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| Watchmen | 
 enlarge | Authors: Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons
Publisher: DC Comics
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  433 reviews
Sales Rank: 192
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 10.1 x 6.6 x 0.8
ISBN: 0930289234
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780930289232
ASIN: 0930289234
Publication Date: April 1, 1995
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| Customer Reviews:
 Love, love will tear Us apart, Again October 1, 2005
34 out of 51 found this review helpful
"Whoever fights Monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a Monster."---Friedrich Nietzsche
"Quis Custodiet ipsos Custodes?"---Ancient Roman phrase, translates to "Who Watches the Watchmen?"
Hobbes, centuries ago, wrote that a life lived among Men "in the State of Nature is nasty, brutish, and short".
Hobbes was optimistic.
Man is a beast, born red in tooth and claw in the bosom of blood-soaked Nature, and as a beast he is bound to slaughter his fellow. In the forest primeval, that meant with teeth and claws; then spear and sword, catapult and blackpowder rifle.
And so we tread fearfully upon the stage of the Present: the Curtain is raised, the stagelights turned up, the audience restless, shifting and murming and coughing out in the Dark. The first act of this play---"Watchmen"---will literally be a highdive to the pavement, performed, most appropriately, by a player known as The Comedian.
It's a real showstopper.
It is the Present: October 12th, 1985. Nixon is still in the White House, a white-hot popular four-termer and still as paranoid crazy as a hungry sewer rat; Man is still red in tooth and claw. And he still hungers for the blood of his fellow; but this time, he fights with nuclear-tipped ICBMs. The Doomsday clock stands at 5 to Midnight, and the Hour is far later than we think.
At its core, it is a very simple tale, as the best tales usually are: it is a murder mystery.
The calculating subversive brilliance of Alan Moore's legendary "Watchmen" is that it takes the notion of the superhero---masked avenger of Justice and the American Way---and inverts it.
Case in point here: what is the use of a costumed crime-fighter, dedicated to protecting Man against thugs and robbers and supervillains, when Mankind itself is on the chopping block? What's the good of a cape, a mask, and a stealthy Owlship---or all the money and acumen in the world---when the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are about to ride out, led by nuclear missiles arcing up over the poles?
And to make things a little stranger: why now, after all these years, and when Humanity is on the verge of extinction, is someone murdering the old crimefighters?
And so we begin, with an entry from Rorschach's diary as that most troubled and cannily paranoid of crimefighters puzzles his way into he mystery of who would have beaten the life out of the Comedian, then flung him through his plate glass apartment window to do a belly flop on the hardtop hundreds of feet below. That thread weaves its way through the lives of Watchmen's heroes, old and new, flitting back and forth between the seemingly more innocent Golden Age and back again into the Darker present.
And maybe that's why "Watchmen" serves up such a shock: it delivers us into a mythology and a world already created. There is a backstory here, just as established and confident by its lights as that of Batman, Superman, or Spider-Man, yet seamier, more rueful, more flawed. Infinitely human.
Initially we are on the outside looking in: into a world where the elderly crimefighters and their young successors have lost their government sanction and move into early retirement, where the brutal, anarchic knot-tops rule the streets while pundits chatter nervously about Nuclear Brinksmanship, a twilight world of regret and loss and nostalgia, where the old Night-Owl rents a pre-war apartment over his auto-garage while his former arch-nemesis Moloch the Magician rots from cancer a few blocks away.
We don't stay outside long. Moore is a genius when it comes to pacing: we arc in deep and long on Watchmen's central characters as they come to terms with their own demons and the central mystery of the story. Rorschach, mind whirling behind its living mask; the new Night-Owl Dan Dreiberg, awash in a paunchy middle-age but compelled by events to something more.
Or Laurie Juspeczyk, the new Silk Spectre, increasingly unhappy with her lover Dr. Manhattan (less human by the day and reeling from a vicious PR attack) and fearful of turning into her vain and lonely mother. And finally Adrian Veidt, the vaunted superhero Ozymandias and now globe-trotting billionaire and business tycoon, the "smartest man in the world".
"Watchmen" is a wry concoction of its times, insanely idiosyncratic, though it is not hard to imagine it conjured up today in our own troubled age: there is the looming threat of nuclear annihilation, mankind poised on the brink of apocalypse, menaced by the two tribes of the USA and the USSR, each on the verge.
There is the notion of superhero as plaything of his times, with the exception of the 'freak' Doctor Manhattan, girded for war by an eager Pentagon, more superweapon than superhero.
