I really feel that Watchmen would be better appreciated by someone who is already familiar with the tropes of a typical superhero story and the character archetypes involved. I often see this book recommended when folks ask what the best entry points are to comic books. One caveat I will highlight is that this is not a good entry point into comic books. Sadly, the issues of race relations and political division explored in Watchmen have only become more relevant since the book was first published. I also find it fascinating that this book, which put American political history and social issues under a microscope of scrutiny, was created by two British men. Nothing is wasted here in terms of the dialogue and at no point does it feel expositional or out of context for the story being told. Every line of dialogue spoken is laced with multiple layers of nuance and subtext. The famous quote, ‘Who watches the Watchmen?’ could be applied to multiple leaders on either side of the political debate. The idea of the elite doing what they have to for what they believe is best for humanity, but having no one to question or monitor them. It is also interesting to bear in mind that the issues present in the book were contemporary issues at the time that Watchmen was written.įor me, that is the genius of this book just how relevant it is to the real world, both at the time it was written and today. It is a much scarier concept to imagine people like this actually existing in the real world which Moore does here using the political turmoil of the 1980s as the backdrop. Moore uses this book to deconstruct what it means to be a ‘hero.’ It is easy to look at Superman or Batman and wonder what it would be like to have Godlike powers or a huge array of crime fighting gadgets. The novel is considered by the majority of comic book fans to be a deep, self-referential work of genius.
Watchmen is a seminal graphic novel written by Alan Moore and first released in 1986.
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