Who Watched the Watchmen?
Alan Moore’s brilliant deconstruction of the comic book superhero in the maxi-series; The Watchmen (1986-87) had a profound effect on the future of comic book heroes and comic books in general. The one-two punch of his and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns demonstrated that comic book heroes weren’t just for kids. Even before Moore and Miller changed the comic book world, comic book superheroes were making a return to the movies. Richard Donner’s beloved Superman, with the tagline: “You’ll believe a man can fly,” showed us that superhero movies weren’t as unfilmable as once thought.
Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver had acquired the film rights to The Watchmen in 1986, approached Alan Moore to write it but he refused. 20th Century Fox was the distributor and they hired Sam Hamm, who would soon go on to write both Burton Batman scripts. to write the screenplay. By 1991 the project wandered into developmental hell when Fox put The Watchmen into turnaround declaring it a loss. Warner Brothers did acquire the rights with Terry Gilliam directing and long time screenplay collaborator Charles McKeown to write the script, but both Gilliam and Silver could only raise a quarter of what they needed to make the film so it lingered.
Gilliam is the one who vocally labled The Watchmen “unfilmable,” and did so after leaving the project that went tbrough several more hands (after Warner Brothers dropped it), several more film studios before landing right back at WB who partnered with Paramount and Legendary Pictures among others, to film the Zack Snyder directed version of Alan Moore’s comic book. The film was met with wildly mixed reviews, both critics and fans of the source material either loving it for the same reason others hated it. Perhaps what has made Alan Moore’s divisive creation so “unfilmable” is not so much the expense of such an undertaking but rather the fallout that comes from critics and fans.
There has been no official budget reported on regarding HBO’s Watchmen, but show-runner Damon Lindelof (Lost) has cleverly moved past the purism of fans to, at the very least wow the critics. Instead of offering a maxi-series as some kind of a reboot of the same story, Lindelof decided to set the world of the Watchmen thirty years after the events that closed that story. In doing so he can remain faithful to the spirit of the source material while enjoying the freedom to tell their own unique story. Except that the comic book’s creator (co-creator since Dave Gibbons did the artwork), Alan Moore wants nothing to do with HBO’s series.
Moore recently said, and bluntly so; “My book is comic book. Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book. It’s been made in a certain way, and designed to be read in a certain way.” He has refused to allow his name be associated with HBO’s Watchmen. Gibbons on-the-other-hand, is not only listed in the credits as being a co-creator of the comic, but was hired as a consultant for the show. Moore refuses to watch the show, Gibbons obviously has watched it. Gibbons has already expressed his excitement about the project while acknowledging Moore’s viewpoint as somewhat being shared by both:
“The original is always something we saw as standing alone and it never in our mind required prequels or sequels or homages or pastiches or anything like that. It isn’t that we thought it should be treated with reverence, it’s just that we thought; if you’ve done something right just leave it alone.” This is an interesting take considering both Moore and Gibbons are talking about a comic book. Sure, they conceived as a stand alone story, but the comic book industry doesn’t survive on stand alone comics. Comic books survive by finding characters with long term appeal and continuing titles featuring those characters.
It’s been years since Steve Ditko walked away from Marvel Comics and thereby walking away from Spiderman, of which he co-created with Stan Lee. It has also been years since Stan Lee consistently wrote for this creation, both artist and author passing the mantle on to new writers and artists allowing the character to grow in sometimes unexpected ways. By the end of Moore and Gibbon’s comic several of it’s key characters are dead, but why not prequels? Why not sequels and why not simply continuing the continuity that has been established?
Certainly there is enough interest in this as HBO’s Watchmen shown. Of course, as it is with hard core fans, the source material is treated with reverence, but so what? There is a valid argument to be made that Lindelof’s take is not irreverent at all. In fact, as Gibbon’s continued discussing this topic he went on to say; “I think as happens with all works that are around long enough and are successful enough, that people do want to explore things further. As far as this new one, TV clearly is the medium of the moment. It’s where the preeminent and most exciting areas for telling stories of the moment. The fact that Damon Lindelof has found a way to bring Watchmen into that area and do it with something I consider exciting, entertaining and absolutely worthwhile on the subject matter? I think that’s great.”
Regarding Alan Moore’s refusal to even watch the HBO series, Lindelof argues; “There is no version of Watchmen I could make that would please him. Not only that, but there’s no version of Watchmen I could make that he would ever watch.” That sounds about right. Moore has every right to be as curmudgeonly about as he like. Thankfully, people are inclined to take his creation and continue telling stories of that carefully designed universe. Lindelof, the writers, cast and crew have been more than effective in staying within canon (with minor tweaks here and there) and telling their own story.
