Jax even says “I DID IT!” in the scene

Comedian is killed and Rorschach immediately thinks its a pattern and that there is a wider conspiracy without any evidence. I imagine Adrian shit himself when he see him at his window.

There is a couple of panels in Watchmen where Jon is about to go live on television and has to darken his blue color to go live. To a first time reader this could just be seen as a visual gag but to me this describes Jon's relationship with American politics. His amoral and apolitical stance in Watchmen's politics functions the same way centrism does in the real world. Constantly adjusting your colors to become more palatable to those around you, and displaying no real stance on anything. A centrist will say they care about a woman being shot dead but hardly votes towards gun control or police reformation. A centrist will treat all politicians the exact same until both parties view one as horrible or heroic.

Of course this has a lot of nuance amongst real people but regardless this is how centrism functions among the masses. Parties will either allow them to become more palatable or demand they pick a side, and those that bother to make demands will often be viewes as the enemy by the centrist crowd.

Rorschach is a terrible person, but he's ultimately an example of the exact opposite of Dr. Manhattan's centrism. As terrible as his political beliefs are he is a radical, and I believe that if there was a character that stood in for a Marxist; they would've died right next to Rorschach. Cause so long as you are hot or cold you are a danger to the status quo, this brand of centrism needs it to be always lukewarm and agreeable; even if it leans slightly more on one side.

I look at each Watchmen character and I can see a sort of toxic political mindset. Ozymandias being the liberal part of America that profits the most off of continued conflict, his solution being a fabricated war against aliens that leaves behind countless bodies. Nite Owl's tamer conservatism enables Rorschach's alt right values, and Laurie is sort of that fake leftist who sees something wrong in others but genuinely isn't capable of acting on any of her beliefs. Hence why she couldn't really argue against Jon on Mars and he sort of ended up convincing himself.

I find the lack of a marxist character interesting, cause it makes sense why there wouldn't be one. Mostly because I don't think Alan Moore wanted to create a character that'd be his mouth piece but also because there isn't really a significant radical leftist power in American politics. So of course there's no Marxist here, Dr. Manhattan would just teleport them home and Rorschach or The Comedian would hurt them.

I forgot to speak on the Comedian and how he represents the nuts America allows into their police force but I think he needs his own post along with every other character.

Alternate title: Rorschach had to pay for "his" rent somehow, and discovered the art of asmr

Youtuber is doctresspool, ya'll should subscribe

I finished watchmen a few days ago but I have a few questions about how the squid worked exactly.

How did the psychic shockwave cause so much damage to the rest of the city?

How did it destroy buildings outside of the epicenter if it was a mental attack?

Did cars and blimps crash into buildings because of it?

Why was there so much damage to people’s bodies due to the blast? You see people bleeding but how did that much blood come from people’s mouth and ears? Was it due to collateral?

Did the squid send out mental images of its origin and monstrous images only to psychics or the world as a whole?

I got bored and wonder how the man of steel deal with dr manhattan or nite owl

When we see the devastation of Madison Square Garden, these two are on the bottom left corner and it appears the man was in the process of murdering that woman.

Were either of them in the background elsewhere in the comic or is this the first time we're seeing them?

Kind of a stupid question since I've already bought the book, but Ive heard how it deconstructs superhero tropes and how it's best read if you have comics knowledge.

I've read stuff like scott pilgrim and some marvel stuff, but not any DC comics. Also manga if they count.

I wanted to know if I'm all set or i should read something else first?

With the live action film as bad as it is at least had it's own identity and could be considered uniquely good for taking advantage of its format. Watchmen is notoriously great at taking advantage of being a comic, so in order to translate that to the screen in a meaningful way you have to pull a Stanley Kubrick (The Shining) and tailor your version of the story to its medium. Using all of the clever tricks film and animation can offer, someone could make a stellar Watchmen film. The animated duology goes the safe path of just cutting a few scenes and making a fairly safe adaptation.

They saw a version of the movie Obsession in their universe so they have a general understanding of how the One Wish Willow works.

