The Watchmen: Most influential comic series ever?

Much of the 1980s were filled with comics that were, well, crap. Hell, the 1970s weren’t that great either. A lot of them were just rehashes of old stories from the 50s and 60s that weren’t that great to begin with, and really added nothing more to the table, save a few bad one-liners.

Or you had stories of old heroes battling new enemies, like teenage smoking and drinking. No joke. Just check out some old Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics.

However, along came 1986 and an entirely new era of comics, with the publication of arguably the most influential comic series ever: “The Watchmen” written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons.

I’ve read a lot of comics in my day, and to be honest with you, “The Watchmen” is not what I would classify as one of my favorite series. I appreciate what Moore did for comics, but the writing and art are still in line with an older formula of comics.

What really set “The Watchmen” apart was its story, and above all, the characters. It takes place in the mid-1980s, at the height of the Cold War, when a nuclear war seems eminent. To top it off, one of America’s most famous heroes, The Comedian, has been found murdered, thrown out of his high-rise apartment building, which sets off a mystery of an elusive “masked-hero killer” on the loose. As the story unfolds it becomes clear that things are much deeper than they appear.

What Moore does best in the series is rethinking the iconic superheroes of DC and Marvel in a modern perspective, in an attempt to see what would happen to heroes in the real world.

There is the alienated detective, Rorschach, who is haunted by his dark past. Like Batman, Rorschach has created an alternate identity to fight crime, but unlike the Dark Knight, his identity has become entirely enveloped in his alternate identity, almost to the point of compulsion and insanity.

What would happen if Captain America had not been a hero in World War II, but had instead fought in Vietnam? Would he still be the pinnacle of American patriotism? Most likely, he would be like the Comedian, a hero who faces the irrationality and brutality of human action not with revulsion or defiance, but with nonchalance or even a sense of humor.

Moore’s story is innovative, but reading it can be difficult at times. It is the first of its kind in a lot of groundbreaking ways, but what really carries it along is its characters, which is well worth the effort of reading it before the new movie comes out.

I’m really looking forward to see how the new movie, coming out early next month, is going to handle “The Watchmen”. At the time, the Cold War was huge, but it seems like an all too distant memory now. But hey, it looks pretty frickin’ sweet, so be sure to see it on March 6.