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A review by lanternatomika
Before Watchmen Omnibus by Brian Azzarello, J. Michael Straczynski
3.0
I first read the Before Watchmen event as it was coming out like a decade ago. Of course, I don't remember much about it from the time, and reading it all together is a lot different from reading the monthlies.
Before (Watchmen) I dive into the individual series, I think it's worth pointing out two things. The first is that all of these books definitely assume you've read Watchmen - and if you're a fan of comics, I think that's a safe assumption to make regardless! The second thing to point out is that, while these stories are sold in pairs of two in trades and hardcovers, the omnibus doesn't collect them that way. It instead orders the issues by release order. That might sound dumb - it did to me - but it actually really works to tell this epic story of the bygone age of heroes. There's some slight interconnectedness between the different series storylines, too. Oh, and it's a lot easier to get through the rougher ones when you have to encounter one issue after a few good issues.
That brings me to the storylines themselves, and for anyone who's looking to buy the trades, I'll structure this review as a review of those trades (the omni itself, I can only really recommend to crazy Watchmen fans like yours truly).
Before Watchmen: Minutemen/Silk Spectre:
If you were only going to buy one of these trades, it really has to be this one!
I don't know why more Watchmen spinoff content doesn't focus on the Minutemen era, there's a lot of room to work with there. Darwyn Cooke's story and artwork here is simply captivating! It's pretty much a portrait of all the sordid drama that Hollis Mason wrote about in Under the Hood - and a lot of the drama he left out! You'll surprised to find that The Silhouette is the heart and soul of the group, and the Watchmen universe really didn't deserve her. His artwork captures the optimism that used to exist in the golden age of comics, contrasting it sharply with the ugliness that the public never saw.
Btw, this book's Hooded Justice is very different from HBO's. I liked this book's Hooded Justice, but I doubt even Alan Moore could've outdone the HBO version, tbh.
The Silk Spectre mini is an unexpected delight. I don't think anyone was asking for a coming of age story about probably the least compelling character in the main cast of the original book, but this one works really well. It's far outshone by the other mini in this pair, but Cooke and artist Amanda Conner have come up with a fun story for Laurie that packs an emotional punch. As it happens, Laurie's story is now the only one that I'd want a second prequel for, imagine that.
4.5/5
Before Watchmen: Comedian/Rorschach:
From the best set of stories, we unfortunately come close to the bottom of the barrel.
If I was the editor in charge of this event and I had to come up with the writer for Comedian and Rorschach's books, I'd pick Brian Azzarello, too. But I'd also force him to actually read Watchmen, because his characterizations of these two characters is kinda off.
Comedian is a relatively fine book. I don't understand why he'd be such close friends with the Kennedy brothers, but this story offers an explanation for how Eddie Blake really became the nihilistic psycho that we all know and...hate, I guess. But his character development in Vietnam feels murky, and I think it relies a lot on history about the Vietnam War that a lot of people wouldn't know about.
The Rorschach mini, on the other hand, is comfortably the worst and least essential one. Not only does it do nothing for his character, we mostly see him being pummeled in this book as he starts off completely out of character and works his way into a more familiar Rorschach.
At least the former story is backed by killer art from J.G Jones. As for the latter, I was not a fan of Lee Bermejo's work, but I can recognize that it's really well done. The artists were clearly the stars of the show in this one.
3/5
Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan (and Moloch):
J. Michael Straczynski is a legend in the comic industry, and with good reason. I mean, this trio of stories isn't going in his hall of fame, but I did enjoy reading them.
Dan Dreiberg was a reasonably interesting character who just didn't merit enough attention in the story of Watchmen. Well, he gets his due here. This book explores his background and his burgeoning obsession with the OG Nite Owl, before flashing closer to the present to explore his relationship with women. JMS didn't pass up the opportunity to tell a story about Dan's relationship with a pre-insane Rorschach, who already harbored some extreme views about sex and women. Giving Rorshy a whole subplot was not a great idea - though this was a way better story than the one Rorschach got all to himself - but overall, I dig this!
As for Dr Manhattan...look, he's a tough character to write, and JMS definitely fell short of the mark here. After using the word quantum a million times, we launch into a story in which Dr Manhattan uses his omniscience to try and visit a time before the accident that created him, and this apparently creates some kind of a universe branching crisis. This book also implies that now, in the middle of the events of Watchmen, is when M realized that he can see across time but he can't change it. Oh well, at least the last issue explores his relationship with Ozymandias in a compelling way.
