It is apparent that the “Under the Hood” excerpt is almost as important to the world of the Watchmen as the panels are, which just might partly explain the quasi-failure of the film adaptation which could not contain the writings of Hollis Mason for obvious reasons. Although they serve as great stories on their own merit, they also manage to enhance the effect of the main text. The story Moe Vernon in the first chapter of “Under the Hood” is one of the saddest things I ever read. Moe was known for his sense of humor, which included props—even a pair of rubber bosoms that he happened to be wearing when he discovers that his wife has been having an affair with his trusted friend and employee, Fred Motz. When Moe informs everyone of this, they break out laughing, mostly to the juxtaposition of Moe, the breasts, and the “Ride of the Valkyrie,” and later Moe commits suicide.

Moe Vernon serves as a parallel to Eddie Blake, who has been murdered in the issue preceding the excerpt. Both are tragic comedians in a dark and hollow world that needs laughter more than ever before but will not be around any longer to provide it.

I agree with Moriah’s evaluation of the characters and morals (or lack there of) of the “heroes” in the first few chapters of The Watchmen. I also find it very interesting that, in most cases, the characters admit to their flaws. I think that their biggest weakness is that they put themselves in the shoes of superheroes but still view themselves as “only human”. Rather than accepting responsibilities as true “watchers” of and examples for the human race, they pretend to be superheroes because it makes them happy and then whine about the consequences.

Some of these human flaws are spelled out very directly on page 30 of Chapter 2 in an excerpt from the original Nite Owl’s book. He describes the various flaws of the team including sex fetishes, insanity, political extremity, etc. “… we were crazy, we were kinky, we were Nazis, all those things that people say.”

Overall, I think this book is a great study so far on what the world would be like if people tried to act like superheroes, but I do not consider it to be a book about actual superheroes. Perhaps one could even use this book as a study on why super heroes cannot exist.

Even Dr. Manhattan with his real “super” powers is an example of the improbability of super beings as heroes. Like we talked about in class on Tuesday, his omnipotent powers left him bored with humanity and even the rest of the universe. The idea that such a being would waste his time on Earth is not probable in the “real world” – a world in which The Watchman is clearly based.

I’d like to agree and build upon what Moria mentioned in her First Readers message, that Rosarch closely resembles Batman. I’d like to push this idea a little more, and say that a number of characters have resemble certain aspects of Batman.  While Batman’s true element and most well known characteristic is fear, there are a number of other aspects that complete him. The costume as well as the gadgets, the heavily conditioned and near perfect body, and last but not least the mind; let’s not forget that Batman is one of the comic book world’s greatest detectives.

Niteowl is most closely related to Batman when it comes to costumes, (I mean come on, they both represent winged animals of the night), and they both have highly stylized vehicles. Batman has the batmobile while Niteowl has Archie; both of these vehicles are outfitted with a nice array of weaponry. Another connection between ‘the Owl’ and ‘the Bat’ are their bank accounts. Wayne inherited Wayne Enterprises from his father, while Dan’s father was a banker who also left him a large inheritance.

Ozymandias or Adrian Veidt is a combination of the other two characteristics, he is incredibly smart as well as well conditioned. The media calls him, “The World’s Smartest Man”, and in his chamber he is sometimes seen watching more than 2 dozens televisions at once. He has built an incredible powerful financial empire which he seems to have a steady rule over. Batman, or Bruce Wayne rather has an empire and according to the DC Wiki  (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Batman_%28Bruce_Wayne%29) he is a genius who is a master of numerous languages. Ozymandias is also world renowned for his physical prowess, in one scene he is seen performing acrobatics, later he catches a bullet with his bare hands, and towards the end he is seen easily lifting a full grown man over his head. Batman is an example of physical perfection, even for a fictional human some of his achievements seem superhuman, as we’ve witnessed time after time, Batman single handedly takes down a mob of men, beating people twice his size, and even healing from a broken back.

I’m not here to say that any of the Watchmen’s characters are a rip off of Batman, but that they have small similarities which connect them.  I think these connections are just qualities that most human super heroes. If you’re human super hero character doesn’t have any flash gadgets, a nice vehicle, an incredible intelligence, or a great body, what makes them so Super?

I think the moral statement Watchmen tries to make is fascinating. I could discuss the city. Watchmen is based out of New York City. But  then again New York City being the gross underbelly of a society doesn’t really surprise anyone. Throughout these beginning chapters it is highlighted how much the city and the people need to be saved.

