The Modern Age of the Comic begins almost, almost the same year in which Watchmen was published, and it is no coincidence: in addition to breaking many molds it is one of the best contributions of the ninth art to the environment, consecrating to Rorschach or the Dr. Manhattan as recognizable characters around the world. The other reality is that these characters, created by Alan Moore, actually were his plan B. And that at that time to the DC publishing house, superheroes was left over in the most literal sense of expression.
Initially published between September 1986 and October 1987 as a limited series, Watchmen It is one of Alan Moore’s best known works, which is not a small thing, although the merit must also be distributed with the cartoonist Dave Gibbons and John Higgins’ innotate. Its theme and narrative structure move away from the clichés of superhero comics and seek to leave a different type of draft in the reader. Something that would not have been achieved if recognizable DC heroes had been used. Even if they were not so recognizable.
Not that there are no types with layers and meshes in Watchmenbut the fuse of history goes through the mysterious murder of a superhero and the consequences of the latter among those who knew their two identities. Naturally, the blow of effect would have been greater if instead of the comedian a character invented to Watchmenit would have been someone who already existed in DC, who had had his own comics series or, in the face of the case at hand, who were part of the wide portfolio of superheroes who in the house of Superman or Batman had forgotten in some drawer waiting for his moment.
The day Alan Moore set out to kill a superhero. One known
Through a Moore interview granted to Jon B. Cooke in 2000, the scriptwriter and self -proclaim The Mighty Crusaders of the House of Archie comics, in Watchmen and how this is not a casual, but was part of the set of ideas that he himself was considering during the gestation of his work.
“The initial idea of Watchmen – and this is not similar to what Watchmen turned out to be.
It must be remembered that this was shortly after having done something similar, so to speak, with Marvelman, where I used a pre -existing character and I applied a rough world vision, perhaps more realistic, to that character and the environment in which he lived. So I started thinking about using MLJ characters – Archie superheroes – simply because they were not published at that time and, from what I knew, they could have been available. “
The MLJ heroes, whose acronym comes from the authors Morris Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater, today are part of DC but, as happened with Shazam himself and so many others, they were born in other editorials during the golden age of the comic and, for one reason or another, they ended up being acquired and integrated in the regular series, with their own series In many cases, forgotten and unused waiting for an opportunity. This has continued to happen (Wildstorm went from Image to DC not too much ago) and also occurs with Marvel, which is.
Thus, Moore’s original plan went to use characters that possibly were not going to be used. They did not have to be those of MLJ, which records, but that an idea that could be applied to any group of pre -existing superheroes. For example, those of Charlton. A supergroup that was recognizable for the reader, but also expendable for DC.
“I guess I was thinking:” That would be a good way to start a comic: that a famous superhero is found dead. “As the mystery was revealed, we got more and more into the true heart of the world of this superhero and we showed a reality very different from the image that the general public had of him. That was the idea.”
In fact, DC had bought Charlton’s characters and in That moment the editorial was looking for ways to use them So, together with Dave Gibbons, they presented the idea that would begin with a murder. A blow to the table. An extreme and unusual turn that had to penetrate among the protagonists, but also among readers.
“The story was about superheroes, and it did not matter what superheroes it was, provided that the characters had some kind of emotional resonance, people would recognize them, so that it had the impact and surprise to see the reality of these characters.”
“When we planned to make an extreme and unusual superhero comic, we thought that Charlton’s characters would provide us with a great cast with a lot of emotional nostalgia, associations and resonance for readers. That’s why we proposed this new version of Charlton’s characters.”
If the idea was so good and the green light was ended to the project, why didn’t it continue? The reason is that Dick Giordano, who was in charge of the DC publishing house, I knew that Alan Moore planned to charge these characters and reinvent the universe, so why the plan could not use those superheroes again. And if he did, what made that story so special would be lost along the way.
“I don’t remember the details,” he was so long ago, “but I remember that at some point Dick told us that he liked the proposal, but that he did not want to use Charlton’s characters, because the proposal would have left many in poor condition, and DC could not have used them again after what we were going to do without subtracting strength from what we were planning.
