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Chapter IV of Watchmen, titled “Watchmaker”, is arguably one of the best single comic book issues ever made. When people talk about the brilliance of the series, this is always the issue they come back to as the shining example. No, the issue doesn’t introduce a groundbreaking new character the likes of which the world had never seen.  No, there aren’t any battle royales between the forces of good and evil in a final showdown to decide the fate of the world. What Chapter IV does is show what comics can do as an art form. It gives us an insight into just what author Alan Moore means when he says that comics are unlike any other medium. And why he earnestly believes that none of his comics can be properly translated to film.

“Watchmaker” is the story of Doctor Manhattan. While it might not sound like a ringing endorsement, this issue is like one of those bad “flashback episodes” that were once so common on sitcoms back in the 70s and 80s. On TV, the main character sits looking through a photo album, reminiscing about days gone by, and the entire show is nothing but clips of the best moments from past seasons. In the end, the character reflects and says to himself, “Ya know…maybe life’s not so bad after all.” The canned studio audience sighs and claps, the music swells, and the viewer feels a little ripped off for tuning in this week.

Similarly, Doc Manhattan is sitting on Mars, staring at a photo of himself and Janey Slater, his first love. He looks back on his life, starting from young adulthood, up through the accident that caused his rebirth as the world’s first real superhero, into his days as a crime fighter, his latest romance with Silk Spectre II, and, finally, the talk show ambush that has made him leave the earth. Sounds pretty lame, huh?

Not on your life.

What makes Chapter IV so incredible is the way these flashbacks are handled. We watch as Doc’s life unfolds, his narration providing us with dates, locations and reoccurring phrases to help ground us in some form of personal historical context. But rather than just show a single line of thought, he keeps jumping around in time, constantly referring to past events that were shown earlier in the story. Sometimes these referrals are visual cues, like a black velvet cloth with gears from a timepiece lying on top. This is a memory from the day his father insisted Jon Ostermann stop learning the family trade of watch repair and instead go into science, a field with a future.

But even if the cues are visual, the narration is sometimes inconsistent with the context in which we originally saw the image. This implies that what he sees is not the same as what he’s thinking – his mind is jumping here and there, crossing dates, mixing images, and memories are getting swirled together. For example, near the top of page 11, we learn that it is Christmas 1959.  Janey and Doc are exchanging gifts. In the last frame, we see Manhattan with his hands caressing Janey’s face as he says, “I’ll always want you.” But the narration in this final frame reads, “As I lie I hear her shouting at me in 1963; sobbing in 1966. My fingers open. The photograph is falling…” In that one frame is a visual reference (Christmas 1959) as well as verbal references to events that, in the visual context anyway, haven’t even happened yet (an argument in 1963, and their breakup in 1966).  And then to really confuse things, he closes by mentioning his actions in the present on Mars where he is dropping the photo of himself and Janey from his hand.

The entire issue gives us a glimpse of what it must be like to live simultaneously across the entire spectrum of time. The man can see supernovas millions of light years away. He can see himself being ripped apart in the lab. He knows he’s going to drop the photo before he even does it. To have this kind of knowledge and ability, it’s no wonder he’s feeling less and less connected with mankind. How can you have emotions like guilt or a concept of right and wrong when you already know how things are going to turn out? He has, in a way, become a prisoner to fate.

Throughout the issue, the references fly by so quickly and furiously, that you really have to pay attention to the narration, the artwork, the layout of the panels, and the actions of the characters if you’re going to even come close to understanding what’s going on. But it is your ability as a reader to flip back to page 3 to pick up the reference on page 19. This is the primary advantage that Alan Moore believes comics have over all other storytelling forms. You read the words and absorb the images at your own pace.  In a film, that pace is decided for you by the director and editor.  In a novel, sure you can re-read pages or chapters, but everything has to be there in the words.  With a comic, the artwork can show you part of the story without using any words, narration, or dialog at all.  In this case, to fully understand the comic, you have to stop and examine the artwork to recognize recurring patterns and visual themes. You can re-read an entire page if you notice that one snippet of a conversation was brought up again later on. There is no one to tell you how to read a comic; there is no “right way.”  Sure there are standard concepts that have been developed (i.e., panels are usually read from left-to-right, top-to-bottom), but if an artist really wanted to, they can break from these concepts.  As long as they can still effectively deliver the story using whatever methods they prefer, it can still be a good comic.

