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C0mraid from Here and there Since: Aug, 2010
#51: Feb 12th 2012 at 7:50:37 AM

[up][up] Well I don't think any comic book writer or artist has ever become a "household name", it's not like either were complete unknowns. They were up and coming and had already done some pretty sucsessful work. I don't think Watchmen was that risky anyway, 12 issue series were already becoming more commonby that point, the editors at DC would have been able realise it was great quality before publication, and even if it had totally bombed it wouldn't have lost DC too much money.

TBH I don't really blame DC for wanting to keep the rights to Watchmen, it would be bad business to just let it go. But they should have made if clear that they weren't likely to hand back the rights.

Edit: Actually, back on Before Watchmen, that Len Wein has some potential to be interesting. I haven't read anything that from Wein's recent work, but I'll check on the reception that gets,

edited 12th Feb '12 8:05:25 AM by C0mraid

Am I a good man or a bad man?
SeanMurrayI Since: Jan, 2010
#52: Feb 12th 2012 at 8:16:58 AM

Frankly, Moore's complaints make him sound like a cranky landlord who leased a rent controlled apartment to someone and is now pissed that he can't evict the tenant because (gasp) they have the audacity to dutifully pay their rent each month!

A more fitting visual, as I see it, would be Vincent D'Onofrio's screenwriter getting murdered by Tim Robbins' movie producer in The Player.

All arguments are basically boiling down to, "Meh, that's business." And that would be correct, but the business is still ethically dubious.

edited 12th Feb '12 8:18:05 AM by SeanMurrayI

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#53: Feb 12th 2012 at 8:40:26 AM

Look, answer me this: why did Moore and Gibbons agree to that clause from their contracts? They were hardly newbies to the business. They knew that, if a book is wildly popular, the publisher is going to keep printing new editions of it as long as demand keeps up. And they knew that Watchmen was turning out to be wildly popular. So, if they were so concerned with getting the rights back, why did they agree to that contract stipulation without adding some sort of cutoff date for when the rights must return to them?

SeanMurrayI Since: Jan, 2010
#54: Feb 12th 2012 at 9:00:30 AM

Look, answer me this: Why did Moore and Gibbons agree to that clause from their contracts?

I can just as well ask you this, "Why did DC make that promise to return the work to the creators when they already knew the work was very successful and would have no intention to let it go out of print in the first place?"

Heck, why does this even have to be the creators' fault? If somebody wanted to print a work that you made with the stipulation that they would hold the copyright when they publish it and promise to return the full rights to you when they stop, if you agreed to that because you thought it sounded fair, and then realized that your work is just going to be continually republished without having known beforehand that this was the plan of the party you signed the rights to your work over, you're telling me you could live with that (having a publishing house assuming the ownership of your own creation)?

I'd certainly be pretty pissed if that happened to me.

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#55: Feb 12th 2012 at 10:41:03 AM

I can just as well ask you this, "Why did DC make that promise to return the work to the creators when they already knew the work was very successful and would have no intention to let it go out of print in the first place?"

Because Moore & Gibbons only make money off of Watchmen when new copies of it are sold. That clause of the contract assures M&G that "Don't worry, we're gonna keep printing new copies and earning you more money, and if we don't, you'll be free to take it to another publisher that will."

You seem to view the contract as a "promise" to return the rights to Watchmen, which DC wriggled out of, but I see it as more of an ongoing trade. Each year DC publishes more copies of Watchmen, pays more royalties to Moore and Gibbons, and so purchases the rights to the mini-series for another year.

Heck, why does this even have to be the creators' fault? If somebody wanted to print a work that you made with the stipulation that they would hold the copyright when they publish it and promise to return the full rights to you when they stop, if you agreed to that because you thought it sounded fair, and then realized that your work is just going to be continually republished without having known beforehand that this was the plan of the party you signed the rights to your work over, you're telling me you could live with that (having a publishing house assuming the ownership of your own creation)?

I'd certainly be pretty pissed if that happened to me.

If something I wrote was so popular that it remained continuously in print for decades, I'd be ecstatic. Sure, I might have some buyer's remorse (well, seller's remorse would be more accurate), but that's not the publisher's fault. Either my work was an unproven commodity when I signed the contract, in which case I'd rue my own lack of foresight but be grateful to the publisher for taking a chance on me, or my work was guaranteed to be successful from Day 1, in which case I have only myself to blame for accepting such a deal when I had the bargaining power to negotiate a much better contract.