Finally, I wasn't asking for a Moloch series, but at two issues long, I can't say that I regret having it. This brief story does give us an inside look at Watchmen events that existed outside our perspective.
Once again, the art is killer! Art is the one thing that's almost consistently great throughout Before Watchmen. I wanna give a special shout to Adam Hughes' work on Dr Manhattan, which manages to follow JMS' twisty ideas better than JMS himself can.
3.5/5
Before Watchmen: Ozymandias/Crimson Corsair (and Dollar Bill):
Len Wein was the editor of Watchmen, and he was credited with a lot of what made that comic so great. I was frankly surprised that his writing was not as great as you'd expect with that pedigree.
Ozymandias is an alright story that's largely carried by Jae Lee's painterly gothic art. We kinda learned the broad strokes of Adrian Veidt's origins in the original series, and this elaboration on it doesn't really tell us anything that made this worth the read. I think the best thing for DC to have done was to pair it with one of the more interesting minis when collecting the event.
As it is, this set really is the worst of what this event had to offer.
Why on Earth did Dollar Bill need a one shot? He's clearly the least interesting one of the Minutemen, and the story that's told in this issue could've easily fit into their story. I would've preferred a one shot about literally any of the other Minutemen era characters. Don't bother looking for a cool twist on the Dollar Bill story that could elevate him to new levels of interestingness, it ain't here.
And finally, Curse of the Crimson Corsair. Look, I'm not the first to say that this was a pointless drag throughout these series. Though I've often defended Tales of the Black Freighter from people who don't get why it's important, even I have to concede that Crimson Corsair does nothing to accentuate the themes of Before Watchmen. On top of that, it isn't even independently a good story! This is also literally the one exception to the exceptional artwork throughout Before Watchmen - it's so dark and gloomy and grimy that I couldn't tell what was going on. I'm not entirely sure how it even ended! All I know is I don't much care.
If you aren't buying this omnibus, you might think it weird to skip the Ozymandias book of all books, but trust me, there's very little of value to be found here.
2.5/5
Overall: 3.37/5, rounded off to 3/5
Before (Watchmen) I dive into the individual series, I think it's worth pointing out two things. The first is that all of these books definitely assume you've read Watchmen - and if you're a fan of comics, I think that's a safe assumption to make regardless! The second thing to point out is that, while these stories are sold in pairs of two in trades and hardcovers, the omnibus doesn't collect them that way. It instead orders the issues by release order. That might sound dumb - it did to me - but it actually really works to tell this epic story of the bygone age of heroes. There's some slight interconnectedness between the different series storylines, too. Oh, and it's a lot easier to get through the rougher ones when you have to encounter one issue after a few good issues.
That brings me to the storylines themselves, and for anyone who's looking to buy the trades, I'll structure this review as a review of those trades (the omni itself, I can only really recommend to crazy Watchmen fans like yours truly).
Before Watchmen: Minutemen/Silk Spectre:
If you were only going to buy one of these trades, it really has to be this one!
I don't know why more Watchmen spinoff content doesn't focus on the Minutemen era, there's a lot of room to work with there. Darwyn Cooke's story and artwork here is simply captivating! It's pretty much a portrait of all the sordid drama that Hollis Mason wrote about in Under the Hood - and a lot of the drama he left out! You'll surprised to find that The Silhouette is the heart and soul of the group, and the Watchmen universe really didn't deserve her. His artwork captures the optimism that used to exist in the golden age of comics, contrasting it sharply with the ugliness that the public never saw.
Btw, this book's Hooded Justice is very different from HBO's. I liked this book's Hooded Justice, but I doubt even Alan Moore could've outdone the HBO version, tbh.
The Silk Spectre mini is an unexpected delight. I don't think anyone was asking for a coming of age story about probably the least compelling character in the main cast of the original book, but this one works really well. It's far outshone by the other mini in this pair, but Cooke and artist Amanda Conner have come up with a fun story for Laurie that packs an emotional punch. As it happens, Laurie's story is now the only one that I'd want a second prequel for, imagine that.
