I just finished re-reading the supposed greatest comic story again this week, and I must say...it's not the best comic story, but I always felt it was a little overrated to begin with. The main problem I have with the book is that the ending seems like a deus ex machina, and I think the characters should be smart enough to know that. After 9/11 America felt an unprecedented amount of unity and solidarity, yet given time and other circumstances, things have quickly gone back to the status quo. I don't believe for a second that Viedt's plan saved the world, and if it did, it was only a temporary fix. And anyone who knows anything about a conspiracy would know that the more people that are involved, the harder it is to keep it a secret. If the truth came out...and it probably would...then the consequences would be disasterous and the world would probably end up going to war anyway. Doc Manhattan should also be able to tell right away if the plan would work or not...but even then, given his characterization described in the book...would he even do anything?

Of course, I still think it's a great book to read. It's hard not to read in one sitting because it's so dense...there are so many layers to the story that it's easy to get lost sometimes and many more parts of the story come to light during re-readings.

Rorscharch is probably the best comic-book character ever...probably the most realistic and a good depiction of what someone like Batman or any vigilante would evolve into. In the end...there's no way to shield the psyche from wallowing in the filth of humanity...it really would crack you.

Here's to the forthcoming absolute edition!

I was thinking about getting the hardcover edition coming out but with the high $$ I think I'll have to pass.

There was an article in a recent issue of Wizard with the editor who said that he didn't like the ending of it either and that Moore admitted that it was an idea stolen from an old episode of the Twilight Zone. Did anyone else read that? I'll try and look it up later.

I agree with the points you made about the ending but everything around works so damn good that I can easily look past it. It's in the same way that I view Die Hard that I can go along with John McClane being a cop in an office building being attacked and being the only one to slip away because everything around it works.

People used to discuss, "What happened next?" The best response I saw to that question was that Moore ended the book with a quote of a John Cale song. The next line after the quote is supposedly that everything falls apart.

What do you think is the best comic story ever?

Wow, what a shock, something extremely popular that most people can agree upon & Superboy thinks it is overrated, what a suprise & then makes little to no reasoning explaining why it is "overrated". You put up one really weak argument to support your reasoning that the book is "overrated", you make more claims to the greatness of the comic than you do against it.

I think by FAR this is indeed the greatest comic book story every created & Alan Moore is so far & beyond any other writer the medium has had it is hard to even debate it. Also, many people overlook the art which is also a huge reason this is the greatest comic book story ever told. If you know anything at all about comics it cannot even be argued that Watchmen is overrated. This is a comic that changed the entire medium of comics. It forced not only readers but creators to completely alter their perception of what this medium can do & it forever changed the largest genre within it. The impact of this story is immeasurable & to this very day their are countless stories (Crisis currently) that all are just riffs on what Watchmen created & the fact that the ending is open to debate, whether you like it or not is only further proof of how brilliant it is. Also that one can read this story over & over & discover new nuances every single time again is an example of the complexity & brilliance of the work.

I think anything can be overrated, that's perspective and opinion. Personally, I enjoyed Watchmen, but I'd rather read Miller's Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, or most of his Daredevil stories (Vol 2 & 3, Born Again).

I'm not arguing that someone could like something else more, personally Top Ten is my favorite thing Moore wrote & I'd rather read that than Watchmen. But I don't see how a story that changed an entire industry & artform can be "overrated".

A lot of people do argue that Watchmen changed the industry, but I don't think in a good way...and I don't think that it was only due to a single work. I mean how many people cite Millar as sparking the rebirth of Batman when they also ignore the works of Denny O'Niel and Neal Adams? and most people don't even realize that the campy Adam West Batman actually SAVED Batman from being canned forever. Yeah, sounds stupid, but it's true.