You seem to be working under the assumption that, while DC knew Watchmen would remain popular for decades, Moore & Gibbons thought it would just be a flash in the pan success that'd be out of print in a few years. I don't find that very likely. From what I've heard, people at publishing companies are only slightly better than average at guessing which books will be hits and which will be flops; if Moore & Gibbons were looking at the same sales data for Watchmen that DC was, they'd have pretty even odds of guessing what the future held for its success.

edited 12th Feb '12 10:41:59 AM by RavenWilder

garystone10 Since: Aug, 2011
#56: Feb 13th 2012 at 1:38:39 AM

I'm curious as to what people would think would have happened if Moore and Gibbons did get the rights to Watchmen back.

They were still relatively inexperienced and I doubt they were in a position to self publish, so they'd just have had to sign a deal with either DC or another company to get it printed and published.

We may have ended up with a co-creater legal battle that seem ever so common these days.

Knowing Alan Moore's attitude we wouldn't have gotten the film. In my opinion that would be a bad thing, but obviously YMMV.

Overall, you've got to ask are the rights to Watchmen inherently valuable, or are they only valuable because DC have been publishing it every year? At worst, is Alan Moore getting the benefit of having a wildly popular book with his name on the front published and advertised frequently, hence helping any further work he does?

C0mraid from Here and there Since: Aug, 2010
#57: Feb 13th 2012 at 6:49:14 AM

[up] Didn't Moore set up a small publishing company around this time with his wife and their lover? He lost a lot when they left him, but I don't know mich about what happened there. But if DC had published Watchmen for a few years and then given it back to him then he'd be in an ideal position.

As for film adaption's, Moore wasn't against that stuff in principle untill he got screwed around a couple of times. Look up earlier interviews, he was open to the idea back then. He even considered his own prequel to Watchmen for after he got the rights back, although that was leaning more towards leaving it alone.

Am I a good man or a bad man?
VampireBuddha Calendar enthusiast from Ireland (Wise, aged troper) Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
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#58: Feb 14th 2012 at 4:26:47 AM

Raven Wilder: You seem to be unaware that Watchmen was published in 1986, and Moore started writing it around 1985 or so. Back then, the idea that a comic series would stay in print for more than a few years at a time was literally inconceivable.

Everyone involved thought they were making the best deal. DC figured "Right, we'll be able to keep this in print as long as it's profitable - $$$!" Moore and Gibbons thought, "DC gets to publish this as long as it makes them money, so we get as much money from it as is possible - £££! Then, after that, we get the rights back and can do with it as we please."

The runaway success of Watchmen took everybody by surprise. Back in 1985, nobody thought it likely that the series would still be in print in 1990. let alone 2012. Moore really wanted to get the copyright back, and DC has denied this to him by keeping the comic in print far longer than they originally thought sensible.

It's all entirely legal, within the terms of the contract, and it makes perfect sense for DC do go about business this way, but that doesn't mean it isn't douchey.

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RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#59: Feb 14th 2012 at 7:33:18 AM

I don't see how it's douchey. DC's plan was always to publish Watchmen for as long as it was profitable to do so, and I doubt they made any secret of that fact; if that ends up being far longer than anyone would have thought possible, then that's just how the cookie crumbles.

Sijo from Puerto Rico Since: Jan, 2001
#60: Feb 15th 2012 at 7:20:14 AM

Additionally, this was in the 80's: creator's rights was very much a known issue by then, as opposed to the days of say, Siegel & Shuster. While the specific kind of deal struck here strikes me as odd from both parties- to DC because they would eventually lose the rights to their own characters, to Moore because it left a loophole DC could exploit- neither side sounds like they were ill informed of the facts. So the whole thing just doesn't strike me as unfair as other creator issues have been. It just gets more publicity.

C0mraid from Here and there Since: Aug, 2010
#61: Feb 16th 2012 at 6:31:29 AM

[up] Well it gets more publicity because it comes up a lot. People do care about other creators getting ripped up but there a few things which make this special.

  • Moore and Watchmen are very highly regarded. The treatment of the likes of him and Jack Kirby attract, probaly unfairly, more attention than, say, Arnold Drake's misfortunes.

  • Most of the writers and artists knew what they were getting into. It wasn't a fair deal, but they knew they didn't have rights to their characters.

