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A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

Watchmen

Who Watched the Watchmen? Before Watchmen: Comedian Review!

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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?

Comedian is an odd character in the legacy of Watchmen. He doesn’t have the righteous, badassery of Rorschach or the intriguing indifference or memeability of Dr Manhattan; he’s just a really shitty dude. And unlike Rorschach, he doesn’t have the sense of honour that lets you ignore the really shitty parts so you can just enjoy the core you wish was there. It’s very easy to forget that Rorschach is a rape apologist; it’s impossible to forget that the Comedian is a rapist.

He’s also the only core character who doesn’t get a detailed backstory. Rorschach and Laurie Juspeczyk and Nite-Owl get big, juicy sequences about who they are and why they do what they do but the Comedian just shows up one day, fully formed like unto Athena (This is a very clever reference because Athena, much like Watchmen itself, features owls). So the prospect of a Watchmen prequel focusing on the Comedian, unlike most of the other Before Watchmen offerings, at least has the intriguing prospect of answering the question: what is this guy’s deal??? [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? Before Watchmen: Comedian Review!

Who Watched the Watchmen? Countdown to Final Crisis

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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?

Countdown #17, cover art by Pete Woods

Duela Dent is dead and the Multiverse… actually doesn’t care that much. In the aftermath of the fiscally successful and critically-acclaimed 52, DC launched Countdown to Final Crisis, which is, well, less fondly remembered, to put it kindly. As its title might imply, it was attempting to build hype for the then-pending Final Crisis. This weekly series followed much the same format as 52 by juggling an enormous cast of lesser-known characters, but went overboard on pointless cameos and mostly forgot to include the parts where the story would be relevant to the events it was leading into.

To say Countdown was a hugely ambitious project is no exaggeration, so where did it go wrong? Well, following up the admittedly loose but still exciting and energy of 52 with a comparatively uninspired but equally long series to keep the fiscal ball rolling set it up to fail from day one. Another one of its biggest mistakes is the act of invoking Watchmen’s plot points, imagery, and themes. Regardless of your overall feelings on Watchmen, it had a meticulously written script in which a number of story and character beats dance more or less seamlessly with the larger plot. If you’re going to call attention to the series, you’ve got to run a tight ship or you’re setting yourself up to come across as a cheap imitation. Yet even a lot of cheap imitations are more charming than Countdown turned out to be. [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? Countdown to Final Crisis

Who Watched the Watchmen? How “Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later” Changed the Future

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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?

Legion of Super-Heroes, Vol. 4. #1, written by Keith Giffen, Tom and Mary Bierbaum, and Al Gordon, art by Keith Giffen, Al Gordon, and Tom McCraw, lettering by Todd Klein

The cover of Legion of Superheroes Vol 4 #1 features a bedraggled Cosmic Boy morosely strolling through jagged gray rocks, eyes cast downward at the busted remains of the Legion’s former headquarters. A banged-up Legion ring is wedged between stones, forgotten but still sparkling at the forefront of the shot. Transporting us from the end of writer Paul Levitz’s wildly influential run with Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 3 #63 into a story taking place five years later, Legion Vol. 4 serves not just as a reboot but as a tonal reset of the franchise.

For the first time, we meet a Legion who is older, traumatized by the horrors they have seen, and cast to opposite ends of the galaxy. Still, even in the first moments of the book, there are glimmers of hope. The affable Chameleon Boy muses that the growing threats around him can only mean one thing; it’s time to get the band back together. If this sounds like an awfully Watchmen-ish take on the Legion, the fact is, you’re not wrong, but as many of this era’s fans will tell you, that doesn’t keep this story from absolutely shredding.

Covering Legion of Superheroes Vol 4 #1-12 [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? How “Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later” Changed the Future

Who Watched the Watchmen? ‘From Hell’ Review!

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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?

Alan Moore’s From Hell is, in all honesty, one of his only works I can reread. Most of his works have such a skewed and odd response to violence against women, it’s interesting that the one work that is explicitly and almost only about that very thing is the one that I’m able to revisit. Amidst his books about Lovecraftian frogs raping women in bathrooms, ancient dieties who raped the universe into existence and Watchmen’s quiet love story that expresses itself most fully in a child by rape, the book about a serial killer who butchers women… it seems almost quaint in comparison to the Invisible Man’s sexual escapades in a children’s boarding school.

The book begins with white and black stark lines clashing – Eddie Campbell’s art appears to me like a mountain coming into view only at the last moment – you see the rocks, and then you see the boulder, each bit unfolding like origami in reverse, and then you see the cliff it’s on is on a row of them, like noticing the bottom of a snowman before seeing the whole, like seeing the forest for the trees, the work unveils itself, starting with what it really, simply is, harsh scratches of black on white… forming a world. [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? ‘From Hell’ Review!

Who Watched the Watchmen? How “Heroes Reborn” Brought Watchmen to the Marvel Universe

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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?

Marvel Comics certainly didn’t seem to be watching the Watchmen. Despite the massive critical and commercial success of DC Comics’ twelve issue Watchmen, creators at Marvel largely let the series go by without comment, at least in terms of trying to imitate it directly. While the tradition of the two companies riffing on a successful idea started by the other (such as DC launching the maxi-series Crisis on Infinite Earths in the wake of the success of Marvel’s Secret Wars) is a longstanding one, no “Watchmen-esque” series appeared at Marvel in the late 80s or early 90s. Some of that is likely due to the different way the companies are structured. Watchmen was born at least in part out of DC’s acquisition of the Charlton Comics characters, continuing another longstanding DC Comics tradition.

However, Marvel had never really engaged in that practice. All of its biggest characters were homegrown. And while Marvel had its Epic imprint as a place to tell out-of-continuity stories free of the restraints of the comics code limitations on content, those series tended to be like Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar or English-language reprints of Akira: driven by specific creators and/or focused on something other than superheroes. Yet despite the lack of a specific story-arc or series that can be pointed to as “Marvel’s Watchmen”, the outsized influence of that series would still find a way to be reflected in Marvel Comics, albeit in a roundabout way. [Read more…] about Who Watched the Watchmen? How “Heroes Reborn” Brought Watchmen to the Marvel Universe