Watchmen - by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

Ok. whew. if you are like me, you sat glued to your seat in awe a little after midnight on July 18, as a movie trailer appeared. masked heroes, some guy being disintegrated, a giant clock of some sort, and a bloodied smiley face took over, capturing my attention. i realized quickly that this was Watchmen, a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, which was on my list of Top 100 Novels to be read, and now i had a something compelling me even more to read it.

Watchmen is a series of comics, lasting only a year, set in an alternate history in 1985 (nixon is still president, America won Vietnam, and the Cold War is at full throttle) filled with crime and masked heroes. vigilante justice has been made illegal, however, excluding one actual superhero - Dr. Manhattan, who is working for the government - and The Comedian, a masked man of some kind of justice, also in cohorts with the feds. eventually you are introduced do heroes past in present, one of which in particular whom has become one of my all time favorite fictional characters - Rorschach.

as far as the story goes, there seems to be some killing going on; killing of some former heroes. fingers start pointing, and questions are raised - is there a mask killer on the loose? what's behind all of this? as this plot unfolds, the stories behind Dr. Manhattan, The Silk Spectre, Nite-Owl II, and others are opened up. This is some of my favorite parts. Also included are snippets or excerpts from certain literature - Nite-Owl I's biography, psychology reports, comic-book magazine articles, etc. Sometimes they seem unneeded and tedious, but all the same the break up the continuous pictures and word bubbles. at the end of each 'chapter', is a quote from somewhere - a bob dylan song, the bible - that gives the chapter its name. also is a picture of the doomsday clock approaching midnight, with a pool of blood dripping down to it.

I easily got through this book in a little over a day. It's like reading a movie. if that makes sense. the writing style is dead on and keeps you gripped - quickly you put yourself into this alternate universe and think of how you would react if the U.S. and Russia were only days away from imminent nuclear war. And, might i add, you quickly pick one hero and begin relating to them. you want to be them, to live their life - at least somewhat. Save for Dr. Manhattan, everyone is just a human behind a mask.

and with that, you also ask that very question...who watches the watchmen?