A NOTE ON THE BACK-MATTER IN WATCHMEN - part II (chapters 1-4)

On my first reading of Watchmen, I expected the text pieces in the back of each issue would all be excerpted chapters from Hollis Mason’s autobiography Under the Hood, as each of the first three chapters included these excerpts.  I found it interesting – delving into Mason’s psyche to see what prompted him to become a costumed adventurer humanized him in a way that could not be fully realized in the main comic.  And, by way of Mason’s inside knowledge, I also got to know the other members of his “spandex set.”  Of course, once I read chapter four, it was evident Moore planned on utilizing a variety of “resources” from the world of Watchmen to fully flesh out these characters. 

Much of the text in Under the Hood only tangentially relates to the main narrative, as it mostly deals with Hollis Mason’s personal history.  But Moore also peppers these excerpts with little details that flesh out the world of Watchmen, providing insights into this alternate reality not as easily conveyed through the comic narrative.  The biggest hurdle comic books have as a storytelling medium is the lack of space within the format.  Moore’s use of prose at the end of each chapter was an elegant solution to this disadvantage.

One interesting detail gleaned from Mason’s autobiography was the fact that comic books began in exactly the same manner as they did in our “real world.”  Hollis Mason, during his time as a beat cop, discovered Action Comics #1 and the Superman story therein, when he saw the kids on his beat reading it.  Mason asked one boy if he could read his copy – ostensibly to forge bonds with those he was sworn to protect – and was immediately captivated by the costumed hero from Krypton.  Like the pulps he’d enjoyed when younger, this new adventurer spurred Mason’s imagination and inspired his own later costumed exploits.

It was no coincidence that in the world of Watchmen, “real superheroes” came to the fore in 1939, just as their four-color analogues in our world were exploding in the public mindset.  But with real superheroes like Hooded Justice and Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, the allure of superhero comics quickly faded.  With the real thing who needed a second-rate, static version printed on cheap newsprint? This was the first of many differences between the world of Watchmen and our own, a difference that also accounted for the popularity of pirate comics in this alternate reality.

Moore knows his comics history, which probably explains why he chose to have superheroes arrive in the world of Watchmen at the same time as their rise as comic book characters in our own world – along with the obvious narrative uses an older generation of heroes could provide his story.  Similar to this costumed adventurer fad in the 1939 of Watchmen, the era of this golden age of heroes spanned roughly the same decade that the golden age of superhero comic books did in our own.  The popularity of costumed adventurers burned hotly during the early part of the 1940s, but with the successful conclusion of World War II, that popularity waned.  In 1949, the Minute Men disbanded and things became quiet on the costumed adventurer front, coinciding roughly with the decline of the golden age of superhero comics.  But the Silver Age was just around the corner, as, in the back-matter for Chapter IV, Dr. Manhattan was introduced to an unsuspecting world in March, 1960 (which falls somewhere in between the birth of the Silver Age of superhero comics – with 1956’s Showcase #4 introducing the new Flash – and that of the Marvel Age of comics – in late 1961 with the publication of Fantastic Four #1).

Perhaps the most interesting detail in the back-matter for these first four chapters can be found at the end of Chapter III (in Chapter V of Under the Hood), when Hollis discussed Hooded Justice and his exit from adventuring.  Hooded Justice was the first superhero, and when the Minute Men disbanded, he was the one who disappeared like a wisp of smoke.  Even his fellow adventurers did not know his true identity.  But the New Frontiersman wrote an article linking the disappearance of circus strong man Rolf Müller with that of Hooded Justice – both figures vanished shortly after the hearings before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC).  This was followed, three months later, by the discovery of a decomposed body that washed ashore near Boston and was believed to be Müller. 

This might seem like some innocuous, titillating conjecture, but when the connections are made with scenes from Chapter II, page 7 and Chapter XI, page 18, the truth falls into place.  The first scene takes place just after the Comedian’s rape of Silk Spectre.  Hooded Justice comes in on them and physically beats the Comedian, who threatens Hooded Justice, telling him “…I got your number, see?  And one of these days, the joke’s gonna be on you.”  In the latter scene, Ozymandias is recounting his formative years as a costumed adventurer.  Early on, he decided to research his masked predecessors and investigated the disappearance of Hooded Justice.  This investigation led him to the government operative responsible for the initial investigation after the HUAC hearings, one Edward Blake, the Comedian.  Blake reported he was unable to find Hooded Justice and the case was closed.  Ozymandias contemplates the possibility that Blake may have found Hooded Justice and killed him, reporting his failure so that it would not be pursued further.  Add this to the speculation that Hooded Justice was Rolf Müller, and we realize that Ozymandias’s conjecture is correct.

