Interestingly, DC decided to stagger their Before Watchmen books a little bit, but only for two main titles — Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan. (Moloch and Dollar Bill were last-minute additions made in response to the project's success.) Since I'm reviewing these books in publication order, I'm coming back to the Minutemen.
Once again, we're treated to a snazzy cover by Darwyn Cooke, this time featuring the young Comedian. I'm not exactly sure what's up with that yellow liquidy blob, though. At first glance, I thought it was an artistic representation of blood. But then I realized the blood on the Comedian's bat and arm is red like normal. So maybe that splotch of yellow is beer being spilt? Just a bit strange. Another nitpick: the Comedian doesn't do too much in this issue. So maybe a different character would have been a better choice.
The variant cover by José Luis García-López is quite disappointing. All the characters look off-model, clunky and stiff. The one that bugs me the most is Nite Owl. I think he's supposed to be slightly smiling, but he comes across as unusually stern for a pose like this. I'm not too sad that we don't have another Jim Lee cover to complain about. But I will laugh slightly at how he only drew Hooded Justice and didn't commit to drawing any of the other Minutemen.
This issue begins in 1962 with Hollis Mason discussing his upcoming tell-all book with Larry Schexnayder, Sally Jupiter's former husband and publicist. Larry is opposed to Hollis' decision to make a "confession" on behalf of all of the former Minutemen without their consent. This is a valid point, but Larry quickly undermines it by revealing he's worried about the brand name of the Minutemen and his ability to squeeze some more profits from it. Hollis angrily storms away from Larry, vowing to print the book as planned.
Hollis wrestles with the conflicting feelings of the guilt of his complicity in the Minutemen's sins, weighed against the pride from the good deeds he accomplished as Nite Owl. Mostly, he wants to stop whitewashing history. And he realizes that half the reason he wanted to write this book was primarily because of all the coverups Larry engineered during the heyday of the Minutemen.
Hollis' tale then takes us back to 1939, where he saw a newspaper advertisement for costumed crimefighter tryouts conducted by Captain Metropolis and Silk Spectre. After a fun montage of some of tryout's rejects, we skip ahead a couple of weeks to the full Minutemen team conducting their first mission. Captain Metropolis meticulously planned a raid on a New York Harbor warehouse, where a group of Italian fifth columnists were allegedly smuggling weapons. Every member of the Minutemen had a job tailored to their own talents, and with the aid of Metropolis' own tank, the plan proceeds perfectly. Except for the part where the Italians were actually smuggling Chinese fireworks instead of weapons.
Nite Owl tries to get his teammates to stop when he learns the truth, but his warnings are too late. The Minutemen destroyed the warehouse with all the harmless cherry bombs and Roman candles inside. Captain Metropolis let the Italians go with a warning, then told the rest of the Minutemen to take off, as well. Hollis knew he should have reported this to the police, but he was too embarrassed of the disaster and too scared of spending time in jail.
The next day, Captain Metropolis held a press conference with the full team, falsely claiming that an artillery shell from his own tank was the last remaining weapon from the "saboteurs" the Minutemen stopped. Hollis fully expected one of the reporters to catch them in their lies, but none of them did. The Minutemen were hailed as heroes, quickly becoming darlings of the radio and newspapers. Hollis soaked up the adulation, rationalizing that this higher profile would enable the team to start doing some real good moving forward.
We skip ahead to 1940, with the Minutemen meeting at Captain Metropolis' lair. Metropolis spent several months refurbishing their new headquarters, even importing wood from Africa for the decor. Larry announces that he's scheduled a photo shoot for next week and says that their frequent media appearances are bringing in some money that could be used to help with their living expenses. At the talk of money, Nite Owl directly calls out the Comedian for routinely robbing every alleged criminal he turns over to the police. But no one seems to share Hollis' concerns.
Captain Metropolis gives everyone patrol routes, waving off Dollar Bill's scheduling conflicts with his bank. Metropolis then opens the floor to any ideas for major crimes the team could target. Silhouette says she's made more progress with the child trafficking ring we saw her battle last issue, but Silk Spectre scoffs at that idea. Larry agrees, saying they need good, happy publicity about stopping dumb crime bosses and saving grandmas, not sad little children who have been molested. Silhouette is stunned into silence by this attitude, and so am I.