If we had used Charlton’s characters in Watchmen, after number 12, although Captain atom was still alive, DC could not have created a comic about him without taking value from what became Watchmen. So, at first, I did not think we could make the comic simply with invented characters, because I thought I would lose all the emotional resonance they had for the reader, which he considered an important part of the comic.
Over time, I realized that if I wrote the characters substitute enough, so that relatives were in certain aspects, if certain aspects of them return the reader a kind of resonance or familiarity with the generic superheroes, it could work. “
As we have already mentioned, Alan Moore considers himself a magician of chaos and, whether true or not, he is able to convert adversities into enormous opportunities. So on the one hand the hook of “sacrificing” was lost to a known hero, but in return to the screenwriter New doors were opened.
Who is who in Watchmen
Discarded the possibility of using heroes that was not even using touched the idea and meaning of the work that will become Watchmen. A contradiction? The truth is that, as you will see, Moore had something even better than the creative freedom: I could copy known characters With hardly any consequences.
That is, Alan Moore could create characters based on those of DC Comics that he wanted to use since, anyway, his work was for the same editorial. So that instead of using Atom captain and be tied by the restrictions of the character’s background or the publisher itself, replaced it by a Dr. Manhattan with which he could do what he wanted. And he took the opportunity.
“So we began to reformulate the concept, using Charlton’s characters as a starting point, because they were the ones who presented Dick, and that was the plot. We began to mutate the characters, and I realized that the changes gave me much more freedom.
The only idea of the captain atom as a nuclear superhero, with the shadow of the atomic bomb around it, had been part of the original proposal, but with Dr. Manhattan, by turning it into a kind of quantum superhero, he led him to a completely new dimension: it was not only the shadow of the nuclear threat around him.
What we could do with the awareness of Dr. Manhattan and his way of seeing time would not have been appropriate for the atom captain. So it was the best decision, although it took me some time to realize. “
Alan Moore already had clear the story and the characters of Watchmen When he started writing the first number of the series. A change that did not cost him too much since he had previously done a process of integral reinvention with a more adult tone for a hero (Marvelman and later Miracleman). In fact, as he himself acknowledged, in DC they let him experiment with him since he was not as well known as other heroes and the thing ended quite well.
So who is who in Watchmen? As we said, Alan Moore was based on existing heroes to create Watchmen’s characters and he made clear those he used as a base. And you believe it or not, the origin of Comedian It is the pacifier. Yes, he who has a series in HBO Max and is played by John Cena.
“The question was [el prototipo] of Rorschach. Dr. Manhattan and the atom captain were obviously equivalent. Night owl and the new blue beetle – well, Ted Kord’s blue beetle – were equivalent. As there was an original blue beetle in Charlton’s cosmology, I thought it would be good to have an original night owl.
I really can’t say Nightshade was a great inspiration. I never thought it was a particularly strong or interesting female character. The silk spectrum was just a female character because he needed to have a heroine there.
As we did not do the Charlton characters, there was no reason for me to stay with Nightshade; I could take a different type of superheroine, something like the ghost lady, a black canary, generally my favorite costume heroines anyway. The silk spectrum, being the group of the group, was in a way the equivalent of Belladona, but in reality, there is not much connection beyond that.
The comedian was the peacemaker; We had greater freedom, and decided to make it slightly rightist, patriotic, and mixed a little Nick Fury with the image of El Pacifier, and probably something of the typical patriotic hero of Captain America. So, yes, these characters began like this, to fill the holes in the story that the heroes of Charlton had left, but we did not have to strictly stick to the Charlton formula. In some aspects, we stick more to her, and in others, no. “
Alan Moore took his opportunity and created characters that fit better with his work but who inherited, intentionally, which was interested in other acquaintances. And although in a way there is a shy reflection of the original superheroes that were not used in Watchmencurrently the comedian, Rorschach or Dr. Manhattan are much better than most of their respective counterpoints. Chaos magic? I don’t rule it out.
In Lifextra | Watchmen: The end is close, or why a beat-em up of the pile is also the worst nightmare of Alan Moore made video game
