On Before Watchmen

When Before Watchmen was announced last year, it was met with a lot of criticism. Watchmen author Alan Moore publicly condemned the project, and many fans thought that it was just a cash-grab by DC. Personally, I understood that sentiment perfectly, but I was still kind of ambivalent towards the idea. I am a huge fan of the original, after all, so I thought that getting more Watchmen could possibly be a good thing. So, I decided to keep an open mind and give it a chance. I knew that I wanted to wait to pick up the trades, though, since they are a bit cheaper, and save a lot of space. This past week the last of the books were released, and so finally I've gotten to read them.

So, now I'll be going through each separate mini-series, giving general thoughts, and staying as spoiler-free as possible. I actually ended up being surprised by what I found and felt.

Ozymandias
I started with the book on the world's smartest man, Ozymandias. Ozy wasn't one of my favourite characters in Watchmen, but I kind of liked him just because he's such a pompous douchebag. Those kinds of characters are always amusing to me. Him being behind the big twist of Watchmen was really interesting too, of course. So, I was hoping for more of the self-important jerk that we all know and love/hate, and the book definitely delivered that. The art has a bit of an odd style to it, but it quickly grew on me, and now I find I like it quite a bit. The artist, Jae Lee, was really able to capture Adrian's pride and arrogance.

As for the story, it basically glossed over Adrian's entire life. It definitely had some interesting parts, but I kind of felt like it jumped around too much, trying to cover too much in too short a time. That ended up making some of the resolutions feel kind of weak and rushed. Also, I kind of felt like a fair bit of the content in the book was stuff that we already knew about. There were some scenes that were copied directly from Watchmen (as there were in most of the books), but Ozymandias in particular seemed to delve into familiar territory. Still, there was some extra insight into the beginnings of his master plan, so that was neat. There were also some connections that were revealed in Dr. Manhattan and Moloch's books (which are discussed further down), so keep that in mind if you're not planning to grab the whole series.

Overall, I liked Ozymandias, but it wasn't one of my favourites.

The Curse of the Crimson Corsair
So this was kind of an interesting one, as it's a bit of a prequel to the Tales of the Black Freighter parts of Watchmen. I really enjoyed those parts, so I was looking forward to this one. And, for the most part, I wasn't disappointed. The art and writing in this book are both quite reminiscent of the Black Freighter, which is to say that they were both really good. The story itself is very dark and pretty interesting, though I was hoping for a bit more of a direct connection to the story and characters in the Black Freighter. Still, if you enjoyed the Black Freighter bits of Watchmen, I think you'll really like this too, as I did.

Dollar Bill
So this was a one-shot on one of the members of the Minutemen, Dollar Bill. I personally didn't really find it all that interesting, but it came as kind of a 'freebie' in the Ozymandias/Crimson Corsair trade, so I wasn't really disappointed. It did give a small bit of extra insight into the Minutemen, so that was kind of neat. If you're picking up the trade then you don't have to worry about it, but if not, and unless you're really interested in Dollar Bill or the Minutemen, this is probably one that can be skipped.

Minutemen
So this was one that I wasn't hugely looking forward to, since I never really had a huge interest in the Minutemen from reading Watchmen. I kind of hoped that there might be some more insight into Silhouette, though, since she seemed like an interesting character, but didn't get much attention in Watchmen. Well, somehow I got lucky, because Silhouette figures heavily into Minutemen's storyline. The book does go into some familiar territory, but for the most part it's all new stuff. And mostly, that stuff goes into how effed up the Minutemen really were.

And boy, were they. I mean, we all know about the Comedian-Silk Spectre I thing, but there's a lot more than that. It seems that, despite the best intentions of most of the members of the Minutemen, things just keep going badly. The stories are told from the perspective of Nite Owl I, after he's retired, reflecting on the things that happened in his career that he regrets. What results is a very dark and, I found, very affecting story. The art style is kind of simple, but seemingly as a throwback to older comics, it works really well.

Even if you weren't hugely taken by the Minutemen in Watchmen, if you are a fan of the series, I can recommend picking this up. It was, to my surprise, definitely one of my favourites of the bunch.

Silk Spectre
So, Silk Spectre (II). I always found her to be a likable character in Watchmen, but she wasn't really one of my favourites. To be honest, I didn't really know what to expect of this book, so I guess I went in with a bit of an open mind. And, once again to my surprise, I loved it. It was really different from the other books in the series, it was more like a teen coming-of-age story. There was romance, there was comedy, there was action, and there was heartbreak. Laurie was kind of a jerky kid, but I mean we all were, and so I found her to be really easy to root for. I really liked the art in this book too, it just has a great style and conveys the emotions of the characters really well.

I could probably even recommend this book to people who aren't Watchmen fans. I can easily put this into my top two favourites of the series along with Minutemen.

