You have likely noticed the trailers for the upcoming movie rendition of The Watchmen. Anticipating this movie, and having told myself I'd read it, I picked up a copy of the graphic novel.
Wow.
Read it. I haven't finished yet, but at less than halfway through, I can already see why this is considered the greatest piece of graphic literature ever, and one of the best 100 novels of the 20th century. It is a work of brilliance and turns the super hero milieu completely on its head.
The biggest joy and shivers for me come in paying attention to all the little details sprinkled around. All of the newspaper headlines and signs that are drawn are very significant and inform the context of the plot and character backgrounds and interactions.
Synopsis:
The story was written by Alan Moore, who is known for stories like V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, and many of the best stories in the DC universe. The story is an alternate history. After the first super-hero comics came out, it inspired people to fashion themselves into masked vigilantes who fought crime. This changed history significantly. But the really twisted thing is the varied reasons each of them chooses to become a "super hero" for. But none of them has any super power... until Dr. Manhattan.
Pretty standard creation of a superhero: scientist walks into a chamber during an experiment, gets locked in, and is obliterated. He reforms himself, but is no longer really human. He is Dr. Manhattan who is essentially walking atomic energy and nearly omnipotent. He can manipulate matter and energy, walk through matter, enlarge himself, co-locate, teleport himself and others, alter molecules. But he is so changed that he really isn't human anymore. He is incapable of viewing things like a normal human. At one point he remarks on not being able to discern the difference between life and death particularly, since all of the molecules and chemicals are still there in their same configurations. From an atomic standpoint there is essentially no difference.
Dr. Manhattan really changed history. He allowed us to win the Vietnam War by being used like a walking nuclear bomb. Nixon remains president through 1985 because of this change in events. And the balance of the Cold War is completely thrown out of whack because Dr. Manhattan trumps any nuclear strike that Russia might take.
