Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

[esampson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Also Watchmen isn't a great source for "heroes". It's a great comic that shows what happens when Heroes kill and how it screws up their heads. . .

Not sure I quite agree with that. The story really centers around Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Juspeczyk, neither of whom seem to kill anyone that I can recall. Ozymandius doesn't every seem to exhibit 'Punisher' type behavior and he turns out to be a mass-murderer because it was the only way he could see to prevent nuclear war.

 

I think Watchmen was much more about how being a superhero messed up the heads of normal human beings.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Not sure I quite agree with that. The story really centers around Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Juspeczyk' date=' neither of whom seem to kill anyone that I can recall. Ozymandius doesn't every seem to exhibit 'Punisher' type behavior and he turns out to be a mass-murderer [b']because it was the only way he could see to prevent nuclear war[/b].

 

I think Watchmen was much more about how being a superhero messed up the heads of normal human beings.

I'd argue he thought it was the only way. I don't buy it.

[Tasha]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Not sure I quite agree with that. The story really centers around Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Juspeczyk, neither of whom seem to kill anyone that I can recall. Ozymandius doesn't every seem to exhibit 'Punisher' type behavior and he turns out to be a mass-murderer because it was the only way he could see to prevent nuclear war.

 

I think Watchmen was much more about how being a superhero messed up the heads of normal human beings.

 

 

IIRC much of the move toward Nuclear war was caused by Ozymandias manipulating events. Night Owl does allow Rorschach to beat down (very much excessive force) a bunch of people while exploring the mystery that will eventually lead them to Ozy's grand plan. We don't really get to see what kind of Hero Ozy was when he was active. He does setup someone to fake an assassination attempt on him, then force the assassin to take a poison capsule. In the comic and movie he kills Billions of people. Both Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Juspeczyk stand by and allow it to happen. They also allow Ozy to escape justice for doing the deed. At the end there is no one that can be looked at as being a hero. Also, all of those lies were about to be exposed when Rorschach's journal was to be published. So all of that death would be for naught. Which is really the point of the whole mini series. The pointlessness of Superheroics.

 

Spoiler tagged for those .0001% of people who neither read the Watchmen series or watched the Movie.

[esampson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I didn't say it was the only way. I said it was the only way he could see.

[Tasha]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

+1 on Tasha.

 

And Kahuna is correct about him being based on the Question. (Loosely like all of the Watchmen)

 

All of the Watchmen were based on Charlton heroes that DC was hoping to resurrect. Too bad that old Alan Moore poisoned that well with the Mini Series. He made such nasty versions of all of those heroes no one would want to touch them again. It's taken over 25years and the movie to get DC to try to write more stuff about those characters and then only in prequel form.

[esampson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

IIRC much of the move toward Nuclear war was caused by Ozymandias manipulating events.

No. While Ozymandius was manipulating lots of things and there is a possibility he manipulated the timing he started the whole plot because he realized the inevitability of a nuclear exchange after a comment by the Comedian.

Night Owl does allow Rorschach to beat down (very much excessive force) a bunch of people while exploring the mystery that will eventually lead them to Ozy's grand plan.

Yeah, but this was after being a superhero had already messed him up pretty well.

We don't really get to see what kind of Hero Ozy was when he was active.

True, but given that his thing was being 'the smartest man alive' and he was a re-imagining of Thunderbolt it seems likely that he did not start off overly violent. (Rorschach on the other hand was based on the Question who was fairly violent in his Charleston Comics incarnation).

He does setup someone to fake an assassination attempt on him, then force the assassin to take a poison capsule. In the comic and movie he kills Billions of people. Both Dan Dreiberg and Laurie Juspeczyk stand by and allow it to happen. They also allow Ozy to escape justice for doing the deed. At the end there is no one that can be looked at as being a hero.

All of that are examples of how messed up they become at the end because of their lives of superheros.

Also, all of those lies were about to be exposed when Rorschach's journal was to be published. So all of that death would be for naught. Which is really the point of the whole mini series. The pointlessness of Superheroics.

Whether or not the lies are about the be exposed is purposely left ambiguous so it isn't possible to say it was all for naught.

[Twilight]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

All of the Watchmen were based on Charlton heroes that DC was hoping to resurrect. Too bad that old Alan Moore poisoned that well with the Mini Series. He made such nasty versions of all of those heroes no one would want to touch them again. It's taken over 25years and the movie to get DC to try to write more stuff about those characters and then only in prequel form.

 

But DC did ressurect the Charlton heroes in question. Not only have they been touched again but they've been used fairly regularly since the Watchmen was first written. Captain Atom and the Question even had ongoing titles for awhile as DC characters, if I'm not mistaken.

[esampson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

But DC did ressurect the Charlton heroes in question. Not only have they been touched again but they've been used fairly regularly since the Watchmen was first written. Captain Atom and the Question even had ongoing titles for awhile as DC characters' date=' if I'm not mistaken.[/quote']

As a matter of fact so did Blue Beetle and the Shield. Peacemaker had either a series or a limited series (Dan Dreiberg/Night Owl was based on Blue Beetle and the Comedian was an amalgam of the Shield and Peacemaker). There was also a series for Thunderbolt that lasted 12 issues that came out 5 or 6 years later.

[Greywind]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

But DC did ressurect the Charlton heroes in question. Not only have they been touched again but they've been used fairly regularly since the Watchmen was first written. Captain Atom and the Question even had ongoing titles for awhile as DC characters' date=' if I'm not mistaken.[/quote']

 

You're missing the point. It wasn't the Charleton characters. It was the Watchmen characters.

[Clonus]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

You're missing the point. It wasn't the Charleton characters. It was the Watchmen characters.

 

I'm missing the point too. The Watchmen characters were nasty from the start.

[Greywind]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Yes, they were. Intentionally so.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

But DC did ressurect the Charlton heroes in question. Not only have they been touched again but they've been used fairly regularly since the Watchmen was first written. Captain Atom and the Question even had ongoing titles for awhile as DC characters' date=' if I'm not mistaken.[/quote']

 

In fact, the desire to use the Charlton characters in more traditional form (basically creating a Charlton Earth for the Crisis, and having it be one of the survivors merged into the new timeline) was one reason for changing Watchmen from the Charlton characters to homage characters.

[Twilight]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

You're missing the point. It wasn't the Charleton characters. It was the Watchmen characters.

 

I don't think so. Tasha seemed to be implying that making the Watchmen prevented DC from using the Charlton characters.

[esampson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I don't think so. Tasha seemed to be implying that making the Watchmen prevented DC from using the Charlton characters.

I think Greywind's point (though I could be mistaken) was that even though they released the Charlton characters under their original guises they changed the characters to make them more like their Watchmen counterparts.

 

I don't think that is particularly true, however, if that was his point. Blue Beetle was very light-hearted when it was released. He was an acrobatic martial artist who quipped in combat and his 'BB gun' used a strobe to blind and disorient his foes (upgraded fairly early to fire a compressed air blast).

 

The Question was certainly darker, but then he was a rather grim figure back in the Silver Age when Charlton was printing him as well. In fact while the tone of the Question comic might have been a bit darker than what Charlton had produces the character himself was probably a little less of a "dark avenger" than how Ditko originally envisioned him.

 

Captain Atom was also largely unchanged in personality. His backstory was re-written a little to increase the 'tragedy' aspects of the character (accused of a crime he didn't commit as opposed to accidentally trapped in an exploding rocket) but he was still basically a hero with uber-man level abilities.

 

I think most of the changes initially done to the Charlton characters were probably just things to bring them up to more current standards. While in the Silver Age nobody thought twice about how a technician could accidentally be trapped in a rocket and launched into space such a storyline just wasn't as acceptable in the mid-80's when people would wonder why there wasn't a huge button marked 'ABORT'. Beyond that, however, the characters really kept a lot of their 'core'.

[Tasha]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I don't think so. Tasha seemed to be implying that making the Watchmen prevented DC from using the Charlton characters.

 

Nope, I meant the Watchmen themselves.

[Greywind]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I think Greywind's point (though I could be mistaken) was that even though they released the Charlton characters under their original guises they changed the characters to make them more like their Watchmen counterparts.

You're mistaken. The Charleton characters were kept more or less intact' date=' with only adjustments being made to bring them into the DCU.

 

I don't think that is particularly true, however, if that was his point. Blue Beetle was very light-hearted when it was released. He was an acrobatic martial artist who quipped in combat and his 'BB gun' used a strobe to blind and disorient his foes (upgraded fairly early to fire a compressed air blast).

 

The Question was certainly darker, but then he was a rather grim figure back in the Silver Age when Charlton was printing him as well. In fact while the tone of the Question comic might have been a bit darker than what Charlton had produces the character himself was probably a little less of a "dark avenger" than how Ditko originally envisioned him.

 

Captain Atom was also largely unchanged in personality. His backstory was re-written a little to increase the 'tragedy' aspects of the character (accused of a crime he didn't commit as opposed to accidentally trapped in an exploding rocket) but he was still basically a hero with uber-man level abilities.

 

I think most of the changes initially done to the Charlton characters were probably just things to bring them up to more current standards. While in the Silver Age nobody thought twice about how a technician could accidentally be trapped in a rocket and launched into space such a storyline just wasn't as acceptable in the mid-80's when people would wonder why there wasn't a huge button marked 'ABORT'. Beyond that, however, the characters really kept a lot of their 'core'.

[Twilight]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Nope' date=' I meant the Watchmen themselves.[/quote']

 

My bad then. I think that the Watchmen characters weren't meant to be used again. Once The Watchmen ended their story was told.

[Greywind]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

The only thing is, there was interest in the characters. Where there's interest, there's money. The issue came up with DC's dealings with Moore.

[phoenix240]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

To be fight Dan and Laurie didn't stand by and allow Oz's plan to proceed. "I did it 35 minutes ago." and all that. I had the impression that they didn't reveal his actions as it would undo/negate what possible good might come from them and wouldn't undo the deaths in any event just make them for naught.

