The Watchmen

The Watchmen
The Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons is the only graphic novel to appear on Time magazine's list of the world's 100 greatest novels. If there is one representative work of everything good that comic books as a medium and as an art form can be, this novel is it. The tale has a fairly simple concept: What if costumed superheroes existed in real life? No powers, just the glamour and spandex. What if the heroes protecting people were just as flawed and downright evil as anyone else, if not more so? Finally, how would such heroes react when a true superbeing is shoved into their midst?

The Characters
The Watchmen is a work defined by its characters. Rorschach is a hyper-violent, ultra-conservative man that is lost in his superhero persona. Night Owl is an out of shape nerd that just got into the superhero game to fulfill a fantasy. The Silk Spectre is a woman that was forced into living out her mother's superhero fantasies. Ozymandias is a genius that has become disenchanted with modern society. The Comedian is a rapist and a murderer on government payroll that somehow manages to be a likeable guy. Finally, Dr. Manhattan is a god being created in a freak lab accident that is slowly but surely losing his grip on his humanity.

Cultural Relevance
The Watchmen impacts people emotionally and intellectually because it asks interesting, logical questions about realistic characters. Every person has met the character types that the Watchmen represent in his or her real life. The novel lays these personas bare for all of us to judge. The nerd next door could be Night Owl in another life, and everyone has crossed the street to get away from a Rorschach. Everyone has been drawn to a Comedian even though they know it's a bad idea. THe novel is real life with a veneer of fiction just thin enough to let people read comfortably. Everyone owes themselves a readthrough of this literary masterpiece.

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