FAMILYFANS Books & Comics

WATCHMEN

by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

(DC Comics)

Reader Appeal: Teens to adults

Genre: Graphic novel /

Soon to be a major motion picture, Watchmen stands out among the ranks of graphic novels. It’s the book that launched the popularity of the graphic novel format. It’s the only graphic novel on Time’s list of the 100 greatest novels of the twentieth centuries. In writing it, the author saw himself as attempting to create the equivalent of a comic Moby Dick. And reading it, you can’t help but notice that this is an entirely different kind of venture from the usual superhero story. When it comes to Watchmen, don’t expect the X-men, don’t expect Captain America, and don’t expect things to wrap up neatly and happily. This is a book that deals with the dark side of humanity, and to be honest, I’m not sure I want this one to be made into a movie.

Understanding the plot of Watchmen is both pretty simple and pretty complex. On the one hand, it’s about a small group of superheroes trying to figure out who’s behind the murder of one of their own, and what dastardly plot he uncovered that led to his death. On the other hand, it’s a tangled tale that snarls through the backstories of half a dozen major characters, political intrigue, temporal confusion, human moral failures, insane quests for vengeance, and a plan to manipulate the entire human race. It’s a story in which it’s hard to say who the heroes are, and where the most heroic-seeming of the characters are the least human.

In the world of Watchmen (not a hero group but a poetic quote that crops up a lot in the book), only the godlike Dr. Manhattan has real superhuman powers, though the rich entrepreneur Ozymandias possesses intelligence, speed, and strength beyond anything seen before in the human race. Nite Owl is retired and festering in his own irrelevance, Silk Specter is conflicted and lonely in her relationship with Dr. Manhattan. The Comedian is little more than a government mercenary, and Rorschach (the main protagonist) is a merciless vigilante on the run from the police. Most of these people have done terrible things, many in the name of the greater good (thus the recurrent adaptation of the classic Latin phrase: "who will watch the watchmen?"), and even if they haven’t done them they’ve at least allowed them to be done. The world is a dark and troubled place, with the doomsday clock constantly ticking down to midnight. In a world like this, there are no straightforward heroes or moral compass, only flawed people and the choices they make.

There are a lot of unusual elements in here that make this more than the average comic book. Large portions of the book consist of flashbacks, and the pages are interspersed with bits of materials referenced in the story, like pages from the original Nite Owl’s autobiography, excerpts from (fictional) literature and scientific papers, pieces of personal correspondence, newspaper cuttings, etc. All of them serve to expand and give depth to the world and fill in its history. The story is also expanded through the perspectives of several minor characters, such as the policemen investigating the Comedian’s death (the catalyst for the story), the psychologist treating Rorschach, a newspaper vendor, and a kid who is reading the comic within the comic Tales of the Black Freighter. There’s a lot of creativity here, and Alan Moore goes way beyond the usual limitations of the genre.

Now, given all that I’ve mentioned, it’s not easy to make a judgment about a graphic novel as popular and as critically acclaimed as Watchmen. It’s like the Bible (for graphic novel fans). But, for the sake of those of you who are thinking about reading it or buying it for someone else to read, or taking your kids to see the movie, I’ll give my opinion as a reader, as a reviewer, and as a Christian.

I didn’t like this book.

After finishing it, I wasn’t glad that I’d had the experience of reading it. I won’t be seeing the movie, if I can help it. Despite being acclaimed as one of the greatest works of fiction of the last century, I cannot, on any level, recommend this book except as a study in popular psychology (why is it so beloved?). I can see exactly how this book fits into Time’s list of the greatest novels (the same way No Country for Old Men fit into the academy’s list of the greatest movies). But I really didn’t like it.

As a reader, there was very little to enjoy in this book. Everyone is depressed, everyone is paranoid, everyone’s lives are tawdry and meaningless. The comic within the comic, Tales of the Black Freighter, intrudes on the plot and drags on for page after page of over the top “I began my descent into madness, scarcely dreaming of the depths to which my black and hideous, soul-wrenching, blood-soaked, dementia-inducing journey would descend, etc, etc.” Most of the other accessory materials (like the biography), though sometimes amusing, I found ultimately tiresome.

