A review by tasharobinson
Before Watchmen: Minutemen/Silk Spectre by Darwyn Cooke

4.0

I've been working my way through the Before Watchmen compilations lately, inspired by the HBO Watchmen show, and this is probably the best of them. They're unnecessary by definition, and too many of them just spell out in vast detail the things that Moore already told us in a few spare panels in his original book, or try to build out characters that already felt perfectly well defined. This collection, though, comes the closest to actually feeling vital. The Minutemen adds a lot to the old group's mythos, filling in some of the group's adventures, finally giving Silhouette a backstory and personality, and complicating the relationships between the team members. Darwyn Cooke's art seems particularly appropriate at this point to any story about a kind of alt-mythos of a famous team. The Silk Spectre half of the book similarly gives a lot more color and depth to Laurie Jane, with a story where she runs off to San Francisco with a boyfriend in order to escape her controlling mom, and has adventures of her own. Amanda Conner's art is lovely, very rich and detailed, and it gives Laurie more life and warmth than she had in the original Watchmen.