One of the biggest arguments for Before Watchmen being a shameless cash grab is the sheer size of it. The original Watchmen was only 12 issues, but this project ended up being 37. More backstory on the Minutemen is understandable — welcome even. But all the main characters? Not so much. Alan Moore already gave us enough information about everyone. It was a very thorough, complete story. What could anyone have to add?
That was what I thought at first. (And I'll still reserve my judgment until I've read everything.) But then I remembered that Silk Spectre was the least developed main character of the original series — one of Moore's few failures. So it actually kind of makes sense that not only would Silk Spectre be the second series published in this project, but that Darwyn Cooke himself would be involved.
Cooke is joined by Amanda Conner here, with Paul Mounts on colors. The artwork is clean, but not quite my style. It just has a rather artificial feel to it. I also don't appreciate all the cartoony daydream sequences. The main cover doesn't do much for me, but Dave Johnson's variant is quite nice. Jim Lee's however, is a train wreck.
I was a bit worried when the story started with the snow globe scene. We've already seen that! But, Cooke and Conner provided a couple of more details here, most importantly the fact that Sally's husband has just left her, probably for good this time. We quickly cut to 1966, where Laurie is a star athlete in high school, but her social life is severely hampered by her mom's constant training sessions. Worse still, is how Laurie's reputation is tainted by her mother's previous sexual exploits. It seems like everyone in this school has access to the old pornographic magazines made about Sally.
Despite this, Laurie manages to grow close to a boy named Greg. It's perhaps this budding relationship that inspires Laurie to finally snap against her mother. After a particularly rough "training session," Laurie sneaks out at night to have cigarettes and beer with Greg, while they bond over their abusive parents. They go to a diner, where they unfortunately encounter some of the mean, popular girls of their class.
One of the mean girls crassly flicks whipped cream on Laurie's face to make her look more like Sally did in the pornos. Laurie attacks the girl, storms home, tells off her mom one more time, then runs away. She joins up with Greg, who's seeking to avoid being sent to Vietnam. The two teens have no plan and no money, but they are picked up by a couple of hippies in a van.
After the Minutemen issue mostly just rehashed things we already knew, I was craving something new. This story promises to do that, while working within the confines that all prequels have placed on them. It was fun getting to know Laurie a bit more, as well as explore life of a teenager in the 1960s. The more these stories can be original, the less they'll feel like a shameless cash grab.
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