I think Alan Moore hit a turning point at the end of issue #7. He had finished setting everything up and had thoroughly shown us how frustrating and unlikable all these characters are. I also suspect he began to feel just how joyless the act of deconstruction can be. Perhaps he yearned for a nostalgic return to simple action and adventure. Of course, Watchmen can’t be that simple. Moore will give us plenty of action and adventure here, but he’ll present it as a tragedy, not a celebration.
We open with Hollis calling Sally for the first time in years, partly to gossip about Dan and Laurie, partly to wax nostalgically about the “good ol’ days.” Naturally, Sally owns a bottle of Adrian’s Nostalgia perfume to further drive home the point.
Ironically, it’s Sally who advises Hollis to stop living in the past, when she’s perhaps more guilty of doing this than anyone else. She spends her days being waited on hand and foot, alternating between complaining and fondly reminiscing. Sally doesn’t contribute to anything or help anybody in any way — trapped in the gilded cage of nostalgia.
Bernard is feeling a little nostalgic, too, as today would have been his anniversary with his late wife. But he’s mostly preoccupied with the stunning news that Rorschach was a regular costumer of his. Immediately after sagely observing that many people miss what “happens under the waterline,” Bernard casts a hasty, and incorrect, judgment on Dr. Malcolm Long. As usual, our intrepid newsstand man is just a tad slow to learn the lessons he teaches.
Dan has returned to full superhero mode, quickly proving that he’s a much more effective detective than Rorschach. Just a little research on his computer begins to uncover this vast conspiracy. Unfortunately, Dan still naïvely believes Rorschach actually learned something useful during his joke of an investigation.
Most importantly, Dan has the ability to think much bigger than Rorschach. This isn’t a simple plot to kill superheroes. This is somebody spending years to get Dr. Manhattan off planet to cause Armageddon. And even the wishy-washy Laurie can’t say no to stopping Armageddon.
Rorschach, meanwhile, is preparing for the imminent attempt on his life by … staring blankly into space. I might say he’s meditating, but he really doesn’t strike me as the meditating type. He’s not a complete idiot — he can see how easily his guards can be called off — but I’d think he should be doing exercises or something in that cell.
I still find it hard to believe that Rorschach’s therapist would quit after just a handful of sessions with him. But then again, that’s probably due to me reading this book in the 2020s and not the 1980s.
Hey, look! It’s one of our detective buddies who I wish played a bigger part in the story! And I’m really glad that Moore acknowledged how reckless it was of Dan to stand next to Adrian Veidt and Dr. Manhattan at Eddie Blake’s funeral.
Steven Fine is a good detective who figured out Dan is Nite Owl pretty easily. Unfortunately, he didn’t devote much time to solving Eddie’s murder, thereby completely missing the much larger picture.
Speaking of the bigger picture, I love how Moore uses the shlubby copyboy Seymour to show the audience the most important thing of the story. But we’re not suspecting anything noteworthy coming from this far-right tabloid, much less this random background character with a smiley face shirt. It’s a neat way to hide the truth in plain sight.
Moore finally gives us a glimpse of the true threat. I still wish we had more information on the creation of this monster, but I understand it’s a delicate balancing act between leaving your audience in suspense and inadvertently revealing too much too soon.
The most logical explanation for the police’s ineptitude with protecting Rorschach has to be complicity. They didn’t want to kill him themselves, and figured it’d be clean and neat for him to be killed during a prison riot. Of course, if Moore had been writing this story today, the more realistic outcome would have been the police simply shooting him on the spot during the arrest attempt.
You’ve gotta love these shots. Nite Owl is back in full swing, more inspirational than any hero this side of Dr. Manhattan.
Oh look, here’s Moore making Rorschach look cool again. Unfortunately, a certain movie will unnecessarily exaggerate this scene.
See, a simple sliced throat. That’s graphic and horrifying enough. No need to go bigger and bloodier. I do plan to review the Watchmen movie one day, but it’s going to be a while. Suffice it to say, I think this scene alone demonstrates everything wrong with Zack Snyder’s vision of this story.
From certain angles, Nite Owl’s airship is breathtakingly amazing. But from other angles — especially when we can see the people inside — it looks downright cheesy and ridiculous. Moore and Gibbons never let us forget how embarrassingly absurd these “heroes” are.
