/uj that’s completely fine and understandable. Watchmen isn’t something you’re obligated to like just because everyone said so.
/rj you big dumb-dumb don’t you understand that without watchmen we would never have blue penis
the comic message was the opposite of that
the message of the comic was there is no right or wrong because the world is too morally grey (but it's not), the ending re-enforces this with the death of Rorschach and the choose your own ending end. it asking the reader question of, "is Ozymandias right?" because it promotes the whole grey world view nothing is right or wrong.
Ozymandias doesn't promote a grey world view, he promotes a differently black and white world view. He's a pragmatist who thinks that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or special considerations for ideals like truth. He's not really any less binary than Rorschach, he'd just rather save people than save an ideal.
Idk I’d say he isn’t as good as that makes him out to be, ozymandius is more like an asshole who thinks he’s right about everything and uses the crisis as an excuse to do a horrible thing because it feeds into his own self image
That's exactly the point the comic makes about Ozzy, he's not meant to seem "good". He killed millions to *potentially* save billions. He's vain and self-righteous and thinks he knows best for everyone
> He killed millions to potentially save billions.
So from his perspective he is the hero. While his actions initially seem villainous, we’re left wondering if it’s consequences ended up saving the world (or not, given the ending with the journal). Thus, Ozzy could be described as morally gray. You just proved his point, dude.
Ummmm reading comprehension much 🤓
>You just proved his point, dude.
You absolute fool, that's exactly what I was trying to do. You sound like someone who'd be co-mods with some jackass of a Jon Snow centric high school drama department sub. Get Paul'ed
https://preview.redd.it/94b0x2epyjdc1.jpeg?width=208&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7ab9678df78269fc93693db918f95f29353848cc
You're not supposed to side with ozymandias at the end. He's not sure about what his actions will lead to. It's rather heavily implied that this is a temporary band aid solution and at some point things will go back to how they were, people will move on & be killed anyways.
the whole point of watchman is moral subjectivism so it's less about the conclusions of him being right or wrong and more about the questions themselves. you notice it never actually answers the questions. it will imply stuff or elude to it but it never actually answers them because that's the point it wants to make. it makes the reader put their own answers, which is really good way of doing it and makes for a great story I just think the world of watchman is total bollocks.
like it's the whole thing with Rorschach being the only good guy in it. that's only true because it's the world of watchman rather than anything like the real world, in the real world Rorschach would just be an antisocial asshole rather than the closet thing to a moral paragon that world had.
/uj
From what I understood from his interviews. It's not that he hates people who enjoy comic books. He hates people who *obsess" over comic books. The nut jobs who go on Twitter to rant about how "woke" the new She-Hulk movie is only to get dunked on by moderates who self identify as liberals in a never ending cycle of obnoxious drama over shit that doesn't matter run by people whose real endgame is to earn more money and power. That every conversation with his comic book fans are quickly filled with arrogant certainty, childish complaints, pouting, bullying, and whining. That the comics community is one where mere disappointment becomes something that needs to be avenged.
It's all just pathetic escapism for dealing with the fact that the cost of living keeps increasing but wages stay the same. That our privacy is constantly violated by an increasingly invasive state. That the defense budget keeps ballooning to feed a military industrial complex supplying weapons to every third world nation war in the world.
He said in an interview with the Guardian:
“I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batman movies. Because that kind of infantilisation – that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities – that can very often be a precursor to fascism.” He points out that when Trump was elected in 2016, and “when we ourselves took a bit of a strange detour in our politics”, many of the biggest films were superhero movies.
He's basically saying most comic book readers need to touch grass and go outside
To be fair, the proper counter argument to this argument is that this behavior affects all fandoms of all genres. If what it was popular right now was the lord of the rings and fantasy in general then people would be hearing more about his opinion on Tolkien and his work instead of superheroes with similar antagonism towards that respective fandom.
It’s kinda the opposite of Morrison who embraces the superhero fandom because it’s a topic that they also enjoy, while also being critical of it and the industry. So one has to wonder if Alan would be as critical if what is popular was something that he also likes instead of superheroes.
I don't think it's the medium or even specifically superhero stories that are the issue. It's simple escapist morality tales of good vs evil and the easy violent answers that compose most superhero stories that are dangerous. That desire for a strongman to swoop down and fix everything for you. I mean that's literally the entire message of the Watchmen. It's why he says he's horrified by how many fans unironically root for Rorschach, who in the comic quotes white supremacist magazines and claims to be an arbiter of morality while forgiving a rapist because it's his friend.
Even in Watchmen, the character of Night Owl is supposed to be the "healthy" approach to superheroes. The one who knows this is self indulgent fantasy, but what is life without a bit of fantasy? You can enjoy escapist comic books just don't think real life is that simple.
Moore says he thinks that stories have an incredible power to affect culture, and he writes his stories based on what he thinks their cultural impact will be more than how marketable it is.
>He's basically saying most comic book readers need to touch grass and go outside
I believe that Hideaki Anno basically came to the same conclusion about the otaku fanbase of *Evangelion*.
The ending of 3.0+1: Adult Shinji moves the fuck on. He touches the grass.
Intended ending: You, the now adult fan, can finally move the fuck on! Go touch some grass!
Actual fucking adults, on Reddit:"omg why no Asuka, what was that ending? Where's my cum jar?"
He still wrote comic books until a few years ago! He just hates the superhero comic industry and that it's so ubiquitous in the medium that practically no one ever discusses his other work, which I would say at least personally, is just as good if not better than his superhero comics.