One only has to go to HBO’s site for Watchmen and find the Peteypedia page to find that they have hewed closely to Moore’s choice to include verbose documents, government reports, newspaper articles and excerpts from diaries concluding each book. Alan Moore can be far too verbose for the medium of comic books but at least for his masterpiece he managed to find clever and creative ways to spew out mounds of exposition in narrative forms instead of splashing balloons all over Dave Gibbon’s wonderful art. That HBO has so lovingly aped this while updating it for the age of the super information highway is a testament of how important maintaining the spirit of the original is to them.
More importantly, while the original was an important and maybe even necessary critique of the modern comic book superhero, the relevance of the world they created clashed with the times they sold off the stands of newsstands and comic book shops. The Watchmen comic, while existing in the same year it was published, made clear that this world was parallel to our world. Richard Nixon serving his fourth term instead of Ronald Reagan as president is only just one example. The comical “doomsday clock” had little relevance to our time as Reagan was busy running the Soviet Union into bankruptcy and the Cold War nearing its end.
The HBO series however, has embraced the current to do about race relations, white nationalism and even taken seriously and giving credence to the hysteria over the OK hand gesture. Actually, the way it is used in the TV show is really kind of comical, but it is used to function as a code for racism. The very first episode very cleverly uses the actual events of the Tulsa race riot, or Black Wall Street massacre of 1921. By beginning with this historical event and weaving in its fictional characters into that event they make a clear statement of the struggle between races in this universe which, depending upon who you believe, is what is going on today.
It’s not so clear that white nationalists in the U.S., are anywhere near a growing movement and is perhaps just merely a smear for people who want stricter border controls, or more accurately stricter enforcement of existing border controls. Just because many of the mainstream media are doing their level best to convince this nation it is being torn apart by a race war, that same mainstream media has done enough these past several years to convince many that they just can’t be taken seriously and certainly not trusted to tell the truth.
The incorporation of this cultural phenomenon into Watchmen is not merely jumping on that bandwagon and virtue signaling. It is an element of the carefully crafted narrative that quickly becomes much more nuanced. This is a world where the superhero vigilantes of The Watchmen have been prohibited by the government, but where police under attack by white nationalists who have adopted the long since dead Rorschach’s mask as their own and in response the police begin wearing masks and becoming vigilantes themselves.
All the way through the series the relevance to our own world is evident, while the shows due reverence to the source material remains true. Moore’s critique of both right-wing and left-wing politics remains intact. Rorschach still emblematic of the right and Adrian Veidt of the left. Newly introduced characters such as Angela Abar/Sister Night (Regina King), Wade Tillman/Looking Glass (Tim Blake Nelson) and even original characters like the now older Laurie Blake/Silk Spectre (Jean Smart) all float somewhere in the middle of this extreme right and left wing dynamics.
Some might argue that the original ended on a hopeful note, but not nearly as hopeful as the series ends. From the very beginning and throughout each episode there were plenty of clues that the resolution between the tension between races lies in moving closer to what Jose Vasconcelos called La Raza Cosmica, the cosmic race. In the pilot episode we are introduced to Angela and her husband Cal Abar (Yahya Abdul-Mateen), and their three children. The three children are adopted, but none of them are obviously black, certainly not as black as their adopted parents.
It is never made clear why Angela and Cal don’t have biological children together but certainly implied it was due to their cosmic union. Cal is different than Angela and is also much more akin to an original character of Moore and Gibbons books than it is a newly invented character by Lindelof and crew. There are hints such as breaking a few eggs while making omelettes and chicken and the egg questions regarding the transference of one’s essence to another that functioned as romance between Angela and who would become her husband Cal.
In the most subtle of ways this series has managed to identify stewing problems and tensions and make an argument for resolution. An argument very much in favor of union. Not Union of Labor, but the unions we make with each other. The coupling of marriages, the bringing together of families into that union and the creation of children to join the union, is thematically very much a part of Watchmen. This is the joyous hope they offer their audience, that perhaps we’re all destined to couple in such a way as to create some kind of cosmic race, or maybe it’s so subtle I’m inferring much more than has been implied. But that has always been the fun of an artistic work that inspires such reverence, isn’t it?
If it was irreverent to for Lindelof to make and HBO to air Watchmen against Alan Moore’s wishes then long live irreverence! In the long tradition of comic books let those indelible superheroes and characters of the comics live long and inspire new generations just as they did the old. That’s the point of mythology, to outlive its creators, and on some level Moore probably understands that.