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A review by tylertylertyler
Before Watchmen: Minutemen/Silk Spectre by Darwyn Cooke
4.0
I received a free ecopy of this from Netgalley.
I was among the tentative when I first heard about the Before Watchmen project; I was not, like some, vehemently opposed to the idea, but I was decidedly on the fence. I wasn't sure how well it would work. I'm familiar with new writers taking on old characters (what else is comics, really?), but I wasn't sure what kind of stories could be given to these characters that would make them more effective. Would taking away the remaining mystery out of our mystery men make them less striking? Would Silk Spectre's elaborated backstory be handled well?
This collection is the only part of the project that I've read, though I considered buying Silk Spectre's single issues. And I have to say: I'm impressed.
One thing I remember distinctly is that when the movie first came out, a friend of mine complained that there wasn't more footage of Silhouette, outside of the montage at the beginning. I remember rolling my eyes somewhat at this, because she wasn't a part of the story-- she'd been interesting to me, in the comic, sure, but I'd never cared to see that much more of her. The core story of Watchmen didn't need more of her or, for that matter, any more of the other original Minutemen than it already had. After reading Cooke's take on the team, and his expanded characterization of them? I find myself retroactively agreeing with that friend. Cooke whet my appetite for a lot of these characters-- Ursula, especially-- and now I feel like it wasn't enough. I love them more than I did before, and that's a great thing to have accomplished as a writer. He took decades old characters that had not been (professionally) explored further and really made them come out onto their own.
Silk Specter's story is just as good, I think. Conner did a wonderful job with it. It was a story that seemed to fit Laurie, that introduced who she once was and how she grew into the woman we see later on. The job in Silk Specter was just as challenging (if not more so) than the one in Minutemen: the latter had to tell us more of who these characters were, but the former had to take a character we already knew and then tell us why. In that light, it was effective. It was a fun romp that suited her young self, and does seem to do a good job of telling us how and why it all happened. We get frustrated with her (in both the senses of 'at' and 'alongside'), and we can root for her, too.
As an aside, both stories managed to make me feel even more like the Comedian was a dirtbag than the original comic did! I wasn't aware it was possible to think even worse of him.
To be more serious, it obviously deserves mention that the art in both stories is no less than phenomenal. In the first half, with the Minutemen, the art manages to capture the era perfectly. It has the same old, gritty feel that I would expect from war-time era stories. It's not a perfect imitation, but it gets the same mood across with effective certainty. In the second half, while the art is less stylistically parallel to that of the era, it carries a sort of rounded feel that just suits the time period perfectly. Especially given the focus on particular counter-cultures, the art's bright, poignant colours and bold shapes work wonders for the story.
The creators deserve a lot of credit for this. They took a difficult task and they went straight to the top.
I was among the tentative when I first heard about the Before Watchmen project; I was not, like some, vehemently opposed to the idea, but I was decidedly on the fence. I wasn't sure how well it would work. I'm familiar with new writers taking on old characters (what else is comics, really?), but I wasn't sure what kind of stories could be given to these characters that would make them more effective. Would taking away the remaining mystery out of our mystery men make them less striking? Would Silk Spectre's elaborated backstory be handled well?
This collection is the only part of the project that I've read, though I considered buying Silk Spectre's single issues. And I have to say: I'm impressed.
One thing I remember distinctly is that when the movie first came out, a friend of mine complained that there wasn't more footage of Silhouette, outside of the montage at the beginning. I remember rolling my eyes somewhat at this, because she wasn't a part of the story-- she'd been interesting to me, in the comic, sure, but I'd never cared to see that much more of her. The core story of Watchmen didn't need more of her or, for that matter, any more of the other original Minutemen than it already had. After reading Cooke's take on the team, and his expanded characterization of them? I find myself retroactively agreeing with that friend. Cooke whet my appetite for a lot of these characters-- Ursula, especially-- and now I feel like it wasn't enough. I love them more than I did before, and that's a great thing to have accomplished as a writer. He took decades old characters that had not been (professionally) explored further and really made them come out onto their own.
Silk Specter's story is just as good, I think. Conner did a wonderful job with it. It was a story that seemed to fit Laurie, that introduced who she once was and how she grew into the woman we see later on. The job in Silk Specter was just as challenging (if not more so) than the one in Minutemen: the latter had to tell us more of who these characters were, but the former had to take a character we already knew and then tell us why. In that light, it was effective. It was a fun romp that suited her young self, and does seem to do a good job of telling us how and why it all happened. We get frustrated with her (in both the senses of 'at' and 'alongside'), and we can root for her, too.
As an aside, both stories managed to make me feel even more like the Comedian was a dirtbag than the original comic did! I wasn't aware it was possible to think even worse of him.
To be more serious, it obviously deserves mention that the art in both stories is no less than phenomenal. In the first half, with the Minutemen, the art manages to capture the era perfectly. It has the same old, gritty feel that I would expect from war-time era stories. It's not a perfect imitation, but it gets the same mood across with effective certainty. In the second half, while the art is less stylistically parallel to that of the era, it carries a sort of rounded feel that just suits the time period perfectly. Especially given the focus on particular counter-cultures, the art's bright, poignant colours and bold shapes work wonders for the story.
The creators deserve a lot of credit for this. They took a difficult task and they went straight to the top.