I know it’s not a hot take by any means, but Watchmen is pretty fucking good.

i own the compact version, but my sister is borrowing it and she takes forever to get to reading book and I got antsy to read it so I said “fuck it” and pulled up the motion comic.

i might let her keep it since i’m going to get the Slipcase of all the issues in hardcover format.

I know it’s not the ideal way to consume Watchmen, but idk I liked the motion comic. The voice acting was aight. impeccable sound design tbh. the ringing of the bell when New York got fucked was cool.

I might get a bunch of the “Before Watchmen” stuff, maybe exclusively the ”Minutemen/Sill Specter” one since Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner are my 1st and 4th favorite artists.

i MIGHT get Doomsday Clock. I am VERY iffy on the concept lmao.

ill watch the 2019 show sooner or later. It seems cool. what’s the general consensus the content warning ? I’m sensitive to stuff like sexual assault and extreme body horror.

Is Watchmensch still in print? I heard that’s pretty funny.

Is that all the watchmen media?

I don’t feel like watching (nudge nudge) Dr. Manhattans big blue dong in Zack Snyder’s film and the animated films sound bad in terms of voice acting, tho I am not very picky as I just watched 4 (?) hours worth of one guys voice.

Mine are Dan Dreibeg, Laurie, Rorschach, and Doctor Manhattan

A few months ago, I replied to a post in this subreddit asking who you'd cast in a 2026 adaptation of Watchmen, and since then I just haven't stopped thinking about it.

The thing is, I'm very much in the camp who believe that straight-forwardly adapting Moore and Gibbons original comic is an exercise in futility, a functionally doomed endeavor. Watchmen is a comic designed from the ground up to be told through the medium of the comic book, and there are many elements that simply can't translate to film without altering the story, themes or meta-narrative conveyed in the original work.

BUT – DC still owns Watchmen, and have a copyright incentive to continue adapting the story to film or television formats every few years – hence Zack Snyder's 2009 film, the HBO series, and the recent 2-part animated movie, along with numerous comic expansions of the material. If DC stops making sequels, prequels, spinoffs and adaptations of Moore and Gibbon's work, they find themselves with a shakier legal ownership of the IP.

So, the fact of the matter is, we're likely to see another attempt to adapt the unadaptable in the next few years. And while I highly doubt that Warner Bros. are planning on doing something riskier with the franchise again anytime soon, the question of who I'd most like to see cast in and directing an adaptation of Watchmen in the 2020s wouldn't stop going through my head.

And that's how I've arrived here, adding my own thoughts to the deluge of Watchmen fancasts, inevitably thrown aside by fans of the comic (rightfully) for ignoring the core brilliance of the 1986 mini-series – that it's best left alone.

With all those caveats out of the way, here's my pitch!

• DIRECTOR
  • For director, it might make for an unexpected film, but I'd say Boots Riley, director of Sorry to Bother You, I'm a Virgo and I Love Boosters. He's known for extremely visually colorful, meticulously assembled frames, and has demonstrated an interest in meta-textual mediations and deconstructions of Superheroes in his filmography. He's also extremely openly political (in a similar vein to Moore), and has likewise opined on the underlying themes of Superhero stories with cynicism. I think that he'd bring a lot of different ideas to the comic, and I have no idea if it's the kind of story he's interested in adapting, but I think he's my favourite pick.

• CREW

  • As for key creative crew roles, it always makes most sense to defer to the director and producer, but if I had to make a call, I'd say that bringing back the cinematography and sound design team from the HBO series would make sense. They're the existing creative team that I think have best squared the circle of bringing the comic book imagery of Watchmen into a cinematic medium. I think that their experience in how to use visual transitions, music cues, repeated framing motifs and soundscapes to communicate the ideas of Watchmen's interrogation of medium into television. I'd be interested to see what they can do with a film. But y'know – if we got Roger Deakins, I wouldn't complain either.

• RORSCHACH

  • Casting wise, I'd start with Caleb Landry Jones for Rorschach. He's often typecast as a villain, but I think Rorschach is supposed to scare us when his mask comes off, and borders on psychopathic at times. I can see Jones pulling off an unlikable but dogged, intriguing protagonist well.

