Twi-Nite: Nite Owl #1 Review

The problem we’ve run into a few times in the Before Watchmen books, and which I think we’re destined to keep running into and being annoyed by, are changes in character and established plot from the original Watchmen story. It’s been popping up since the first issue of Darwyn Cooke’s Minutemen, where we saw professional wrestler and noose enthusiast Hooded Justice suddenly able to disappear into shadows like the ghost of Bruce Lee. The worst offender (so far) has been Brian Azzarello’s Comedian, where Azzarello apparently decided that when Alan Moore wrote that Eddie Blake was working with Nixon in Dallas during the Kennedy assassination, what he really meant was that Blake was off somewhere fighting Moloch and whimpering over the shooting like a woman or some common hippie.

J. Michael Straczynski’s Nite Owl isn’t the worst offender in this vein – frankly, it would probably take seeing Rorschach gathering intel to take down Big Figure by going undercover at a glory hole outside a Chippendale’s to beat seeing The Comedian get all weepy over a millionaire Boston liberal – but JMS makes a fundamental mistake in Rorschach’s characterization that conflicted completely with Moore’s original work, and which popped me right out of the story. But we’ll get to that in a minute. Because despite that fundamental flaw that will be glaring to any hardcore fan of Moore’s original, there’s actually a lot to like about this comic book.

Laughable: The Comedian #1 Review

What I am about to write is not going to be objective, because The Comedian from Watchmen is just about my favorite comic character.

How much my favorite? Well, I not only have the movie action figure, but I also have the Comedian badge pin – you know, one of the ones that DC sold for a buck a whack in 1987 or so and which made Alan Moore lose his shit and then tell then-publisher Jeanette Kahn that he thought “DC” stood for “dook corporation.”

But that’s not all…

…I also rock the man’s badge on the front bumper of my car. And I can already hear you: “But Rob,” you’re saying, “The bloodstain is on the wrong side!” To which I can only say: not if you see me in your rearview mirror when I’m rumbling up behind you, motherfucker.

My point is that The Comedian and me? We’re close. We’ve been close since I was sixteen years old. I know The Comedian, Mr. Azzarello. And this?

This is not The Comedian.

Like Mother, Like Daughter: Silk Spectre #1 Review

I will say this about Silk Spectre #1, written by Darwyn Cooke with art by Amanda Conner: these are two artists who are bringing their A Game to the very possibly losing proposition of Before Watchmen.

This is a book that, at least generally, looks like Watchmen, reads more like Watchmen than Cooke’s Minutemen (which reads more like a standard DC superhero comic, only with Hooded Justice as Batman and Nite Owl as Batman and Captain Metropolis as Batman), and embraces the character-over-action ethos of Watchmen, and what action is here is visceral and real-feeling, as it generally did in its parent book.

The book features a relatable and believable sixteen year old female protagonist, and a believable character in her mother, provided you believe that any WASPy community middle-1960s suburban community would accept a Polish former softcore porn star and her Jewish husband… but it also portrays that community being intolerant of the “family” in a way that feels realistic… for 1966. If it took place anytime after 1988, Sally Jupiter’s house would be surrounded by teenaged boys with copies of She Devils In Silk whimpering for an autograph and praying she understood that “autograph” was shorthand for “handjob.” But I digress.

My point is that, God help me, Silk Spectre #1 is a good comic book. However, it is a good comic book that takes place in the Watchmen universe, and I’m not sure my prejudices in favor of the original will ever allow me to rank one of these Before Watchmen books as great.

Watchmen Strikes Again: Minutemen #1 Review

Minutemen, the first issue of the first book of Before Watchmen, by Darwyn Cooke, will, if it’s done even remotely correctly, be impossible to review objectively and completely until all six issues have been released. I say this, because after having read it four times back to back now, I went back and read just the first issue of Alan Moore’s and David Gibbons’s original Watchmen, and I realized that it is impossible for me to read that issue objectively because all I know is the complete work.

Here’s just a quick example of what I’m talking about: in the first issue of Watchmen, there’s a panel right after Rorschach leaves Dr. Manhattan and Laurie, where Laurie is on the phone with Dan Dreiberg, and in the foreground, Dr. Manhattan is smiling. Having read the whole series, I understand that Manhattan, who can see through time like Dr. Who or a common mescaline head, is smiling because he knows that Laurie will wind up with Dan and find happiness. There is no way I could know that having read just the first issue.

So when I see things in Minutemen #1 like Hooded Justice somehow disappearing a goon on one side of a block-wide warehouse, and then somehow within instants moving unseen to the other side of the block-wide warehouse and stalking across a catwalk up to the remaining goon, making the goon piss himself in abject terror as if Hooded Justice were Angry Jesus as opposed to a stocky BDSM freak in a homemade lucha libre outfit just fucking walking toward him, I need to calm my standard, “This is a Thing That Should Not Be” rage and remind myself that Cooke might have a goal for this story that is not currently apparent. And hopefully that goal is something beyond, “I like lots of money.”

But Doctor, I Am Pagliacci: Jim Lee on Alan Moore and Before Watchmen

This past weekend, DC Entertainment Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee attended the Los Angeles Festival of Books. Why attend a straight book festival when the perfectly good Boston Comic Con was occurring on the same weekend? I’m guessing because if you’re gonna be forced to answer difficult and uncomfortable questions about the upcoming Before Watchmen, it’s probably easier to do it when they’re not being asked by, say, Fat Hispanic Superman.