I know there are some who refuse to read the text pieces at the end of each chapter of Watchmen.  That is certainly their right, and the main story can be enjoyed without them.  But those who don’t include the back-matter as part of their reading are missing out on a lot of details that enrich and expand the main narrative in so many ways.  Moore infused this book with seemingly insignificant pieces of information that, when formed into a whole – like the bits regarding Hooded Justice’s exit from adventuring and the subsequent discovery of the decomposed body of Rolf Müller – provide a fuller, richer, and more satisfying experience.  That, above almost everything else, is what sets Watchmen apart from so many other comic stories.

-chris

Watchmen: Chapter I - complete annotations

CHAPTER I:

At Midnight, All the Agents . . .

First, a caveat:

In his introduction for the re-issue of Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, Neil Gaiman wrote, “. . . you can no more read the same book again than you can step into the same river.”  Which is true.  When I first read The Lord of the Rings as a teenager it had a very different meaning than when I read it in my early thirties.  I had matured, my understanding of the world had grown, and I had broadened my experiences during the interim fifteen or so years.  It was a far different book than the one I remembered, because my perspective had evolved. 

Which is to say, there are many themes one can pluck from Watchmen and its individual chapters.  It all depends upon your point of view.  As an introduction to each chapter, I have chosen to discuss a specific theme or visual motif found within that chapter, as a way to look at the chapter in toto and to get you, the reader, into a proper mindset for what follows.  I chose to focus on a single theme with each chapter in order to keep you, and me, from getting bogged down under the weight of my own words, and to make each of these chapters a bit less cumbersome.  I would also encourage you to dig a little deeper into your own reading of this book and see what other theme and motifs you discover.  I hope you enjoy.

A Note on the Back-Matter in Watchmen

Most people today have probably read Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen in a collected edition.  This is something we, as readers, have become accustomed to.  And within many of these collections we are used to getting “extras,” whether that be an introduction or sketchbook pages or bits of script, similar to the DVD extras that come packaged with today’s movies.  It’s a bonus for picking up the collection, and, for me, it can be a major selling point for a trade paperback. 

What some people may not realize is that all of the prose back-matter in Watchmen – at least those portions that follow each of the first eleven chapters in the collection – is original to the story.  These pages filled out the remainder of each individual issue, providing 32 pages of story with no ads – something rare in 1986 and even rarer (if not unheard of) today, at least from DC and Marvel.  Moore and Gibbons, from the outset, wanted to do something different and, as part of that, chose to utilize the entirety of the comic book to tell this story, and they managed to convince the powers-that-be at DC at the time this was a good idea.

Comics, as a medium, is often criticized for its literary limitations (for lack of a better term).  The medium’s reliance on the artists’ renditions – restricting the amount of words comfortably included on any given page – is one major reason for this.  It is difficult to create a dense, fully-realized narrative within these strictures.  Which does not mean it is impossible. Taking the pages allotted for ads and using them for these prose pieces is one way Moore and Gibbons managed to add that depth to Watchmen that is so often missing from comic stories.  

Characters and situations only touched upon in the main narrative get elaborated upon in these prose pieces.  But Moore doesn’t wish to shift the exposition from the comic pages to these prose pieces; he is artful in the connections between the main narrative and these extra bits.  One must pay attention to items in the background of the images of the comic pages and then make the links to details dropped in the prose in order to get the entirety of the story.  Warren Ellis modified this approach with the Image series he created with Ben Templesmith, Fell, acknowledging a debt to Moore in the inclusion of back-matter with every issue as a way to justify the cost of the comic to readers and to provide those readers with a fulfilling “slab” of entertainment. 

I know there are people who prefer to ignore these text pieces, and they are still able to get a full story from the comic pages.  But if one dives in and reads these varied pieces (the next couple of chapters include more excerpts from Mason’s Under the Hood, but subsequent chapters will have a variety of items, including psychological profiles and celebrity interviews), one finds that these “extras” enhance and enrich the overall story. 

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 26

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This page mirrors very closely that of page 1, beginning with a close-up on the Comedian’s button and pulling back from it until we are again looking down into the abyss from an almost unattainable height.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 25

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Panel 4: More indications this is a different Earth: The turkey with two drumsticks on one side (assuming there must be two on the opposite side), the two gentlemen sitting together in the foreground who are obviously romantically involved, and the eye makeup for the woman in the extreme foreground on the right, which relates to the Egyptian motif of Veidt, whose companies seem to permeate society.