  • Watchmen came a few years after things at both Marvel and DC were supposed to have been sorted out. By 1985ish creators were meant to get a fair deal, any problems after that get more attention because they're fewer.

Am I a good man or a bad man?
AgentRook Since: Feb, 2012
#62: Mar 10th 2012 at 8:01:25 PM

Real talk for a second? Moore can't say shit because he signed on the dotted line.

Of course DC is going to take advantage of a property they own for profit that's the whole point of a contract.

Using the terms of an agreement in an unexpected way isn't cheating, it's MetaGaming.

Frankly, if Moore was stupid enough to sign a deal with such an obvious loophole in it, he deserves what he gets and if the loophole WANST obvious than it's just DC taking advantage of their good fortune, like a tenet striking gold on a patch of land that says they can keep it and all in it as long as they pay preagreed rent.

Its all fair, and a company maximizing its profit isn't wrong, it's expected.

As long as they don't break the law Moore can't say shit.

Unless he wants the writers of Superman, Charlton Comics, Green Lantern, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, and most of the 19th century to rise from the grave and bitch to him.

Lionheart0 Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: I'm just a hunk-a, hunk-a burnin' love
#63: May 28th 2012 at 9:38:52 PM

Don't know about anyone else, but I really want the Watchmen Toaster.

But yeah, I'm not against the prequels, but I can't help but feel that DC is intentionally egging Moore on with their comments ("It's a love letter") just to stir up Publicity.

VampireBuddha Calendar enthusiast from Ireland (Wise, aged troper) Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
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#64: May 29th 2012 at 7:11:36 AM

...

... OK, that's pretty cool.

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samzombieboy Since: Oct, 2010
#65: Jul 1st 2012 at 1:10:42 PM

Well, as some people here in the forum, I've read the recently released 4 Before Watchmen first comics, and I got to say... they're good. Some pretty good and superb, some just good or average, but not chopped liver, they're good. To recap:

- The Minutemen was very good, maybe excellent, and I felt it was a reconstruction of the Golden Age Minutemen, giving a good showing of every hero and heroine on it and the differences between them. All of them are very good defined, and most of them really seem strong and heroic, true heroes, even The Silhouette, which we didn't seem anything about her in the original, and Mothman, who shows that he wasn't the tragic alcoholic he was, but rather shows him as a man who was good and then he broke himself. The only ones that are not showing so much in heroic light are the usual, The Comedian and Dollar Bill. Blake is portrayed as an anti-hero, if not a straight violent child, as he was portrayed originally, and Dollar Bill, well, is capitalism in two legs, just a sponsor for a bank. Cooke, as expected, does a beautiful work in the art duties, and really good with the story. It started great and I think its the one most people will remember after the BW line goes out.

- The Silk Spectre's first comic was good, too, written by Darwyn Cooke in his second effort and illustrated by Amanda Conner. I just don't know how she does it, but she's amazing in facial expressions and characters. Honestly, her style is one that stands up, and her characters have a life of their own. The comic depicts very well Sally Jupiter's retired life, and Laurie's school days life. It shows how Laurie's life is affected by her mother's decision to enroll her in the beginnings of the crime fighting life, so she only has no time for anything. Funnily, it shows that Laurie has a really active imagination, and she imagines herself in various scenarios, like marrying, or falling down a pit of shame, much like a real teenage girl, and those are bits of comedy that are really good. Its an honest and really realistic portrayal of a teenager's life, with some dashes of teenage romance (don't flee away, this is no Twilight, this is the good stuff, hey come back here!), so it captures the realism of everyday's life like the original Watchmen.

- The Comedian comic. You know what you're going to get when you know who's starring and you know that Brian Azzarello and J.G. Jones are working on it. But, honestly, they did a good work. Don't be confused, this is not an 'origin' comic, its Blake in full paramilitar and political agenda, with the leather uniform and the lotsa guns, with some dashes of crime fighting in his brutal style, so it goes full throttle into The Comedian days. You might have to remind yourself that its The Comedian fighting, and not the Punisher, in the action scenes, but that's just for a moment, as The Comedian is as sarcastic as ever in the pages, and the action is pumping and well delivered, as we can finally see what one of the two most brutal vigilantes in the Watchmen universe can do. As it shows his government allied days, he's depicted talking and sharing some moments with none other than JFK and Jackie, and what you thought of the movie will not work on the comics, with some things answered and some other questions popping out. It leaves you asking yourself if the comic will follow the story, or if its was just one-shot. This is a comic that can divide people, but to me it was good, just not as impressive as the other two before. Honestly, I hope we can be shown more of Blake.