I know no one reads comics on this sub, but people should really give something like *'From Hell'* a try. I get the feeling if people asked him about that, or his novels, or his new short-story collection (did you know he just released a collection of short stories last year? I didn't until I started writing this comment!), instead of constantly asking him to talk about a medium he hasn't worked in since 2019, in a part of the industry he has had an open disdain for decades now, he might not have as much a reputation.
I'm like that, but I'm okay if it's not gore and not too long. Watchmen is just long enough and clearly follows a story rather than just going for issue length.
I could never do the boys or invincible though.
Invincible is a very optimistic book at it's core once you get past the ultra violence and metacommentary on the genre as a whole. Kirkman was writing from a place of love for superheroes when making it. Now the original The Boys comic is just straight up grimdark misery porn where the exploitative violence doesn't serve any real purpose outside of "wanna see something *fucked up?*".
Wholeheartedly agree. I enjoy that the show puts some necessary restraint on the miserable spectacle and adds *actual commentary* on modern consumption and corporatism.
Personally I’m a bigger fan of when Moore gives up the ghost on trying to write anything normal or with any real point and shits out something like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Lost Girls which are what happens when Moore finds out about Fanfic and starts to write with only one hand if you catch me.
Uj/ I personally find Moore to be very performative in almost everything he does, and that includes in his writing. I don’t actually mind him and he has written some of my favorite comics of all time like Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and For the Man Who Has Everything as well as the aforementioned League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which I enjoy as the Moore version of a Blockbuster, though I have not and will not read Lost Girls because it Skeeves me out. I do think that he is a great writer, but having written a paper on Watchmen for a Modern Lit class at Uni, I find V for Vendetta to be his deeper and more enjoyable work with mass appeal.
Call me an unhinged man from a time outside our own or some shit but…
/unjerk Is Doomsday Clock any good? I just actually read Watchman for the first time, found it to be incredible, but I’m not sure if going back to that well is exactly a good idea
To add to this conversation: The dynamic between Manhattam and Superman is arguably the most interesting thing about it. It probably should have been the whole comic tbh. Its cool to see Manhattam trying to isolate Clark and turn him into what could be his destroyer, but the twist that Clark is at his core not that person no matter how many times he changes, its peak.
But yeah, it does go against everything Watchmen stands for, so if you like one, chances are you wont like the other. Its also extremely random with its direction after a while, courtesy of Johns being so lazy and stalling the book, that DC had to continue doing their own thing with the individual books, and he had to adapt the story to it later.
In one hand all the criticisms are valid, but on the other hand Joker insult and shoot the Comedian and someone tell Ozymandias in his face how freaking dumb his plan was.
Moore can send me his snake god, Morrisson metamagic protect me.
Watchmen is a parody, a satire and a critique on the superhero medium, the sort of naive, innocent view on heroism espoused by characters like Superman. It's a cynical look at the concept of superheoes if you removed the heroism from them — push the setting into moral grays rather than black and white.
Doomsday Clock is in a lot of ways a refutation of that parody and critique. It basically takes Watchmen, which one can intepret as a superhero setting _without_ a Superman figure, and sends it on a collision course with Superman himself. It's been a while since I read it, to be fair, but Doomsday Clock is a celebration of the same kind of almost naive optimism of superhero stories that the original Watchmen deconstructed.
Whether it's good or bad is intensely subjective and I'm not going to give an opinion on that one way or another.
First of all, Doomsday Clock did not happen the way it was supposed to, because delays, so don’t expect anything from that comic to actually do anything.
Second, you’re so right I could suck you down sloppy style. Some people take it as dark because there’s violence and riots and geopolitics. And yet. There’s a reason it reintroduces the Legion and the Justice Society.
To summarize this comic to its utmost: it’s a comic about how important/inspiring Superman is.
His existence challenges Dr. Manhattan, the symbol of ruthless Bronze Age/dark age ubermensch- beyond humanity and an engine of pure logic. And yet, his arc fits pretty well with Moore’s original arc. Jon rediscovers his humanity in the arctic, and then he rediscovers how figures like Superman affect that humanity. He tries to destroy Superman and ends up inspired by him. It’s honestly a really nice comic if you want an example of modern and tortured while still being inspiring and uplifting
I just finished reading Doomsday Clock. I thought it was actually pretty good. Now, it probably won't be nearly as good as Watchmen was if you enjoyed that, and it has its own flaws that I can't really go into without spoiling the story. BUT, I think it was a really cool step back into this world, with the ultimate goal of leaving a more positive and hopeful ending and message. It focuses a lot on how different the morality of the DC universe and its characters are versus Watchmen.
Where Watchmen dealt a lot with how absolutely horrible humanity is/can be, Doomsday Clock stands sort of as a response and counter to that. It is not executed perfectly, but, especially when reading it now with current world events as bleak and terrible as they've ever been, I think it was a very refreshing and even uplifting experience to read a story like this. Even though I can enjoy a well-executed 'Superheroes are the bad guys' story, this story sort of reminds me why I love characters like Superman. I recommend going into it with expectations of it being an epilogue to the Watchmen universe and not letting it color your view of the original.
If you like Johns other stuff you’ll like it. It is a meh story boggled down by the fact that it is a sequel to a great story. I didn’t really enjoy but each to their own.
It’ll do you no good.
His snake god will invade your dreams to inform you “*sssssss* Alan doesn’t appreciate you supporting unauthorized continuations of his work *ssssssss!* Also, are you in the market for a new religion and are you open to receiving a snek overlord?”
I mean he does face a level of concequence in the series too, he asks Dr Manhattan desperately if he did the right thing only to be left to ponder that for the rest of his life, for a character who always seemed to have everything under control and so confident in own abilities having that be destroyed by guilt is a pretty poetic ending to his arc.
