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watchmen legacy

Who Watched the Watchmen? Tom King & Jorge Fornes’ Rorschach

December 8, 2022 by Sean Dillon Leave a Comment

It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?

Let us assume that Rorschach is exactly as good as Watchmen. Not simply that it is a good comic or even a great comic, but that it is as good as what many consider to be the definitive comic. The final statement on all things comics related. There are a number of absurdities with that statement, both with regards to Rorschach and Watchmen. But, for now, let us ignore this aspect and engage with the assumption.

Many of the conversations surrounding DC Comics’ follow-ups to Watchmen that are… critical of the works tend to frame the narrative of the follow ups as nothing more than shallow knock offs that didn’t need to exist. Indeed, even the best of these can be said to have been nothing more than a waste of the creator’s time. While the worst has destroyed any faith in comics ever being good. And Rorschach is good enough that claiming it’s exactly as good as Watchmen doesn’t feel like a cruel joke as it is the best of the direct follow ups to Watchmen DC has made by a country mile.

(There is another reason why I’m taking this approach with Rorschach. But that is perhaps best saved for subtext rather than text.)

By having a text that not only lives up to, but matches the original work, this narrative can be questioned. The implications of Watchmen as a text and its subsequent legacy can be engaged with on a level more akin to works like The Wicked + The Divine or From Hell. One as a work of fiction rather than as a metaphor for everything wrong with this wicked world of ours. As such, I can write a piece that won’t end with a horrific revelation about the nature of Watchmen’s Legacy.

A white and black sign Description automatically generated with low confidence [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? Tom King & Jorge Fornes’ Rorschach

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: Watchmen, watchmen legacy

Who Watched the Watchmen (2019)? I Did.

December 1, 2022 by Robert Furey Leave a Comment

It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?

“I think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks.” ~ Alan Moore

“I’ve got a nose for white supremacy and he smells like bleach.” ~ Angela Abar

Watchmen, the 1986 twelve issue DC miniseries, as written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, and colored by John Higgins, is a comic self-consciously about comic books. The comic explores and challenges the implications and consequences that accompany the existence of superheroes – stars of the most dominant genre of comics in the Anglosphere then and now – and uses them to explore contemporary concerns about the cold war, Reaganism, and nuclear annihilation. Its grid based layouts, mirrored chapters, and non-linear character perspectives calls attention not just to the comic book’s constructed nature, but the ways in which it was constructed and how we engage with and read them.

[Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen (2019)? I Did.

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: Watchmen, watchmen legacy

Who Watched the Watchmen? Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt

November 3, 2022 by J.Y. Leave a Comment

It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?

It was inevitable that someone would create a map for a post-Watchmen world, in comic form. And that’s exactly what Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt (2019) is: not an exploration of what Watchmen is or means, but a rebuke, a retort, and above all else, a set of instructions that direct artists out from under the “iron hand” that Watchmen has on the medium.

[Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews Tagged With: Watchmen, watchmen legacy

Who Watched the Watchmen? DC Universe Rebirth

October 27, 2022 by Ritesh Babu Leave a Comment

DC Rebirth era of comic books

It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?

Before Watchmen failed. It had proved to be a disaster that nobody seemed to really want more of. DC’s hopes and dreams of winning hearts and minds whilst exploiting the Watchmen IP had come crashing down. Nobody, it seemed, cared about what came ‘before’ Watchmen, much like they weren’t dying for a sequel about what happened ‘after it’. It turned out they just liked Watchmen, on its own.

And so the enterprise of Watchmen exploitation had to be rested…for a while at least.

Enter: DC Universe Rebirth #1

[Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? DC Universe Rebirth

Filed Under: DC Reviews, Featured Tagged With: Watchmen, watchmen legacy

Who Watched the Watchmen? Venom by Donny Cates & Ryan Stegman

October 13, 2022 by Steve Morris Leave a Comment

It is often said that Watchmen is the most influential comic ever to be released. That comics wouldn’t be where they are without it, for good and for ill. But how did we get here, exactly? More to the point, just what influence did Watchmen provide to the larger world of comics? What, ultimately, is the legacy of Watchmen? Who watched the Watchmen?

As part of this ongoing series on Watchmen, other critics have covered rights issues, backstage business, and DC’s treatment of Alan Moore in far more depth and detail than I could ever hope to, so I’ll leave that side of Watchmen with them. It’s all somewhat cursed and always will be, which at this point feels almost as important as the creative work itself was on release. Yet for me, the most prominent “curse of Watchmen” within the comics industry has been the insistence on never letting Moore move on from a comic he disowned decades and decades ago. [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? Venom by Donny Cates & Ryan Stegman

Filed Under: Featured, Marvel Reviews Tagged With: Watchmen, watchmen legacy

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