Why is Watchmen so highly acclaimed?

I don't mean that in a sarcastic way,but I heard Watchmen was a graphic novel where everyone has no super powers except one guy. I'm interested on how this works,even more so when I learned it was in the New York Times Best 100 Books ever.

I want to ask you comic fans,what makes Watchmen so great?

It's hard to describe. If I had to pick something, it's how well-thought out the history is and how well the relationships between the characters are handled. It also ends with one of the best moral questions of all time. But apart from that I'd say it needs to be read to really get it.

I've got two guns pointed west and a broken compass.

Everyone will focus on the (wonderful as well) writing, so I'll take this space to instead rave for the excellent, gorgeous Dave Gibbons art. Truly a masterful storytelling graphic experience.

edited 21st Jan '11 7:53:00 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

It pushed the envelope in so many ways. The story itself is a morality tale but its not the highlight. The way the story is told was revolutionary, almost cinematic. It used symbolism, word and image play, flashbacks, metafiction. It had characters who revised the entire way writers viewed superheroes. Soon after, you couldn't go to a single comic store that didn't feature some dark, angsty character, trying to emulate thos found in Watchmen. And, as mentioned before, it had some of the finest art to be seen in the medium to date. Dave Gibbon's even added his own in-jokes. Simply put, it was a game changer. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very good game after that.

edited 21st Jan '11 7:59:54 PM by AtomJames

Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.

I always say the Gibbons is the unsung hero of Watchmen. Every single frame is Alive and powerful. And, how many of those are iconic? Like, all of them.

@OP Batman: Year one is also a superhero comic without any super powers.

edited 21st Jan '11 8:14:58 PM by juancarlos11

It's not exactly naive. And it can happen. But it's tough. And definetly worthwhile.

Watchmen's dark-n-edginess and its lack of superpowers did have something to do with its success, in the same way that The Beatles' cool haircuts had something to do with their success.

I'd say the real reason it's acclaimed is because it delves into the philosophical and moral implications of the superhero genre, and it doesn't give an explicit answer to many of the questions it raises, so it supports a lot of discussion and reinterpretation.

I didn't write any of that.

That's pretty much why. That and the fact that it had the most well written characters who hadn't been created between the 1930s-60s

It's not exactly naive. And it can happen. But it's tough. And definetly worthwhile.

The world-building is also very impressive. The parallels with comic history while still feeling real are very impressive.

That said, I actually don't think it's the best comic ever made though it is in my top ten.

"Everyone wants an answer, don't they?... I hate things with answers." — Grant Morrison

• World building is impressively realistic, given the branch-point in the mid-fifties.
• Characters are both archetypal and three-dimensional (five-dimensional in one case). This is extremely hard to pull off effectively and few works manage to do so.
• Foreshadowing, motifs, themes, meta-fiction, sub-plots that add to the main story instead of merely being tangential points of interest, call backs, symbolism, anything you can expect from "real literature." I would say it's a good deal more cerebral than most college required reading and almost all HS req.
• Re-reads are mandatory without being necessary, if you know what I mean.

You should also read Maus, From Hell, V for Vendetta, Asterios Polyp, Pyongyang, and Miller's 80's Batman work.

edited 22nd Jan '11 12:43:45 AM by Canondorf

Because of opinions.

Nah, sometimes things are just objectively good, and to argue that they aren't would be to delve into semantics and the nature of perception.

Beyond-impressive exploration into the characters, what makes them who they are, and how the world has made or broken them, or both.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

To argue that some comics are would delve into semantics and the nature of perception.

.....

Watchmen is clearly a success because it is orange.

I draw this comic-like thing sometimes.

Actually, OP has a point about the 'only one guy has superpowers' thing. Doctor Manhattan is the only one with superpowers (and he won the Superpower Lottery), in a genre that heavily favours characters with superpowers. Strange for a deconstruction to be missing one of the main things (arguably the main thing) about its genre. It's like deconstructing Humongous Mecha series by having all the mechs be incapable of standing bipedally (because that's not physically possible) except for one of them.

So, while Watchmen is a great story, it does seem strange to me that what is lauded as the best superhero deconstruction of all time has very few super-powered people in it. Minor oversight, seems to me.

It's a great deconstruction of The Hood. And if you're like me, it also deconstructs all of Batman aspects when separated.

It's not exactly naive. And it can happen. But it's tough. And definetly worthwhile.

Hmm,so people like the depth,and the feeling of realism,like it was believable,right? It wasn't like other comics where green rocks from outer space caused radiation that gave a guy superpowers,later pushing the story into space,so is that why people liked it?

I wouldn't say "realism" so much (because, let's face it, it still isn't realistic that a guy is torn apart at a molecular level and then puts himself back together with superpowers), but the depth part is certainly true. Watchmen has history to it. It delves deeper into the backstory of the world than other comics did, showing just how superheroes would ''actually' affect things.

It isn't so much "I so see this happening in real life!", but more like "I so see these consequences taking place if this implausible thing DID take place!"

It doesn't have to be possible to be realistic, it just needs to be plausible.

@juancarlos 11 What does The Hood have to do with Watchmen? I think you meand The Cowl.

But Manhattan is a deconstruction, he's what a being like Silver Age Superman would possibly be like in real life. He's the only real superhero, but he does nothing because he no longer relates with humanity.

Yeah, my mistake.

It is true. But Suerman is not the only Superhero/superpower archetype.

It's not exactly naive. And it can happen. But it's tough. And definetly worthwhile.

The term "superhero" is only applied to Doc Manhattan as he is the Übermensch. Everything else is generally referred to as "masked vigilantism."

edited 22nd Jan '11 9:53:13 PM by SeanMurrayI

Er, I don't know if Doc M is an ubermensch... literally maybe, but not in the Nietzschean sense.

I think a large part of it is Seinfeld Is Unfunny. Watchmen (and The Dark Knight Returns) was pretty much responsible for ending the Silver Age, no?

I heard it helped lead us into the DARK age of comics, yeah. IS THIS TRUE?!

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah