Behind the Mask (original) (raw)
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'Absolute Watchmen,' by Alan Moore
- Nov. 20, 2005
ABSOLUTE WATCHMEN
By Alan Moore. Illustrated by Dave Gibbons.
464 pp. DC Comics. $75.
The next comic book artist who argues that his medium needs more realism -- that his imaginary universe of costumed deities able to defy gravity, shoot heat beams from their eyes and level skyscrapers with a single punch isn't gritty or violent enough to hold the attention of today's savvy young readers -- ought to be socked on the jaw. Failing that, he should march himself to the nearest comic book store, thumb through the latest pulp chronicles of crime-fighters who kill and villains who commit rape and advocate genocide, and decide for himself if the modern graphic novel isn't sufficiently graphic already. Better yet, he should simply reread the comics of Alan Moore.
An influential fantasy author for almost a quarter-century, the British-born Moore has often used comics to illustrate how reality can be deadlier to superheroes than Kryptonite. In the early 1980's serial "Marvelman" (rechristened "Miracleman" in America), Moore experimented with a Superman-like do-gooder who decides to use his powers for the betterment of mankind -- and ends up creating a society that is utopian to the point of tediousness. In the contemporaneous "V For Vendetta," Moore explored a mirror-image scenario: a fascist Britain tormented by the violent resistance of V, an enigmatic, Shakespeare-quoting avenger in a Guy Fawkes mask. For all his charms, V is, by his author's own admission, a terrorist whose bloodthirsty anarchy is only marginally better than the totalitarianism he seeks to upend. If you identify with V's struggle, you must embrace a story that begins with the bombing of the Houses of Parliament and ends with the destruction of 10 Downing Street.
When the first issue of Moore's 12-part magnum opus, "Watchmen," made its debut in 1986, what made it so remarkable was how conventional -- and authentic -- its universe felt. The preliminary notes of the illustrator Dave Gibbons -- included in this oversized hardcover reissue, along with script pages, the original series proposal and other long-unavailable material -- envisioned an alternate reality of geodesic domes, airships and submarine freighters. But the world of "Watchmen" is indisputably our own, one in which Richard Nixon was elected president, the United States waged war in Vietnam and Kitty Genovese was murdered in Kew Gardens, Queens, while her neighbors stood by.
The would-be heroes of "Watchmen" have staggeringly complex psychological profiles: beneath his mask, the hard-nosed vigilante Rorschach is not a billionaire Bruce Wayne-like playboy but a troubled loner with a sociopathic streak. The gadget-dependent Nite-Owl is a sexually impotent pushover. Dr. Manhattan, the lone character who genuinely possesses supernatural powers (gained from a quantum physics experiment gone horribly wrong), is so close to godhood that he can appreciate human affairs only at a subatomic scale. "A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles," he observes. "Structurally, there's no discernible difference."
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