- The Nite Owl comic is the one I'm really divided. Its an origin story per numbers, and it shows. Dan Dreiberg is shown living with his abusive father and submissive mother, in a room full of Nite Owl figurines and memorabilia (couldn't help myself thinking and joking of Andy with his room full of Buzz Lightyear all over the place). Honestly, I don't know where did the abusive father came out, maybe just to give Dan some motivation to fight crime and stuff, but I always thought of Dan as some rich, friendly nice dude who wanted to fight crime. Maybe it was just to give it an interesting motivation, and its fine, but Dan was a deconstruction of the 'rich superheroes' like Iron Man and Batman, that he has no other motivation than wanting an exciting life and fight crime with his gadgets, taking the mantle of the old hero. But anyway, over that, the story goes to another way, as it shows how Dan and Mason, the first Nite Owl, met, and it differs from how its stated in the original, not so much that affects the story, but its interesting how they met here. And it shows how he meets Rorschach and they became partners in just two pages, and the Silk Spectre, and the Crimebusters, and... yeah, as you can see, the first comic is rather rushed, it doesn't take its time to deliver all this, it feels rather as a trailer than a feature comic, and the Before Watchmen comics promised to tell and show the life of the heroes before the original, and well it shows, but in this one it was just a little swish of it. It started good, and then it pressed turbo and crashed us into an end. It doesn't need to be a decompressed comic as Watchmen, but it needs to take its time, as it gave too much information and scenes in so few pages. The Kuberts do a good job here as always, but in some parts it feels like some scenes are sketches inked over, or good illustrated scenes with botched ink. Maybe they read the rushed comic and felt they need to race it. Anyway, the comic overall is not bad, maybe even good, but it needs some polish, and feels like the comic can stand up in his second issue, so lets way for it.

- The Crimson Corsair sub number is one really hell of a pirate story. Len Wein and John Higgins do a really good job in writing something in the vein of Tales of the Black Freighter, without copying its style. Even in two pages per issue, it shows how the story unfolds and every time it ends with you wanting for more. As in Marooned, its not a swashbuckler Errol Flynn story, its a horror pirate story that makes you cringe. Great job, great art too, extremely detailed, the muted colors helping to set it into a really dark mood. There should be more pirate comics like this, I've always told to myself since I read the bits of Marooned in Watchmen, and The Crimson Corsair pages shows that we could use for some of this in real life.

As for the rest of the stuff, lets see...

- The covers are really good, they really show you how its going to be the story inside, and the art is really great. (Even The Comedian's rape face shows how much brutal is the character). My favorite is The Silk Spectre, with its really sweet 60s psychedelic feeling.

- The variant covers are really good too, and they really deliver, they're good showings of artwork. The one that stand over all for me is the Comedian one, as it shows him atop a protest of hippies and people, and Blake calm just lighting his cigar and holding a shotgun. Maybe its the art and the colors, but it really stands.

- The Jim Lee variants covers. Well, I don't know about the others, but I think Jim Lee doesn't cut for the Watchmen. They're pretty good pieces, right, its Jim Lee we're talking about, for better of for worse, but Lee's covers doesn't show the true Watchmen. Lee's style its just too... I dare to say, 90s style, for a Watchmen comic. Jim Lee's version of Nite Owl is just Batman with other colors (yeah, Nite Owl is a lot like Batman, but with really contrasting personalities, so it has to show). May I remind the people that the Laurie that its shown in Lee's cover is maybe little less than 17 years old, and however here is portrayed as a stripper? And what about Teddy Roosevelt stealing the Comedian's uniform? The Hooded Justice is the one that Lee nailed, but I'm not so much surprised. Jim Lee can do some pretty amazing artwork, but I don't think his cover variations are some of it. And, thinking about it, isn't it ironic, Jim Lee doing art of Watchmen?

I can't put an overall judgment on all the series, as they've just released 4 issues, and I'm just a reader, but overall they're doing a good job as comic books, but fear not, I believe they're not going to replace Watchmen, ever, and if there are parts that you dislike, or if you hate the Before series all in all, then you're free to ignore it completely, as it doesn't replace the original piece. But, honestly, its just really bad if you choose not to at least look at some pages and judge yourself. Its too bad that this super teams are not used for real original comic works. I hope they could stay more together than the Crimebusters and do some creator owned real awesome books.