4.5/5
Before Watchmen: Comedian/Rorschach:
From the best set of stories, we unfortunately come close to the bottom of the barrel.
If I was the editor in charge of this event and I had to come up with the writer for Comedian and Rorschach's books, I'd pick Brian Azzarello, too. But I'd also force him to actually read Watchmen, because his characterizations of these two characters is kinda off.
Comedian is a relatively fine book. I don't understand why he'd be such close friends with the Kennedy brothers, but this story offers an explanation for how Eddie Blake really became the nihilistic psycho that we all know and...hate, I guess. But his character development in Vietnam feels murky, and I think it relies a lot on history about the Vietnam War that a lot of people wouldn't know about.
The Rorschach mini, on the other hand, is comfortably the worst and least essential one. Not only does it do nothing for his character, we mostly see him being pummeled in this book as he starts off completely out of character and works his way into a more familiar Rorschach.
At least the former story is backed by killer art from J.G Jones. As for the latter, I was not a fan of Lee Bermejo's work, but I can recognize that it's really well done. The artists were clearly the stars of the show in this one.
3/5
Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan (and Moloch):
J. Michael Straczynski is a legend in the comic industry, and with good reason. I mean, this trio of stories isn't going in his hall of fame, but I did enjoy reading them.
Dan Dreiberg was a reasonably interesting character who just didn't merit enough attention in the story of Watchmen. Well, he gets his due here. This book explores his background and his burgeoning obsession with the OG Nite Owl, before flashing closer to the present to explore his relationship with women. JMS didn't pass up the opportunity to tell a story about Dan's relationship with a pre-insane Rorschach, who already harbored some extreme views about sex and women. Giving Rorshy a whole subplot was not a great idea - though this was a way better story than the one Rorschach got all to himself - but overall, I dig this!
As for Dr Manhattan...look, he's a tough character to write, and JMS definitely fell short of the mark here. After using the word quantum a million times, we launch into a story in which Dr Manhattan uses his omniscience to try and visit a time before the accident that created him, and this apparently creates some kind of a universe branching crisis. This book also implies that now, in the middle of the events of Watchmen, is when M realized that he can see across time but he can't change it. Oh well, at least the last issue explores his relationship with Ozymandias in a compelling way.
Finally, I wasn't asking for a Moloch series, but at two issues long, I can't say that I regret having it. This brief story does give us an inside look at Watchmen events that existed outside our perspective.
Once again, the art is killer! Art is the one thing that's almost consistently great throughout Before Watchmen. I wanna give a special shout to Adam Hughes' work on Dr Manhattan, which manages to follow JMS' twisty ideas better than JMS himself can.
3.5/5
Before Watchmen: Ozymandias/Crimson Corsair (and Dollar Bill):
Len Wein was the editor of Watchmen, and he was credited with a lot of what made that comic so great. I was frankly surprised that his writing was not as great as you'd expect with that pedigree.
Ozymandias is an alright story that's largely carried by Jae Lee's painterly gothic art. We kinda learned the broad strokes of Adrian Veidt's origins in the original series, and this elaboration on it doesn't really tell us anything that made this worth the read. I think the best thing for DC to have done was to pair it with one of the more interesting minis when collecting the event.
As it is, this set really is the worst of what this event had to offer.
Why on Earth did Dollar Bill need a one shot? He's clearly the least interesting one of the Minutemen, and the story that's told in this issue could've easily fit into their story. I would've preferred a one shot about literally any of the other Minutemen era characters. Don't bother looking for a cool twist on the Dollar Bill story that could elevate him to new levels of interestingness, it ain't here.
And finally, Curse of the Crimson Corsair. Look, I'm not the first to say that this was a pointless drag throughout these series. Though I've often defended Tales of the Black Freighter from people who don't get why it's important, even I have to concede that Crimson Corsair does nothing to accentuate the themes of Before Watchmen. On top of that, it isn't even independently a good story! This is also literally the one exception to the exceptional artwork throughout Before Watchmen - it's so dark and gloomy and grimy that I couldn't tell what was going on. I'm not entirely sure how it even ended! All I know is I don't much care.
If you aren't buying this omnibus, you might think it weird to skip the Ozymandias book of all books, but trust me, there's very little of value to be found here.
2.5/5
Overall: 3.37/5, rounded off to 3/5