosophy, but again, we’ll get to that. Regardless, the psychological element is among the most realistic ways Moore is able to render the behaviour of these vigilantes. Note this line in particular: “We do not do this thing because it is permitted…we do it because we are compelled.” This very compulsion almost seems to capture the symptom of some form of psychological condition, like reading back the testimony of a serial killer.

So, what do we get when we combine this authentic realisation of a vigilante’s psychology and exposure to only the harshest extremes of the human condition? More importantly, in what way does this relate to the death of superhero mythology?

Let’s start with the first question, to which I say two words: moral absolutism.

Remember the “black and white but no grey” shtick from earlier? That, right there, is the symbolic manifestation of Rorschach’s belief in moral absolutism. In case that term leaves you a little cold, I’ll expound: simply put, moral absolutism revolves around the core tenet that there is such a thing as an objective good, an objective bad, and no in-between. The moral absolutist would suggest that actions have an intrinsic value: right or wrong. Additionally, Kovacs' ideology is "absolutist in that it does not allow for any exceptions or compromise" (Kreider, 2013, p.98). It would appear that Kovacs’ intimate relationship with the extremes of human nature have indoctrinated him into the belief in moral extremes, also.

What is the issue with moral absolutism? Where does Kovacs’ ideology begin to falter?

In order to answer this, it’s imperative that we take a look at the ending of Watchmen. Over the course of Issues 11 and 12 (Look On My Works, Ye Mighty and A Stronger Loving World, respectively), it is revealed that Adrian Veidt, Ozymandias, is behind Eddie Blake’s murder. On a different scale entirely, Veidt is behind a detailed and convoluted plan to bring about the end of the cold war. The setup for Veidt’s plan and the conclusion to Watchmen is as sprawling as it is complex, so I’ll keep this as simple as possible.

Veidt explains that his escapades as a vigilante faced him with a mounting sense of failure. To fight crime is to fight a symptom rather than a cause. Indeed, the world’s problems are much larger than any one spandex-touting ‘hero’ can comprehend. He recalls a face-off with Eddie Blake in Issue 11: “He discussed nuclear war’s inevitability; described my future role as ‘smartest guy on the cinder’ … and opened my eyes. Only the best comedians accomplish that.”

“I swore to deny his kind their last black laugh at Earth’s expense.”

So how, you might be wondering, could Veidt manage to curb the cold war? How could he bring an end to mutually-assured destruction? The answer is: a hoax. “Unable to unite the world by conquest…I would trick it; frighten it towards salvation with history’s greatest practical joke” (Issue 11). He continues: “to frighten governments into co-operation, I would convince them that Earth faced imminent attack by beings from another world.” Simply put, Veidt persuasively fakes an alien invasion. As part of his plan – and as part of keeping the threat convincing – Veidt sees to the death of an entire city of innocent people.

Interestingly, Veidt’s plan echoes a speech from Ronald Reagan in 1985:

I couldn't help at one point in our discussions privately with General Secretary Gorbachev, when you stop to think we're all God's children wherever we may live in the world, I couldn't help but say to him: Just think how easy [your] task and mine might be in these meetings that we held, if suddenly there was a threat to this world from some other species from another planet, outside in the universe. We'd forget all the little local differences that we have between our countries, and we would find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this Earth together. (Miller, 2010, p.67)

Veidt is, undoubtedly, a mass-murderer. Unfortunately, he leaves his fellow heroes in an uncomfortable position. They could bring him to justice, yes. However, to do so would be to reveal that the hoax alien assault is exactly that – a hoax. The deaths of all those people would be for nothing, and the planet would continue to cruise into nuclear catastrophe. A vow of silence is the only course of action, the ‘heroes’ agree. All, except Rorschach.

Such a situation confounds any morally absolute thinker. Is it possible to do something bad for good reason? Is it "ever morally acceptable to sacrifice the interests of a few for the greater good of the many?" (Kreider, 2013, p.97). I won’t answer that question here – frankly, I ain't smart enough - but the very existence of such a question completely shatters Rorschach’s philosophy. “Never compromise” … “Evil must be punished.” (Issue 12).

In the end, Rorschach is forced to confront the flaws inherent to his ideology. When apprehended by Dr. Manhattan – who understands the necessity to keep Veidt’s secret – he cannot concede to the truth. Even when met with a situation more nuanced that his code of ethics can grasp, he refuses to yield. Either Dr. Manhattan kills him, or he leaks the information in the name of 'justice,' and the deaths of countless innocents is for nothing. As his ideology collapses in on itself, he practically begs for death, through tears.