Also, the dialogue between Dan and Laurie is very realistic – rather than “cartoony” – in that, as is often the case in real life, they do not say what they actually mean, but tell one another what they believe the other wishes to hear, or what is easier to discuss without embarrassment – e.g. Laurie telling Dan that “Everything’s fine (with her and Jon [Dr. Manhattan]),” which is far from the truth.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 24

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Panel 1: Recurring visual symbols of the coming end of days can be seen in the concert poster for Pale Horse as well as the graffiti for the opening act Krystalnacht, which signifies the “night of broken glass” when Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) militia mounted a concerted attack on Jews, their synagogues, homes, and shops – the shattered windows of these shops and homes being the broken glass.

We also see the “Who Watches the Watchmen?” graffiti – still unfinished, or at least not completely seen.

Panel 2: The nude woman pulling the curtains that Rorschach sees, and his subsequent contempt for her and so many people like her, is representative of his own depraved childhood.

Panel 4: the silhouette of the man and woman embracing in the window will be repeated with graffiti spray painted about the city in subsequent issues, which is symbolic of the silhouettes of people left in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the United States dropped the nuclear bombs on these two Japanese cities.

Panel 5: In the trashcan in the foreground, an issue of the “Tales of the Black Freighter” is sticking out of the top.

Rorschach’s comment in his journal: “Millions will burn,” heavily foreshadows the ending of Watchmen.

Panel 6: Rorschach’s journal: “Even in the face of Armageddon I shall not compromise in this (the fact that evil must be punished),” foreshadows how Rorschach lives his life and will approach the impending conflict in this book.

Panel 7: Another campaign poster for Richard Nixon, stating “Four More Years,” which also juxtaposes ironically with Rorschach’s journal entry, “. . . and there is so little time.”

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 23

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Panels 1-2: In the background, we see Laurie picking up the sugar wrapping and discarding it – another example of the attention to detail Moore and Gibbons gave to Watchmen.

Panel 2: Laurie’s remarks, “I don’t like the way [Rorschach] smells or that horrible monotone voice . . .” give us more insight into the man Rorschach and how he is viewed by his colleagues.

And, her remark, “The sooner the police put him away . . .” also mirrors her “putting away” the sugar cube wrapper.

Panel 4: Laurie in the background and Dr. Manhattan taking apart an intricate piece of machinery in the foreground is symbolic of how readily Dr. Manhattan understands something as unfeeling as this machine while accentuating the gulf between not only he and Laurie, but between he and the rest of humanity.

Panel 9: As Laurie makes a dinner date for later that night with Dan Dreiberg, in the foreground we see a look of beatific happiness on Dr. Manhattan’s face. In one reading, this could be a reaction to the fact that he is close to “locating a gluino, which would completely validate supersymmetrical theory . . .” However, later we will discover that Dr. Manhattan experiences all points in time – past, present, and future – simultaneously, and, knowing that, we can also read this as his happiness at understanding this dinner date for Laurie and Dan will lead to their happiness as a couple at the end of the book.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 22

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Panel 1: Although we know Dr. Manhattan is currently at human scale, this scene, showing Rorschach through Manhattan’s legs, emphasizes the reality that Dr. Manhattan is actually hanging above everything in this world – including the political situation, the reality of electric cars and genetically mutated animals, and most anything else that has changed this world.

Panels 4-6: Another example of how powerful Dr. Manhattan really is – without thinking, he is able to transport Rorschach outside the facility.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 21

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Panel 3: Note Laurie’s reaction to Dr. Manhattan’s thoughts on humans: “A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there’s no discernible difference.” This foreshadows the problems we discover Laurie and Dr. Manhattan are having, which is indicated visually with Laurie in the background and Dr. Manhattan in the extreme foreground – symbolizing the divide now between them.

Panel 5: This is the first mention of the attempted rape by Edward Blake, which has been hinted at previously.

Panel 6: Rorschach is eating one of the sugar cubes he took from Dan Dreiberg’s kitchen.

Rorschach’s remark: “. . . support the allegations made . . . concerning Blake,” gives us more insight into his personality, as is the remark in

Panel 8: “I’m not here to speculate on the moral lapses of men who died in their country’s service.”

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 20

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Panel 1: Another use of the 9-grid to great effect is this first panel, which spans the entire height of the page and crosses over half its width in order to incorporate Dr. Manhattan’s form, showing us just how big he is, while making the reader slow down to grasp what they are looking at.

This, too, is another symbol of these heroes being above everything.

Also of note, vis-à-vis the storytelling, is the fact that the reveal of Dr. Manhattan comes on a page-turn, surprising the reader while enhancing the impact of this large panel and his appearance – blue and nude.