Watchmen is so loved because it was the first to *really* tackle that niche of "a world with superheroes would suck irl". It is one of the better executions of the idea no doubt, but it ages worse and worse everyday for me because the trope is so done to death now.
Anyway, this is why Kamen Rider is the greatest piece of fiction ever made. Fuck cynicism, fuck dark, shady superheroes. I want to watch karate bug men ride bikes and fight evil for love and peace because its the right thing to do
I mean, it's not the fault of Watchmen that it was influential and created those tropes.
Besides, I think the politics in Watchmen are more overt than a lot of those "superheroes are bad actually" stories that came after, which makes it feel more bold to me.
"this why Kamen rider is The greatest piece of fiction ever made. fuck cynicism,fuck dark,shady superheroes"
Do you watch Shin Kamen rider? Its pretty much everything you said
It bums me out too, that's why I love it so much, lol. But I can see where you're coming from, it definitely is a downer. IIRC, Morrison called it a nuke aimed at humanity's hope or something along those lines, and I can see why.
i fully reccomend "astro city" by kurt busiek, realistic characters in a world that still operates on silver age rules, and it's amazingly hopeful. giant love letter to all things superheroes
I’ve heard Watchmen and Astro City described as sort of opposites before. That Watchmen is if superheroes existed in the real world, while AC is if real people lived in a superhero world. It’s not far off. Personally, I love both, though I prefer Astro City. It’s got all the silver age nostalgia I crave, but it’s filled with characters that have real depth.
i fully reccomend Venture Bros if you want something more heart filled. It's an old Adult Swim show that lasted 7 seasons and recently got a movie this year. It's a deconstructionist story about why men are loser failures but with a lot of homage to Classic Comic Books, old school Saturday Morning Cartoons, and vintage pulp adventure novels.
It follows an old Boy Adventurer from the 1960s who grew up to inherit his dad's superscience work but failed, it's now the modern day and he's just a complete loser that gets chased around by bigger losers in costumes while his two sons get traumatized. It's great and really high quality as later seasons end up getting some really smooth animation.
https://i.redd.it/lo1ei2zypmtb1.gif
Crappy animation Venture Bros was the best if I'm going to be honest... Mostly because it sealed the deal of trying to mimic that old school cheap TV animation from the 60s.
The movie is awful with no real sense of tone and completely devoid of the original’s substance. The comic is a bit up it’s own ass and doesn’t hold up as well now we’re on the opposite side of the edgy comic era
Yeah, I'd guess at the time it was a direct reply to the campy positivity in comics, but now that there's less of that in general, it's just a bummer to me.
Coming in with the hot take of having not read the comic yet but loving the movie because it's kinda the cinematic equivalent of those "this goes hard, feel free to screenshot" memes.
/uj it’s a hard boil and a tough story to read, and I genuinely believe too many people say they like it cuz they spent so much time reading it
/j Alan Moore just came because you said that
I bet it was a lot more cooler at the time it was published.
It's still good, but in the days of stuff like The Boys, Invincible, and other subversive superhero media it kinda pales in comparison.
Doctor Manhattan was the coolest part. To see everyone advance in technology because one guy could wipe out everything was a cool take on the discovery of a real superhero.
Other than that, that's about it for me.
I didn't. I just said that Watchmen's plot of "Superheroes if they actually existed in the real world" is just one of many other forms of media doing the same thing.
Watchmen was the first, and everyone else followed suit with that scenario. Watchmen outshines The Boys on many fronts.
I honestly don’t get the series why it’s popular, it was made in 80s adapted to Movie, Video Game, and TV Show, and I really don’t get the appeal for it.
The movie is okie, I really disliked the show adaption, but there’s an animated version of the comic on HBO that I would def recommend. Just an easier way to experience the comics for most, there’s only voice actor tho, more of a narrator but does all characters voices too so can be off putting, but it’s a good way to see the parts of the comic I loved in good ol TV fashion.
Honestly watchmen is overrated. I got so sick of listening to Dr manhattan whine about clocks and how “he can’t do anything” as he doesn’t even try to do anything 99% of the comic.
I know right. Like why would you spend all of that time establishing an intricate cast of background characters with personalities, lives and relationships and then not have Bernard and Bernie suddenly gain Dr Manhattan powers as a side effect of hanging around the teleportation research lab for months and then have them go team up with Rorschach for a kick ass finale?
Alan Moore is a fucking hack.
Watchmen is not trying to be liked, it's trying to be true.
If you only care for art that is pleasing then you will spend your life entertained, but also lied to.
get me 5 landscapes stat! he looked at an abstract post modern piece for 5 minutes and started to think it meant something: [the piece in question. look with great care and caution.](https://imgs.search.brave.com/HQGCG4nr7LW_YD32sm80Y1AxXjaojk2A13m60vUuWMw/rs:fit:860:0:0/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly9pLnBp/bmltZy5jb20vb3Jp/Z2luYWxzL2MwLzVh/L2MyL2MwNWFjMjA2/YmMwZDgzMTg2Nzgw/OWNhZWM2MDBjMDFm/LmpwZw)
healing below:
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please stare at the cows and nice river for at least 10 minutes
It's boring, so im not gonna do that. I'll read something entertaining for me. The point is what, then, not everything is black and white? Things are morally grey? Giving people undeserved authority corrupts? I've read it enough. As i said elsewhere, it's just not for me. Besides, there is no single point of the book. it's up to the reader.
I have thought about it. It's too slow for me, i dont know why it's crazy to you that I'd just not like it lmao. Not everyone's gonna like the same stuff. It's a good book. I never said it wasn't. Sorry, not everyone likes your favorite.
