Lots of superheroes have flaws. What Alan Moore gives us is different. Instead of superheroes, we have a group of human beings who like to dress up and fight crime, and takes us on a complex, multi-layered story through their very real lives and motivations.
Moore delves deep into the sort of issues that would make somebody don a strange costume and walk the streets fighting crime, and comes up with some rather dark observations. Of all the would-be heroes, only three are effectual, and two of those are violent sociopaths (the other is a Physical God). However, where it would be easy to make this into an anvilicious moral about how violence never solves anything, Moore delves deep into what makes them tick and allows the reader to make up their own mind.
Yet the weaker, more moral heroes aren't neglected either. The apparently weak, yet clearly more sane, heroes are contrasted against the aforementioned sociopaths, forming a fascinating study into the effects of violence and attempts to live up to a moral code might have on a person.
As the series goes on, it focuses more on the issue of how much violence is acceptable to maintain law and order, and whether law is more important than morality. Is beating up an ex-con justified? What about breaking someone's thumbs? Killing one person to save another? How about killing 10 to possibly save 100? There are no easy or clear-cut answers here, which is kind of the point. Real Life isn't as neat as a typical comic, an idea which Moore shows with incredible skill.
In closing, I can't recommend Watchmen enough. It may have spawned a host of low-quality imitators by writers who didn't grasp what truly made it great, but even today, this is an incredible comic, and one of the greatest works of fiction ever written.
If you like this, you might also like:
Death Note - explores some similar issues. Specifically, if you have power of death, how would you use it? Does the end justify the means?
Code Geass - another series dealing with how much evil can be committed in the name of the greater good.
This comic lives up to the hype
Watchmen is awesome.
Lots of superheroes have flaws. What Alan Moore gives us is different. Instead of superheroes, we have a group of human beings who like to dress up and fight crime, and takes us on a complex, multi-layered story through their very real lives and motivations.
Moore delves deep into the sort of issues that would make somebody don a strange costume and walk the streets fighting crime, and comes up with some rather dark observations. Of all the would-be heroes, only three are effectual, and two of those are violent sociopaths (the other is a Physical God). However, where it would be easy to make this into an anvilicious moral about how violence never solves anything, Moore delves deep into what makes them tick and allows the reader to make up their own mind.
Yet the weaker, more moral heroes aren't neglected either. The apparently weak, yet clearly more sane, heroes are contrasted against the aforementioned sociopaths, forming a fascinating study into the effects of violence and attempts to live up to a moral code might have on a person.
As the series goes on, it focuses more on the issue of how much violence is acceptable to maintain law and order, and whether law is more important than morality. Is beating up an ex-con justified? What about breaking someone's thumbs? Killing one person to save another? How about killing 10 to possibly save 100? There are no easy or clear-cut answers here, which is kind of the point. Real Life isn't as neat as a typical comic, an idea which Moore shows with incredible skill.
In closing, I can't recommend Watchmen enough. It may have spawned a host of low-quality imitators by writers who didn't grasp what truly made it great, but even today, this is an incredible comic, and one of the greatest works of fiction ever written.
If you like this, you might also like: