Watchmen
by
In summer 1986, DC Comics published the first issue of Watchmen, a twelve-issue maxiseries by a trio of English comic book creators: writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins. Watchmen begins with police discussing the dead body of a former vigilante-turned-government agent named the Comedian. Another vigilante named Rorschach investigates the Comedian’s death, drawing in a range of former superheroes and eventually discovering a massive conspiracy set in motion by one of their colleagues—although a linear plot summary scarcely does justice to the complicated structure of flashbacks, flash-forwards, and textual intercutting that composes the story. Widely acknowledged as a landmark work in the history of comics, Watchmen also merits consideration as an example of a host of changes to the comics form that occurred, or were set in motion, during the 1980s. Set in a universe distinct from the one that featured DC’s core heroes such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, Watchmen was a superhero story that defied the conventions of the genre. The title, for instance, referred not to a superhero team, as one might expect, but instead alluded to the phrase (finally quoted in the series’ eleventh issue) “Who watches the watchmen?” Drawing on...
This essay may be found on page 217 of the printed volume.