And there is the omnipresent question central to those who man the lonely ramparts of civilization against savagery, illustrated by the juxtaposition of the pulpily gory "Tales of the Black Freighter", with its desperate, inventive, deeply moral hero transformed into a beast by the hellscape through which he must venture to save his imperiled family---an echo of the "Quis Custodiet" implied by the title.
This is rich, heady, deliciously vorpal stuff, beautifully mounted with rich trappings and sumptuous depth of plot and character. Though I guessed the author behind the mystery early on---it's really a question of asking 'who gains?'---the question Moore is fascinated with---that of, what will save us from ourselves?---and the answer he comes up with, and the means by which he illustrates this little dilemma, are so mesmerizing, so gorgeous, such a feast of malice and high adventure and nostalgia and regret, that "Watchmen" deserves its rightful place in the pantheon of great art.
JSG
Truly Great, But Missed Opportunity with the New Coloring October 20, 2005
30 out of 38 found this review helpful
This review should be helpful to anyone interested in purchasing a copy of this book, but it's mostly intended for those who already have a copy of Watchmen who are deciding whether to purchase this newest edition as well. I know a review like this would have been helpful to me when making my decision whether or not to buy, considering I already had two copies of the previous edition. If you don't have a copy of Watchmen already, all you really need to know is that you should get a copy, and this is the best version available.
As to the book itself, Watchmen is one of the best stories/mysteries/character studies I've ever read. It's been considered a classic for years, has won tremendous aclaim, was recently selected by Time Magazine as one of the one hundred best novels of the past one hundred years, and is very well illustrated. There's no question that Watchman is a book that deserves five stars, and I recommend it to everyone who hasn't read it yet. This volume is also the best edition released to date, so if you don't have a previous volume and you have the funds, you can't go wrong getting this.
That said, I must admit I was expecting much more from the new coloring that I kept hearing and reading about (Wizard magazine and various websites had articles about how the whole book was being recolored, and the insert attached to the slipcase also mentions that the whole book has been digitally recolored.) The book originally came out several years ago when coloring in comics was much more restricted, and while the coloring in Watchman was done very well for it's time, coloring in general has come a long way and has improved greatly since. The coloring in modern comics uses gradients to add depth and shadows, uses light sourcing for the same, has a much larger pallete of colors that can blend smoothly one into the other, and uses computers to essentially add special effects to the page. The result (when combined with good line art) is much more realistic, believable, solid, three dimensional worlds. The coloring now a days can really add depth and nuance. Some prime examples would be books like Phoenix Endsong, Green Lantern Rebirth, Absolute Batman Hush, or Absolute Panetary, but pretty much every monthly comic today benefits from improved coloring.
Each time I read that Watchmen was being completely recolored, I couldn't wait to see how great the world was going to look, so when I finally got my copy and opened it up, I must admit to being quite a bit dissapointed. At first the coloring looked exactly the same to me as it always had, and very dated -- it didn't look any where on the level of most modern comics. I actually had to go and get one of my two trade paperback versions of Watchman to compare the coloring to assure myself the coloring had in fact been updated in the new version. In a side by side (quick) comparison it was obvious that the new coloring was crisper, more controlled, and did have a few more details added, but it was far more true to it's original, dated coloring than to modern coloring. When I opened the book I expected to see a new realism and depth, I expected Doctor Manhatten to practically glow like the power of the Green Lanterns in Green Lantern Rebirth (which is colored so well it really does look like a special effect.) I expected to see a Rorschach like the one Wizard had in it's article about the new edition and the new coloring -- that Rorshach was colored as if he were a fully three dimensional figure in a world with a fixed light source, with shadows and gradients and depth -- he looked real. By not coloring this book to the full extent of modern capabilities, I think DC really missed an opportunity. I absolutely love Watchmen, so I don't mean to harp, but the new coloring isn't on a level with the coloring in most monthly books being released right now -- certainly not on a level with monthy books like New Avengers, Infinite Crisis, etc. It isn't bad, and it is better than the original, but it isn't nearly what modern coloring can be -- and if DC was going to go through the trouble of recoloring the book, then advertise the fact that the book had been recolored (which was one of my big incentives for getting this version since I already had two copies of the original version,) then why not do the coloring to the best of modern abilities, which they definitely did not do.
Anyway, this book still gets five stars easy. It's heroic, tragic, touching, suspenseful, very well illustrated, and truly thought provoking. Some of the other reviews have really broken down why people should read this better than I ever could, so I won't even try, but again I do recomend it highly to everyone, and this very nice version is the best version available. If you don't already have a copy, you can't go wrong with this. If you do already have a copy (I had two paperbacks) it's probably still worth it for the extras, the nice hardcover, and the somewhat improved coloring. Like I said, it is the best version available. But if you already have a copy and you're only interested in getting this new one for the promise of the new coloring, you might want to see if you can find a copy you can look through before you make a purchase.