Anyways, if nobody objects, I'm going to post here more personal reviews of the subsequent Before comics, and take a shot at them in behalf of you. The next to come is Ozymandias #1, with Len Wein and Jae Lee. God help us all.

edited 1st Jul '12 1:19:40 PM by samzombieboy

TeChameleon Since: Jan, 2001
#66: Jul 1st 2012 at 7:18:44 PM

-*shrug*

While I'm strongly in favour of creator rights, I find myself largely apathetic towards this case. Perhaps because Alan Moore is notorious for his general dislike of letting anyone else play with his toys, or because I have a hard time sympathizing with something that makes the creator that much money. There are rather a lot of creators that would sell their left testicle/ovary to be in the position that Moore is in, i.e. being able to make a comfortable living off their creations.

That being said, I find myself agreeing with Moore on one point. DC and Marvel both are trying desperately to ride a wave of decades-old ideas that are still at least vaguely profitable, and appear to have a violent allergy to any sort of innovation that might in some way involve risk (i.e. any innovation whatsoever -_-;). Whether these prequels are good or not, DC's desperate grubbing for market share can only hurt things in the long run, unless there's an enormous change in corporate policy that actually allows for some diversity in the field of comics.

Wackd Since: May, 2009
#67: Jul 1st 2012 at 7:27:23 PM

[up]I dunno about that. I'm not completely apathetic to Moore's complaints, and I do think that the money he makes shouldn't enter into whether or not we sympathize with him (not everyone cares about the cash and that doesn't seem to be his issue), but I don't think that dispute should reflect on the quality of the comics themselves. You don't see anyone boycotting Superman comics in light of the ongoing Siegel/Shuster dispute. No one's wishing All Star Superman or Red Son never existed.

What we need to realize is that Moore was only the latest in a long line of comics creators to get fucked over, and that doesn't mean that the corporate biproducts are gonna suck. Would it be nicer if this didn't happen? Of course. But it did, and those comics are going to be printed whether purists or creators-rights advocates like it or not, so we may as well enjoy them or not enjoy them based on content rather than OOU context.

edited 1st Jul '12 7:28:10 PM by Wackd

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
biznizz Since: Jan, 2001
#68: Jul 2nd 2012 at 1:49:04 AM

Been liking the prequels so far, but it helps that I don't take Watchmen (which I do enjoy) to the worship level of the Comic Book Qur'an that many seem to*

and can actually make myself have an unbiased opinion about these books.

And it doesn't help that Moore makes a really headdesk moment when he spoke of it here: In literature, I would say that it's different. I would say, and it might be splitting hairs, but I'm not adapting these characters. I'm not doing an adaptation of Dracula or King Solomon's Mines. What I am doing is stealing them. There is a difference between doing an adaptation, which is evil, and actually stealing the characters, which, as long as everybody's dead or you don't mention the names, is perfectly alright by me. I'm not trying to be glib here, I genuinely do feel that in literature you've got a tradition that goes back to Jason And The Argonauts of combining literary characters [...] It's just irresistible to do these fictional mash-ups. They've been going on for hundreds of years and I feel I'm a part of a proud literary tradition in doing that. With taking comic characters that have been created by cheated old men, I feel that that is different [...] And that's my take on the subject. Yeah... after reading Lost Girls, I call b.s. on that (hell, even L.o.E.G. has some dubious things compared to the original source material).

I can understand that there are people who have very strong objections about this, but when I get chewed out for three minutes in my CBS and called a "mouth breather who's allowing DC to continually fuck over Alan Moore" and "not a real fan of Watchmen", I say f*** that noise.

edited 2nd Jul '12 1:50:14 AM by biznizz

Sometimes life just sucks. You have to learn to take the good with the bad. Why should you expect anything different in the mediums?
TeChameleon Since: Jan, 2001
#69: Jul 3rd 2012 at 3:36:09 PM

Eh, I'm not necessarily saying that Moore can piss off because he's rich, just that I'm not sure I care quite as much about his particular case because of that- it's less of a career-breaking thing for him, is all.

