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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According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, Otto Binder did become something of a UFOlogist and believer in "ancient astronauts" in later life.
Just for fun, I looked up "Santa Fe", and found that it means "Holy Faith", and that the city's original full name was "La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís", or "The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi".
RORSCHACH #9:
The detective investigates the property in Santa Fe. As he walks through the house and around the grounds, we are shown flashbacks of what happened and things he imagined might have happened. If you've ever read Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, his investigative technique reminds me of Will Graham's. The flashbacks are tinted grey and the scenes in which the detective seems to interract with the Kid are in color. He spots a piece of unprofessionally laid carpet in one of the rooms. Playing a hunch, he rips it up and finds a blood stain beneath it. "Laura" is there and he discusses it with her, but she's being evasive and not very helpful. This is probably when she received the arm wound which was found during the autopsy, but there's way too much blood for that. He finds a bullet in the wall behind an oddly-hung picture, but where is the body? Not buried; she's wounded, Meyerson's old and the ground is too hard to dig. Similary, chopping it up and burning it would also be too hard. And what about the smell? Why hasn't he noticed it be now? Outside there's a septic tank, and the dirt around the hatch has recently been disturbed.
They skip over the scene in which the detective recoveres the body from the septic tank, but he finds a pocket pager in the corpse's pocket. He dials the number which most recently called. A woman answers: "Hello, Ron Wheelock's office, may I help you?" After a brief conversation the detective learns that he has reached the the office of the deputy campaign manager for the reelection of President Robert Redford. Back in issue #1, the detective and the other guy were wondering how Rorschach and the Kid managed to get into the convention without passes. Robert Redford was helping them.
This is getting good.
RORSCHACH #10:
The detective reports to the other guy (who is an FBI agent, BTW). After his capture, Frank Miller bragged about having government contacts who helped him help Meyerson and Cummings. Using the excuse of researching a "Dark Fife" story, Miller contacted one of his cop friend who put him in touch with four men who might be able to help him out: Alex spellman, Jonathan Oates, Dylan Lang and Eric Yellin. [For the record, in case you are wondering, Miller's "story" would have involved the pirate getting time-warped or something to the present day. The pirate hates all the progress and all the laws, and wants to live in the old ways by the sea, so he goes crazy and decides to kill a President during a campaign.] It was easy enough for the detective to contact Miller's cop friend, who suppied him with the same four names he had given to Miller to give to Meyerson, who contacted those men also under the guise of researching a story.
Alex Spellman is a retired secret service agent who doesn't want to talk about his work and turned Meyerson down. Eric Yellin is in personal security, but Meyerson couldn't pay him a fee that was worth it. Dylan Lang was a cop with experience coordingating campaign events, but he thought Meyerson's request conflicted with his professiojnal commitments and turned him down. Jonathan Oates, however, was former military and an overseas contractor who had worked security for campaigns in the states. The detective went to his home in southern California, where he had been doing security work for hire, but his naighbors hadn't seen him in a while. No one answers, so the detective breaks in to find his house has been searched. He finds a picture of Oates inside and recognizes him as the corpse he pulled from the septic tank.
He kept meticulous records. His files revealed he did recent work for the Redford campaign, but nothing to tie him to Meyerson or Cummings. A further search revealed a hidden safe underneath the floorboards. the detective cracked it, but found only a bunch of cash, a gun and an empty beer bottle. He picks up the bottle with a handkerchief to preserve possible fingerprints. Oates had served in the military, starting in the regular Navy, then going into the Seals in the late '90s. He was part of the team that arrested Osama Bin Laden in early 2001, thereby preventing "some attack." It was then he met President Redford and began doing work work for him.
Oates also had a secretary, Diane Condor, who committed suicide shortly after the assassination attempt on Governor Turley. She recorded a suicide message for her parents which the detective was able to obtain through them. Oates was a Pontius Pirate fan (of course), so when Meyerson contacted him, he was only too willing to supply information about how an assassin might kill a generic candidate. As the questions and scenarios became increasingly specific, Condor objected. Oates' instructions for how an unauthorized person might bypass security are quite explicit and believable, but he would need a security pass. Then Meyerson told Oates he wanted to do a real-life run through so that he might experience what his characters would experience. Oates used his connection to President Redford to get four security passes. Although Oates worked for Redford and this was Turley's convention, apparently the other campaign gets a limited amount of security badges and, when the President of the United States himself requests four passes from the FBI, those badges are expedited.