But then again, I'm coming at this story from 2024, and here in Utah, I've had a up-close look of a fraudster wannabe hero named Tim Ballard build a massive following around the false premise that he was saving children from human traffickers. He even made a hit movie, The Sound of Freedom, about his alleged exploits, before he had several lawsuits filed against him for sexual exploitation and abuse. Anyway, my point is that one of the best ways to look like a hero today is to save children from traffickers and pornographers. (Which is exactly why Darwyn Cooke had the Silhouette focus on this.) But then again, this might have been seen as a rather taboo topic, too risqué for the mainstream media of 1940.
In any case, Captain Metropolis and Larry both oppose Silhouette's suggestion, but they love Mothman's idea of targeting Moloch. He is, after all, the closest thing to a genuine super villain in their world. The meeting is ended, with some of the members choosing to stick around to smoke and drink, while Silhouette heads out to keep working her child trafficking case. Nite Owl and (surprisingly) Mothman agree to join her. Larry pulls Hooded Justice aside to tell him that too many people are suspecting that he's gay. So Larry suggests that Hooded Justice pretend to date Sally to quash those rumors.
Larry takes Silk Spectre home and has to twist her arm into agreeing with his plan. Dollar Bill and the Comedian crack open a couple of beers, but unfortunately overhear the Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis having a very intense, very private conversation. We later see Hooded Justice has tied Metropolis up to a bed, causing him to beg to be released, saying this whole affair has gone too far. It's a tad distressing, but then again, there's the real possibility that this could be some kind of kinky, consensual role play. It's too tough to tell at this point.
Juxtaposed with this story is Silhouette, Nite Owl and Mothman searching for a young boy who went missing while visiting the circus a few days ago. Silhouette has been scouring the area and has one last building to check. Mothman starts investigating the building from the top down, while Nite Owl and Silhouette start from the bottom up. They quickly discover some disturbing signs: small, bloody handprints and discarded rope. They follow a foul stench upstairs and hear someone crying. The tears were coming from Mothman, who discovered the boy's body hanging from the ceiling.
Whew! Now that is a story worthy of Watchmen! Cooke was a bit cautious with his first issue, but he's gone all out here, and I love it. The subject matter is deep, thoughtful material that lingers with you. I don't just mean the dramatic ending that was accompanied with Robert Louis Stephenson's haunting poem, The Unseen Playmate. Hollis' internal struggles apply equally to 1939 and 1962. How many compromises can be made in the pursuit of hopefully, potentially doing the right thing one day? How much trust and confidentially can be betrayed in the pursuit of revealing the truth and atoning for past misdeeds? The Hollis of 1985 had pretty much made peace with his decisions — no matter how disastrous they may have been — and was content to drunkenly reminisce about the "golden age" of heroes. That version of Hollis was not nearly as compelling as Cooke is making him here.
I'm also a huge fan of having Captain Metropolis stage a fake mission for his new team. That fits in perfectly with what we saw in the DC Heroes role playing game, as well as the limited information Alan Moore gave us in the main Watchmen series. His secret homosexual affair with Hooded Justice is quite interesting, as well. Moore only obliquely hinted at it in the main series, and many fans have suspected that the openly gay older men seen in a restaurant were secretly Metropolis and Justice, who had faked their deaths. Right now, I mostly find it interesting that Larry didn't confront Nelson Gardner about this. Was it that he didn't suspect, or he did but was too nervous to ruffle the feathers of the chief financier of this operation?
Ultimately, this is essentially what I would have wanted from a prequel series by Moore and Dave Gibbons. Cooke's writing is on the money, as well as his art. Colorist Phil Noto was actually listed first in the credits for this issue, and for good reason. Noto's colors perfectly compliment Cooke's art and establish the proper tone and mood for each scene. Noto also does an excellent job clearly delineating between the various flashbacks and jumps in time, helping the reader know exactly where and when they were in a story, even if they missed the small date in the corner.
Cooke's Minutemen has just substantially raised the bar for this Before Watchmen project. I really hope the Silk Spectre and the other miniseries can keep up.
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