The main person narrating this point is Rorschach. His opinions and thoughts on the city are made clear from the first panel he steps into. I mention the moral decay of the city to the end of talking about its hero’s. The “heroes” in Watchmen, at least the ones presented to us in these early chapters, seem to be more parts villain than they are hero. First we have Rorschach who in my personally opinion is so blinded by disgust and hate that he is no longer fit to do the job. He in my opinion has lost sight of the people who are the heart of the city, and if you are no longer working to save them but are fighting to maintain a standard, how can you carry on the fight in a humane way? He puts my in mind of a Batman without hope who has no rules and crosses whatever lines he wants to get the job done. Rorschach is an extreme example. Any one can look at him and see that he has lost sight of the true mission and has been blinded by the desire to purge. But aside from him there is the Comedian. A man responsible/entrusted with saving people and yet he attempts to rape a fellow teammate! In Watchmen even the heroes need to be saved. On page pg 5 in the Hollis Mason Pages he is talking about how in comics the line for good and evil is defined. there are no questions of right and wrong and justice is served. Moor and Gibbons seem to be conveying that the exact opposite is the truth. No given situation is as pretty and simple as right and wrong. But each choice, each hero, each villain even, is filled with shades of gray.

The characters in Watchmen are all based on those of a publisher, Charlton, that (at the time) had been newly acquired by DC. As Alan Moore’s original draft would have left many of these characters dead or indisposed, he was asked to create new characters instead. Although they didn’t get used in Watchmen, many of the Charlton characters are still in use by DC today.

In context to my current rereading of Watchmen, I am incredibly happy that The Blue Beetle, The Question, and Captain Atom (their doppelgangers are Night Owl, Rorschach, and Dr. Manhattan, respectively) did not find their way into the story. Although this is partly because of a sort of protectiveness I have for the characters, it is also because would also ruin the integrity of the work itself. Alan Moore brings these new characters to life (if it can be called that) in a cold, dark world, which requires them to behave a certain way; if they had even a tiny bit of back story prior to page 1 of Watchmen, it would be hard to take this attitude for granted. By choosing to use fresh characters, Alan Moore is granted infinitely more control over his entire universe. As a result, there is a cold underlying feeling that runs through the story, and each of its characters. As a reader, this ‘chill’ is constantly reinforced by the characters behaving as if something major is about to break; we believe this sentiment so much so, that when it actually happens, it isn’t completely out of left field (even if it is in the form of a space squid).

Ultimately, the DC comics, Alan Moore, and the readers got so much more from his creations than they would have if he had chosen to keep his original roaster of characters. For the Charlton characters, their purity was kept intact even as they all got to live another day, while Alan Moore got to make his world as dark and gritty as it absolutely needed to be.

Chapters one through three of Watchmen are packed with suspenseful foreshadowing, and contain enough action and subplot to make the history of the characters’ relationships interesting.These chapters use politics, metafiction, and the Watchmen’s familial controversy to build up the comic’s mystery.
The political aspect is used both realistically – in that America was once very wary of the Soviet Union’s political movement – and as a tool to reveal how heavily the United States relies on Doctor Manhattan. When the Soviet Union relizes that Doctor Manhattan has abandoned the U.S., they take advantage of the situation. To demonstrate their worldly power, the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. It is apparent that Doctor Manhattan is a vital tool in America’s national defense system, but I’m sure there is more to the political reference that the comic has yet to reveal.
There is a subplot in Watchmen: the pirate comic, which acts as both a subplot and a metafictional reminder that Watchmen is a comic. This is driven home by the mention of superhero comics throughout the novel, specifically in the diary of Hollis Mason, and also on page twenty-five of chapter three. The news vendor says, “Y’know, super-heroes are finished. These days, it’s all pirates. Back in ’39, before the real masked men showed up, super-hero comics were enormous. Guess their appeal wore off…” This is a loaded statement. He is describing the popularity of hostile pirate adventures since the super-hero storylines have vanished from the comic scene, but he’s also referring to the rise of crime in society since the “real” superheroes ceased their vigilantism. This is foreshadowing events to come following the abandonment of Doctor Manhattan, but that is the extent of information the reader is given directly.

I was immediately struck by the significance of Rorschach’s name and mask, which obviously derive from the famous Hermann Rorschach and the inkblot test.  The meaning seems quite clear:  whatever judgments you are making about this superhero reflect more on you than it does on him.  I will confess to staring at the changing patterns of his mask for an embarrassingly long time, looking for some clue to his character or purpose, but to no avail (Chapter 1, pages 12 and 15 offer a good look at his ever-changing “face”). Scott McCloud, in Chapter Five, writes:  “Certain patterns can produce an almost physiological effect in the viewer … [who] for some reason … will ascribe those feelings, not to themselves, but to the characters they identify with” (132). He was writing this about background patterns, but I think it can also apply to Rorschachs’s distinctive inkblot mask. In other words, Rorschach alone carries no true meaning – we project our own thoughts and feelings on him.  Having said that, it seems best to read the whole novel before making any judgments about Rorschach…or yourself .