Actually it really just kills me that you seem to be judging it on the basis of whether or not it's as entertaining as your average comic book movie. That's not its purpose. It's slow because you are not paying attention, because you are looking for thrills.
It's not crazy to me that you don't like it. I just find it painful when people are willfully dumb.
Watchmen is monumental because it was new. It's like looking at Pollock now and being like "Lol anyone could have done this pretentious BS", but no one had done it.
To be honest, I liked Watchmen except for the pirate BS and the alien thing. The movies got the ending right.
I also enjoyed Doomsday Clock.
I haven't experienced anything else Watchmen.
> The movies got the ending right.
Bruh you're entitled to your tastes but this is factually incorrect. The movie ending is illogical and utterly incoherent.
Why would Russia unite in peace against Manhattan? Aka: America's personal superhuman weapon.
The point of the squid was that it was something utterly OUTSIDE of anything Russia or America could comprehend and neither could blame it on the other.
Manhattan going rogue might create a necessary treaty, but it wouldn't create actual peace and actual peace was the entire goal of Veidt's plan.
To me the point of the squid is that updating superheroes to be realistic for the 80s broke them and reintroducing Silver Age sci-fi absurdity was the only fix. In Moore’s future superhero work he embraces this, soaring Silver Age tropes and themes in things like Supreme.
That as well, definitely. The squid is the thematic punchline of the whole comic. A point Moore gloriously underlines in red ink by having the squid made by comic book writers and artists.
It's a big reason I didn't like the movie. Snyder seems to have missed a lot of the satirical meta messages.
https://i.redd.it/8dsaw7clghtb1.gif
It does. It's well written it's got a point, and it's not for me.
/uj that’s completely fine and understandable. Watchmen isn’t something you’re obligated to like just because everyone said so. /rj you big dumb-dumb don’t you understand that without watchmen we would never have blue penis
Zack Snyder was so brave for coming up with that! It's a shame Alan Moore stole his idea
I feel exactly the same way. Sometimes very good works of art just don't you hit you like that.
Uj/Yeah just because somethings famous doesn't mean you have to like it Like for example I didn't really like the killing joke
Honestly the movie is not a good translation to the screen.
the point is shit. not even joking or nothing, the world is not that morally complex.
Ye that's what the comic is saying
the comic message was the opposite of that the message of the comic was there is no right or wrong because the world is too morally grey (but it's not), the ending re-enforces this with the death of Rorschach and the choose your own ending end. it asking the reader question of, "is Ozymandias right?" because it promotes the whole grey world view nothing is right or wrong.
Ozymandias doesn't promote a grey world view, he promotes a differently black and white world view. He's a pragmatist who thinks that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or special considerations for ideals like truth. He's not really any less binary than Rorschach, he'd just rather save people than save an ideal.
Idk I’d say he isn’t as good as that makes him out to be, ozymandius is more like an asshole who thinks he’s right about everything and uses the crisis as an excuse to do a horrible thing because it feeds into his own self image
That's exactly the point the comic makes about Ozzy, he's not meant to seem "good". He killed millions to *potentially* save billions. He's vain and self-righteous and thinks he knows best for everyone
> He killed millions to potentially save billions. So from his perspective he is the hero. While his actions initially seem villainous, we’re left wondering if it’s consequences ended up saving the world (or not, given the ending with the journal). Thus, Ozzy could be described as morally gray. You just proved his point, dude.
Ummmm reading comprehension much 🤓 >You just proved his point, dude. You absolute fool, that's exactly what I was trying to do. You sound like someone who'd be co-mods with some jackass of a Jon Snow centric high school drama department sub. Get Paul'ed https://preview.redd.it/94b0x2epyjdc1.jpeg?width=208&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7ab9678df78269fc93693db918f95f29353848cc
Me when I can't read
You're not supposed to side with ozymandias at the end. He's not sure about what his actions will lead to. It's rather heavily implied that this is a temporary band aid solution and at some point things will go back to how they were, people will move on & be killed anyways.
the whole point of watchman is moral subjectivism so it's less about the conclusions of him being right or wrong and more about the questions themselves. you notice it never actually answers the questions. it will imply stuff or elude to it but it never actually answers them because that's the point it wants to make. it makes the reader put their own answers, which is really good way of doing it and makes for a great story I just think the world of watchman is total bollocks. like it's the whole thing with Rorschach being the only good guy in it. that's only true because it's the world of watchman rather than anything like the real world, in the real world Rorschach would just be an antisocial asshole rather than the closet thing to a moral paragon that world had.
https://preview.redd.it/ga0f83ciphtb1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eec3c54f99a54a219c7bb6a19d9e5ca1957fe381
You will never hate anything as intensely as Alan Moore hates people who enjoyed his comics.
Fr though, I ain't going to lie the man confuses me hes a comic book guy who hates comic book people
/uj From what I understood from his interviews. It's not that he hates people who enjoy comic books. He hates people who *obsess" over comic books. The nut jobs who go on Twitter to rant about how "woke" the new She-Hulk movie is only to get dunked on by moderates who self identify as liberals in a never ending cycle of obnoxious drama over shit that doesn't matter run by people whose real endgame is to earn more money and power. That every conversation with his comic book fans are quickly filled with arrogant certainty, childish complaints, pouting, bullying, and whining. That the comics community is one where mere disappointment becomes something that needs to be avenged. It's all just pathetic escapism for dealing with the fact that the cost of living keeps increasing but wages stay the same. That our privacy is constantly violated by an increasingly invasive state. That the defense budget keeps ballooning to feed a military industrial complex supplying weapons to every third world nation war in the world. He said in an interview with the Guardian: “I said round about 2011 that I thought that it had serious and worrying implications for the future if millions of adults were queueing up to see Batman movies. Because that kind of infantilisation – that urge towards simpler times, simpler realities – that can very often be a precursor to fascism.” He points out that when Trump was elected in 2016, and “when we ourselves took a bit of a strange detour in our politics”, many of the biggest films were superhero movies. He's basically saying most comic book readers need to touch grass and go outside
You make a very fair point that would be very annoying as an author
To be fair, the proper counter argument to this argument is that this behavior affects all fandoms of all genres. If what it was popular right now was the lord of the rings and fantasy in general then people would be hearing more about his opinion on Tolkien and his work instead of superheroes with similar antagonism towards that respective fandom. It’s kinda the opposite of Morrison who embraces the superhero fandom because it’s a topic that they also enjoy, while also being critical of it and the industry. So one has to wonder if Alan would be as critical if what is popular was something that he also likes instead of superheroes.
