We're now moving into our first Before Watchmen story without any involvement from Darwyn Cooke. Brian Azzarello and J.G. Jones tackled the Comedian, starting with a truly captivating cover. We never really got to see the Comedian wearing this mask — even Dave Gibbons avoided it for the most part. I love Jones' choice to open this miniseries with this image showing just how deranged Eddie Blake is.
The variant covers, unfortunately, leave a lot to be desired. The one by Eduardo Risso is reaching for something artistic, but ultimately it's just a re-painting of something we've already seen before. And Jim Lee's feels just as boring and lackluster as his Silk Spectre variant (but maybe with slightly higher quality).
But what about the story? What kind of a story can you tell about a character who has already been so thoroughly examined? Well, Azzarello apparently decided he needed to correct a wrong introduced by Zack Snyder. Snyder's film was faithful to the source material to a fault, but there were a few changes that almost always failed. One of the lesser changes, but still one that made me scratch my head, was having the Comedian assassinate John F. Kennedy. Azzarello seemed to also be scratching his head and decided to make sure to undo that unnecessary retcon. But did he go too far in fixing this mistake?
This issue shows us that Eddie Blake was a good, personal friend with the entire Kennedy family. He plays football with the boys in the yard, he places friendly wagers on NFL games with the president, and shares private drinks with the first lady. In fact, Eddie is so loyal to the Kennedys, that he even agrees to kill Marilyn Monroe just because Jackie is jealous.
I kind of feel like this last bit is taking things a little too far. It just doesn't seem like the Comedian to carefully murder someone and stage it to look like it was a drug overdose. To pull off something like that requires a great deal of planning and patience — two qualities we never saw Eddie exhibit in the main Watchmen story. He's a violent, impulsive man who cares little about the consequences of his actions or how messy his style of "work" can be. Since we're already in an alternate history, I see no problem with changing Monroe's death. Just have Eddie shoot her in the head. That would have been more in line with his character.
Let's get back to the story. While on his way to fly to a steak dinner with JFK, the FBI orders the Comedian to help them launch a raid against Moloch. Eddie doesn't see the point in raising this much of a fuss against the leader of a prostitution ring, but the FBI surprises him by saying Moloch is now trafficking narcotics. The agents have a carefully choreographed trap set for Moloch, involving both the local police and news reporters. The Comedian is supposed to wait till the end to make sure his picture gets in the paper, but Eddie chooses to nix that plan and busts in all by himself.
To his surprise, Eddie finds Moloch weeping in front of a television. President John F. Kennedy has just been shot in Dallas. Eddie finds a bottle of alcohol and shares it Moloch, as they both mournfully watch the news. Eddie then finally realizes that the FBI lied to him about Moloch's drugs.
I like this addition a lot more than the Marilyn Monroe bit. Not only does it clearly and conclusively show that the Comedian didn't kill JFK, but it plants the seeds of his bizarre friendship with Moloch. After sharing such a stunning, heartbreaking moment together, it now makes more sense that Eddie would seek out Moloch after he learned of Adrian Veidt's master plan. This was a brilliant touch on Azzarello's part.
J.G. Jones' work is solid, but a bit stiff. He's drawing a lot of real people in this issue, including the news anchor describing Kennedy's shooting. Jones undoubtedly had to use a lot of photo references for these famous faces, but that kind of style doesn't always translate over neatly to the comic book medium. Regardless, this is still a really nice, well-done issue. And I'm frankly a little surprised at how much I'm enjoying this shameless cash grab so far.
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