Before Watchmen: Minutemen #1

Art and Story by Darwyn Cook

DC Comics

$3.99

Only a week ago, something pushed me to rewatch the movie A.I. For those of you not up on such film nerd eccentricities, A.I. was a creepy sci-fi film about an automaton Pinocchio that was written by Stanley Kubrick (Clockwork Orange and many other classics) and directed by Steven Spielberg (Raiders of the Lost Ark and just as many classics). For the purpose of this review, it is important to note that Spielberg rewrote and directed A.I. as a favor to Kubrick after his passing. It is also important to note that in Kubrick’s absence Spielberg treaded carefully to bring Kubrick’s original vision to light…up until the film’s last 30 minutes. It is during A.I.’s forced happy ending that Spielberg takes complete control of what was --- up until that point --- an overwhelmingly brilliant film. It’s wonderful to watch and incredibly frustrating to finish.

Which brings me to Before Watchmen, DC Comics’ questionable revisiting of Alan Moore’s seminal Watchmen mini-series.

Darwyn Cooke has the unenviable task of writing the first book of eight new Watchmen minis. His Minutemen #1 attempts to detail (and seeing how incredibly detailed the original Watchmen is, I use the term loosely) the inevitably tragic back-story of the world’s first crime fighters. 

Like Spielberg, Cooke does everything with the level of class, competency, and respect that Watchmen deserves. He toys around with visual language, he references situations from the pages of the original, and he carefully reminds the reader that these troupes will be skewed by the inevitable ugliness of a less-than-perfect world. However, a matching level of intensity is absent. That looming cloud of uncertainty and frustration that made the world of Watchmen such a unique experience is gone. Basically, it doesn’t have the combined efforts of Moore and artist Dave Gibbons to make it convincing.

Sure, the intentions behind the Minutemen story and the original Watchmen are different. Moore depicted a world in which a televised doomsday clock was constantly counting down to the world’s end. Cooke’s story takes place decades earlier, during a time of innocence. However, that doesn’t change the fact that things are destined to go bad for all the characters involved. With that understood, it stands to reason that pessimism is one of the defining traits of the Watchmen world. Judging by his interviews on the new series, Moore has that moodiness in spades, Cooke…not so much.

DC has assembled the right talent to attempt to preface Moore’s classic. I don’t doubt that any of these talents have anything but love for the original work. If anything I almost want to believe that they signed on to Before Watchmen to protect it. However --- like in the case of A.I. ---  something great always gets lost amidst all that adoration.

Creator-Owned Heroes #1

Stories by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Steven Niles

Various artwork by Phil Noto and Kevin Mellon

$3.99

Image Comics

The unfortunately named but well-intentioned Creator-Owned Heroes is Image Comics’ attempt to show you what storytelling diversity the publisher can offer. The first issue offers two brand-new action-adventure tales, as well as a handful of distracting interviews with a cosplaying duo, Steve Niles, and Neil Gaiman.

American Muscle by Steve Niles and Kevin Mellon is a post-apocalyptic western on classic wheels. It’s followed by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Phil Noto on Trigger Girl 6, a campy, mid-air spy adventure. Both stories have considerable charm but could desperately benefit from a second issue to hook the reader in.

There are plenty of arguments about what pulls virginal readership into the comics industry. Regardless of what your take is on expanding the market, the simplest solution seems to be more bang for your buck. Currently, Dark Horse Presents and Clint seem to accomplish this by providing magazine-styled, anthology comics to non-direct markets. Hopefully, in a few more issues Creator-Owned Heroes can match the monthly diversity of DHP along with the hilariously sarcastic articles found in Clint. As for now, the amount of bang you get for $3.99 feels minimal.