It is this unique feature that makes trying to describe “Watchmaker” all the more difficult. Honestly, you need to read the comic if any of this will ever make any sense. And even then you might have to read it four or five times to begin to catch even half of the nuances it offers. Of all the iconic moments in the series that I’m dying to see how it was handled in the film, it’s Chapter IV that I am most curious about. I really want to know if Zack Snyder was able to capture this amazing feat of visual storytelling and translate it to another medium other than comic books. While I have a feeling it will be a nice attempt, I really do think that this is one issue that will be impossible to recreate.

At the end of Chapter IV, Doctor Manhattan decides to create for himself a crystal clear, otherworldly, floating palace out of the ancient red dust on the surface of Mars. Is this his version of Superman’s “Fortress of Solitude?” Is this the only place a god can be happy? Or does he have other plans for his latest creation? You’ll just have to wait till “Chapter V: Fearful Symmetry”, a groundbreaking issue in its own right, to find out.

Posted under ALL, Deep Thoughts, Reviews, The "100 Novels" Project

For most comic books, the story only occurs within the frames on the page. Personal history, context, and inner monologues fall within the main story, usually communicated through thought balloons or omniscient “voice-over” narration. Watchmen breaks this rule as there are no thought balloons, nor an omniscient narrator, preferring to tell its story in a more cinematic style without these visual storytelling crutches. The series also has no existing canon to rely on as so many long-running comics series do, as there are only twelve issues to explore such a deep narrative.  This lack of context is troubling for a comic set in a world that is similar to our own, yet just slightly off enough to warrant some confusion on the part of the reader.  Fitting in all that exposition, though, could easily derail the main plotline.  

When DC was shopping the comic around to advertisers, they weren’t terribly surprised to find that no one was interested in having their product be associated with a comic book that was so cynical and serious (I’m sure the attempted rape storyline wasn’t exactly a big hit, either). This left 3-4 pages blank at the end of every issue. To fill these pages, writer Alan Moore decided to provide excerpts from the memoir Under the Hood written by Hollis Mason, the first Night Owl, after his retirement from masked crime fighting. Obviously this book doesn’t exist in the real world, but in the comic book it’s pretty well known, especially as the source of the scandalous story of The Comedian’s attempted rape of Silk Spectre. More importantly, though, it provides the reader with a rather expansive history of the world of Watchmen. A major part of this history is the story of The Minutemen, the best-known team of heroes.

The Minutemen were formed in mid-1939, when Sally Jupiter (AKA Silke Spectre) and her husband, a shrewd marketing man, put an invitation in the paper for any masked heroes to meet, with the intention of forming a team that could pool its resources to greater effect. Members of the team included Mothman, Captain Metropolis, Dollar Bill, Silk Spectre, The Shilhouette, The Comedian, Nite Owl, and the original masked hero, Hooded Justice. The team worked together for a year, until The Comedian left after being accused of assaulting Silk Spectre – who was talked out of pressing charges because it would be bad press for the group. In the years to come, The Minutemen left one-by-one, some simply because life took a different path (Silk Spectre had her daughter, Laurie, and so got out of the crime-fighting game), some left in scandal (The Silhouette was outed as a lesbian and later killed by a former enemy), while others left for personal reasons (Mothman became a debilitating alcoholic and was eventually checked into a mental institution), and some were killed in the line of duty (Dollar Bill was a hero-for-hire, employed by a bank as a marketing gimmick. While trying to stop a robbery at work, his cape got stuck in the revolving door and he was gunned down. The scene in Pixar’s The Incredibles, where the downsides of a cape on a superhero costume are discussed, pays homage to the less-than-honorable demise of Dollar Bill.)

There’s plenty more to the story of The Minutemen, the rise of The Comedian as a public figure, the self-imposed retirement of Hooded Justice when he refused to go before Congress to reveal his true identity, and a bit about how Doctor Manhattan has changed the face of crime-fighting and the world at large. These excerpts are spread out in the final pages of the first three issues of the series, giving us a rich background to draw from as we move forward through the story. It provides a glimpse into the complicated relationships that connect many of these characters, sometimes across generations. It also points out the deeper ramifications of obtuse concepts like the impact of Dr. Manhattan’s existence.