And about the only way for the whole creator-screwing thing to stop happening is for the fans to stop buying the comics that are a result of that, whether they're good or bad. Does it suck to miss a good comic? Yup. But it sucks rather more to have something you've put a great deal of work and creativity into stolen from you because of the nature of the market. The companies don't care; they just go for the maximum net profit. If there's no profit in screwing over creators anymore, then they'll stop doing it.

As far as the comics themselves go... eh. DC lost both my interest and my support a while ago, so I suppose I can hop on the 'not buying it' bandwagon, although more due to apathy than rage.

samzombieboy Since: Oct, 2010
#70: Jul 20th 2012 at 1:25:52 PM

So, here I am, reviewing unofficially the Before Watchmen series, this time with Ozymandias #1. Before I start, let me get something out of my chest. Goddammit, I'm in love with Jae Lee's art in here. Later on that. The first issue of Ozzy's rise is good, detailing Adrian's life before his superhero identity. Its a good start, and a really surprising one, showing Ozzy watching his multiple television screens in his antarctic quarters, it starts at the end of all, and then we move on to the main story, first showing his life as a child, coping on being the smartest kid in the room, and later showing him how he learned his impressive martial arts skills, and later on with his life, his travels and his studies around his personal hero, Alexander. Len Wein's script is extremely good in detailing Ozzy's speech, really showing how the man is just as powerful and educated, with a lot of airs of grandeur and pompous. And Moloch even appears, even for just a page, its a devilish portrayal of the recurring criminal. There's even a little easter egg and inside joke that hints at the original Watchmen series. Now, for Jae Lee's art. Dammit, I've watched his art before, and its amazing, but this issue, its just beautiful. Realistic colors helping, it makes him feel like this is not an ordinary comic book at all, mostly a novel or an art book. Lee's art makes us see Ozymandias as he watches himself, as an intelligent Charles Atlas superman among men. It all got better when his girlfriend, new to the series, come along, a beautiful redhead, that sports black lingerie in a really sexy scene. Wait, this review went to another place. A good comic book that it doesn't explore much of Ozzy's life that we didn't know, but its a good start. Stay online for the rest of the reviews.

VampireBuddha Calendar enthusiast from Ireland (Wise, aged troper) Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
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#71: Jul 22nd 2012 at 7:54:13 AM

HAHA DISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCKS.

edited 22nd Jul '12 7:54:40 AM by VampireBuddha

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DarkSoldier from Delta, BC, Canada Since: May, 2018 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
#72: Aug 2nd 2012 at 2:43:05 AM

I have continuity issues with the Nite Owl miniseries. The excerpts from "Under the Hood" in Watchmen established that Daniel approached Hollis after the latter had retired, yet Daniel is operating as Owl-Boy in the first issue. I could accept that Hollis is obfuscating the truth to protect Daniel's identity, but that hasn't been established. The other is that Rorschach is portrayed in his absolute black-and-white, monotone "Hurm"-ing personality from the beginning. He didn't snap until after the kidnapping, which happened well after the Crime Busters' meeting.

I'm also not really liking the Comedian mini either. Watchmen has Eddie state that he was in Dallas on 11/22/63 and it strongly implies that he was involved in JFK's assassination (and the film outright shows him on the grassy knoll), yet the mini has him all buddy-buddy with JFK and hears about the shooting from the news. It's humanizing a character we are probably supposed to despise. Everything about his established character shows us he's vile: he abuses women, he shoots unarmed protesters, and he has no ideals. He doesn't even make a move on Jackie.

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RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#73: Aug 2nd 2012 at 5:00:16 AM

Everything about his established character shows us he's vile

Except, y'know, regretting that he never got to know his daughter, and being horrified at what Ozymandias was planning to do. The guy's a gleeful nihilist, but he's not without human sentiment.

edited 2nd Aug '12 5:07:44 PM by RavenWilder

dontcallmewave Brony? Moi? surely you jest! from My home Since: Nov, 2013
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#74: Aug 2nd 2012 at 8:38:01 AM

I kind of think Blake was in some ways the most sympathetic character of the original series. At first he Went Mad From The Revelation at what a Crapsack World he lived in, then he had a gradual Heel Realization, but was to trapped in his habits to change. By the time Laurie yells at him at that party ( as shown in her flashback on mars while talking to manhattan) its clear he feels sorry for what he's done, and really wants to change.

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DarkSoldier from Delta, BC, Canada Since: May, 2018 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
#75: Aug 3rd 2012 at 9:59:46 PM

Be that as it may, Before Watchmen predates that character development.

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