Watchmen

In one sense, Watchmen falls much more in line with what I'd have expected from a comic book than does Blankets. Costumed crime-fighters and animated violence are slightly more familiar territory for the medium than semi-autobiographical accounts of growing up in the Midwest. Nonetheless, Watchmen certainly does have unique elements to its story.

It took me a while to get a grasp on the world presented in the story. It's set in America in 1985 (with lots of flashbacks, of course), but it's not exactly the America that actually existed in 1985. Instead, it's a sort of alternate timeline with many similarities to, but also several key differences from, twentieth century events. The most immediately noticeable disparity exists in the form of the arrival of comic book-like heroes. They wear costumes and fight crime--pretty much the kind of stuff that you'd expect to see in a comic book. The main plot of Watchmen consists of the plight of various super heroes from the '30s to the '80s. The point of view often shifts from one character to another, but the common theme is that most of the characters are now retired crime-fighters.

However, there are other disparities between Watchmen's world and actual twentieth century events. World War II is still fought and won by the Allies, ultimately ending with dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. But years later in Vietnam, U.S. troops fight alongside super heroes like the Comedian and Dr. Manhattan and eventually claim victory over the Viet Cong. Dr. Manhattan's arrival also precipitates a number of incredible scientific breakthroughs, resulting in modes of transportation like the electric car and airship becoming commonplace. However, despite the altered outcome of the Vietnam war, President Kennedy is still assassinated and the Cold War is still very much a reality.

Considering that Watchmen was written in the eighties, I have to wonder what political relevance the story has some twenty years later. On one hand, many of the themes presented in the story--the Cold War and the Red Scare, the military industrial complex, and the United States' position as a world power--these ideas still have a powerful impact on contemporary politics and ideology. However, the world has changed a great deal since 1985, most notably with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It is with the privilege and comfort of hindsight that we now can look back on events such as the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and see them as the last desperate acts of a dying super power. Ultimately, I think the effectiveness of Watchmen's narrative depends a great deal upon the reader's ability to comprehend the political tensions and uncertainty that dominated the Western world in the 1980s.

In other news, it looks like I'll be working on a Batman wiki for my first group project in English 300. I regret missing class that day and not being able to pick my own group, but at least the topic should be pretty interesting. I never really read the Batman comics, but I watched the movies and the shows, so it should be interesting to see the material on which they were based. I'll probably mention more about the project once I find out more information. In the meantime, here is another image that has been culled from my collection.