Of course, now grim and gritty superheros are dime a dozen, and we have books that are just plain evil and dark just for the sake of shock value and don't even have the depth that Watchmen does. I mean it was only 12 issues and most ongoings can't even compare to the level of depth that the book provides. If creators really wanted to follow in the footsteps of Watchmen here's what they should have done:

-Forgo licensing of characters as being the guiding force behind creative decisions
-Make actual use of the decompressed/serial format and not just for the sake of sales
-Experimente with non-linear storytelling
-Make ongoings with something actually going on
-Be unafraid of sexuality in comics - especially deviant sexuality. This is the worst double standard in comics and perhaps all American media today, in that we can see gross depictions of violence but not sex
-Leave the kids stuff to the kids - and make the adult stuff for the adults. Spider-man's world does not need to come crashing down on him nor does he need to live in a more "mature" themed world.
-...have a reasonable understanding of what "mature" is. When I think "Mature" I don't think of someone running around killing prostitutes. I think of stories, characters,and themes that children wouldn't understand. Invincible is a great book, and it has such a "kiddy" gloss to it, but it's a very mature book and it's definitely not for kids. Not because of all the blood and violence, but because children wouldn't understand the themes of the book.

DC Countdown is a good story I guess...but I know that a few years down the road, it won't matter at all and everything that has happened has been undone. Remember "Our Worlds At War"? Everyone who died is back, and Superman is back to being Mr. Naive Jock Douchebag.

And regarding everything that's "overrated", that's only something I do occaisionally. But like i've also said before...on all the books that I do agree are great, I don't think that it's really necessary to beat someone over the head about it.

Why not? Just because it may change the industry doesn't mean it has to resonate with each individual who reads it, nor do I feel an individual necessarily need to take that into consideration when evaluating a piece of work.

I have the book and enjoyed reading it, but I wasn't particularly floored by it nor I do hold it in as high regard as others.

That is great but you are missing my point. I never said everyone has to love it, but whether one likes it or not is completely irrelevent to it being "overrated". You could think it is utter crap (I don't know how), but one could think it is pure shit, but that still doesn't mean it is overrated. It just means they didn't care for it. One cannot deny its impact on the industry, it is a single story that revolutionized a medium. I simply cannot see how that is overrated, clearly the book has its merit & value & influence, thus one can not care for it, but one cannot say it is overrated.

I think it's completely revelant, but I suppose it depends on how you want to define the term "overrated." To me, it doesn't necessary need to encompass the opinion or impact on a whole; it can easily be reflective of someone's own opinion.

overrated - To overestimate the merits of; rate too highly.

I don't deny it's impact on the industry at all, but that doesn't mean I can't feel that distinction is valid based on my own reaction to the story and content.

You just repeated my exact point. "overrated - To overestimate the merits of". The merits of Watchmen cannot be argued, it is comic book history, so how can you overestimate them. One's personal opinion is irrelevant from the historical significance of the book, which is a result of its quality. So I still cannot see how this comic is overrated. Not have I seen the original OP explain why he thinks it is, he praised the thing more than he explained why he thinks it is overrated.

I guess you can inerperate the definition in different ways. I can't really figure out how to word it... but i guess I don't consider merit and the concept of being "overrated" as something that's dependent on historical significance. I've always felt that term was directly reflective of personal opinion against popular opinion or wide appeal and success, like Liquid Death mentioned.

I agree that the ending is a deus ex machina. Maybe if there were a couple more chapters to flesh out the ending or even a slight rewrite to clue the audience in on what might be coming. Moore has openly stated that the book was written issue by issue with little understanding of exactly where the story was headed. Although I really like Watchmen, I don't think it nearly as great as V for Vendetta or From Hell which both seem to have been clearly thought out before a single panel was published. For the record, I don't think Dark Knight Returns is any good at all.

1. How can it be deus ex machina when Ozymandius's plan was unveiled little by little throughout the entire series?

2. All the "little people" involved in the plan were conveniently killed. I think the only people who survived with the knowledge who might have been able to do anything about it were Hawkman and the chick, and I don't think their opinions would matter much anyway, given the anti hero sentiment.

Agreed on both counts of this terrible use of the word "overrated" and on how Superboy takes the mainstream most enjoyed item and just hates it for the sake of hating it.


As for watchmen. I thought it was a good read. But the thing that I see wrong is that a lot of people suggest it to people who are new to comics. I seriously can't see how this is a good thing or how a new reader would actually enjoy Watchmen at all. The whole story behind Watchmen is the rip the whole Hero status apart. Moore said it himself, that the point of Watchmen was there to knock the hero status and put into question it all. What resulted from it was a trick of pumping life back into those old super hero comics and brought about a lot of new stories. You first have to know the iconic level that superheros have and understand that before you can fully enjoy what it did, tear it a new one and pick it apart.

I often find that people say DKR is also "overrated" because it doesn't stand up to the test of time. But if you look at what it did for batman at the time and how it changed the way we look at batman today.

Proof that Watchmen had such an impact on the industry. It spawned a lot of creators to copy it.

The problem here is folks aren't reading things in the context that they were written in. You can't read THE RAVEN and say "this is shit since I'm not scared at all" You have to read it with some mentality of thinking of what it was like when it was written to fully apperciate it. So you didn't like it.. That doesn't mean it's overrated, it means that you couldn't find a better use to describe that you didn't like it.

I wouldn't toss it on the lap of a new to comics reader, but I would suggest anyone who has read enough comics to pick this up and find a new understanding of the hero role.

It's a deus ex machina because there was this huge buildup to the end of the world, armageddon, or at least WWIII, and this guy (who's a super genius no less) manages to pull together a huge team of experts to provide the answer, although as horrific as it is, to humanity's salvation. And even then...how does Viedt know that he won't accidently trigger the war regardless? and if he does have the ability to manipulate the world on such a large scale totally undetected by major intelligence networks, then why doesn't he already have the capability to prevent the war? Anyway, it's really a moot point - it just bothered me after 9/11 more than anything else because it was a reminder that a random event that brings people together can just as soon divide them. I mean look at the state of the world today...if anything, 9/11 just triggered an escalation of conflicts.

I agree that Watchmen is unsuitable for newcomers. But then again, they won't really understand the meaning of the work until they delve back into the past and read extensively into the Silver Age. And even if they go back further, they might be even more confused. I don't think it's fair to attribute the changes in the comic industry solely to Watchmen. There were many other factors at work which changed the face of the industry - from an interesting socio-political view. Watchmen really wasn't the progenitor of the Dark Age of comics as I like to call it, it was merely one of the first of it's kind. Art is a product of the human condition, which is a product of the social and political environment. The change in comics was inevitable.

I never said I hated Watchmen. Please don't put words in my mouth. I was just trying to stimulate discussion of it. I can't critique the work? I didn't use immature arguments like "Dude the art sucks" or "I don't get it".

Lastly, I would like to say that the small list I made of qualities that writers should truly be trying to emulate are all properties that can be easily attributed to a lot of the books that everyone, myself included, tends to worship;Invincible, The Walking Dead, Y: The Last Man, Gotham Central, blah blah blah:

-Forgo licensing of characters as being the guiding force behind creative decisions
-Make actual use of the decompressed/serial format and not just for the sake of sales
-Experimente with non-linear storytelling
-Make ongoings with something actually going on
-Be unafraid of sexuality in comics - especially deviant sexuality. This is the worst double standard in comics and perhaps all American media today, in that we can see gross depictions of violence but not sex
-Leave the kids stuff to the kids - and make the adult stuff for the adults. Spider-man's world does not need to come crashing down on him nor does he need to live in a more "mature" themed world.
-...have a reasonable understanding of what "mature" is. When I think "Mature" I don't think of someone running around killing prostitutes. I think of stories, characters,and themes that children wouldn't understand. Invincible is a great book, and it has such a "kiddy" gloss to it, but it's a very mature book and it's definitely not for kids. Not because of all the blood and violence, but because children wouldn't understand the themes of the book.

I've read it at least 3 times and certainly think it's in my Top Ten favorite storylines, if not Top Five.

As for what TV show it owes something to: it wasn't Twilight Zone, it was Outer Limits. It was the "Architects of Fear" episode from early in the first season. I just watched that a few weeks ago and certainly see the parallels.

In some ancient Greek drama, an apparently insoluble crisis was solved by the intervention of a god, often brought on stage by an elaborate piece of equipment. This "god from the machine" was literally a deus ex machina.

Few modern works feature deities suspended by wires from the ceiling, but the term deus ex machina is still used for cases where an author uses some improbable (and often clumsy) plot device to work his or her way out of a difficult situation. When the cavalry comes charging over the hill or when the impoverished hero is relieved by an unexpected inheritance, it's often called a deus ex machina.

