Sex played an interesting role in Alan Moore's Watchmen. It seemed to me that one of his arguments was that the role of a superhero would be most appealing for sexual deviants — homosexuals or people with some sort of fetish. Nite Owl fell into the latter category, being able to only be truly aroused when he was wearing his mask. Since that was a pretty big part of his character, it only makes sense that J. Michael Straczynski and Andy Kubert would explore this more. Unfortunately, I feel like putting contextless soft porn on a cover attracts the wrong kind of audience. I'm reminded of director Zack Snyder, who openly and frequently gushed about how much he loved Watchmen because it had sex in it. But when he actually made a movie about it, he demonstrated a significant lack of understanding the source material.
Unfortunately, I'm not much of a fan of Chris Samnee's variant cover, either. He is one of my favorite artists out there, but this was not his best work. Besides not doing a good job of conveying what this story is about, the characters just look off. I think Samnee's style lends itself more toward Darwyn Cooke's bright and bold Minutemen series. This Nite Owl series all about trauma and sex is not the ideal avenue for Samnee.
This issue opens with Nite Owl deepening his relationship with the Twilight Lady, while Rorschach (as church custodian Walter Kovacs) grows closer to Reverend Dean. The Twilight Lady leads Nite Owl to a man named Carlos, who recruits immigrant women into a life of prostitution. More troubling is how many of these women suddenly go missing, presumed dead. Nite Owl takes down Carlos' men and interrogates him by hanging him upside down above a toilet. The only information he's able to get from Carlos are a few phone numbers, but before he can investigate them, he needs to have sex with the Twilight Lady. Not only do we get an inordinate amount of time discussing Dan's past trauma of his abusive father, but we also find out that this was Dan's first time having sex!
When Dan finally gets back to the investigation, he finds one of Carlos' phone numbers connects to a pay phone. So he takes the receiver back to Hollis Mason's garage to try to extract some fingerprints from it. Despite the early time of day, Hollis is already heavily drinking. He sadly calls himself a hypocrite and apologizes for lecturing Dan about the Nite Owl's reputation. Hollis doesn't go into any details, but he leaves Dan with a copy of his manuscript and says he can read it if he wants. Dan is nervous to explore his hero's dark secrets, but his curiosity gets the better of him and he sadly begins to learn the truths of Under the Hood.
The story ends with Rorschach making a shocking discovery: Reverend Dean's basement is full of dozens of dead bodies. At least one woman is still alive when Rorschach stumbled upon this grisly scene. But before he can rescue her, he's shot in the shoulder by the Reverend.
In the original Watchmen, the Twilight Lady was nothing more than a sexual fantasy for Dan. Presumably someone only pretending to be a super villain so she could sleep with the famous Nite Owl. Nothing more. Straczynski decided to flesh out this little throwaway detail to comical extremes. Not only is the Twilight Lady now a noble hero playfully defying the conventions of her appearance and profession, but she was Dan's first true love! I guess we can also assume that she was the one who resolved Dan's childhood trauma, which is why he never mentioned it in Moore's story!
It annoys me so much to see sequels and prequels turn minor details into major events. It reeks of a lack of originality. Of course, there is some original work in this issue. And it's actually rather interesting. The only problem is it's all about Rorschach. Yes, I'm sure next issue will reveal that Reverend Dean has been killing Carlos' girls, which is a nice way to connect the two stories. But this just adds more fuel to my theory that Straczynski really, really wanted to write a Rorschach story instead.
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