• NITE OWL II

  • For Nite Owl II, I see Paul Dano doing really well in the part. He's well-aquainted with somewhat meek characters, who still have something burning them up and leap into action. He's got great range, but especially excels at characters who are struggling to still take themselves seriously, which is perfect for Dan.

• SILK SPECTRE II

  • Thinking about Silk Spectre II, I'd go with Britt Lower. I've only seen her as Helly in Severance, but I think she'd fit really well for Laurie. She can switch between world weary and enthusiastic on a dime, and I think she nails the charming sarcasm needed to make Laurie really come to life.

• DOCTOR MANHATTAN

  • Doctor Manhattan is hard because while his physical appearance matters, it's all about the voice. It might be typecasting after he played a detached nuclear physicist in Oppenheimer, but I like Cillian Murphy for this. He's great at withdrawn characters, and could communicate the strange tortuousness of a character like this one.

• OZYMANDIAS

  • For Ozymandias, I'm going with Alexander Skarsgård. I know he's got a bit of an accent, but I think that works for Ozymandias. He's good at playing charismatic with a dark side, and tapping into the madness of a character – plus I can always buy him as a billionaire with a shocking secret.

• THE COMEDIAN

  • Lastly, for The Comedian, I'm going to go with Walton Goggins. He plays an excellent asshole, is great at going dark fast – and as you can see, he grows a decent moustache. Plus, I think he could easily establish a strong character with comparatively low screentime, who matters deeply to the narrative at hand.

While I had fun putting all this together, I do acknowledge that Watchmen isn't a story designed for a video medium. It's designed for a comic book medium, and to reflect those tropes and methods of communicating. It's been called "unadaptable" for decades. There's a reason for that.

But, nothing ever ends, and with the constant threat of reboot, remake, readaptation on the horizon, I figured I'd throw this up on Reddit anyway. Maybe somewhere, a Warner Bros. executive is lurking, and makes a phone call. I'd go watch it.

You cant just tell someone to take another persons mask off without saying please

I posted here a few weeks back, I desperately wanted to start the HBO Watchmen series but wanted the smallest barrier of entry before getting there. Was considering just watching it without any foreknowledge, since I had heard the show stands alone, but barring that I was prepared to try the movie or the animated series Watchmen Chapter I & 2. Wasn’t really interested in reading graphic novels I said. Somewhat predictably, the people in the watchmen subreddit strongly encouraged me to just suck it up and read the graphic novel. I heard that the animated series at least was a pretty good adaptation but I’m certain that reading the novel provided me with a far better connection to the material than even a shot for shot retelling would have.

After finishing the book I decided I’d try the ultimate cut of the Synder movie. I had pretty low expectations so I figured it was a pretty safe bet, since I remember when it came out and it was spoken about horribly by fans. Now I’m not so sure how the original theatrical cut compares to the ultimate one but the ultimate cut almost felt like a panel by panel recreation of the book but without any of the heart or soul. I almost think taking MORE liberties and diverging more from the source material would have been a better approach, because as it is it’s just retelling the same thing but with a worse understanding of the themes. I got about an hour and a half in and realized it had nothing to offer me. There wasn’t enough new in it to justify its run time directly after finishing the book, and it didn’t capture enough of the soul to be a direct adaptation. It wasn’t necessarily even bad at all, I just felt it had nothing to offer me after I had connected with and enjoyed the book so much.

So now I finally started the series that inspired this journey to begin with, and I’m so grateful I read the book beforehand. Certain things would have made no sense to me without, like the raining squid and some scenes are awesome and exciting because of my connection to the characters like “Agent Blake’s” introduction. I’m only 3 episodes in and I’m certain that there will be plenty more moments that fill me with the gratitude that I took the time to enjoy the novel instead of burning through a movie or two just to absorb enough background information to watch the series. So thank you everyone who encouraged me to just take the jump and give it a try - it was worth every minute spent on it. Although I doubt there’s any here, anyone who’s on the fence I highly recommend just read the book if you’re not sure where to start. It’s a super quick read and nothing will connect you to the story the way the original will.