Project: Watchmen – Reading Watchmen, Part 9
May 27th, 2011 by Samodean
With the death of Hollis Mason still fresh in our minds, Moore lets us sit and think about that for a while, taking the story in a completely different direction with this issue.
Cover
Nostalgia. Another flashback-heavy issue.
Pages 2 & 3
Another example of just how disconnected Dr. Manhattan is from humanity. He forgets Laurie needs to breathe.
Page 5
Jon’s unique perception of time is a major factor in his issue. The fact that his knowledge and the way he reacts to it infuriate Laurie is fun; as a reader, I was pretty much tired of it by this point, as well.
Laurie raises an interesting point, though; Jon was legitimately surprised at the TV interview. There’s a whole discussion of temporal mechanics we could insert here, but I don’t feel like losing sleep for the next week thinking about it.
This image still creeps me out.
Pages 7 & 8
Poor Laurie had a messed up family growing up. A mom who’s a superhero, one that married her PR agent but had an affair with another hero, which she obviously doesn’t try to hide? No wonder she has issues.
Pages 15 & 16
Awwwwkwaaaard. The Comedian hitting on the daughter of the woman he raped? That’s pretty low, even by Blake’s standards.
Page 17
Something Jon DOESN’T know. That’s a pretty big deal.
More important than it seems.
Pages 23 & 24
Holy. Crap.
Even more than the ending, this was the biggest shock of Watchmen for me. The way the story is crafted is just brilliant. Everything is in plain sight, but with completely different meanings without perspective. Maybe Jon has a point.
Page 27
This actually exists.
Epilogue
It’s always been a part of the character that Sally Jupiter wanted to turn her crimefighting exploits into larger fame, but this segment makes it clear she likely never cared about heroics. They were just her entry point to the public eye. Reading into the letters a bit, you can also learn that not only was she never in a relationship with Hooded Justice, but that the masked hero was gay and, even more interestingly, in a relationship with Captain Metropolis.
One small detail I’d like to point out is the Nostalgia bottle. While the narrative jumps around, moving from past to present, back and forth, it keeps coming back to this one moment, frozen in time. We’re seeing time the same way Dr. Manhattan does, and keep coming back to this important moment for further evaluation. The bottle ties the whole issue together, from the beginning to the revelation at the end. You can’t do that in a novel, you can’t even really do it in a movie, but you can do it here, in a comic book.
Tags: Alan Moore, Comics, Dave Gibbons, Project Watchmen, Watchmen