If you’re cheering for the guy who’s cracking lame jokes after brutally murdering someone, you’re doing it wrong.
Horror, madness, sordid, violent. That’s Rorschach. Not someone to be celebrated. Not someone to be glorified.
It is a little strange how Big Figure is suddenly left all alone here. He apparently had enough clout to intimidate Rorschach’s guard. And he had to send prisoners away who all wanted a piece of Rorschach. Where did they all go? Why did he only have two men with him?
Dan and Laurie are both bothered by the level of violence Rorschach immerses himself in, but not that much. Don’t forget what they did to those punks in the alley. Here they are casually making jokes, despite the pandemonium around them. Not to mention their obliviousness to Rorschach killing a man just feet away from them.
It’s pretty funny how Rorschach is still clinging to his mask killer conspiracy, despite the fact that he could have easily been killed during his arrest or even in his cell. He’s not really given too much introspection.
Don’t let anyone tell you that Dr. Manhattan doesn’t have a sense of humor. This is one of the funniest panels in the whole series.
I’m glad that Moore admitted this was a deus ex machina moment. Dr. Manhattan knew he’d be having a conversation with Laurie on Mars, so he decided to go to Earth to pick her up. But he only had that conversation with her because he randomly decided to go get her. I’m torn on this. Part of me wishes Moore had a better reason for Dr. Manhattan to return to the story. The other part of me loves how random this was, following Dr. Manhattan’s bizarre logic.
Our poor detective ended up causing the very thing he was hoping to avoid. If he hadn’t told Dan he knew he was Nite Owl, Dan might not have had that sense of urgency to prompt him to actually break Rorschach out of prison. Steve’s mistake is similar to Adrian’s, but on a much smaller scale.
And now we return to the theme of nostalgia. Bernard is one of the few people here willing to acknowledge the bleakness of the past. While most everyone else in this story is looking back on old times with fondness, Bernard remembers just how quickly an angry mob can turn ugly and hurt the innocent.
The mariner finally returns home, but is unable to celebrate this monumental achievement or appreciate the beautiful sunset behind him. Perhaps Adrian, too, just needed to pause and look at the good he’s accomplished.
And now Hollis Mason falls victim to an angry mob. Yes, they were all likely high on drugs, but they were ultimately protesting against an unjust system, where the guilty parties are rarely held accountable. Hollis had nothing to do with breaking Rorschach out of jail, but he did directly inspire Dan to pick up the Nite Owl mantel. And, more importantly, he helped build up the rather insane world of costumed vigilantes. The nostalgia of his crime-fighting days was so powerful, it prevented him from ever fully moving on from it — or questioning whether he actually was doing the right thing. It is fitting, therefore, that he is ultimately killed by the symbol of his past.
This sad, shocking ending is unfortunately tainted by this kid’s horribly unnatural dialogue. “Hello, Mr. Mason? Remember us? We’re the lovable trick-or-treaters who visited you last year on Halloween! It’s Halloween again tonight, so we’ve decided to come say trick-or-treat again!”
The supplemental material is a proof copy of the New Frontiersman. I love the attention to detail with the margin notes and tape marks. But I do have to wonder where those mugshots of the Comedian, Rorschach and Nite Owl came from.
If anyone has any doubts about the nature of this tabloid, here it is actually defending the Ku Klux Klan. You really can’t stoop much lower than that. And just a reminder: this is Rorschach’s favorite paper.
This is a wonderfully funny political cartoon. It reminds me of The Onion, complete with the sobbing Statue of Liberty.
Once again, Moore buries some of the most important information in the back of the easily shippable supplemental material. Here is a detailed accounting of all the people Adrian kidnapped to create his monster, including the startling revelation that he stole the head of a boy believed to have psychic powers. Was this kid actually a psychic? Through eight issues of this story, we’d been led to believe that Dr. Manhattan was the only super-powered individual on the planet. The implication that there might have been somebody in this world with psychic powers is a huge deal, and should have been explored further. It really feels like a cheat for Moore to suddenly wave his hand and say, “Oh, by the way, psychics exist in this world, too.” But in a way, it kind of feels like Moore returning to that nostalgic world of wacky superhero stories.
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