Graphic literature at its best September 20, 2001
27 out of 31 found this review helpful
I'd written in my review of Marvels that it was my favorite graphic novel of all time...I guess I hadn't read enough graphic novels. The Watchmen is easily as good as Marvels, The Dark Knight Returns, or what have you. This is a super-hero epic designed for adults who have a serious interest as comic books as an art form. The term "graphic novel" is sometimes misapplied to over-blown comic books...that is not the case here. Alan Moore is a great writer (arguably the best in the field) and, in The Watchmen, he has created a story of great depth, scope, and meaning. I have discovered internet sites dedicated to pointing out the hidden subtexts and motifs of this book...they are not reading too much into it. The task Moore sets for himself (as he often does) is to ask the question, "What would the world be like if super-heroes really existed?" That question is more far-reaching than the average comic book implies. The plot unfolds, not in a comic book way, but the way it might really happen. The ending is completely original and totally unexpected.On a personal note, this book will forever be entwined in my mind with the events of September 11, 2001. Some of the issues in the book cut a little too close to home. But for me specifically, I'll remember staying up late the night before reading this book, and then being awakened by my roommates early the next morning to the scene of the World Trade Center in flames...and thinking that I'd read the comic for too long. Things this terrible don't happen in the real world, only in comic books...right?
 Sagging Under the Burden of Time December 22, 2002
26 out of 74 found this review helpful
Yes, I know I'm going to get a lot of "unhelpfuls" for the two stars.I feel it's important to bring Watchmen up from more of a recent viewpoint, though. Many of the people who gave it five stars either read it 20 years ago and have let it accumulate a rosy glow ever since, or else simply aren't familiar with the state of modern comics.
I spent the first ten years of my life reading hundreds or thousands of comics (and books too, thank you very much), and there's little about Watchmen that distinguishes it from the current crop. The art is subpar, the cliches glaring, and the "mature humor" nearly as subtle as Roseanne. The integration of contemporary issues such as nuclear tension and sexism lends it more weight as a snapshot of an age without actually contributing to its longevity.
The attempts at sophistication- the subcomic "Tales of the Black Freighter", the repetitive wordplay- fail miserably, and do more to make the book an embarassing showcase of pretension than comic innovation. As my father is fond of saying, "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bulls**t."
If you're a comic fan, Watchmen is a harmless waste of a few hours. If you want a real introduction to the comic medium, though, stick to Maus or Hepcats.
"I leave it entirely in your hands." September 15, 2003
26 out of 31 found this review helpful
This is one of the greatest books to come out of the last half of the century. For those who don't know, Watchmen is a fairly postmodern take on the idea of the super hero, incorporating him into Cold War politics and involving literal super powers in the arms race. Which is not to say that this is some kind of Tom Clancyish techno-thriller; far from it. The book is an intense, character-driven drama about the little people who put on the costumes and how they face the horrors that the world leaves at their doorsteps. It's great, sweeping, human epic stuff, one part political thriller, one part whodunit, three parts character study, and I'd recommend it to nearly anyone. The story starts with the murder of an old costume hero, and his former comrades, long since retired, who may be next on the murderer's list.The writing: Moore's writing transcends the limitations on the medium and pushes it into a strange, beautiful, multi-faceted territory where the complexity of the characters' motivations put the reader in the same kind of "moral checkmate" that plagues the protagonists at the end of the book. The parallel structure of the book's multiple overlapping plotlines is remeniscent of Thomas Pynchon or J.G. Ballard, and the sureness and consistency of his style keep the story flowing. Since the plot is so complex, Moore reveals it in pieces by setting up individual chapters as studies for the individual characters, with key events seen from their unique perspectives. As their different experiences of the same events yield more clues to the book's initial mystery, Moore uncovers something larger about the characters themselves, and maybe even people in general. The artwork: Dave Gibbons's stated philosophy is that the art should get in the way of story as little as possible, and it's a philosophy which is clearly visible here. Gibbons avoids obviously flashy layouts and silly-looking splash panels and merely tells the story. There are no full-page panels until the final chapter of the book, which is extremely appropriate and helps the story and art blend into a single, unique creature. His renderings are clean and balanced, and his anatomy is perfect. The art is barely noticable the first time through, but it grows on you like fungus. Overall: If there were ten stars on this list, this book would get them all. It's a fantastic reading experience and a great introduction to a form that most people don't think twice about. Try it out, and if you like it, try From Hell and A Small Killing.
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