So for the most part I waited for the trades to read Before Watchmen, so I only read them recently. I was never one of those people who was against the idea of it--I mean who doesn't love Watchmen, and I did enjoy a good chunk of the new series. So, in order of my favourite to least favourite:
Doctor Manhattan (4 issues) - great writing, really mind-bending and full of clever ideas (like the persona swap/page flip between Jon and Ozy in the last issue)
Minutemen (6 issues) - fun art, really nailed how I saw the characters, if I had to add only one series to the franchise lore it would be this one
Moloch (2 issues)- dark and tragic, but really made you sympathize with the character and better understand his role in Watchmen
Ozymandias (6 issues)- my favourite art of Before Watchmen, very captivating, though alot of the poses and page layouts don't change much over the 6 issues
Curse of the Crimson Corsair - amazing art, always interesting, and brutally dark
Dollar Bill (1 issue) - short and relatively sweet, it's basically an add-on to Minutemen but I found it odd that they'd choose one of the least-interesting characters to focus on
(Heres where they get really bad)
Comedian (6 issues)- jumbled take on the character, jumps all over the place, and a stupid, predictable ending. (like no other 60s-set fiction uses the same hashed out plot twists)
Silk Spectre (4 issues)- I liked the art in this one, especially the drug-trip scenes, but the writing was so over the top and melodramatic, it made me like the character even less--if that's possible
Nite Owl (4 issues)- completely misses the characterization of alot of people, focuses more on (poorly) developing Rorschach then Nite Owl, art looks lazy at times, and the Twilight Lady character was just needless nudity --like half of issue 3(?) being a cheesy love scene I care nothing about, just silly, thoughtless writing all around
Rorschach (4 issues)- a pointless story that goes nowhere, solves nothing, and contains absolutely no interesting characters or events. Rorschach is portrayed as this terrifying, all-seeing guardian of the streets (more so than even Batman), which comes off as ridiculous. The series adds nothing AT ALL to the Watchmen universe, and is so bland that you could just as easily swap the lead role for ANY street vigilante and it would "work" on it own. As in suck on its own.
Overall I liked Before Watchmen for the good it gave us (its not like the bad can change your opinion of the original Watchmen), but it made me realize that just because we can tack some more paint on the Mona Lisa, doesn't mean we should. What was anyone else's opinion of the series?
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