You know all of that rain we had in June up here in the Northeast? That’s pretty much how I remember my one miserable year at Ithaca College. Except it was freezing rain, mixed with snow, started in October and ended in April, and went sideways. This sideways business was likely on account of the wind that came off of Lake Cayuga nearby. Somebody who went to class more often than I did could explain that better. This was in the fall of 1986 and I start with this exposition because the weather and the desolation suited and fostered the state of mind that made me so completely receptive to the arrival of the twelve-issue run of Watchmen at the comic shop which was upstairs of some store in the Commons.
I grew up on superhero comics and movies: X-Men, Daredevil, Superman, Captain America, and others. I was a child of the Reagan 80’s, pretty confident and in love with my country. Heroes were there to learn from. They fought for truth, justice, the American Way, and they roundly defeated bad guys.
But that fall in Ithaca, I had gone from fairly popular in a suburban high school to fairly unpopular in a cold ass college town. Heroes weren’t helping me out. They weren’t stopping the brinkmanship between us and the Soviets (who had now been in Afghanistan for years). Superhero stories seemed stupid and irrelevant. I was ready to see what else comics had to offer me. That is how, I’m sure, I came to pick up the first issue of Watchmen. And the first issue was all it took to know that I would follow the entire run. The Comedian was dead, Rorschach was on the case and scaring the hell out of friend and foe alike, Dr. Manhattan was untouchable, and Dan and Laurie were bound to hook up.
I followed the run of Watchmen right out of Ithaca and back to my hometown. Each month’s issue seemed to exemplify my growing social discontentment and disdain for abusive authority and creeping colonialism. Reagan wasn’t listening to the world and the cavalier cowboy actor was dragging us all to the edge of the abyss. At the conclusion of the comic, I was okay with what Veidt had done. People were savage and government could not be trusted with society’s welfare. He’d broken a lot eggs but he’d made a huge omelet. I was okay with Rorschach’s death because he was a loose cannon. I hoped that the fat kid at the New Frontiersman would miss the journal or nobody would read the column. It was all for the greater good and it meant peace with the Russians.
Watchmen will always have significance for me. I say all of this because I finally saw the film. In March, I missed the theatrical run of the movie because it just didn’t last out here where I am. I waited for the dvd release this week and watched it after it arrived yesterday. Zack Snyder’s style of directing a comic book film seems to be to faithfully transcribe the panels to live action. I for one am cool with that. The art of Frank Miller in 300 and that of Dave Gibbons in Watchmen warrants that treatment. Some of the song selections were arch, but I will accept that in a comic book movie, which is a rightful place for archetype. My main issue with Watchmen is that this story, which was so relevant—revelatory even, at age eighteen in 1986 and 7, doesn’t speak to me in the same way at age forty in 2009.
What was new when writers like Allen Moore and Frank Miller were crafting it twenty-plus years ago, has become the new cliché in superhero storytelling. Noam Chomsky could be ghost writing War Machine at this point and it would hardly come as a surprise. And the biggest change for me is me. I am married, a father, working at providing a stable home in unstable times. The world today is at least as complicated and scary as it was in 1986. These things foster my current frame of reference. I support my government and military in looking out for our national interests. I believe in good and evil. I miss Reagan.
I still love the story that Alan Moore put together. I will buy the next Watchmen dvd collection with Tales of the Black Freighter woven in. I will always appreciate the intensity of the source material and its lasting effect on me. But I have changed back to the lover of true superhero archetypes that I was in childhood. And that means a new perspective for me on watching the Watchmen.
This time, I want the New Frontiersman to publish Rorschach’s journal.
Article by Space Commando
I think you hit the nail on the head! The deconstruction of Superheroes is par for the course these days. Just look at the new Batman movies. Even Spiderman and Superman Returns address what it means to be a superhero in our world.
The movie was a (mostly) faithful representation but it didn’t do anything to make it relevant to our perception of comic heroes that haven’t been addressed already.
I would really like to see someone pull off a straight up superhero movie. A lot of the new movies work well, and I don’t know how viable it is to have someone who is a hero without issues, but I’d sure like to see it tried again. That being said, I really love Iron Man and his issues are so basic, ego and alcoholism, and so obvious. I think what I’m looking for is really that transcendence, the hero overcoming their flaws in spectacular and complete triumph. Feel good stuff.
I agree.
That was my problem with Superman Returns. I guess at some point he got over his issues, but I would have liked to have seen that manifest in some good old ass-kicking.
Yes! I like the movie a lot because it had the flavor of the old ones, but damn. That guy who shot him in the eyeball needed to get punched to Krypton.
Like when Christopher Reeve went back into the bar in Superman II and knocked that dude into the pinball machine. That was satisfying.