[massey]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I liked the Watchmen storyline. It's interesting that now, almost 30 years later, we're still discussing it. It's a world where the traditional genre rules of comics don't apply. I took it as "this is what would really happen if there were supers". The characters' being superheroes separated them and isolated them from the humanity they tried to protect. If you think about it, Batman's super power is the ability to not rip the Joker's throat out. That's the least believable aspect of the character. I'd have done it years ago, and I don't spend my nights beating up criminals in the streets. The characters in the Watchmen lack those 4 color comic codes of conduct.

 

A true Superman would find himself out of touch with humanity pretty quickly. Who are these people who die so easily, who can't see the formation of molecules, who don't see the future like I do? And you think you have a hard time talking to your grandparents, or to teenagers, because of the music and TV shows that they watch. None of your cultural references are the same. Well for Dr. Manhattan, he says "so I was watching atoms divide the other day..." I thought his portrayal in the movie was excellent, by the way. Very sad, but peaceful.

 

Veidt was likewise someone who was so smart that he was effectively no longer human. While he was trying to save the world, a handful of deaths meant nothing to him.

 

The Comedian and Rorshach had seen the darkness of humanity for so long that they became brutal killers. Rorshach in trying to punish crime and prevent injustice, the Comedian because he believed everything was pointless and fake anyway. There was no good in the world so why pretend any different?

 

Dan and Laurie are the only two relatively normal people, and so they are the lens through which we view the story. Great story, intensely dark. Not something I would want to read about every month. It's kind of like the show MadMen. Excellent writing, great production values, and I hate every character in the show.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I liked the Watchmen storyline. It's interesting that now' date=' almost 30 years later, we're still discussing it. It's a world where the traditional genre rules of comics don't apply. I took it as "this is what would [i']really[/i] happen if there were supers". The characters' being superheroes separated them and isolated them from the humanity they tried to protect. If you think about it, Batman's super power is the ability to not rip the Joker's throat out. That's the least believable aspect of the character. I'd have done it years ago, and I don't spend my nights beating up criminals in the streets. The characters in the Watchmen lack those 4 color comic codes of conduct.

 

A true Superman would find himself out of touch with humanity pretty quickly. Who are these people who die so easily, who can't see the formation of molecules, who don't see the future like I do? And you think you have a hard time talking to your grandparents, or to teenagers, because of the music and TV shows that they watch. None of your cultural references are the same. Well for Dr. Manhattan, he says "so I was watching atoms divide the other day..." I thought his portrayal in the movie was excellent, by the way. Very sad, but peaceful.

 

Veidt was likewise someone who was so smart that he was effectively no longer human. While he was trying to save the world, a handful of deaths meant nothing to him.

 

The Comedian and Rorshach had seen the darkness of humanity for so long that they became brutal killers. Rorshach in trying to punish crime and prevent injustice, the Comedian because he believed everything was pointless and fake anyway. There was no good in the world so why pretend any different?

 

Dan and Laurie are the only two relatively normal people, and so they are the lens through which we view the story. Great story, intensely dark. Not something I would want to read about every month. It's kind of like the show MadMen. Excellent writing, great production values, and I hate every character in the show.

 

Nailed it. Would somebody rep this guy for me? My rep-stick's on "E".

[esampson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

You're mistaken. The Charleton characters were kept more or less intact' date=' with only adjustments being made to bring them into the DCU.[/quote']

Ok. Then I just misunderstood your point. I agree that most of the adjustments that were made were fairly minor either to bring them into the DCU or else to update some slightly antiquated concepts.

[esampson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

My bad then. I think that the Watchmen characters weren't meant to be used again. Once The Watchmen ended their story was told.

They weren't meant to be used again. As I understand it Moore is pretty pissed about it (although he gets that way a lot).

[esampson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

. . .The Comedian and Rorshach had seen the darkness of humanity for so long that they became brutal killers. Rorshach in trying to punish crime and prevent injustice' date=' the Comedian because he believed everything was pointless and fake anyway. There was no good in the world so why pretend any different?. . .[/quote']

Actually, that was one of the things that I found sort of interesting. Some people knock Watchmen and say that no one in it is a hero, but I'm not sure that's true. Dan and Laurie, who are our surrogates, are fairly heroic all the way to the end. True, they don't expose Veidt's plan, but would that have been the heroic thing to do? They tried to stop it and failed. Exposing it after that wouldn't bring anyone back and it would have lead to the annihilation of Earth (at least according to 'the world's smartest man').

 

Rorschach gets swallowed up by the darkness like you said, but he starts out fundamentally damaged. Watchmen doesn't say that anyone who tries to be a hero will become a brutal killer because of all the darkness they will have to face (as Dan and Laurie escape that fate) but it does say that there is a danger it could happen, and for the story that's a good thing, because what's the point of a hero who doesn't have dangers to overcome?

 

The Comedian on the other hand is rotten from the start. He doesn't really descend very much at all. I think in his case all that really happens is he finds he doesn't need to hide what a rotten S.O.B. he is.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I really enjoyed reading the Watchmen when it came out, but there were a large number of people whose imaginations were fired by the ambiguous moral behavior and violence displayed in the work, and wanted more. Just. Like. That.