Panels 2-4: We are shown some of Dr. Manhattan’s power as he shrinks his form down – through these three panels and the first one of the next page – to human size.

Also in panels 2 and 3, Rorschach alludes to Laurie’s heritage, calling her Jupiter – the name of the first Silk Spectre, her mother – instead of Juspeczyk.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 19

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Panel 1: The symbol on the Rockefeller Military Research Center sign is the shield of Superman with an extraneous cap on top. This is where Dr. Manhattan – this world’s true Superman – resides.

Panel 2: Rorschach’s musing that Veidt is “possibly homosexual,” is a sign of the times – the mid-80s were a time when AIDS was just coming to the forefront, but many people knew very little about it, with conservatives (such as Rorschach) deeming it a homosexual plague.

Panel 3: Rorschach’s comment, “why are so few of us left active, healthy, and without personality disorders? (emphasis mine)” is ironic considering how mentally unstable Rorschach is.

Panel 9: The only other character in the series with unique word balloons – Dr. Manhattan’s blue balloons.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 18

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Panel 3: Again, we see Rorschach utilizing his grappling hook in order to enter a building many flights above the street. He is extreme.

Panel 4: Moore & Gibbons utilize another large panel. One thing that a large panel does is to make the reader stop. There is so much more to see in a larger panel, plus that “opening up” of the 9-grid structure also unconsciously allows the audience to stop and take a breath – things slow down with a large panel. And used here, it allows Veidt’s contemplation to extend for the reader as well.

On the desk we see the Ozymandias figure Rorschach was playing with, all twisted (foreshadowing the twisted nature of Veidt’s plan and his moral judgment), and we also see – in the pen set – the Egyptian motif that is associated with Ozymandias.

Also of note, the New York Gazette’s headline reads: “Nuclear Doomsday Clock Stands at Five to Twelve Warn Experts,” much the same way that most of the clocks within Watchmen stand at five to midnight.

Also note the sidebar story entitled: “Geneva Talks: U.S. Refuses to Discuss Dr. Manhattan.”

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 17

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Panel 1: Again, we get that visual symbolism of the heroes being above everything, as we look up at Veidt’s skyscraper. Atop the building is his personal symbol – a pyramid – and if we look below the bank of windows, there is a clock with the hands very close to midnight like the Doomsday clock.

Panel 3: Note that Rorschach is not wearing his hat while speaking with Veidt, showing respect for this “better class of person,” something that seems almost contrary to the character of Rorschach.

Panel 4: This is the first panel where the audience sees Veidt’s color scheme of purple and gold (his hair). Like most superheroes in comics, these heroes have their primary color schemes: the Comedian is red, white, and blue, Dr. Manhattan is a light blue, and Ozymandias is purple and gold (colors of royalty).

We also see Rorschach is playing with a doll on Veidt’s desk that, readers find out, is an Ozymandias action figure.

And Rorschach shares another insight into this world when he states, “America has Dr. Manhattan. Reds (the Russians) have been running scared since ’65.”

Panel 5: Ozymandias says, when speaking of the Comedian, “The man was practically a Nazi,” which is an astute observation about the type of man Blake was.

Panel 6: Behind Veidt, we see a poster for his benefit performance for Indian Famine Relief, which will – like many things within this story – be significant later.

Rorschach’s defense of the Comedian gives us insights into the personal character of Rorschach. It’s all about the ends, not the means.

Panel 7: “. . . Never became a prostitute,” is a jab at Veidt, who did all the things Rorschach mentions.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 16

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Panel 3: Rorschach, with very little movement, breaks this man’s finger. The nonchalant manner in which he does this, delineated precisely by Dave Gibbons’s articulate linework, makes this violent act a more disturbing reading experience than the typical planetary battles commonly seen in mainstream comics. This is another sign that Watchmen is not a typical superhero comic. It is more real.

Panel 8: From Rorschach’s journal: “First visit of evening fruitless. Nobody knew anything. Feel slightly depressed.”

The emphasis in the above quote is mine, and is used to highlight Rorschach’s personality. He is someone who does not only see violence as a means to an end, but passes it off as just a part of the job. He is depressed because he found nothing out, but couldn’t care less about the man with the two broken fingers.

Panel 9: “Never surrender,” is what Rorschach is all about, and foreshadows his ultimate fate in Watchmen.

“I have business elsewhere with a better class of person,” indicates the next member of the Watchmen we are to meet, Adrian Veidt – Ozymandias.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 15

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Panel 6: The Pale Horse jacket is again symbolic of the “end of days” feeling during the 1980s.