Rorschach decides to remain true to his value system, even though it could lead to the death of every person on earth, himself included. (Kreider, 2013, p.98)

Moore has no shortage of criticisms of moral absolutism. After all, it is an expressly right-wing type of agenda, and Moore is quite openly left-wing. It would be no stretch of the imagination to call Watchmen a left-wing text. In fact, Moore openly admits that comic writer Steve Ditko (known mostly for Spider-Man, and an outwardly right-wing thinker) partly inspired the character of Rorschach. In his own words: “Steve Ditko did have a very right-wing agenda (which of course, he's completely entitled to) …that probably led to me portraying [Watchmen character] Rorschach as an extremely right-wing character.” (Cooke, 2000).

This reveal of right-wing extremist philosophy isn’t just inherent to Rorschach. It forms a large part of Moore’s deconstruction of the myth of superheroes as a whole. Take Ditko’s own Spider-Man, for example. No, I’m not claiming that Spider-Man is right-wing. But consider this: the moment Peter Parker’s justicial fist pummels the face of a petty criminal, has he not made a lofty judgement as to an objective moral dichotomy? More importantly – and this is where the holes in moral absolutism really begin to show – what does it say about a character like Spider-Man if he was so ready to award himself the power to make that distinction between the good and bad - the deserving and undeserving of his violent “peace-keeping”?

Let’s talk about Eddie Blake, The Comedian, for a moment. If The Comedian demonstrates anything, it’s just how easily this absolute code of ethics can teeter over the edge into tyranny and fascism. It is here that we can begin to understand how Moore debases the superhero mythology by chipping away at such characters’ absolution.

An example, to make sense of this: In the 1970s, the world experiences an aggressive uprising against masked vigilantes. This uprising is what leads to the passing of the Keene act in 1977 – an act mandating the government conscription (and regulation) of vigilante behaviour – and we’ll come back to the Keene act shortly. Before we do, however, it’s interesting to observe how The Comedian chooses to contain the situation.

We’re in Issue 2, Absent Friends, and It’s 1977. Denizens are protesting in the streets. It gets a little rowdy – sandwich boards are flying, cans and rocks are thrown haphazardly. It’s looking like it could teeter over into a full-blown riot, if it isn’t one already. Nite Owl II attempts diplomacy – “Please,” he says, “if everybody will just clear the streets…”

Before Nite Owl can finish speaking, The Comedian takes a more…confrontational route. “Lissen, you little punks, you better get back in your rat holes! I got riot gas, I got rubber bullets…” It doesn’t take long before the knives are out and the gas grenades are a-flyin’.

The striking imagery of the protesting masses, silenced by a violent tyrant…it sure does scream “oppression,” doesn’t it? When an individual assigns themselves not just the power to discern between an objective good and bad, but also the authority to act upon it, it can so quickly devolve into fascism. Rorschach’s outspoken admiration of Eddie Blake is something of a red flag, then. In issue 6, as he sings Blake’s praises, he simply states that The Comedian “understood man’s capacity for horrors and never quit. Saw the world’s black underbelly and never surrendered. Once a man has seen, he can never turn his back…no matter who orders him to look the other way.” Accompanying these words is the image of a broken, bloodied man, struggling on the floor of an alleyway. Rorschach walks away from his victim in the background. What is the horrendous crime the man committed to deserve such absolute justice? He dared to protest the self-appointed authority of men like Blake – men like Kovacs. The Comedian, Rorschach – these are devices with which Moore calls forth the decay of the myth of superheroes.

There’s a greater force at play, though. One which constitutes not just the death of the superhero myth, but also the death of a certain way of living, to reiterate previous comments. To understand this, we need to ask a prevalent question: why are people rioting? Why, exactly, would the world turn their back on the vigilantes it once heralded as heroes?

To answer that, we need to return to that motif of the death of God once more.

There’s a particular three-panel spread from Issue 6 which I chose to title this section, and there’s a reason for that. Within the three panels, Rorschach expresses his own, individual musings over the death of God and the moral wasteland He leaves behind. The setup for these panels is crucial to understanding Rorschach’s trajectory, and crucial for comprehending his uncompromising lack of mercy.

After having pursued a lead for the kidnapper of a 6 year-old girl, Rorschach discovers that said kidnapper has, in fact, killed her. I won’t go into details here, but he doesn’t just kill the child – he brutalises her. The discovery of this fact sends Kovacs over the edge. “It was Kovacs who closed his eyes. It was Rorschach who opened them again.”

