Comments
- on Mar, 16 2009
- in General
It happened – after a constant onslaught of media since I saw the first trailer during The Dark Knight, I finally gave in and started the journey into exploring the Watchmen universe. I just put the motion comic away and I have to say – I can see why people love this so much, but for some reason I just can’t bring myself to calling it the “be all, end all” of graphic novels.
Anyway, the hype train begins with a simple fascination with the character of Rorshach – for some reason, his attitude and “No Shades of Grey” demeanor really appealed to me as I played through the fun beat em up Watchmen: The End is Nigh. This fanboyism was further enhanced with the Watchmen motion comic.
Sure, Nite Owl was a cool dude and Dr. Manhattan was the epitome of a “Super” hero, but Rorshach was clearly the star of the show.
I’m going to delve a bit into spoilerish territory here, so once we ge to below the image of Nite Owl looking aghast at an interrogation, you’re on your own.
I’m just going to outright say this – I hated the ending to Watchmen – I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I can’t speak to any changes they may have made, but I absolutely despise the way the comic ended. It went form being a really realistic-feeling comic book to downright Golden Age tom-foolery. Yes, I get it, Ozymandias wanted to end all war, all destruction, and unite the world like Alexander the Great, but his extremely verbose superhero monologue paired with the overall heavy-handedness of the messages associated with the conclusion remind me less of a great story but more of a Metal Gear Solid story, it’s got some meaning behind it, but the meaning is delivered so bluntly and in such an obnoxious way that I just laughed. The whole world, uniting when New York is attacked? Yeah, we saw that with 9-11 and guess what – the world hates us again – the very idea that humans will suddenly throw down their arms and attack a common, “galactic” enemy is just so implausible that it’s …well.. funny.
What I did agree with, however, is Alan Moore’s choice to kill Rorshach, a character who clearly saw the absurdity of the story and refused to compromise. So, Moore unceremoniously vaporized him (and my interest in the story along with him).
I know I’m late to the party when it comes to passing any type of judgement on Watchmen, but it really hurts to see a comic that had so much promise leading up to the last few chapters suddenly tumble and fall apart.
Maybe I’ll like it better after I see the movie, or maybe I’ll like it better after I read the book again – or maybe, I’ll just keep hating those last few moments in Antarctica.
