Tag Archives: Before Watchmen

Sep 22 2012

Before Watchmen – Nite Owl 3

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Nite Owl 3, originally released September 19th, 2012. Nite Owl is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Patrick: Look, not everyone’s a superhero. Right? That’s the point of Watchmen — it takes a special psychology to don a cape and cowl and fight crime by night. With each character-revelation, Alan Moore seems to say “look how fucked up these people are.” Moore employs some pretty blunt tactics to deliver this message, going so far as to devote an entire issue to Walter Kovacs’ therapy sessions.  J. Michael Straczynski attempts to explore Dan Dreiberg’s mind with a similar blunt force, but ends up losing Nite Owl and Twilight Lady in the process.

Continue reading →

Sep 7 2012

Before Watchmen – Silk Spectre 3

Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Silk Spectre 3, originally released September 5th, 2012. Silk Spectre is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Shelby: It’s hard being a teen-aged girl. You always fight with your mom, you can’t do what you want, there’s always some sort of boy trouble. Usually, though, you aren’t fighting with your mom because she’s forcing you to be a caped superhero and the boy trouble is not from your secret dad forcing your boyfriend to break up with you or be killed. Amanda Conner and Darwin Cooke have somehow managed to balance the two very distinct voices of the average teenager with Alan Moore’s Silk Spectre in such a way that I am immensely disappointed there is only one more issue to go of this mini-series.
Continue reading →

Sep 4 2012

Before Watchmen – Curse of the Crimson Corsair 7-13

Today, Peter and Shelby are discussing Curse of the Crimson Corsair 7-13, originally released July 18th (in Silk Spectre 2), July 25th (in Comedian 2), August 1st (in Nite Owl 2), August 8th (in Ozymandias 2), August 15th (in Rorschach 1) August 22nd (in Dr. Manhattan 1) and August 29th, 2012 (in Minutemen 3). It is also available for free on DC’s Source Blog. Curse of the Crimson Corsair is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Peter: The question of ‘Why?’ has come up a lot with the Before Watchmen project. The biggest why has got to be around the Crimson Corsair story. The Crimson Corsair is really the oddest duck in the brace of ducks that is Before Watchmen. Unlike the Tales of the Black Freighter, it plays no real role in the storyline as a whole, which is a loss connection anyway, but also it just doesn’t flow like the Black Freighter did. It’s just gets 2 pages stuck on the end of each issue, and is very out of place. It’s also just difficult to keep up with, because of the way it’s published and spread out. It’s to the point for me really, where I just skip it over it.

Continue reading →

Aug 31 2012

Before Watchmen – Minutemen 3

Today, Shelby and Peter are discussing Minutemen 3, originally released August 29th, 2012. Minutemen is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Shelby: Hollis Mason is a good man. He believes in the quaint and simplistic ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, as laid out in the Golden Era-esque comic books of his childhood: the heroes are upright and moral and the bad guys always get caught. You know: truth, justice, the American way, etc. The truth is especially important to Hollis. He writes his book in order to make the truth known. His time in the Minutemen taught him a hard lesson about the difference between his perceptions (and the perceptions of the rest of the world) of the caped life, and the realities. He is going to share that truth of the reality of the Minutemen no matter the cost.
Continue reading →

Aug 23 2012

Before Watchmen – Dr. Manhattan 1

Today, Shelby and Drew are discussing Dr. Manhattan 1, originally released August 22nd, 2012. Dr. Manhattan is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Shelby: Dr. Manhattan is a tricky character to deal with. He is all powerful; he can control any matter in any way, can see all time, and knows how everything will happen. That’s difficult to even really comprehend as a reader, let alone to understand it enough to write about. Once you get over the hurdle of writing about an infinitely powerful being with seemingly no weaknesses, there’s the fact that you’re writing a prequel story that the readers already know. Dr. Manhattan gets the most detailed origin story in Watchmen, so how do you write more about a story that we already know without completely derailing the character? I will admit, I was doubtful J. Michael Straczynski would pull it off, solely based on my disappointment in Nite Owl so far. I was surprised and immensely pleased to find this title is very, very good.
Continue reading →

Aug 22 2012

Chat Cave: New Sandman Story

At San Diego Comic Con this year, Vertigo made the surprising announcement that Neil Gaiman will be writing a new Sandman story arc, with Retcon Punch  favorite  J. H. Williams, III. Even though we don’t currently cover any Vertigo titles, Gaiman’s return to this game-changing, original, and incredibly unique title is definitely worthy of a discussion. What have been the fan reactions? What does DC’s current preponderance of prequels reflect of the current state of the industry? Are you incredibly excited for this dynamic artistic team-up? Retcon Punchers sound off: Welcome to the Chat Cave.

