Simply put, and without question: Silk Spectre #2 is the best issue of Before Watchmen so far.

It does everything you’d expect from a Watchmen prequel book, particularly one that isn’t endorsed by the original creators: it follows the original book’s visual, nine-panel format, it pays homage to Moore’s original writing style of having the words directly reflect the visuals in the panel, and it expands the Watchmen universe by exploring niche, side subjects that it would never occur to me to wonder about until I saw those explorations here. By mining the original work’s edges while paying tribute to its written and drawn style, it does what a prequel should do: build upon the original without superceding it. It is the first Before Watchmen book that I plainly and simply liked.

It happens every year: a couple of days after returning from SDCC, which is a week of violently and suddenly resetting your circadean rythtms twice while consuming a diet of beef, cheese and liquor, the body recoils in protest and requires a day of wretched television and catching up on comics.

Today was that day. As such, this…

image

…means the end of our broadcast day.

Still and all, we’ve got the new issue of Captain Marvel, a new chapter of Avengers Vs. X-Men, the second issue of Silk Spectre (one of the better efforts of Before Watchmen so far) and a ton of other stuff to catch up on.

But before we can review any of them (or finish uploading more SDCC 2012 videos for your perusal), we need time to read them. We also need time to quietly whimper while wondering what time it really is, but mostly to read them.

So in pursuit of those humble goals: see you tomorrow, suckers!