Nite Owl
Well, of course I always liked Nite Owl, but he wasn't one of my favourite characters. I guess I've always found the standard, gadgety-style heroes to be a bit uninteresting. But still, he was obviously a huge part of Watchmen, so I had a fair bit of excitement for this book. It covers a short period of time when Nite Owl and Rorschach were still working the beat as a duo, and seeing them work together was pretty cool. One odd thing about this book, though...for some reason, we get more of a look into Rorschach's background than Nite Owl's. I mean there is some background there for him, but I felt like there was more character development for Rorschach.

So, if you're a Rorschach fan, that might be enough to pick up this book (I did find that I enjoyed it), but if you're looking for more background and development from Nite Owl, you might be disappointed. The art style is pretty nice, but maybe a bit line-y for my taste. Oh, and there are a lot of boobs in this book. Like, a lot. If that matters to you, one way or the other.

Dr. Manhattan
So, this was kind of a weird one. I guess since we already know pretty much everything about Dr. Manhattan's background, there wasn't much more to tell. Well, that's not totally true, there is a small amount of new background, but for the most part this is a story about something else, and...like I said, it's weird. I don't really want to spoil it, though. I will say that it started out really abstract, such that I had a bit of a hard time following it. But as it went on, I started to understand it a bit better, and it ended up tying into the main Watchmen story in a really neat way. It also has a cool tie-in to Ozymandias' story. I also really enjoyed the art.

So, I dunno about how to recommend this one. I guess you could say it's essential reading if you're getting into the Before Watchmen series, since it gives the most significant 'prequelness', but...if you're not worried about that, or Dr. Manhattan himself, or the tie-in to Ozy, it's probably skippable.

Moloch
So this was one that I didn't even know existed until I saw it in the Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan trade. It's a short, two-part series about the former villain Moloch. I actually found this to be pretty interesting, since we aren't really given much background on Moloch other than that he used to be a foe of the Minutemen. The story of his life actually ends up being really sad; I found myself feeling really sorry for him. The simple but expressive art style helped this along. I think I would definitely recommend this to series fans, especially if you've read the Ozymandias story too.

Comedian
Okay, well this is one of the ones that I was looking forward to the most. Comedian was one of my favourite characters in Watchmen. Even though he did some terrible things, I always found his nihilistic view to be interesting and amusing. And, though we do see a lot more of that style in this book, I found that the story...I dunno. It kinda fell flat. It tells mostly of Comedian's time in Vietnam, which was mentioned in Watchmen, but there was plenty of room to flesh it out. There was a fair bit of focus on the political stuff going on at that time, and I didn't find that stuff very interesting.

I was kind of hoping that it might go a bit more into how Comedian got his unique world view, but since it took place so late in his career, he really was pretty much already set in his ways. The story was still kind of interesting, Comedian himself was amusing, and the art style was pretty nice, so I wouldn't say that this book was a complete disappointment. I just felt like it could have been a lot more.

Rorschach
Ahh, here we go. Like a lot of people, Rorschach was my favourite character in Watchmen. Though, like Dr. Manhattan, we were given a lot of insight into Walter's background in the original book, so there probably wasn't a lot that could be added here. And...I can't say that I was disappointed by the book, but, like the Comedian, I did feel that it could have been done a bit better. I think that its main problem was that it could have used another issue or two. It clocked in a four issues, while the longest stories in the series topped out at six, so I really can't see why Rorschach was constrained. The book did feel a bit rushed to me, and as a result the resolutions to the storylines felt a bit weak.

And weirdly, there were two storylines...that didn't really seem connected to each other at all. Again, though, I think that another issue or two worth of content could have gone a long way to tying everything together, and tying things up in a more satisfying way. I also am sorry to say that I didn't terribly enjoy the writing in Rorschach's story. It wasn't bad, but I kind of felt like it was trying to stand up to Moore's writing of Rorschach, and it just didn't for me. Maybe I'm just not a huge fan of Brian Azzarello's style. It wasn't something that ruined the book for me, but again, it was something I felt like could have been better.

But enough of that, let's talk about the good stuff in the book. For one, I REALLY enjoyed the art. It's kind of a painted style, that reminded me somewhat of Gabrielle Dell'Otto, or one of my other favourite (though lesser-known I imagine) artists, Clayton Crain. It's just really nice in my opinion. Also, we got a lot of Rorschach just being Rorschach. He lives like a slob, never says die, and is absolutely ruthless to criminals, but still has a heart. It's almost endearing to see him trying to interact with people in his 'normal' life.

Originally after finishing the book, I was more disappointed, but after letting it sit and thinking about it, the more I'm okay with it. I think if you're a Rorschach fan, you will like, if maybe not totally love, this book.

So there you have it, my thoughts and short analysis on Before Watchmen. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it, and had some pleasant surprises in what turned out to be my favourite books. I know that a lot of people still look down upon the series, thinking it a petty grab for cash, and I can't condemn that point of view. But if you're a big fan of the original book like I am, just looking for some more Watchmen, I think you'd do well to pick these books up.