The mystery of Rorschach is just the beginning of the many curiosities this novel contains. One has to be constantly aware of seemingly innocuous details that may have some meaning later.  For instance, there is an interesting play-on-words, often with double meaning, that runs throughout the novel, from the seemingly incidental to the brazenly obvious.  On page 9 of chapter one, there is a sign from a mechanic’s shop that reads “We fix ‘em!  Obsolete models a specialty”.  This certainly refers to more than just automobiles and foreshadows the many images of aging superheros in the pages that follow.   In chapter three, we see the locksmith from the “Gordian Knot Lock Co.” (the OED Online defines a Gordian knot as “A matter of extreme difficulty. To cut a Gordian knot: to get rid of a difficulty by force.”) – more foreshadowing.   Newspaper headlines also play a distinctive role as part of a secondary story about an impending international crisis (examples:  Chapter 1, page 18, chapter 2, pages 5, 9,10).

Another interesting example of this device is found in the parallel story lines of Dr. Manhattan and the pirate comic in chapter three.  This can be clearly seen in the closely mirrored narration of the comic and the experiences of Dr. Manhattan after he goes to Mars:  “That night, I slept badly beneath cold, distant stars, pondering upon the cold, distant god in whose hands the fate of Davidstown rested” (21).  Probably the best example of duality is again found in chapter three where images and dialogue from Dr. Manhattan’s interview coincide eerily with the assault on Laurie and Dreiberg.  For instance, when Dr. Manhattan is asked “Doc, if the reds act up in Afghanistan … will you be prepared to enter hostilities?” (page 12).  The last part of the sentence is superimposed on the image of Laurie and Dreiberg as they face their assailants.

There are so many examples (such as the sugar cubes) that it would take a book to recount them all, I’m sure.  And, I’ve only read through chapter 3!

I think we can say with confidence that there is a lot going on in the Watchmen, but one of the stronger themes in the book deals with the legitimacy of authority. If Watchmen were told using traditional superhero’s the point may not be as clear (I mean traditional in character, not appearance). However, as they are, emotionally stirred (or disturbed) and sometimes morally dubious, there is a justified question that arises in “What gave these people the authority?” We certainly didn’t elect them. The practice that they use to legitimize their vigilantism predates elections. In some ways the way that these people took power is an ancient practice. A war hero comes to power and legitimacy because he proves that he can protect the people, or strike fear into them. In the case of the Nite Owl and even more so, the Silk Specter, it is hereditary. With the type of behavior that the “heroes” in Watchmen exhibit, there is little wonder why the people would pass the Keene Act.

The Keene act which forces the masked avengers into retirement or registration. Most of these masks did retire, and the Comedian and Dr. Manhattan went on to work for the state. The only one who refused to hang up his uniform, was Rorschach.  Like Batman, Rorschach refuses to retire, and we see the desire for justice pushed to the limits of understanding. Both of these characters are so unrelenting in their own particular view of good and evil, justice and wrong, that they paint targets on their heads… They ultimately become an obstacle for the peace of other people, among a great many other problems. Nevertheless, the reader is usually inclined to side with the renegade hero. This usually is because the heroes are thought to be made of stronger moral metal than the state. They are fulfilling a role that the state should, but is unable to do so because it is weak or compromising. Rorschach says this in his own fun way when he staples a note that says “Never” to the body of a serial rapist, left dead outside a police station (Never, of course, referring to when he will retire). He is saying that, the state, or the system by which we legitimize our leaders is forever broken and will always need his assistance in doing their job. He caught the rapist after all, and took from him the opportunity of due process and possible release (or improvement) by killing him. I can’t assume to know your own reaction to this, but for me, and I suspect others, there was a certain degree of satisfaction in this action. However, later, Rorschach crosses the line. Breaking fingers in a bar is pretty bad, especially doing so on a whim. Even worse, Rorschach, accosts the ex-villain Moloch in his own home. Despite being living proof that criminals can reform, Rorschach still shows his justice is uncompromising by pinning and interrogating the old man, who also happens to have cancer.

I think that, despite the obviously limited reach of a character like Rorschach, we will see that giving power to any one person do dole out their own brand of justice has serious problems. For the same reason that we do (try our best at) not legislating morality, we cannot hand over our rights and our justice system to someone just because they have shown strength. Alan Moore, seems to be tackling this idea more than anything.