In his book, Mason tells us the sordid past of some of his team members. He has no qualms about implying that Hooded Justice was gay. He openly admits that some masked heroes were in it because they were Fascists, racists, or were there just to make a quick buck. These aren’t the self-less pinnacles of justice that we normally saw in superhero comics before 1985. These are deeply flawed people with strange viewpoints, ethics, kinks, and motivations for living the life they have chosen. This would be impossible to convey through the comic frame alone in the allotted time of only 12 issues. Without this supplemental material, we’d only be getting part of the story.

You can still enjoy the story of Watchmen without Under the Hood, but the deconstruction of the superhero as archetype, probably one of the more interesting aspects of the Watchmen, cannot be completely appreciated without this fictional background. And to think, if Bubblicious or Cap’n Crunch had decided it was ok to advertise in a comic book where a major plot point is the sexual assault of a main character, we might be missing this vital aspect of the Watchmen world.

Janey Slater, Doctor Manhattan’s former love interest.

Edgar Jacobi, AKA Moloch the Mystic, a former enemy of Manhattan’s.

Wally Weaver, called “Dr. Manhattan’s Buddy” in the newspapers.

These people are all dead or dying of cancer.

Coincidence?

Not according to Nova Express newspaper.

At  a prime time talk show appearance, Manhattan is confronted with this list of cancer victims and the connection is made quite clear.  The accusation startles Manhattan, and the mob of newsmen crushing in around him as he tries to stammer out of the line of questioning only makes him more and more anxious.

Finally, he rather loudly insists that everyone just leave him alone – by teleporting the entire studio audience and even some of the camera equipment, outside the building.  This breakdown is broadcast live for the entire nation to see.

Manhattan then transports himself to his home at a military base where he catches a Private painting a nuclear symbol and quarantine notice on the door to his quarters.  Seeing what this means, Manhattan teleports to Arizona – back to where he was “born”, the Gila Flats Test Base.

The base is long abandoned, but a torn and tattered photo of Jon Osterman and Janey Slater still hangs on the wall inside the bar where they had their first drink.  Manhattan takes the photo in his hand and looks at it with the closest emotion he can approximate to sadness.  Then, without a word, he teleports again – to the angry red planet, Mars.

Doctor Manhattan – the only real superhero, the man they call God – has just left the earth in a self-imposed exile.

Earlier that evening, Laurie (Silk Spectre II) was beginning to understand that her boyfriend, Doctor Manhattan, simply cannot truly understand what it means to love her.  Distraught, she paid a visit to Dan (Night Owl II), looking for an ear to bend and a shoulder to cry on.

The two went for a walk and were attacked by knife-wielding thugs in an alley.  Their training kicked in and they were able to defend themselves.  It’s an odd first date, but the chemistry is impossible for them to dismiss.  Still, they do their best to bury their feelings for now.  But you know they’re not going to be able to resist their emotions for long.  They both need to feel alive again and it’s clear they provide that rush of life to one another.

The exile of Doctor Manhattan is one of the most important moments in Watchmen.  While the opposite is actually stated in the comic, to me his exile has always been a very human decision.  Perhaps he’s not as inhuman as everyone has thought after all – he can feel emotional pain, he can feel guilt, he can feel self-pity, he can feel betrayed.

But more importantly, his leaving creates a void in world politics.  Without America’s ultimate weapon holding back the Russians, they sieze the opportunity and almost immediately invade Afghanistan.

War is imminent.  Nuclear war is likely.  The end is nigh.  The Armageddon clock ticks ever closer to midnight.  And the only person who could have stopped us from killing ourselves, has just taken up residence on another planet.

This can’t be good.

The other night I decided to look into Tumblr a little bit.  Tumblr is basically a social bookmarking site, but there are no tags like on Delicious (formerly del.icio.us) or StumbleUpon – you just have your own page of links, videos, photos, chat transcriptions, audio, and blog posts.  Like Twitter, you can “Follow” people you like and you’ll see their latest posts when you login, possibly providing more inspiration for your own posts.

Many people use it as their primary website, but more people, like me, use it as a library of sorts to store things they want to check out later or want to share with others.  I guess it’s really just a scrapbook of your internet travels, a concept I kind of like.

But rather than try to explain what a Tumblr is, just take a few minutes to check out my site:   spacemonkeyx.tumblr.com

You’ll get some idea of what it’s all about, and you can always bookmark the page or grab the RSS to see stuff that I think is worth sharing with others.

Enjoy!  And if you think it’s something you want to get into, let me know what your page is and I’ll follow you.