My Watchmen experience has come to a close, and what now? I don’t want to reveal the plot or the ending or anything, so it makes it a bit hard to really talk about. Number one: I recommend it. It’s a quick read, and just so you can gauge for yourself, it took me about 7-10 hours to complete it and I’m a slow reader. The protagonists are engaging, and, just like everyone else I’m sure, my favorite character is Rorschach.

Rorschach is popular because he’s one of the three really developed characters. Nite Owl is realistic in that he’s an aged masked-vigilante, and having a bit of a mid-life crisis. And then there’s the chick – I guess that really speaks to how great I thought she was, eh? But Rorschach is a man of action, and while we can sympathize with Nite Owl and his problems on a more human level, we want to root for the hero who can (or tries to) get things done! The other characters don’t really seem that involved or important.

One thing I really love about the setting, is the “norm” is there are no heroes with super-powers save for Dr. Manhattan, who, funny enough, suffered a super-science accident to get his powers. The heroes are simply people with their own agendas and problems. Again, I don’t want to reveal anything, you’ll just have to see what’s under the hood (hah!) for these folks.

I’ve got a major gripe about a part of the book’s presentation though. At the end of each chapter, there’s a bit of extra “world-building” thrown in. It could be an excerpt of a character’s autobiography, a news clipping, or a journal. I tried reading them, but these sections seemed to get in the way. After the first couple of these, I outright skipped them. Honestly,  I skimmed a couple of them, and if a phrase looked interested, I looked a little harder, but for the most part, it was boring. I imagine there were complicated back-stories for all the characters, and, rather than fully developing them for a graphic format, the authors went for the “brick of text” approach. Yawn.

In contrast, I would, however, love to see the adventures the characters allude to in their eariler days. I guess that’s what I love about The Venture Bros.. Much of its meaningful story-telling narrative is in flashback. Some are put-off by this, and I can understand completely, but what I believe they’re missing is the presentation is internally consistent: moving pictures, action, and dialogue. Watchmen is not consistent in this regard, and the curve-ball is not appreciated.

The story as a whole is quite good, the plot is well-laid out, and the ending has a nice twist if a little… odd.

Milhouse: When are they gonna get to the fireworks factory?

• Rating: «««½ (out of five)

Tags: character, comic, quote, Venture Bros.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Art, Books, Science Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.