A dear friend of mine bought me Alan Moore’s Watchmen graphic novel for my birthday and I just finished it today. It took me no time at all. I was so engrossed throughout the entire novel that I had to know what happened next. I watched the movie many years ago, but I really didn’t remember anything of it besides the opening credits where one of the characters assassinates JFK. I’ve never been a big comic book reader, but I love graphic novels. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but Neil Gaiman’s Sandman is one of my all-time favorites, but Watchmen may have topped it.
Watchmen isn’t just a deconstruction of superheroes–it’s a scalpel slicing into the bloated corpse of American exceptionalism, liberal idealism, and the myth of power as virtue. Set in an alternate 1985 America where Richard Nixon never left office and masked vigilantes once roamed the streets like violent boy scouts, Watchmen asks a simple but brutal question: What kind of person puts on a mask and calls it justice?
Spoiler: It’s not the noble-hearted. It’s the traumatized, the fascistic, the god-complex-ridden, and the deeply, deeply broken.
The story pivots on the murder of the character known as The Comedian, a government-sponsored sociopath whose death pulls his former teammates–each more morally compromised than the last–back into a decaying world teetering on nuclear annihilation. At the center is Dr. Manhattan, a glowing blue god who’s lost all connection to humanity, and Ozymandias, a genius whose plan to save the world requires mass murder and absolute control.
Watchmen teaches us that power doesn’t purify. It distorts. Good intentions, when weaponized at scale, become indistinguishable from tyranny. And that the systems we trust to protect us–governments, heroes, even truth–are often just better-dressed versions of the same old brutality.
If you’re looking for hope, Watchmen laughs in your face. However, if you’re looking for clarity about the lies we tell ourselves to keep the machine humming, it’s a masterpiece. In the end, the most radical idea Watchmen offers isn’t that the world needs saving, it’s that maybe it doesn’t deserve to be saved in the first place.
Sisyphus Shrugged 
Loved that book
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I’m surprised to learn you read Watchmen!
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I was too, at the time. It was teacher directed and once I was in it I was grateful having had the experience.
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I own the movie, but it’s been over a decade since I’ve watched it that I didn’t remember any of it really except for the opening credits. So, reading the graphic novel made me want to go back and watch it, which I still plan on doing.
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