And, at the DC Entertainment Presents: Watchmen – It’s Not The End, It’s The Beginning panel, difficult questions were asked, specifically related to the commonly held perception that the stack of prequel miniseries were personally and intimately screwing Alan Moore in a way that makes American prison showers so inviting. Specifically, one panelist asked Lee how he reconciled Moore’s issues with the prequels:

Alan Who? DC Debuts Before Watchmen Interior Art At C2E2

This past weekend brought us the C2E2 convention in Chicago, “C2E2” of course being an acronym for “a convention that’s growing like a weed since it is now almost purely and theoretically impossible to attend SDCC.” And since DC Comics’s Before Watchmen titles begin dropping in June, several weeks before the Big Dance in San Diego, and since displaying comics-related righteous indignation would technically require Alan Moore to obtain a difficult-to-secure work visa, it was a perfect time for Dan DiDio to take advantage of the con to trot out the creators and show off some preview art.

Pretty much all the creators were on the panel – you can get a pretty decent first-person recap of the panel at Comic Book Resources – but two highlights were Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan writer J. Michael Straczynski’s comments on Alan Moore’s… shall we say inchoate, snide rage over the entire project:

A Republic Serial Villain: More Before Watchmen News

A hair late on this news, but DC Comics has announced the release dates for the first four issues of Before Watchmen. Minutemen by Darwyn Cooke, Silk Spectre by Cooke and Amanda Connor, Comedian by Brian Azzarello and J. G. Jones, and Nite Owl by J. Michael Straczynski, Joe Kubert and Andy Kubert will all drop on June 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th respectively… although if DC really wanted to announce that kind of decisive action, they should have gotten Dan DiDio to stand in front of a bank of flat-screens and say, “I released them thirty-five minutes ago.”

The books will be $3.99 a pop, or $4.99 for the digital combo pack if you want your childhood… shall we say affected… on your tablet, phone or computer. You can see the covers to these first four issues after the jump.

They’re All Agin Me: Alan Moore on Before Watchmen, Darwyn Cooke Minutemen Art

In a truly weird article reeking of cognitive dissonance, Fast Company’s Co.Create, which is a Web site that is not about comics, debuted exclusive new Darwyn Cooke art from the upcoming Before Watchmen book The Minutemen, while simultaneously debuting new comments from Alan Moore complaining that the Before Watchmen project should die on the vine, or in a chute, or really anywhere, preferably with Moore pulling the trigger.

“It seems a bit desperate to go after a book famous for its artistic integrity. It’s a finite series,” says Moore. “Watchmen was said to actually provide an alternative to the superhero story as an endless soap opera. To turn that into just another superhero comic that goes on forever demonstrates exactly why I feel the way I do about the comics industry. It’s mostly about franchises. Comic shops these days barely sell comics. It’s mostly spin-offs and toys.

Hmm… that’s not what I witness every Wednesday at my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to quit asking if they carry inflatable Power Girl dolls. What I do witness are a bunch of middle-aged guys with lucrative day jobs who can afford to buy a stack of three and four dollar comics, but that’s a different issue for the industry. Everyone knows that a product that targets only old white guys is destined to rocket to the top of any sales chart… provided your product is named Cialis. But I digress.

Playing With The Third Rail of Comics: J. Michael Straczynski on Before Watchmen

So DC’s announcement of the Before Watchmen series of prequel books has inspired some pretty heated reactions; hell, just the rumor of the thing did the same thing, so knowing it’s coming was bound to turn the comics Internet into stinking, sticky pissing match.

Many of the creators attached to the project have been quiet about it other than for statements in press releases and a few friendly media interviews. Many, except for J. Michael Straczynski, who is attached to write Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan.

Now, as someone who makes it a point to go to the Spotlight on J. Michael Straczynski panel every year at SDCC, I can attest that the man speaks his mind and isn’t afraid to face down a skeptical public – last year was the year he had walked away from the Superman Walks The Earth Like Caine From Kung-Fu arc, and he certainly wasn’t shy about answering questions. If it was me, I’d have answered every question with, “Fuck you. You don’t like it? You write Superman. Dick,” but I recall him being more articulate than that.

The point is: JMS answers questions, speaks his mind, and has been a Netizen for years; the man was answering Babylon 5 questions on Usenet before Eternal September. You think he wouldn’t speak up about Before Watchmen?

Manufactured Past: DC Announces Before Watchmen

Well, it’s official: DC’s putting aside the wishes of Alan Moore and their own long-time policy, and they’re putting out a prequel to Watchmen sometime this summer… either because they want to give some high-toned creators a chance to play in a legendary playground… or possibly because it would be unseemly to send Dan DiDio to stand outside the DC offices jingling change in a styrofoam coffee cup.

The story, called Before Watchmen as a whole, is gonna be released in seven different titles on a weekly basis, by some of the bigger names in comics today, and all with a backup pirate comics story called Curse of The Crimson Corsair, written by original series editor Len Wein and original series colorist John Higgins… which ties this new series to the original on a creator basis, but in a way similar to casting Die Hard 5 starring Reginald VelJohnson and that weasel who played Ellis.

So what are the books, and who’s doing them? Glad you asked: