Concluding my list of The Top Twelve Comics Everyone Should Read.
(And, yes, there’s a numbering problem I need to go back and fix.)
#1 – Watchmen
Synopsis: In a slightly altered world, the heroes of the 60s and 70s were forced to retire, except for a few government sanctioned individuals. Now there seems to be a conspiracy afoot, as these superhumans are being killed or incapacitated. Can the remaining heroes figure out what’s going on in time to stop a horrifying plan?
Creators: Alan Moore wrote it. Dave Gibbons drew it.
Status: After the original 12-issue mini-series was completed in 1987, the book was collected into a single volume, and has remained in print ever since.
Why Everyone Should Read It: Because it was one of the most influential comic books of the 80s. Or even the 70s, 80s, and 90s combined. Heroes with flaws? Heroes that were government stooges? Heroes that were rapists? Or overweight? Or sociopaths? Or, out of the best intentions, plotting mass murder?
Moore tackled this, using disguised variations of various Charlton heroes that DC had recently acquired. His creation was a rich one, an entire realized world. He and Gibbons played with media, having panels flip back and forth between action, memory, TV screens, and so forth. Substories came and went. Imagery echoed through the volumes, only visible once collected. Everyone — everyone — was a flawed human in one way or another … or else, lacking humanity, was flawed in that way.
Heady, heady stuff, and outrageous for its time. But, along with Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, it turned comics on their ears — and issued in the era of the darkly flawed hero, the big conspiracy, the nothing-is-as-it-seems times.
Though criticized for its conclusion — both in schedule and in content — the book as a whole stands up very, very well. Rorschach, Dr Manhatten, Ozymandias, the Owl, even the Silk Spectre, all still resonate. As a single tome, Watchmen will be one of the works studied a century now, both for what it reflects about comics and the times, and for how it was put together itself.
Non-comics readers will find Watchmen dark, but approachable. Comics readers will, if they’ve not read it before, discover the sources of echoes that resonate through the medium to this day.
Collections:
I have to admint, most of the comics on your list are ones that I have either read already or have desperately wanted to read. This is one of those that I am really wanting to get my hands on some day sooooooon.
Cool. You might actually check your local library — it’s possible they have a copy.