I just finished re-reading Watchmen for the first time in many years. Every time I read I notice some new detail or nuance I had never noticed before. I used to pretend that non-comics readers might one day ask me to recommend a comic book or series to read, but that almost never happens. Over the years my choices have changed somewhat (and it would depend on that imaginary person's tastes in any case), but rarely have I considered Watchmen because it was not likely a non-fan could possibly appreciate it the way I appriciate it, but I have since changed my mind. It is so layered that a practiced reader couldn't help but appreciate it, maybe not in the same way I do, but in a way uniquely his or her own.
But I'm not here today to talk about Watchmen; I'm here to talk about what came after. I'm going to start with the nine titles collectively known as "Before Watchmen" which were released in 2013. I have read these series (and one one-shot) only once, in the order they were released. It struck me at the time that there should be an ideal reading order but, as I indicated, I have yet to even read any of them ininterrupted start to finish. By the time I am fiinished with thise phase of "Before & After" I hope to have a better idea of in which order to read the series. All I have now is a vague notion that Minutemen should be first and Comedian should be last. This is the order in which they were released:
- Minutemen
- Silk Spectre
- Comedian
- Nite Owl
- Ozymandias
- Rorschach
- Dr. Manhattan
- Moloch
- Dollar Bill
The series are either 1, 2, 4 or 6 issues. Because some are lengthier than others, some which started later ended sooner.
FIRST UP: Minutemen
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I really enjoyed all of the reality splits, even if they sometimes got confusing. The deal between Manhattan and Ozymandias isn't entirely clear to me. Is it that Ozymandias managed to deceive Manhattan into helping him with his giant alien octopus project (which is intended to avoid doomsday by uniting humanity against a common enemy)? Manhattan leaves the Earth afterward anyway so we never discover if he got wise.
I think Manhattan did get wise, then decided to play along for the greater good.
Jeff of Earth-J said:
MINUTEMEN (6 issues) - Darwyn Cooke
For example, in Under the Hood, Hollis Mason says that he doesn't know who Hooded Justice was under his mask, although he speculates it might have been Rolf Müller
I bought and read all of the Before Watchmen issues, and liked them for the most part. I was somewhat disappointed that more wasn’t done with the death of Rolf Müller. Since Hooded Justice interrupted his rape of Sally Jupiter and hit him hard, I was expecting his murder to be shown to be at the hands of Eddie Blake.
OZYMANDIAS (6 issues) - Len Wein & Jae Lee
The framing sequence of this series takes place toward the end of the original Watchmen series, just as Ozymandias is about to launch his masterplan, as he refelcts on his life and the events which led to this point. Most of what we know about Adrian Veidt, Ozymandias, we know from Watchmen XI, as related by he himself, partially to his three servants, partially to his fellow Watchmen. The first issue takes those events and retells them in in comic book form, but the series is much more than that. Ozymandias is the most ambitious of the "Before Watchmen" series, taking everthing we know from the original series, from history, and from the other prequel series and presenting all those events in chronological order as seen from Veidt's point of view. It also embellishes the narrative with things we don't already know about Veidt's life, such as his loves, and the specific motivation for becoming a masked vigilante in the first place. But Ozymandias is more than a simple rehash of events; I'd say it's subtle enough that someone reading it for the first time who hasn't read Watchmen still might not have it spoiled for him, yet someone who has read the series will appreciate the extra depth and dimension. Possibly the best of of the series.
At first, the wordy writing bothered me. But then I realized the arrogance Ozymandias constantly displays: he really does believe he is the smartest man in the world, so it isn't surprising that he enjoys the sound of his own voice. It turns out that the cold-bloodedness displayed in the Moloch series was only the tip of the iceberg. But I enjoyed the way this series gives a definitive answer to the mystery of The Comedian's death.
COMEDIAN (6 issues) - Brian Azzarello & J.G. Jones
The series opens, surprisingly, with Eddie Blake playing a game of touch football with the Kennedys in Hyannis Port in 1962. It is Jackie Kennedy who engages Blake to kill Marilyn Monroe and make it look like a drug overdose. For the next year, Blake remains a close personal friend to the Kennedys. On October 22, 1963, J. Edgar Hoover sends the Comedian to break up a drug ring run by Moloch. As far as Blake knows, Moloch is involved in prostitution, not drugs (in which case the FBI woldn't have been so concerned if it was "just the ladies"), but it's a slow news day so Blake accepts the assignment. when he gets to Moloch's warehouse, he finds Moloch in his office watching the news of JFK's assassination on TV. The two bond over the tragedy. This is surprising because twice in Watcmen it is implied that the Comedian killed JFK (and, in the movie version, it is explicit).
Issue #2 opens with Eddie Blake and RFK attending the first Muhammad Ali/Sonny Liston fight in Miami (February 25, 1964). After that, the Comedian is sent to Viet Nam. Issue #3 is set against the backdrop of the Watts riots in 1965 when the Comedian was on leave and what he did behind-the-scenes of that conflict. The Comedian is back in Viet Nam for #4-5, where the CIA intended him to help the "war effort," but he was there to win the war, so he was sent back to the states in 1968, where he is contacted by G. Gordon Liddy about the prospects of RFK running for President. Meanwhile, RFK has been told about the attrocities comitted by the Comedian in Viet Nam. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of the FBI and the CIA in the plot to assassinate RFK, but Azzarello has it that it was a false flag operation to implicate Sirhan Sirhan, but it was actually Blake who pulled the trigger. These are the kinds of stories that Azzarello tells best. This one is something of an EYKIW in that the Comedian did not kill JFK, but RFK.
This is where the series ends, but we know from Watchmen that the Comedian will eventually be sent back to Viet Nam alongside Dr. Manhattan. This is the series I thought it would be best to end with, because the last visual foreshadows the first scene of Watchmen, but actually I now think Ozymandias wouldbe the best to end with, if I were trying to assemble them in more-or-less chronological order, which is no longer the case. I'll be back with more thoughts on that later.
I decided to follow DC's numbering. Minutemen/Silk Spectre was designated Vol. 1, with Comedian/Rorschach following as Vol. 2. So I read Comedian after Silk Spectre, which worked well. After the previous anti-hero Comedian appearances, this series goes full-tilt. He is such a scumbag that it's hard to understand why any of the normal types (like the Kennedys) would have anything to do with him. In the end RFK sees him for what he is, but it's too late.
I think there is some good in Edward Blake, not much but some. He seems to genuinely care about Laurie, for one thing, plus when he discovered the island it really seemed to mess him up. I think if her were completely amoral it wouldn't have bothered him as much as it did. He also had a tender side he (eventually) showed to Sally Jupiter.
COMEDIAN (6 issues) - Brian Azzarello & J.G. Jones
It is Jackie Kennedy who engages Blake to kill Marilyn Monroe and make it look like a drug overdose.
I had forgotten this. A disgusting slander. Jackie was a woman of her time, and just suffered through his infidelities. The most risky one was his sharing a girlfriend with Sam Giancana, a boss in the Mafia.
I noticed this as well. But my take on it is that it is an alternate history change. In the context of the story I could believe Jackie would do this, but did not think it implied anything about the real-world Jackie.
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