Watchmen comic, I am sorry. I am really, really, really, sorry. In my Watchmen movie review, I was really nasty to you. Said you were another generic comic about people doning spandex. I didn’t see, I just didn’t see: I didn’t see your literary genious, your premise to end all spandex wearing super hero comics for ever. Will you ever forgive me?
The story should be known by now, but I can quote how it all started: “Last night, a comedian died.” It’s the first domino in a series of ever more (psychologically) gruesome sequences leading to a stunning (but very confusing) conclusion. It’s the typical voice of the eighties: the world sucks and we can’t do anything about it.
It’s interesting that I didn’t see this in the movie, which is definitely one of the better comic-to-silver-screen translations out there. I guess it’s got something to do with the use of literature, the story inside the story. Watchmen uses a lot of alternative ways of storytelling and tells a lot of things all at once, something a movie just can’t do without ending up garbled. So the deeper, poetic meaning gets lost.
There are so many things I could write about Watchmen, but as they would all amount to fanboyish talk about the comic’s coolest moments (Doc Manhattan on Mars being the cream of the crop), I’ll just shut up and tell you all to read it.
