Watchmen

The Watchmen, by Alan Moore, is a story about a group of people who sought to do good, so they decided to fight crime while wearing masks. The original group called themselves the minute men, and when time took its toll on that group, new individuals took up the position, or had it handed down to them. The story starts out by showing us the dying days of this new group, the Watchmen, and how some of them still hold on to what they once had. What the story lacks in the action that most stories involving masked heroes holds, it definitely makes up for it with showing the reader just how real the lives of these people are. Many of the heroes in Watchmen reflect pre-existing super heroes from other popular comics such as superman and batman. The movie rendition does a pretty good job of bridging the graphic novel to film, but some things are undoubtedly lost in the translation. The ending for instance is significantly different, but still holds a powerful impact. There is also a side story that they only briefly show in the movie.

I really enjoyed reading Watchmen because it was such a different way to look at masked heroes. Sure most superheroes in comics show the reader their personal life, and what they do when they aren't fighting crime or evil, but the characters in Watchmen have such a reality about them. Not only what they do outside of fighting crime, but how they came to be masked heroes in the first place really stands out as a strong part of this story. Some took up the role of a friend, while others decided to fight crime because the effects of it directly effected them. Some didn't even want the job in the first place. Another thing I really liked about the story was the reaction everyone had when John became Dr. Manhattan. The appearance of an actual super hero made the others feel pretty much inferior, and some of the characters even held a good amount of resent towards them. All in all, a very good story that showed the truth behind masked heroes. The movie does a great job of showing this and I would definitely recommend both, but the graphic novel shows so much more.