If I'm not mistaken, Sally is watching that episode when Laurie and Dan visit her in the last issue.

The main value of Watchmen is not in its plot or theme (both of which hold up favorably compared to the majority of what you'll read in comics or elsewhere), but in its technical details. The recurring motifs in the art and writing, the parallels between the main narrative and pirate story, the issue which is entirely symmetrical -- Watchmen stretched the bounds of what a comic book can do to tell a story in a way that few other comics have done.

And if you think the ending is a deus ex machina, go back and reread -- the clues are there from the first issue. I think what you really mean is not that it's a deus ex machina, but that it's an implausable solution to the problem posed. To which I tell you to go back and reread the section on the Gordian Knot.

"Leave the kids stuff to the kids - and make the adult stuff for the adults. Spider-man's world does not need to come crashing down on him nor does he need to live in a more "mature" themed world."

This is actually a big concern now in childrens' literature. I just read a couple articles on MSNBC.com about kids, age 11-16, are being forced to read 'Young Adult' 'literature' in their reading classes rather than the 'classics' like Dickens or Conrad or Melville or Hemingway. The books have 'mature' things happening to young people, but they are either so shallow, or the resolution is so unrealistic, and the discussions are so directed, that the actual 'learning' from the book, how to analyze it, how to read subtexts, etc, is basically nil.

Anyway, while I loved Watchmen, I'd agree that it's not a good 'entry level' book for someone to read. You have to have inthe back of your head that 'other comics' are 'not real', so when you start thinking, 'What would happen in real life', it actually means something. I don't know if it's overrated; it's certainly quite popular, but I don't think I'd call it overrated. I'm not a comic book genius or anything, and I've been out of the scene for a decade, but just from what i've picked up browsing in the last year or so makes me realize that Watchmen helped make the 'what if it happened "here"' comics much more popular, and, well, good. From things like Y and Stormwatch to storylines like Batman: No Man's Land, many comics have gotten a lot more realistic and 'mature' in a good way.
I'm going to have to find my copy of the TPB and read it again, with all y'all's comments in mind.

There are some nice, mostly current, examples towards the bottom of the page at this link: http://www.answers.com/topic/deus-ex-machina

About half-way through the collected TPB and must say that it is a great character study, but not that high in terms of actual comic book action, at least not yet. I guess it was pretty breakthrough for the time it was released, and it still holds in the post cold-war era. However, I cannot help but notice similarities between the storyline in this and The Incredibles.

You don't say.

In all the examples of deus ex machina I've thus far encountered, the deus entity or event is not something built up in the plot. It's just something that happens suddenly. Sometimes it isn't even relevent to the plot in an obvious way. However, in the case of The Watchmen, the "alien" event created by Ozymandius was developed gradually over the course of the mag. We, in fact, knew it was going to happen well before it happened. Nor is the alien event used as Moore's "way out of a difficult situation." Quite the contrary, the alien event at the end of Watchmen is quite pivotal to the one of the major themes of The Watchmen.

The ending didn't "just happen." It was thoroughly planned.

On a separate note, I would just like to say that I heartily disagree with the notion that Watchmen should be reserved for people already into comics. Watchmen can be appreciated by anyone with an open mind and an interest in the themes it presents. If anything I'd say that the superhero aspect is merely a backdrop for Watchmen's themes, and nearly irrelevent in the grand scheme of things. Sure, there are details that can be appreciated by long time comic fans. But those details are a treat, not a necessity.

I agree that it was not technically Deus Ex machina, as it was all planned out and hints were given from the very beginning, instead of being some abrupt "lets just end this thing already" ending. I do wonder how different it would've been had he been able to use the real Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, the Question, etc., before they were adapted into the DC Universe. Would he still have been able to play around with the characters as he did?

It is important to note that both DKR and Watchmen are pretty much Elseworlds stories, allowing the creator more freedom to explore the characters. Which goes back to the state of superhero comics being stale because we know that there's not going to be any huge change in the status quo, and if there is it'll be undone because of fan backlash anyway. they were also pretty short and self-contained, with a definite end instead of being serialized to death. Other classic works like Sandman (even if it had ties to the larger DC universe), Alan Moore's last Superman story before Crisis, etc., follow similarly.