Superheroes 101...

Rating: 10/10 (11 March 2009)

"As dark as it gets..." Amen, brother- and thank God. This is the one I've been waiting for since I sprang into the world. As a kid, I was weaned on this stuff. I wasn't picky: I ate it all up, every title by every publisher I could get my hands on. I see in Rorschach Steve Ditko's faceless hero, THE QUESTION (a back-up feature in the resurrected and overhauled BLUE BEETLE comic from Charlton Comics) and Nite Owl is a cross between Jerry Siegel's Golden Age hero THE OWL and the Dell reprise of same. (Siegel, you'll recall, in collaboration with artist Joe Schuster, took inspiration from Phil Wylie's hero in the pulp novel THE GLADIATOR and co-created Superman, thereby giving birth to the superhero comic in America. Siegel also created another favorite of mine, THE SPECTRE.) Dr. Manhattan is a cross between CAPTAIN ATOM (another Charlton hero rendered by Ditko), Gold Key's DR. SOLAR, MAN OF THE ATOM, and Marvel's long-suffering cosmic hero, THE SILVER SURFER. The Comedian suggests THE PEACEMAKER, another Charlton Comics character (I remember art by Pat Boyette). I can't recall a female hero from the Charlton line that might've inspired The Silk Spectre, but she reminds me of a Golden Age hero called PHANTOM LADY (down to her costume). Ozymandius is, of course, the fabled Kryptonian himself (I'm guessing). The Minute Men could've stepped straight from the covers of a hundred Golden Age comics. One of the ironies of a movie like THE WATCHMEN is that it revolves around (and borrows liberally from) comic book characters that, until now, have had no screen time. Not on the big screen, nor the small. (And the handful of heroes we've seen on television over the years have, for the most part, been badly done- heroes like Prince Namor (that's "Roman" spelled backwards), who surfaced as THE MAN FROM ATLANTIS; BATMAN ('nuff said there); THE FLASH (saddled with a sidekick); THE SWAMP THING (who became, like THE HULK, a kind of wandering social worker); Superman in SMALLVILLE (whereupon he doesn't even wear the costume that, to my mind, makes every hero one in spirit with the likes of Muhammad Ali or The Red Baron: "Here I am, come and get me!"- the raison d'etre of crimefighters, this willingness to stand up and say to Evil: "You gotta get by me, first!"); WONDER WOMAN (though it's hard to fault their choice for the lead); etc. About the best that can be said of televised super-heroics is that there have been some decent animated shows done over the years- but, wth the exception of the George Reeves series, nothing of lasting value when it comes to live-action. (I'm talking about super heroes, here, and not ZORRO with Guy Williams or THE SCARECROW with the late Patrick McGoohan or THE LONE RANGER with Clayton Moore, or any other such non-super hero.) Feature films have been far better, overall, but, even there, the pickings are still pretty slim. The graphic novel series MARVELS would be a good way to introduce a number of heroes at once (the original combustible-android HUMAN TORCH, Bill Everette's SUB-MARINER, THE VISION, DR. STRANGE, et al), or KINGDOM COME (THE SPECTRE, MARTIAN MANHUNTER, THE CREEPER, DEADMAN, THE JUSTICE SOCIETY, etc.). ASTRO CITY would be a good choice, too. Or the Tower Comics (DYNAMO, NO MAN, etc., by Wally Wood) or MAGICMAN from FORBIDDN WORLDS or NEXUS- or Russ Manning's MAGNUS, ROBOT FIGHTER and Frank Thorne's MIGHTY SAMSON from Gold Key (not to mention TUROK, SON OF STONE, which featured Indians vs. dinosaurs and cavemen); or TERMINAL CITY... I could go on, but the point has been made. THE WATCHMEN is (and I'm still flush from having seen it, for what that's worth) the greatest realization of a comic book universe I've ever seen. The music beautifully underscores both the action and the dramatic twists and turns throughout; visually, it's simply stunning (the trailers on television do not do it justice); there's not a single bad performance- not one, from the Highest to the Lowest player. The direction could not be improved upon. Sex, politics, and rock and roll- all in one dynamite movie. You gotta see this one.