Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, changed the comic industry forever. The twelve issue maxiseries took a warts and all look at what superheroes would be like in the real world, one where their very presence completely changed history and the geopolitical situation of the world. Watchmen is considered the greatest comic of all-time, and for good reason. Moore and Gibbons used every trick in their repertoire to craft a story that Time magazine named one of the greatest works of literature in the 20th century, bringing comics into the rarefied air that only “true art” existed in. To this day, every great comic is compared to Watchmen, and its impact on the comic industry led to many of the greatest stories ever, with creators attempting to take the baton of Watchmen and run with it.
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Moore is often considered the curmudgeon of the comic industry, his opinions on superhero comics still causing controversy even though he’s left the industry, and those views are an important part of why the story hits so hard — his cynical ideas on superheroes informing the ideas of the book. There’s something about Watchmen that grabbed the comic fandom and never let them go. Think pieces — like this one — are constantly being written about it, and its impact has been debated since the moment the series ended in October of 1987. Everyone has an opinion on it, which begs the question: why are we still obsessed with Watchmen almost forty years later? Why exactly has this comic stayed a part of the zeitgeist?
The Problem of Watchmen
Watchmen is often credited with the maturation of the comic medium, but that’s not exactly true. The 1980s were a time of huge change in the comic industry, as fans who grew up reading comics became the people who were making comics. Creators like Alan Moore had grown up with the comics of the Golden and Silver Ages. Unlike the original creators of those comics, these were people who didn’t just see comics as a job; they were their passion, something that had stayed with them throughout their lives. They wanted to create comics that took of the energy of those they grew up with and infuse them with the maturity that they found in other mediums. Reading the comics of the early ’80s, from mainstream superhero books to the comics of the burgeoning indie scene, one can feel something new in the comics. Even something like “The Dark Phoenix Saga” was trying to tell a story more like a Greek tragedy than anything that Stan Lee or Gardner Fox were doing.
So, Watchmen wasn’t the first comic to try to be mature, but it did it best. Moore himself had already started the process of working up to Watchmen with his stellar Swamp Thing comics, using that classic monster horror character to tell stories about humanity. Watchmen was a distillation of all the changes made to the comic industry. Moore is a very well-read writer, escaping the poverty of Northampton’s Burrows neighborhood in the worlds of fiction, and he took everything he had learned and put into Watchmen. Comparing Watchmen to the mature classics of the early ’80 — books like Ronin, The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller’s Daredevil, and Maus — there’s something about Watchmen that stands out. It’s not just a dark, violent story with sex in it; it had something to say about the world of superheroes that no other book had said before. Before Watchmen, superheroes were looked at as perfect paragons of virtue, and Watchmen destroyed that idea. Watchmen showed that heroes were just like you and me, and this idea is what truly makes it standout.
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It’s this idea that brings up the problem of Watchmen. No one was ready for this type of superhero story back then, and it created a legion of imitators. Some of these imitators — many of whom were brought over from the UK because of creators like Moore and Gibbons — were able to take the lesson of Watchmen and bring it to their books, leading to a renaissance of comics. However, most of the imitators just copied the “mature” themes — the violence, the sex, the darkness of the story — and that led the entire comic industry in a bad direction. Watchmen was a double-edged sword, and the changes it wrought re-created the comic industry in its image.
To my mind, this sea change is why we are still so obsessed with Watchmen. There are very few comics that had the type of impact that Watchmen had. Watchmen exists alongside books like Action Comics #1, Detective Comics #27, Showcase #4, Fantastic Four #1, and Amazing Fantasy #15. These books set comics in new directions just like Watchmen did. However, even then, the obsession with Watchmen seems extreme. The main difference between them is that Watchmen made comics into literature. Comics are often considered “low art”, compared to novels or film. Ask an MCU fan if they read comics and you’ll get a look like they just tasted curdled milk. Watchmen was the one thing that comic readers could point to as something that matched the best of other mediums, and it led to other books that would take comics beyond what they once were.
Until Something Tops Watchmen, It Will Always Be a Topic of Conversation
Action Comics #1 introduced superheroes to the world. Showcase #4 started the Silver Age and Fantastic Four #1 gave readers a new take on superheroes. However, no one would say that we’re still obsessed with those books and the reason is simple — better comics have come along. Not to say those are bad comics, but it’s just a simple fact that better comics have come along. The changes they wrought were extremely important, but they basically became a part of the bedrock of comics, buried under the deluge of great books that they inspired. We know they’re there, but we don’t have to talk about them anymore because it goes without saying. However, with Watchmen, there’s nothing that’s come along that’s better.
We’re obsessed with Watchmen because it’s still better in some way than what’s come after it. There have been some amazing comics since the 1987, but none of them have been able to kick Watchmen from the top. Sure, there are times when people will say something is better than Watchmen, but it’s a minority opinion. The majority of people believe that Watchmen is the greatest even if it’s not their favorite, and until that changes, Watchmen is still going to be a topic of conversation. The obsession will end when there is something else to compare amazing comics to.
