The point about these heroes coming into their profession through a sort ancient practice is interesting. What time in world history do you think this could be compared to?

Also, I wouldn’t say Alan Moore was attempting to put forth some moral dilemma for or against authority. Rather, he’s created a world that reacts in a very realistic way to vigilantes. In my opinion, the story is a sort of “what if” scenario. The reactions of the people toward these self made super heroes is very realistic. We see this in other comics, too. I know that in the Civil War series by Marvel we see the Superhuman Registration Act come into play. I’m sure they got this idea from Moore, at least in part.

I suppose what I’m attempting to put forth here is the idea that Watchmen was made to show what would really happen of men and women gave in to their ultimate, secret desires and fought crime. Becoming a super hero does not make you a super person. The Comedian is great example of that. Vigilantes would become a nuisance to organized justice systems, many of those heros would get hurt and hurt others in the process, and I strongly believe if there were masked avengers running around Washington D.C. we would be excited but ultimately nervous. Once you have that hero you have to have a villain.

I think what we are getting from Moore is the inadequacies of super heroes. Due to the fact that they are indeed just ordinary people they can’t make extraordinary change. We haven’t gotten to the end of the book yet, but when we do it’ll become more apparent. His point is that what we need is a drastic event to bring as together as people so we can work for ourselves instead of letting others, like heroes, work for us.

I hope that makes sense.