Shelby: I am stupid excited for a new Sandman story. When Patrick first started talking to me about working on this site, my response was, “DC Comics are great, when will we talk about Sandman?” The universe Gaiman created is unlike any other I have ever experienced, except maybe in other Gaiman books. He has a great way of blending multiple cultures’ mythologies; I never would have guessed stories featuring the Muses of the Greeks could exist next to stories of Odin and Thor, and that it would all work. What really intrigues me, though, is the comparison of fan reactions between this prequel (super positive) and the Before Watchman prequels (often negative).

Continue reading →

Aug 16 2012

Before Watchmen – Rorschach 1

Before WatchmenToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing Rorschach 1, originally released August 15th, 2012. Rorschach is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Drew: Before Watchmen has a uphill battle to climb as far as justifying its existence. We’ve already gone over our reactions the the idea, but I feel compelled to reiterate my main objection: Watchmen is a singular and self-contained book, and treating it like a universe where cool stories happen or one of a series of adventures this particular group of characters had is missing the point. That said, I do like these characters, and their universe, but it’s incredibly difficult for me to tell if that means I want to spend more time with them, or if I’m simply drawn to them because of their allegorical significance. The successes of Before Watchmen have side-stepped this issue by delivering stories so outside — or even contrary to — our expectations, they really stand on their own (allowing me to ignore any potential desecrations). I was particularly impressed with Brian Azzarello’s work on Comedian 2, where he managed to find enough unclaimed space within the strictures of the character’s history to tell (or at least set-up) a compelling story, which gave me high hopes for his work here. Unfortunately, Rorschach 1 finds less room to breathe, yielding decidedly mixed results. Continue reading →

Aug 13 2012

Before Watchmen – Ozymandias 2

Alternating Currents: Ozymandias 2, Drew and Peter B4WToday, Drew Patrick and Peter are discussing Ozymandias 2, originally released August 8th, 2012. Ozymandias is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Drew: Patrick: Surprise! It’s actually going to be me taking lead on Ozy today. Drew had both his copy of Ozymandias and his computer stolen today. And that’s enough to make me want to put on an old Halloween costume and take to the streets for some righteous vengeance. And while I don’t plan on that leading to a life of crime fighting, there’s really no saying where life will take me, and which sources I will draw upon for inspiration.  Whatever the case, I just hope it will be consistently rendered in breathtaking beauty (because otherwise, what’s the point?).

Continue reading →

Aug 2 2012

Before Watchmen – Nite Owl 2

Today, Peter and Shelby are discussing Nite Owl 2, originally released August 1st, 2012. Nite Owl is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Peter: Dan Dreiberg is a likable character. He’s the sympathetic hero, the guy you identify with. There is something about him that makes you go ‘awww’, and something that makes you say ‘that could be me’. Or at least, I say that when I read him. The Before Watchmen version of Dan is anything but that. Combine that with a very uninteresting, or engaging storyline, and issue 2 still fails to meet expectations. There is a glimmer of hope, as things begin to pick up…a little.

Continue reading →

Jul 19 2012

Before Watchmen – Silk Spectre 2

Alternating Currents: Silk Spectre 2, Drew and Shelby-B4WToday, Drew and Shelby are discussing Silk Spectre 2, originally released July 18th, 2012. Silk Spectre is part of DC’s Before Watchmen prequel series. Click here for complete Before Watchmen coverage (including release dates).

Drew: This Before Watchmen thing must have been a hard sell to creators. Sure, they’d have the opportunity to work with some of comicdom’s most interesting characters, but they’d also be competing with some incredibly beloved source material, written by one of the greatest comic writers of all time. Hoping to improve on Watchmen would be beyond unreasonable, so the best anyone could really hope for is a competent expansion of that universe. That’s not exactly the world’s most rewarding job. Writer Darwyn Cooke and artist Amanda Conner have the additionally arduous task of being saddled with everybody’s least favorite character from Watchmen, which they handled dazzlingly in last month’s debut, managing to take Silk Spectre in a totally unexpected direction. This month’s issue subverts our expectations yet again, taking a step that can’t so much be described as forward or backwards, but sideways. Continue reading →