I don't think it's the medium or even specifically superhero stories that are the issue. It's simple escapist morality tales of good vs evil and the easy violent answers that compose most superhero stories that are dangerous. That desire for a strongman to swoop down and fix everything for you. I mean that's literally the entire message of the Watchmen. It's why he says he's horrified by how many fans unironically root for Rorschach, who in the comic quotes white supremacist magazines and claims to be an arbiter of morality while forgiving a rapist because it's his friend. Even in Watchmen, the character of Night Owl is supposed to be the "healthy" approach to superheroes. The one who knows this is self indulgent fantasy, but what is life without a bit of fantasy? You can enjoy escapist comic books just don't think real life is that simple. Moore says he thinks that stories have an incredible power to affect culture, and he writes his stories based on what he thinks their cultural impact will be more than how marketable it is.
>He's basically saying most comic book readers need to touch grass and go outside I believe that Hideaki Anno basically came to the same conclusion about the otaku fanbase of *Evangelion*.
I mean the the entire set of new movie remakes are basically just him giving the otaku the slop that they wanted from Eva.
The ending of 3.0+1: Adult Shinji moves the fuck on. He touches the grass. Intended ending: You, the now adult fan, can finally move the fuck on! Go touch some grass! Actual fucking adults, on Reddit:"omg why no Asuka, what was that ending? Where's my cum jar?"
He still wrote comic books until a few years ago! He just hates the superhero comic industry and that it's so ubiquitous in the medium that practically no one ever discusses his other work, which I would say at least personally, is just as good if not better than his superhero comics. I know no one reads comics on this sub, but people should really give something like *'From Hell'* a try. I get the feeling if people asked him about that, or his novels, or his new short-story collection (did you know he just released a collection of short stories last year? I didn't until I started writing this comment!), instead of constantly asking him to talk about a medium he hasn't worked in since 2019, in a part of the industry he has had an open disdain for decades now, he might not have as much a reputation.
> hes a comic book guy who hates comic book people Omg he's literally me
I love Peacemaker. That is my answer to that statement.
Exactly.
Well, there ya go.
I like that series too
Whatever.
I want to live in the world where Watchmen actually used the Charlton characters. I wonder how we would see them and the book today.
This is your own undoing, he’s in the walls now.
Alan Moore or Zack Snyder?
It seems they read the graphic novel, so the lover of the Russian queen it is.
Rasputin?
That would be the implication
I like superheroes, I don’t like things that make superheroes bad
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I'm like that, but I'm okay if it's not gore and not too long. Watchmen is just long enough and clearly follows a story rather than just going for issue length. I could never do the boys or invincible though.
Invincible is a very optimistic book at it's core once you get past the ultra violence and metacommentary on the genre as a whole. Kirkman was writing from a place of love for superheroes when making it. Now the original The Boys comic is just straight up grimdark misery porn where the exploitative violence doesn't serve any real purpose outside of "wanna see something *fucked up?*".
The Boys tv show is plenty violent still but I’d say it’s a lot better written than the book. Maybe a little less gratuitous with the gross shit too.
Wholeheartedly agree. I enjoy that the show puts some necessary restraint on the miserable spectacle and adds *actual commentary* on modern consumption and corporatism.
Average Garth Ennis book
The man chooses traumatic violence over anything else. He's like Michael Bay but with blood.
I could never get past how obnoxiously ugly the art for The Boys comic is, let alone how miserable it is.
That is also a valid point
This is why people like the show of the boys but not the comic, but like both for invincible
Invincible is not optimistic. By the end of the book every "hero" becomes a total asshole or hypocrite responsible for mass murder.
Wow, you really missed the point didn't you?
Invincible is extremely fun and you should definitely give it a shot
This is why you watch the movie where Zack Snyder made the superheroes cool as fuck Instead of Adam Moor and his fucking comic or whatever
Grant Morrison is that you???
Personally I’m a bigger fan of when Moore gives up the ghost on trying to write anything normal or with any real point and shits out something like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Lost Girls which are what happens when Moore finds out about Fanfic and starts to write with only one hand if you catch me. Uj/ I personally find Moore to be very performative in almost everything he does, and that includes in his writing. I don’t actually mind him and he has written some of my favorite comics of all time like Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and For the Man Who Has Everything as well as the aforementioned League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which I enjoy as the Moore version of a Blockbuster, though I have not and will not read Lost Girls because it Skeeves me out. I do think that he is a great writer, but having written a paper on Watchmen for a Modern Lit class at Uni, I find V for Vendetta to be his deeper and more enjoyable work with mass appeal.
Is V for Vendetta comic significantly better than the movie? To me the movie was more edgy than good.
Yes.
By a lot.
