Comments from an Old Guy

Rating: 8/10 (3 November 2009)

This kind of movie is one that I would normally ignore. My tastes don't go to these big budget special effects things, but it was available and I had heard my son talk about it. It took me a while to get the idea. I don't read graphic novels and so I had to educate myself concerning the characters. Over time I began to realize that this is a telling of history as if it had gone a different direction during the Nixon era. The world changed and not for the better. Superheroes who could only help on a limited basis have been kept from their task and retired into relative obscurity. Everything picks up when a character called the Comedian is killed (and that takes some doing). I was really impressed by the world created and by how these figures (who are really multi-dimensional) start to interact. There are both cosmic and societal forces that are linked and the governments of the big countries have no idea what is going on. That includes Nixon and Kissinger who are odd to look at, especially with that putty ski jump nose of Nixon's. All in all, it works very well and has a lot of suspense and a very satisfying conclusion. At first I thought it was way too long, but I soon came to realize that the complexities of the social milieu and the number of characters, as well as the need to use flashback to show us where these people had been in the past, made it necessary. While it is incredibly violent and unsettling, it's worth the effort.