At long last, we have reached the end of the misguided and poorly executed Before Watchmen project. Since the planned Epilogue issue was unceremoniously canceled, everything ends with Comedian #6. And this issue only happened to be the last because of all its publication delays. So … was it worth the wait? Let’s find out, starting with this cover by J.G. Jones. It is well done, as usual, but I think it really spoils the ending of the Comedian killing Robert Kennedy.
For some reason, this was the only Before Watchmen issue on the DC Universe Infinite app to not include the variant cover. Luckily, the app also includes the Comedian/Rorschach trade, which featured all the variant covers. There really was no reason to pair the Comedian and Rorschach in that trade, other than Brian Azzarello wrote both of them. In fact, that’s what DC did with all four Before Watchmen trades. Minutemen/Silk Spectre by Darwin Cooke, Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan by J. Michael Straczynski, and Ozymandias/Crimson Corsair (mostly) by Len Wein. Anyway, this cover by Rafael Albuquerque is perfectly fine. It’s your typical homage to the blood-spattered yellow smiley face. Not bad — just not terribly original. Especially this late in the game.
So our final story begins with the Comedian being released from duty in Vietnam. Upon returning to America, he immediately puts down a gang called the Rat Pack with extreme violence. Nite Owl and Rorschach were upset, as the Comedian upended their weeks-long investigation. So the Comedian lashes out at his fellow heroes, calling Nite Owl gutless and Rorschach the dark image of their future.
Eddie then meets with one of his former CIA contacts, Gordy, whom Eddie blames for John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Despite that, Eddie listens to Gordy’s warning that the CIA is planning to kill John’s brother, Robert. Gordy found this out while working on Richard Nixon’s campaign. And although Nixon is quite ruthless, he actually doesn’t want his opponent to be killed, as he feels RFK’s death would make a martyr for the anti-war crowd to rally behind. As Gordy leaves Eddie with the file, Eddie notes that in the right light, Gordy could be mistaken for him.
Later, Robert visits Eddie in his hotel room, revealing that he’s learn of the brutal massacre in Vietnam. Although it breaks Robert’s heart, he believes he must do the right thing and reveal this atrocity to the American public. Surprisingly, Eddie offers to stand beside Robert in his speech and confess to his war crimes. We then cut to Robert’s speech, which oddly doesn’t include the planned confession. For some reason, that crucial part was scheduled for a second speech to be held shortly after this first one. And in the interim, Robert and his crew had to cut through the hotel’s kitchen.
It’s only at this moment that Eddie reveals to Robert the CIA’s plan to use a brainwashed assassin to attack him. Right on cue, the shooter opens fire. Eddie pulls his old friend down to the ground, effectively saving him. But then Eddie surreptitiously pulls out his own gun and shoots Robert point-blank in the back of the head. And the issue ends with Eddie sneaking back into his car, where he sadly smashes his head against his steering wheel until a drop of blood perfectly adorns his smiley face button.
This is that strange instance where I liked the issue by itself, but didn’t like the story as a whole. Yeah, the Rorschach/Nite Owl cameo was completely perfunctory, but the heart of the issue focusing on Eddie’s relationship with Robert was done really well. And it’s fun to speculate on why, exactly, Eddie killed his old friend. I think the biggest reason was to avoid any accountability for his war crimes. But the anti-war angle can’t be overlooked, either. Of course, we know in this universe that Nixon’s prediction was wrong. RFK did not become a martyr and Nixon was able to brutally resolve the Vietnam conflict with Dr. Manhattan. But did Eddie know that would happen? Or did he even want it? We’ll never know, and it’s kind of intriguing that way.
But what didn’t like was that this “twist” was what Brian Azzarello had been so agonizingly building up to across six meandering and often-delayed issues. So in Allan Moore’s Watchmen, Eddie jokes that he may have been the one who killed JFK. And in Zack Snyder’s film, he clearly showed that the Comedian was, indeed, the assassin. But then Azzarello began this miniseries by throwing a wrench in all that by having the Comedian battle Moloch while JFK was shot. And apparently Azzarello only did that just so he can say, “Aha! The Comedian ACTUALLY shot RFK — not JFK!” And then he threw in a really stupid wrinkle by showing that a sketchy former CIA operative looks just like Eddie Blake — a detail that only seems to matter for the film audience of Snyder’s Watchmen. Now fans of the film can believe (if they choose to) that Snyder wasn’t showing the Comedian killing JFK, but just a guy who looks like him. I feel like I’m going crazy typing all that up, but that’s really the only reason I can think of for presenting the story like this.
In conclusion, this series was a perfect microcosm for Before Watchmen as a whole. Much longer than it needed to be, full of gorgeous artwork, entertaining a few interesting ideas, but mostly missing some great opportunities. Did this whole even tarnish the work of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons? Perhaps. But I don’t think it did as much damage as Zack Snyder’s film did. Of course, at the end of the day, works like this ultimately do inspire more readers to check out the original, which is a good thing. And that’s what I’ll be doing next in my never-ending review of this famous graphic novel and all its various adaptations.
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