Seeing through the eyes of some of the minor characters did serve to expand the story and provided it with one of its only two truly powerful moments, but it wasn’t enough to redeem the book for me. The two moments I mention, Rorschach’s momentary flash of sympathy for a terrified family and a man’s effort to put himself between a child and inevitable death, were the only bright spots of humanity in an otherwise tiresomely dark and dismal melodrama.

As a reviewer, I have to give Alan Moore credit for taking what is sometimes a shallow genre to a realm of serious and complex human, moral, and philosophical struggles, and the art really backs up the story and does a great job communicating the right mood at the right moments. Science fiction at its best allows us to explore the world we live in by writing it a little larger than if you followed the traditional rules of what can and cannot exist. By approaching the fundamental problem of who keeps a watch on those in authority through the actions of superheroes, supermen whose god-and-judge-like actions on the behalf of the greater good may themselves be questionable, Moore makes the issue very interesting and approachable and gives us a grand picture through a worst-case-scenario analogy (sorry to be so wordy). Unfortunately, thanks to the Cold War Paranoia and nihilism, the discussion doesn’t really go anywhere and there are no positive elements, suggestions, or possibilities. In a world where there is no defined meaning or moral compass, what significance can moral denunciations have?

As a Christian, I have to ask, what’s so amazing about showing just how awful people can be? It’s not as if finding evil is really very difficult. This book, like many of the twentieth century’s most famous novels, depicts the world as a dark, twisted place full of the most awful atrocities, some spectacular, some everyday. And sometimes we need to be reminded of the existence of real evil to keep us on our guard and keep us fighting for good. There’s nothing to compare in here, though, to what I’ve read in just the last week in international news. The truth is, evil is easy to write, it’s easy to imagine, because anything you might come up with is right at your fingertips, either in the news or in our own hearts. As C.S. Lewis once said, it’s a lot easier to imagine something far worse than yourself than it is to imagine something far better than yourself. And in that area Alan Moore has no imagination. The book ends up being unbalanced and unrealistic by failing to picture anything but human misery and moral failure.

In a way, Watchmen is the anti-Dark Knight. Comparing these two stories is very interesting. Both are dark and violent. Both deal with the problem of how good people (self-proclaimed heroes in particular) can possibly deal with a world that is so chaotic and cruel. But both have very different endings and messages.  What’s amazing about The Dark Knight, and what makes it more true to life and significant, is not the fact that decent people can end up doing bad things (for the sake of supposed good or as a result of staring into the chaos too much), but that such events inspire some people to do and become something far better. The Rwandan genocide was terrible. Just seeing it was enough to drive many people to despair. But what’s even more amazing is how seeing the same thing drove some people, like Gary Haugen (who founded International Justice Mission), to become more than he was, to act, to become a real hero, and to raise others up with him. If the darkness is all there is, what’s the point of looking at it? And the message of Watchmen is worse than darkness. As the psychiatrist muses at one point while looking at an ink blot, the real tragedy isn’t just that the blot looks more like a rotting animal carcass than a spreading tree, no matter how much he tries to convince himself otherwise; the real tragedy is that, in the end, it’s just a meaningless blot of ink.

Take my advice: If you do read or go see Watchmen, make sure to watch The Dark Knight afterward, and maybe take some time to read the stories of people like Gary Haugen or Everett Swanson or Mother Teresa. It might be a little off topic, but you’ll be better off for it. As for the question of who will watch the Watchmen? Certainly not my family.

FAMILYFANS RATING: B+ (for style) and D- (for content)

AFTER THE STORY

If your family members are interested in this book, then encourage discussion about it afterward. You can use these questions to get started:

• Of all the “heroes” in this book, who do you think comes of as the most heroic in the end? Why?

• Presented with the kind of moral dilemma the characters faced at the end of the book, who do you think was in the right?

• What do you think the significance of the Tales of the Black Freighter story was? Did its ending or anything else cast doubts for you on the “happy” ending?

• What do you think the final message is that this book is meant to convey?

--MV

Note: All book or comics-related graphics in this column are standard publicity/promotional shots and are owned by their respective publisher.