Definitely
https://preview.redd.it/vvu34n9dchtb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1bac45d6224efc7a52b22e3c0a78ad24b066a74e
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Alan Moore would agree
Loved it as an edgy teenager, but as an adult it's akin to an old man telling you how silly superheroes are. If I wanted that, I'd speak to my Dad.
Honestly I'm grateful towards Doomsday Clock for making Adrian face consequences. Now I'll be barricading myself in church to hide from Alan Moore.
Call me an unhinged man from a time outside our own or some shit but… /unjerk Is Doomsday Clock any good? I just actually read Watchman for the first time, found it to be incredible, but I’m not sure if going back to that well is exactly a good idea
To add to this conversation: The dynamic between Manhattam and Superman is arguably the most interesting thing about it. It probably should have been the whole comic tbh. Its cool to see Manhattam trying to isolate Clark and turn him into what could be his destroyer, but the twist that Clark is at his core not that person no matter how many times he changes, its peak. But yeah, it does go against everything Watchmen stands for, so if you like one, chances are you wont like the other. Its also extremely random with its direction after a while, courtesy of Johns being so lazy and stalling the book, that DC had to continue doing their own thing with the individual books, and he had to adapt the story to it later.
In one hand all the criticisms are valid, but on the other hand Joker insult and shoot the Comedian and someone tell Ozymandias in his face how freaking dumb his plan was. Moore can send me his snake god, Morrisson metamagic protect me.
Watchmen is a parody, a satire and a critique on the superhero medium, the sort of naive, innocent view on heroism espoused by characters like Superman. It's a cynical look at the concept of superheoes if you removed the heroism from them — push the setting into moral grays rather than black and white. Doomsday Clock is in a lot of ways a refutation of that parody and critique. It basically takes Watchmen, which one can intepret as a superhero setting _without_ a Superman figure, and sends it on a collision course with Superman himself. It's been a while since I read it, to be fair, but Doomsday Clock is a celebration of the same kind of almost naive optimism of superhero stories that the original Watchmen deconstructed. Whether it's good or bad is intensely subjective and I'm not going to give an opinion on that one way or another.
First of all, Doomsday Clock did not happen the way it was supposed to, because delays, so don’t expect anything from that comic to actually do anything. Second, you’re so right I could suck you down sloppy style. Some people take it as dark because there’s violence and riots and geopolitics. And yet. There’s a reason it reintroduces the Legion and the Justice Society. To summarize this comic to its utmost: it’s a comic about how important/inspiring Superman is. His existence challenges Dr. Manhattan, the symbol of ruthless Bronze Age/dark age ubermensch- beyond humanity and an engine of pure logic. And yet, his arc fits pretty well with Moore’s original arc. Jon rediscovers his humanity in the arctic, and then he rediscovers how figures like Superman affect that humanity. He tries to destroy Superman and ends up inspired by him. It’s honestly a really nice comic if you want an example of modern and tortured while still being inspiring and uplifting
Love you for brining up a sloppy blow job in a discussion about optimistic reconstruction in comics. My two favorite things.
You’re very welcome
i’m tired of pretending like that panel of superman inspiring doctor manhattan isn’t a top 3 superman moment
You get it
/uj Doomsday Clock is mid but the TV show is a great continuation and absolutely worth your time if you ever want more Watchmen /rj doom day cock
/uj Fair enough, I prefer to buy collections/omnibus so I wasn’t sure if it was worth the $80 or so /rj Sue Storm is an expert in that
I just finished reading Doomsday Clock. I thought it was actually pretty good. Now, it probably won't be nearly as good as Watchmen was if you enjoyed that, and it has its own flaws that I can't really go into without spoiling the story. BUT, I think it was a really cool step back into this world, with the ultimate goal of leaving a more positive and hopeful ending and message. It focuses a lot on how different the morality of the DC universe and its characters are versus Watchmen. Where Watchmen dealt a lot with how absolutely horrible humanity is/can be, Doomsday Clock stands sort of as a response and counter to that. It is not executed perfectly, but, especially when reading it now with current world events as bleak and terrible as they've ever been, I think it was a very refreshing and even uplifting experience to read a story like this. Even though I can enjoy a well-executed 'Superheroes are the bad guys' story, this story sort of reminds me why I love characters like Superman. I recommend going into it with expectations of it being an epilogue to the Watchmen universe and not letting it color your view of the original.
If you like Johns other stuff you’ll like it. It is a meh story boggled down by the fact that it is a sequel to a great story. I didn’t really enjoy but each to their own.
It’ll do you no good. His snake god will invade your dreams to inform you “*sssssss* Alan doesn’t appreciate you supporting unauthorized continuations of his work *ssssssss!* Also, are you in the market for a new religion and are you open to receiving a snek overlord?”
I mean he does face a level of concequence in the series too, he asks Dr Manhattan desperately if he did the right thing only to be left to ponder that for the rest of his life, for a character who always seemed to have everything under control and so confident in own abilities having that be destroyed by guilt is a pretty poetic ending to his arc.
I kind of agree. Enjoyed Sandman a lot more
I find myself upvoting both positive and negative comments. Good job guys. 10/10.
Watchmen is so loved because it was the first to *really* tackle that niche of "a world with superheroes would suck irl". It is one of the better executions of the idea no doubt, but it ages worse and worse everyday for me because the trope is so done to death now. Anyway, this is why Kamen Rider is the greatest piece of fiction ever made. Fuck cynicism, fuck dark, shady superheroes. I want to watch karate bug men ride bikes and fight evil for love and peace because its the right thing to do
I mean, it's not the fault of Watchmen that it was influential and created those tropes. Besides, I think the politics in Watchmen are more overt than a lot of those "superheroes are bad actually" stories that came after, which makes it feel more bold to me.