This is HUGE. The President himself is now implicated in an assassination attempt to kill his main political rival. the FBI agent is gobsmacked when he realizes that his office must have been the one to issues the badges. Oates decided to deliver the badges to Meyerson and cummings personally. when he didn't return from that trip, the secretary began to panic. She used one of the badges herself to get into the ralley. As the event wore on, she became increasingly paranoid. There was an emergency phone number on the back of the badge, so she called in the potential threat to the FBI (solving one of the mysteries left from issue #1). She was worried about what might happen to her familay if her own involvement in the scheme came to light, so that's when she decided to take her own life.
It was the FBI agent himself who took her call, and he thanks the detective for his help and tells him he's gone far beyond expectations. But there's another mystery left to be solved. Oates was working with Meyerson and Cummings to kill Turley on behalf of Redford. Why did they kill him? The FBI agent is understandably flustered buy all this, uncertain how to proceed. It is at this point I start wondering about him. The detective didn't tell him about the beer botle in the safe. It is at this point the FBI agent takes his leave. Then the detective picks up the beer bottle the agent left behind with a handkerchief, a bottle with a clear thumbprint on it.
RORSCHACH #11:
Wow. I think my mind has just been blown.
Everything you know it wrong.
This entire issue is the detective discussing the investigation with the Kid in his imagination. He has finally figured it out, and really happened is not at all what we thought happened. Not at all. There is a completely different interpretation of the evidence we have seen so far, and right now I am torn between trying to explain it (which would take all day and I'd probably mess it up), or just... I don't know. first, though, I think I need to read the last issue to see how it all comes out.
RORSCHACH #12:
#10 ended with the FBI agent pucjing for a face-to-face meeting between the detective and Turley. #12 leads directly into that meeting but, without having read #11, the detective's actions in #12 would make no sense at all. I have decided not to reveal the revelations of #11 or the conclusion; it would be too much of a spoiler, plus I'd never do it justice. I've probably said too much already. Instead, I'll wrap this discussion up another way.
It occured to me the other day that, in some ways (in many ways. perhaps), Watchmen is the "Fourth World" of the '80s. Both were highly anticipated projects from big name creators, and both went out on a sour note IRL (Kirby's cancellation, Moore's rights dispute). Also, both have spawned multiple sequels, all of which pay homage to the respective original, but none of which share continuity with the others. For "Fourth World" Gerry Conway gets a crack, Joahn Byrne gets a crack, Jim Starlin gets a crack, Walt Simonson gets a crack. For Watchmen it's Geoff Johns, Tom King and all the "Before Wathmen" prequels, not to mention Zack Snyder's movie and the HBO TV series. I think Rorschach is likely the last Watchmen spin-off project we'll see for the foreseeable future, perhaps ever, and that's too bad. Rorschach was mainly a police procedural largely divorced from the Watchmen universe. There hasn't been a comic book presidential candidate the likes of Governor turley since Frank Miller's Ken Wind in Elektra: Assassin. Rorschach could have been any presidential candidate assassination plot; setting it in the Watchmen universe was jsut the hook... at least until the end. Thematically, Rorschach works best in the Watchman universe, although it is most definitely a metaphor for our own.
Hmm... what Tom King series should I read next?
I like Tom King's stuff, and was unaware this series even existed! Since I enjoyed Before Watchmen I will be getting to this next. I think I will pass on Doomsday Clock: too much DC Universe for me, however interesting integrating the Watchmen characters might be. Do you want to try to talk me into it, Jeff?
I'm glad to hear that you'll be continuing on to Tom King's Rorshcach series. I look forward to reading your thoughts. Regarding Doomsday Clock, if you haven't read the series, go ahead and read my synopses; those should help you make up your mind.
Everything you you know is wrong, is right! The story gets incredibly convoluted at that point (so much so that I would not have minded a detailed explication, but I don't blame you for not trying, Jeff!). So much happened at the end that I found myself questioning the length of the series. Couldn't some of the detective's journey have been more compact, say eight or nine issues instead of twelve? But the storytelling was consistently engaging, and the ending was satisfying, so I can't complain.
After you posted last week I went ahead and re-read my own posts and the convoluted nature of the narrative all came rushing back to me!
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