Panel 7: The remark, “Musta changed his deodorant!” gives us another clue into Rorschach’s personal habits, which are less important than his pursuit of criminals.

Panels 7-9: The 9-grid layout also allows the writer and artist to create a sense of timing within the book. By having this very rigid panel layout, it sets up a rhythm within the readers’ minds, something that is not possible in a comic that does not employ such a rigid layout.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 14

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Panel 1: Rorschach is writing in his journal with his left hand, if we needed any more evidence that he is a southpaw.

Panel 4: Rorschach is looking down from the top of one of New York’s apartment buildings, again giving a sense of these heroes being above it all, while they look down into a deep abyss threatening to swallow them all.

Also note the poster in the window: “Stick With Dick in 84.” Another indication of how our world differs from this one. Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon, instead of being forced out of office in 1974, has instead successfully campaigned for three more terms past the time his second one would have ended.

Panel 5: More indications that things have progressed differently in this America: News Headline – “Congress Approves Lunar Silos” signifying that the international treaties prohibiting nuclear weapons in space in our reality are irrelevant in a world with Dr. Manhattan – and the graffiti – “Viet Bronx” – which indicates America’s 51^st state.

Also, it is useful to note that within his journal, Rorschach writes with a style and cadence that is almost poetic, while – as we will see – in his interpersonal interactions, he is unable to maintain his “end of the conversation,” and often speaks in half-sentences and grunts.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 13

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Panel 5: The 9-grid aesthetic utilized by Moore and Gibbons allows them to open up the page and add importance to a scene such as this one where, accented by this large panel that is more apparent among the fields of small panels on previous pages, the feeling of remorse and guilt is palpable to the audience

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 12

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Panel 3: We discover how Blake avoided going into retirement when the other masked heroes were forced out when Dan makes the statement, “I heard he’d been working for the government since ’77 . . .”

Panels 3-5: We see for the first time that Rorschach’s mask actually flows, continuously creating new Rorschach blots.

These three panels also accentuate Dave Gibbons’s mastery of body language for these characters. In the background, we can see Dan Dreiberg go from appearing melancholy to having a nervous smile to exuding a feeling of despair and fear at what Rorschach has just shared with him (the lack of pupils in the fifth panel accentuating the despair he emotes). It is this ability to imbue these two-dimensional characters with such believable body language that adds yet another layer to this story.

Panel 6: Again, looking down from a great height, giving a sense of foreboding, as if we, the readers, are looking in on something we shouldn’t.

Also, Rorschach makes the first mention of Hollis Mason’s book (seen on page 9) as well as the “bad things” Edward Blake did.

Panel 7: Juxtaposition: “Just an observation,” as Dreiberg’s costume looks on silently.

Watchmen: Chapter I - page 11

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Panel 7: Each panel of the conversation between Rorschach and Dan Dreiberg has taken place within Dreiberg’s apartment, until this one, which is looking in through a window above the kitchen sink. This imagery enhances Dan’s remark that, “I feel kinda exposed up here.” We also get the feeling that, although these two men know each other and (as is revealed later) were once partners, Dan is uncomfortable with Rorschach and would prefer he was not there, and when he does leave wants him to leave through a secret entryway.

Panel 8: Dan’s remark to Rorschach, “. . . you haven’t been down here for a while . . .” also relates to Dan, as the relative untidiness of the place shows he does not come down often either.

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Panel 1: In the background, Dan is walking by one of the charging ports for electric cars in this reality.

In the foreground, we have signs of impending doom in the man’s “Pale Horse” jacket, the tattoo of a swastika on the girl’s arm, and – most importantly – the news headline that “Russia Protes[ts] U.S. Adv[ance] in Afgh[anistan],” a headline that is a complete reversal of what was actually going on during the mid-80s when Russia was the one occupying Afghanistan. But in this world, where Dr. Manhattan is a weapon of the U.S. government, things have gone a bit differently.

Panel 2: “Treasure Island” is a comic shop in the vein of the “Forbidden Planet” chain in the UK, Ireland, and the United States, which caters to a comic medium rife with pirates rather than superheroes. Above the storefront, readers can see a perfume ad for Nostalgia – another symbol of the dread people feel with nuclear death hanging above their heads – they wish for simpler times.

Panel 3: The plate on the door to Dan Dreiberg’s apartment shows: “Floors 1-4, Dreiberg D.” Dan is obviously well off.

Panel 5: Dan’s silhouette, with his feathered hair, is almost that of an owl, as in Nite Owl.

Panel 8: The can of Heinz baked beans that Rorschach is eating has a “58” on it rather than the “57” with which we are familiar – another little detail of this different world.