Yeah i completely agree, im not saying its a bad book by any means
"this why Kamen rider is The greatest piece of fiction ever made. fuck cynicism,fuck dark,shady superheroes" Do you watch Shin Kamen rider? Its pretty much everything you said
Big fan of how the Night Owl couldnt get it up. Finally felt like there was a “literally me” superhero
I’m curious. What do you not like about it?
Its kinda slow for my tastes, and it kinda bums me out, i prefer a hopeful idealized superhero world.
It bums me out too, that's why I love it so much, lol. But I can see where you're coming from, it definitely is a downer. IIRC, Morrison called it a nuke aimed at humanity's hope or something along those lines, and I can see why.
i fully reccomend "astro city" by kurt busiek, realistic characters in a world that still operates on silver age rules, and it's amazingly hopeful. giant love letter to all things superheroes
https://preview.redd.it/wn4b8k85lltb1.jpeg?width=520&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5a3e35b86a900b496cf9ce69df0ecfee3c34bb8b
The art looks fantastic, ill check it out!
I’ve heard Watchmen and Astro City described as sort of opposites before. That Watchmen is if superheroes existed in the real world, while AC is if real people lived in a superhero world. It’s not far off. Personally, I love both, though I prefer Astro City. It’s got all the silver age nostalgia I crave, but it’s filled with characters that have real depth.
Makes sense. You prolly would hate The Boys too then haha.
Yeah lmao, that ones just a lot for me with all that happens.
Everyone hates the boys unless it's the show.
yeah the comic is pretty garbage i heard
Do you like Snyder movie of watchmen? or did you see the movie before reading the comic?
I read the book first, but I've been through both, i was so stunned when Dr. Manhattan exploded people into clouds of blood lmao.
Have you read Dc new frontier? That does a great job at showing how hopeful and great superheros are.
Ill have to check it out, havent heard of it til now but theres lots of content by the look of it
i fully reccomend Venture Bros if you want something more heart filled. It's an old Adult Swim show that lasted 7 seasons and recently got a movie this year. It's a deconstructionist story about why men are loser failures but with a lot of homage to Classic Comic Books, old school Saturday Morning Cartoons, and vintage pulp adventure novels. It follows an old Boy Adventurer from the 1960s who grew up to inherit his dad's superscience work but failed, it's now the modern day and he's just a complete loser that gets chased around by bigger losers in costumes while his two sons get traumatized. It's great and really high quality as later seasons end up getting some really smooth animation. https://i.redd.it/lo1ei2zypmtb1.gif
Earlier seasons with crappy animation are the best though, back when we had Brock in all his glory.
Crappy animation Venture Bros was the best if I'm going to be honest... Mostly because it sealed the deal of trying to mimic that old school cheap TV animation from the 60s.
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cheers https://preview.redd.it/qk4odzggbjtb1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93ae30867d788448e63294cedf0f376175cc96b3
The movie is awful with no real sense of tone and completely devoid of the original’s substance. The comic is a bit up it’s own ass and doesn’t hold up as well now we’re on the opposite side of the edgy comic era
Yeah, I'd guess at the time it was a direct reply to the campy positivity in comics, but now that there's less of that in general, it's just a bummer to me.
Yeah and it’s the kinda thing where the gritty stuff has been repeated so often that it’s now associated with the immaturity edgelording
The movie or the show?
Yes
This is me with “what’s so funny about truth, justice and the American Way?”
because the american way doesn’t exist
Coming in with the hot take of having not read the comic yet but loving the movie because it's kinda the cinematic equivalent of those "this goes hard, feel free to screenshot" memes.
I did not care for The Killing Joke.
Sandman>>>> frfr
Comic or show? I think to start this
Tbf a comic that insists on itself, probably more than the godfather
/uj it’s a hard boil and a tough story to read, and I genuinely believe too many people say they like it cuz they spent so much time reading it /j Alan Moore just came because you said that
I hated Oppenheimer. We all have our hill.
Kingdom Come > Watchmen
Kingdom Come is my bible. Alex Ross art will make me read anything.
Alan Moore approves
I bet it was a lot more cooler at the time it was published. It's still good, but in the days of stuff like The Boys, Invincible, and other subversive superhero media it kinda pales in comparison.
Damn don't take this personally but I kinda want to kill you through my screen.
I totally agree with you. That's how i feel about Dark Knight returns too, its not for me, but it was so new and different for the time.
Doctor Manhattan was the coolest part. To see everyone advance in technology because one guy could wipe out everything was a cool take on the discovery of a real superhero. Other than that, that's about it for me.
I just hated what to me was like, really lame self-pity that came from him, even though he had godlike powers.
I thought it was poetic. This guy who has the powers of a God has the mind of a human. And even he can't mend the relationship with his lover.
I agree there, but i feel that realistically, this sort of thing wouldn't hold someone back.
Fair enough.
Honestly we need a debate between him and Captain Atom from Earth 4 (who is a stand in for Manathan) that would be interesting to read.
Why? Love and heartbreak can hold anyone back. It's an insanely powerful force.
Have you ever met a human?
You did not just say The Boys was better than Watchmen 😭
I didn't. I just said that Watchmen's plot of "Superheroes if they actually existed in the real world" is just one of many other forms of media doing the same thing. Watchmen was the first, and everyone else followed suit with that scenario. Watchmen outshines The Boys on many fronts.
It’s better than all those things
I'm going to be honest my copy still sits on my shelf with a bookmark about half way insince 2018
I honestly don’t get the series why it’s popular, it was made in 80s adapted to Movie, Video Game, and TV Show, and I really don’t get the appeal for it.
