Last month, David Harper and I called “Before Watchmen: The Comedian” #1 the worst title thus far of the line (an honor completely overtaken by “Nite Owl”). Would this month’s installment be any better?
Written by Brian Azzarello
Illustrated by JG Jones“It’s something I’m good at. It’s war.”
1. JG Jones is still JG Jones
After an outing where the art wasn’t quite up to the usual JG Jones level, this issue was a pretty wonderful thing to behold on the visual side. The Vietnam scenes in particular looked gorgeous. Whereas last issue had heavier lines and less pop, this issue had a far more potent visual style. Alex Sinclair’s colors are a big part of this, having transitioned from the muted to the vibrant.
2. Music is a reference people can’t resist
Look, I love music. A lot. But damn it, music dates things really easily, and provides easy, if unimpressive, reference points for the reader. And no matter how close with the Kennedys he might’ve been, there is no way that the Comedian would be walking around quoting Bob Dylan. Titling the issue “I Get Around,” another ’60s hit, is even more egregious. The song has nothing to do at all with the story, except that both have to do with travel; they aren’t even diametrically opposed enough to make for interesting juxtaposition.
3. Coincidence is Either Hit or Miss
One of my bigger problems with comics set in the past is the desire to have everything happen at an historical intersection, and having Bobby Kennedy and Eddie Blake sitting ringside at the famous Cassius Clay/Sonny Liston championship match seems a little too cute for my tastes. It doesn’t really add much to the scene, unless you know the backstory, which has conflicting accounts of Liston throwing the fight. Even if you know all of that, it still doesn’t add too much.
4. This issue is far more about Vietnam than about the Comedian
This is sort of a complaint, but more of an observation. Issue #1 was all about Blake’s relationship with the Kennedys. Issue #2 is all about Vietnam, and Blake is just a small piece of the story. More of the book seems to be a history lesson, both about US politics and Vietnam, and some about the soldier on the ground’s relationship to the war. And while there have been, are, and can be interesting comics about war, isn’t this “Before Watchmen?” Shouldn’t we get a little more about Blake? It would be one thing if he were doing really interesting, cool things throughout, but he cracks wise and shoots guns, and that’s about it. Not that I expect him to punch a dinosaur or travel through time, but I want to know more about what makes him tick, and this issue provides little of that.
5. Running (Somewhat) Parallel
If you look at the books that have been most successful thus far, besides having Darwyn Cooke was a creator, both take place long before the events of “Watchmen.” We are truly getting a peak at what happened, ahem, before. This book is showing us more detail into Blake’s time in Vietnam, but I don’t think is showing anything more than what Moore implied in the original. This is also true of “Nite Owl,” another less than stellar piece of business. Why would creators, when given the opportunity to tell stories about these characters, simply want to re-tell prior ones?
