Watchmen at Thirty, pt. 10: Two Riders Were Approaching...

WATCHMEN AT THIRTY,

Pt. 10:

"Oblivion gathers closer, favoring the spur, sparing the rein."

The gathering of oblivion is a recurring theme in Chapter Ten, as is the idea that it approaches on a horse. Throughout the issue we see background graffiti for an end-of-the-world bash at Madison Square Garden by the band Pale Horse aka the steed of Death from the Book of Revelations.

With Very Special Guest Krystalnacht. Naturally!

The story opens with the President and Vice-President being flown to their Defcon-One bunker. Actually, they're only at Defcon-Two, despite one of the military personnel in charge of safely getting them into the bunker saying "Defcon-One has been achieved." Maybe that's just to throw off any Russkies listening in. Moore is far too meticulous a writer to make a mistake like that - and it would be odd if no one else caught it, either - so I can only assume this Defcon-disparity has some real-world explanation of which I'm unaware.

The Motion Picture Comic emphasizes the Vice-President's tripping as he gets out of the helicopter - a blink-and-miss-it nod to 70s SNL.

Kind of hard to convey without seeing him sent sprawling, which would have been too much.

Outside of the amazing Black Freighter stuff - and if you're just joining this series, that and all the supplemental stuff is being saved for the Coda - most of the issue is Nite Owl and Rorschach piecing together the rest of the mystery.

#BestFriendsForever

I kind of hate how any story with two guy protagonists is instantly called a bromance. I think we should reserve the term bromance for a particular kind of two-guy-protagonist movies. But I appear to be outvoted by the entire online community. So it goes. Anyway, of any issue of Watchmen, this is the closest the relationship between the two former partners comes to what I'd call a "bromance."

The banter.

Laying low after crossing the law by busting one of the gang out of prison.

The breaking up...

the getting back together.

The awkward gestures.

And finally, their comradery re-established on what will almost certainly be their final mission.

They eventually break into Veidt's office and discover that he is the missing piece of the mystery and the puppetmaster behind all the events seen thus far. 

 

Dan probably should have been tipped off from the ease at which he unlocked all the master files, conveniently laid out for him, that he and Rorschach were headed into a trap. Rorschach, as well. But they're overtired and cranky and not thinking clearly, as we see when they take Archie to Karnak, Veidt's Antarctic retreat.

"Don't wish to interfere with running of ship, but..."

We'll get to Ozymandias in more depth next time. In this issue, we only learn he's the shadowy mastermind along with Nite Owl and Rorschach. But unlike them we are privy to some behind-the-scenes-at-Supervillain-HQ action, where Veidt - in true distorted reflection of the hero fashion - mirrors Dreiberg's earlier use of computers to make sense of the available data by collating data from the world's media, simultaneously. 

Here's the color-retouched one from the MPC:

While the idea of a wall of TV screens acting as a sort of digital (well, analog at the time but for all intents and purposes, it is our current media age Veidt is scanning here) oracle is certainly no invention of Watchmen, Veidt is both a man of his time (the savvy buyer and seller, Super-Gordon-Gecko, utilizing the unprecedented-in-civilization technology at his 80s disposal) and insider/outsider-critique of it (80s mass commercialism and militarized-sex-advertising/action-movie/cockrock sensibilities). 

Like I say, though, next time.

The mysterious "island project" that we've seen mentioned a couple of times and where we first saw Max Shea and the artist Hira Manish in Chapter 8 develops ominously in Chapter 10. This time, Max and Hira are below decks, about to get it on, when Max discovers the ship is wired to blow.

First rule of conspiracies - kill the conspirators.

So all the artists and engineers and whomever-elses spirited away to this island to work on a presently-unrevealed project are now dead. Meanwhile, just in case he doesn't make it back, Rorschach sends his journal to the only people who have written kindly about him: the RWNJs at The New Frontiersman. 

They are less than receptive at first, but we'll return to this in Chapter Twelve. Just makes more sense to talk about it there.

And speaking of, it's time for:

At least two sequences are informed by the understanding we've formed of Rorschach in previous issues, such as when he and Nite Owl return to Rorschach's old digs to retrieve his journal and spare costume.

I love that. It's hard to feel sympathetic for Rorschach after a certain point of the series (which is of course just what Moore and Gibbons intended) but this moment where he sees himself in his landlady's son is very understated and powerful. 

As is this recall of "handling watchdogs before."

A stellar issue. In many ways, just a collection of plot points (albeit presented through the signature visual style of the series) but as Tim Callahan wrote, "(the) plot points resonate with humanity, as the characters turn toward each other and look for companionship as the end of the world looms." This is especially true of the news vendor scenes, which are kind of surreal, but I'll cover those in the Black Freighter post. (All roads end in Davidstown.) 

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Watchmen at Thirty, Pt. 8: Old Ghosts

WATCHMEN AT THIRTY

Pt. 8:

"You're alone in the valley of the shadow, Rorschach, where your past has a long reach and between you and it there's one crummy lock."

The eighth chapter of Watchmen opens up with Hollis Mason calling Sally Jupiter long distance from New York ("Calling California is expensive," laments Hollis. "That's Nixonomics. We're all feeling the pinch," replies Sally) to discuss the newspaper reports of their proteges rescuing people from a tenement fire, as seen last issue. It's Halloween, and Hollis is readying his place for trick or treaters. 

The opening has a bit of the fearful symmetry we've come to expect from the series with the ending, where Hollis "faces his final fate, a random victim of the violence plaguing society (he’s actually killed because the street gang confuses him with the Nite Owl who was involved with violence at the prison riots, so Dreiberg is directly to blame for his mentor’s death, though he never realizes his role in the whole thing)." 

This inner flashback to his prime fighting days is very cinematic. As is its unfortunate conclusion:

Old ghosts indeed.

The quote above is from Tim Callahan's Alan Moore reread over at Tor. Here's another one that aptly describes things this time around:

"It’s the issue with the most different things going on, and Moore and Gibbons deftly cut between the scenes and settings cinematically, without lingering on clever transitions as they used before. No this is where Watchmen starts feeling more like a traditional superhero comic, just moreso, with more plot, more extreme characterizations, and plenty of the kind of recurring background symbolism that makes the texture of Watchmen feel so complete."

Outside of some interludes with the newsstand and the Black Freighter, the rest of the issue is devoted to discussion and execution of busting Rorschach out of prison. 

But more on that in the Rorschach part of the program. Chapter 8 gives us our first, cryptic glimpse of the island project.

Max Shea's disappearance is the focus of this installment's backpage notes.

This backpages text is from the New Frontiersman, the Watchmen's world's version of the John Birch Society's New American, Rorschach's favorite magazine.  

It's much more than an insert-right-wing-conspiracy-rag-here gag, though; it's a pivotal part of the whole meta-narrative of Watchmen. As is The Black Freighter.

But! A few rivers left to cross before we get there. 

In the meantime:

Rorschach is perhaps at his most traditionally bad-ass in this issue, exuding cool and calm while turning the tables against everything thrown at him. Laurie gives him some grief about not being grateful enough, but that's the funny thing - he was already completely ahead of the game before they even showed up to rescue him. 

A word on the Motion Picture Comic art this time around: it's not great. Looks and feels hurried in many places, not the carefully consideration of the previous chapters. 

The more I look at this, the more its simplicity works for me, so maybe I'm off on this. I turn the question over to you - does the above distill or obscure the original panel:

The story ends with a cliffhanger for Chapter Nine, another nod in the direction of traditional comic book storytelling. (More old ghosts.)

And that's where we'll pick up next time.

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