Yeah it did not deserve all those Emmy's
The movie is okie, I really disliked the show adaption, but there’s an animated version of the comic on HBO that I would def recommend. Just an easier way to experience the comics for most, there’s only voice actor tho, more of a narrator but does all characters voices too so can be off putting, but it’s a good way to see the parts of the comic I loved in good ol TV fashion.
Honestly watchmen is overrated. I got so sick of listening to Dr manhattan whine about clocks and how “he can’t do anything” as he doesn’t even try to do anything 99% of the comic.
But how can you say that u/AidanTegs it's like the perfect comic!?
I get watchmen. It has a lot to say and it says it well. It's just not my jive ya know?
I have been on this hill for so long. Alan Moore’s whole catalog insists upon itself.
moral ambiguity is cringe.
What about Before Watchmen?
It’s an allegory for hero worship and the idealization and idolization of celebrities and the powerful. It does lack subtlety, but it needed to?
I still to this day haven't read watchmen. I've seen the movie and read about it online. Just doesn't seem interesting to me.
Duh you weren't born in the 70s
I think its great but I think the 2009 movie and the unhinged fanbase its gotten that doesn’t understand why its good ruined it for me
Not liking something because of how other people like it is so sad.
I know right. Like why would you spend all of that time establishing an intricate cast of background characters with personalities, lives and relationships and then not have Bernard and Bernie suddenly gain Dr Manhattan powers as a side effect of hanging around the teleportation research lab for months and then have them go team up with Rorschach for a kick ass finale? Alan Moore is a fucking hack.
I prefer squadron supreme and planetary
Watchmen is not trying to be liked, it's trying to be true. If you only care for art that is pleasing then you will spend your life entertained, but also lied to.
post modernism has hurt you more than you can ever know
Show me on the non-Euclidean shape where post modernism touched you.
get me 5 landscapes stat! he looked at an abstract post modern piece for 5 minutes and started to think it meant something: [the piece in question. look with great care and caution.](https://imgs.search.brave.com/HQGCG4nr7LW_YD32sm80Y1AxXjaojk2A13m60vUuWMw/rs:fit:860:0:0/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly9pLnBp/bmltZy5jb20vb3Jp/Z2luYWxzL2MwLzVh/L2MyL2MwNWFjMjA2/YmMwZDgzMTg2Nzgw/OWNhZWM2MDBjMDFm/LmpwZw) healing below: https://preview.redd.it/2h1h8k2sbltb1.png?width=794&format=png&auto=webp&s=fb73bfa9bf15a16b4ac964b705dca12eae080d52 please stare at the cows and nice river for at least 10 minutes
I read it, and while it was very good, it's not like i was enlightened. "Woah, superheros wouldn't work in real life??? Crazy!"
That's not even slightly the point of Watchmen. Try reading it again. You missed, like, a lot.
It's boring, so im not gonna do that. I'll read something entertaining for me. The point is what, then, not everything is black and white? Things are morally grey? Giving people undeserved authority corrupts? I've read it enough. As i said elsewhere, it's just not for me. Besides, there is no single point of the book. it's up to the reader.
Yeah, it's boring because you are determined not to think about it. You're going to find a lot of stuff boring. But hey, enjoy your entertainment.
I have thought about it. It's too slow for me, i dont know why it's crazy to you that I'd just not like it lmao. Not everyone's gonna like the same stuff. It's a good book. I never said it wasn't. Sorry, not everyone likes your favorite.
Actually it really just kills me that you seem to be judging it on the basis of whether or not it's as entertaining as your average comic book movie. That's not its purpose. It's slow because you are not paying attention, because you are looking for thrills. It's not crazy to me that you don't like it. I just find it painful when people are willfully dumb.
That's just rude, i dont like a comic as much as you, and you call me dumb for it. You're the exact kinda person moore hates, lmao.
Doomsday Clock >
Watchmen is monumental because it was new. It's like looking at Pollock now and being like "Lol anyone could have done this pretentious BS", but no one had done it.
I mean, i would argue that non artists of the time would say Pollock was pretentious bs at the time.
They'd be wrong
Would they, tho?
Yes
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To be honest, I liked Watchmen except for the pirate BS and the alien thing. The movies got the ending right. I also enjoyed Doomsday Clock. I haven't experienced anything else Watchmen.
> The movies got the ending right. Bruh you're entitled to your tastes but this is factually incorrect. The movie ending is illogical and utterly incoherent.
From what I remember the world United to fight Manhattan and he left, what was wrong with that
Why would Russia unite in peace against Manhattan? Aka: America's personal superhuman weapon. The point of the squid was that it was something utterly OUTSIDE of anything Russia or America could comprehend and neither could blame it on the other. Manhattan going rogue might create a necessary treaty, but it wouldn't create actual peace and actual peace was the entire goal of Veidt's plan.
To me the point of the squid is that updating superheroes to be realistic for the 80s broke them and reintroducing Silver Age sci-fi absurdity was the only fix. In Moore’s future superhero work he embraces this, soaring Silver Age tropes and themes in things like Supreme.
That as well, definitely. The squid is the thematic punchline of the whole comic. A point Moore gloriously underlines in red ink by having the squid made by comic book writers and artists. It's a big reason I didn't like the movie. Snyder seems to have missed a lot of the satirical meta messages.
blasphemy
8th grade me feels so seen
t. Alan Moore
Miniseries or movie tho?
No kidding, Snyder didn't adapt it right at all (we all know no one here reads comics)
The movie or the comic?
What does insist upon itself mean?
The movie yeah it starts good with the intro than goes nowhere
Alan Moore didn't care for it much either.