Indeed, it’s symbolic of Kovacs transformation into the mask and his plunge into the abyss. Of course, he kills the kidnapper. It is his first kill, and he burns him alive inside his apartment. And as he stares into the plumes of smoke rising from the building, he says this:

“Looked at the sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever, and we are alone.” (Issue 6)

It is ironic that the extremities of his experience should push Kovacs into his unique brand of moral absolution. The irony lies in the fact that such an absolution disappears in the very absence of God which Kovacs, himself, notices. To reiterate J. Edgar Hoover’s panicked claims; without God, the moral guidelines blur, and it is to the detriment of the “American ideal” (Brennan, ibid). To recapitulate Warburton paraphrasing Nietzsche: “Our ideas of right and wrong and good and evil make sense in a world where there is a God. They don’t in a godless one.” (Warburton, ibid).

In this “godless” world, so to speak, how can anyone abide vigilantes? How can anyone stomach a rigid, binary moral framework exercised by executioners when the moral guidelines are no longer so clean cut? That is why people are rioting. And, given Blake’s attempt to violently silence the protesters, who can blame them? It’s all in the text – the death of God, the death of moral assurance. But, observe this iconic interaction between Nite Owl and The Comedian as they control the protests in Issue 2:

“The country is disintegrating” says Dreiberg. “What’s happened to America? What’s happened to the American Dream?”

Blake’s response is essential: “It came true. You’re lookin’ at it.”

There’s an overwhelming sense, here, that the myth of the ideal American lifestyle has begun to crumble. But it isn’t that the rioting, the debauchery, the violence killed it. This is it – Blake states quite clearly. This violence is a result of the kind of moral authoritarianism embodied by masked heroes. It is the child of a society which once was founded on the moral binarism embodied by religiosity and the American ideal aforementioned by Hoover. The issue is that the death of God – the death of moral binarism – made it unpalatable. That is why the myth has died.

**Who Watches the Watchmen (or, who cares)?**

There’s no doubt that Watchmen is an incredible piece of writing. After all, Time Magazine even went so far as to include it among their list of the best novels published in the English language between 1923-2010 (see more of that here). That’s one hell of an accolade. Moore’s deft deconstruction – or scathing criticism – of the superhero archetype etches away at their mythology, and the mythology peripheral to their grim tales. It is for this reason that Watchmen is so unique, and such a joy a revisit in retrospect. It sets itself apart from the DC universe, and the complex vigilantes concealed in its pages share so little with the rest of the genre.

Even so, I can’t escape this feeling that Watchmen has been more than a little misunderstood by some. This is a sentiment which Moore, himself, recognises. In an interview, Moore stated:

I originally intended Rorschach to be a warning about the possible outcome of vigilante thinking. But an awful lot of comics readers felt his remorseless, frightening, psychotic toughness was his most appealing characteristic — not quite what I was going for. (Jensen, ibid)

Where does that leave us? The misplaced romanticism of Rorschach’s ruthless drive isn’t just a misunderstanding of the character. It’s a misunderstanding of Moore’s entire critique, and a huge portion of the text.

Indeed, there are some (possibly right-wing) thinkers who sling perhaps unwarranted praise in Rorschach’s direction, and they’re entitled to. But it doesn’t stop at that. Of course, Watchmen has seen two cinematic adaptations: Zack Snyder’s 2009 film, and the current HBO series (2019-). Are either of them up to the standard set by Alan Moore?

The short answer is – in my opinion – no. The Snyder film is mostly faithful, and it finds some creative ways to adapt the more medium-specific stuff. The Prof. Milton Glass essay, for example, the key points of which Snyder truncates into a television interview. The movie lacks depth, though, which is likely a symptom of its length compared to the longer form of the graphic novel. For instance, the scene mapping the timeline leading to Jon Osterman’s transformation leaves all the interesting, nuclear imagery – the fat man stepping on the watch, Osterman’s father and Hiroshima – tossed to the cutting-room floor. It maintains only the essentials to convey the basic plot elements. Unfortunately, adopting this kind of methodology is to deprive Watchmen of its substance, subtext, and unique charm. It’s salvaged by some strong performances from the likes of Billy Crudup and Jackie Earle Haley – Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach, respectively – but it also throws some characters to the wayside. Laurie Juspeczyk, for example, who suffers serious underexposure in Snyder’s film, and a frankly awful performance from Malin Åkerman. Snyder’s film does, however, fall into the trap of overly-romanticising Rorschach. Snyder just can’t help himself, it would seem. He’s got a fetish for gruff badasses, and presents the most gruffly badass Rorschach imaginable.

