So it has been a couple of weeks since DC Comics announced ‘Before Watchmen’ a line of titles that happen before the seminal Watchmen book we all know and love. As those of you who are familiar with the Watchmen universe already know, superheroes had been outlawed for roughly a decade prior to the opening of the graphic novel. Considering that the events of Watchmen happen over roughly a week or so, that leaves plenty of time to work in new stories using familiar characters.
As a fan of the series (let’s make it clear, Watchmen was one of my first purchases when I got back into comics, but that was 2007… So obviously I wasn’t reading these books when they were coming out in single-issue back in 1986), I have stated my lack of excitement over this announcement. For as much as I love the series – I mean hey, prior to the current run of Batman there were no cool ‘owls’ in comics – I fear that no matter the talent they have working on the individually titles, a blatant cash grab’s a blatant cash grab and in no way can expand the universe in a positive way.
But, to be fair, I have many arguments as to why this could work, and while obviously I cannot make definitive comments on something that doesn’t come out for a few months, here are just a few of my responses to those.
Alan Moore Had His Shot
The easiest argument to dismiss – at least from a creativity point-of-view – is that Alan Moore had his chance to expand on the universe and has opted not to. DC knows they have a potential cash cow with the Watchmen, and was willing to offer the world to Moore in order for him to create more. And, while Moore had initially been willing to create a prequel series based on the Minutemen of the WWII-era, he had rebuffed any offer from DC in recent years to build on his previous titles.
Now, one can say that Alan Moore is a reclusive nutjob, and they’d be right. But something should be said for the fact that he turned down so much to NOT make new Watchmen material. Why? Who knows, Alan Moore is a reclusive nutjob, but I think it speaks volumes that he chose not to continue the Watchmen legacy.
This Will Be Like Any Other Comic That Gets a New Creative Team
Writers and artists on comic books are as interchangeable as Newt Gingrich and his wives (ha, political humor! Fuck you, Jay Leno!). But, the fact remains that some things we associate with classic comic book characters was not written by the original creators. The story of Thomas & Martha Wayne’s murder was written several issues into the Detective Comics run of Batman by Gardner Fox. Superman could only jump really high until the character was adapted for cartoons, where animators found it easier to have him just fly instead of bouncing around. Pretty much, if we took out the contributions of those who were not the original writers or artists, some of the world’s biggest characters would have died out with their creators long ago.
Admittedly, some of the creative teams working on Before Watchmen are incredible. But in most cases, a new creative team builds a character forward, further expanding on the existing mythos created by the original team while telling the continuing stories of that character. There’s something to be said for that Before Watchmen are “prequels”, and not just prequels but told in a specific timeframe. We already have the origin story for all of the Watchmen, that was told in the original book. And we all know where they end up. These teams have to sandwich in their stories in a way where it fits within their original story but still leaves the characters where we originally find them in 1982. This drama is difficult – the quintessential case of writing a story where everyone already knows what happens in the end. It can be done – James Cameron is on the next spaceship to Pandora with all of his Titanic money – but the task in monumental. And with a fanbase like comics fans, we can be very unforgiving.
The New Books Don’t Detract Anything From the Old One
Propose that argument to a younger, 21 year-old me back in May 1999, and I would have likely had no defense. If you love something so much, how can having more of it be a bad thing? Then, 6 years later, you’re left shell-shocked in the AMC Altamonte movie theater wondering what the fuck just happened to everything you believed in.
Yes, the Star Wars prequels show what type of damage you can do to an existing product by messing with its history. Darth Vader is a lot less menacing after you see him crying like a whiney bitch for two movies. The entire basis of his character is altered and you question his motivations in the original trilogy after seeing his portrayal in the prequels. (Editor’s Note: At this point in the blog post I started another one of my rants about how much I hate the Star Wars prequels. After writing for 45 minutes something long enough to make its own blog post, I decided to excise the whole bit. Needless to say, I don’t care for Episodes I-III.)
So, to answer the question – yes, unless something is done outstandingly well it can detract from what you already have. (Editor’s Note: At this point in the blog post I started a new rant about the opening of the original Star Wars and the murder of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, relating it back to Episode II, and after another 10 lines of ranting decided to cut this bit, too.)
Needless to say, then, I am not looking forward to Before Watchmen. Whenever a large corporate entity decides to go back and milk a former cash cow, it doesn’t ever seem to go well. I don’t see a prequel series broadening the audience that went to see the movie because, as I recall, one of the arguments of why the Watchmen movie “failed” is that it didn’t attract a large enough audience of people who didn’t already know the property. Yet, I look upon the upcoming books with a morbid curiosity. The “How are they going to fuck this up?” factor. What are they going to do in this new series that dampens the impact of what we already know. The Comedian is a U.S. government agent – in our current state of affairs, is having the most “anti” of anti-heroes committing horrible atrocities going to sell books? Or are they going to make him an upstanding patriot, fighting the good fight for Uncle Sam?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… This is the only Watchmen prequel I’d look forward to.
But, here at GGOrlando, we’re having a little con hangover. So there won’t be a Local Spotlight post this afternoon… Mostly because I don’t feel like trying to find something to write about. If you have a problem with that, you can go **** yourself!