The HBO series makes up for this in many ways. In the series’ timeline, Rorschach is dead, and a hauntingly KKK-esque cult is left in his place. They martyr him, wrongfully so. Although the HBO rendition capitalises on Kovacs absurdly right-wing agenda which Moore intended, it simplifies it in a way which fails to capture the nuance of the original. It trades in the intricacies of moral absolutism, American mythology and ideology, and the various concepts central to the cold war zeitgeist. In their place, it wears a much simpler colour of “right-wing extremism = bad.” And they’re correct, I suppose. Right-wing extremism does equal bad…but I still feel a little…cheated.

Then again, the HBO series side-steps most of the issues one might find with adaptations by basically…not being an adaptation. Its story is mostly divorced from the 12-part comic which preceded it. It sort of goes in its own direction, although this is certain to present its own problems. As addressed, it lacks nuance, especially when stacked against its legendary source material. More specifically, however: they’re competing with one of the greatest writers of all time. Damon Lindelof, on the other hand…well, let’s just put it this way: I’m fairly sure he delivers all of his scripts scrawled on the back of a used napkin.

But then again, there’s the question of whether or not Watchmen should be adapted at all. As it turns out, Watchmen nearly saw itself on the silver screen in the late ‘80s, with Terry Gilliam (Brazil [1985], 12 Monkeys [1995]) set to direct (Jensen, ibid). Of course, the project never came into fruition, but the original screenwriter, Sam Hamm (Batman [1989]) had this to say:

I was coming off writing Batman when I was asked to take a whack at it. I thought it too unwieldy to compress into two hours. The comic really is a spectacular piece of architecture. Trying to replicate it [was] just impossible. (Jensen, ibid)

If you’re familiar with Moore, you might have noticed that the author takes a rigid stance against the adaptation of his work:

My book is a comic book. Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book. It’s been made in a certain way, and designed to be read a certain way: in an armchair, nice and cosy next to a fire, with a steaming cup of coffee. Personally, I think that would make for a lovely Saturday night. (Jensen, ibid)

Maybe, with that in mind, a retrospective on Watchmen is all there should be, and we should leave it at that. It’s been and it’s gone – the cold war is over. But who’s to say…?

A message from the writer...

Hello there, folks! If you made it this far, I've got something to say to you...

Thank you. Seriously, thank you.

I've been mulling over writing this for a hell of a long time, and it's been challenging. I haven't attempted anything of this magnitude before.

I also understand that lengthy pieces of analytical writing aren't exactly all the rage these days. But that's why I feel the need to sincerely thank those who're reading this little epilogue.

I worked really hard to produce this article, and it's become truly special to me. I hope that you got something out of reading it, too.

In either case, I'll be seeing y'all in the next one. It'll be a nice, short, digestible one - you can be sure of that. Bibliography is down below, just in case you're interested.

Take care, folks. Yours,

The Curmudgeon

Bibliography

Brennan, Mary C. “The Cold War World,” in Wives, Mothers, and the Red Menace: Conservative Women and the Crusade against Communism. Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 2008:13-30.
Cooke, Jon B. “Toasting Absent Heroes: Alan Moore discusses the Charlton-Watchmen Connection.” Two Morrows, Jun. 16^th, 2000. Accessible from: https://www.twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/09moore.html
Eco, Umberto. “The Myth of Superman.” Trans. Natalie Chilton. Diacritics vol.2, no.1 (1972):14-22.
Jensen, Jeff. “Watchmen: An Oral History.” Entertainment Weekly, Oct. 21^st, 2005. Accessible from: https://ew.com/books/2005/10/21/watchmen-oral-history/
Johns, Geoff. Doomsday Clock. Burbank CA: DC Comics, 2017-2019.
Kavanagh, Barry. “Marvelman, Swamp Thing and Watchmen.” Blather.net, Oct. 17^th, 2000. Accessible from: http://www.blather.net/projects/alan-moore-interview/marvelman-swamp-thing-watchmen/
Kreider,S. Evan. “Who Watches the Watchmen? Kant, Mill, and Political Morality in the Shadow of Manhattan” in Homer Simpson Ponders Politics: Popular Culture as Political Theory ed. Joseph J. Foy & Timothy M. Dale. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013:97-111.
Miller, Carl F. “Worlds Lived, Worlds Died: The Graphic Novel, the Cold War, and 1986.” CEA Critic vol.2, no.3 (2010):50-70.
Moore, Alan. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics Inc, 1986.
Warburton, Nigel. “The Death of God,” in A Little History of Philosophy. London: Yale University Press, 2011:171-175.

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