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My copy of Alan Moore’s Watchmen has a concise testimonial flying aloft the cover: “One of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Novels”. I peruse that list often, and though I’d love to see more than just 1 comic book/graphic novel (let’s just dispose “graphic novel”; it’s nothing but a lofty way to say comics), I understand and agree with it including Watchmen.

There’s probably a word that means a genre of fiction told by altering the world history, so if someone could fish this word out for me, please do so. Watchmen has a revised history being that, with the aid of comics-like costumed heroes, America has won the Vietnam War and thus prolonging Richard Nixon’s tenure as a president. He’s still the president by 1985, and constitution has been amended to include a new law called Keene Act. Provoked by public outrage against costume heroes, it outlaws “hooded vigilantes”, forces them to reveal their identities, and retires them.

Those who complied are Nite Owl, an ornithology-enthusiast who dons a cowl reminiscent of Batman; Silk Spectre II, a daughter of Silk Spectre strained to pass on her mom’s legacy; and Ozymandias, the world’s smartest man. Rorschach, a trenchcoat-wearing gumshoe who wears a mask that follows the theme of the eponymous ink blot test, refuses to give up his ways and continues to enact his brand of justice in the underground. The Comedian, a tough-guy patriot with a chip on his shoulder, and Dr Manhattan, a godlike being capable of creation, destruction and teleportation, retain their jobs legally, as long as they work for the government.

In the first scene, The Comedian is thrown out of a building, and Rorschach takes his death as proof that someone is conspiring to murder all of the costume heroes, causing him to find all the surviving ones. Meanwhile, there are looming threats of nuclear war as USA and Soviet Union’s animosity reaches boiling point.

Though the labyrinthine plot follows the whodunit template, what it ultimately does is question the motivation for wearing silly costumes and fighting for an individual’s brand of justice.

In my view, Moore deserves a place in the pantheon of American literature because his stories are just as intricate as anything by John Steinbeck, but unlike the works of anyone in Time’s list, his medium of choice is not written novels, but comics. Over the years, comics carry the stigma of merely being the middle ground between movies and novels, which makes for an inferior version—for movies, comics is like the still pictures, and for novels, comics is like the condensed texts. Watchmen debunks that claim by applying techniques that wasn’t widely used in comics before, and wouldn’t work (or at least achieve the same impact) on novels or movies. Newspaper clippings, autobiographies, magazine articles, and character profiles inserted between chapters expands on Watchmen’s fictional world. Comic books within one are told for juxtaposition while the actual story keeps moving forward. Scenes transition with same alignments but different places, objects, and people. Captions and dialogue boxes lay on top of indirectly related panels for effect.

Even from a technical standpoint, Watchmen is praiseworthy, but what made it unforgettable is its handling of its characters. Comic book heroes can be said to be the surrogate mythological gods and goddesses of America, so what Watchmen did was tear apart the romanticism they get and instead portray them as flawed and deranged. It defined a new generation of comic book writers decrying the silly-fantasy aspect of superheroes, bringing them back to earth, effectively making them more lifelike.

It’s nothing short of amazing.

It’s also nothing short of amazing how Zack Snyder manages to miss the mark completely in his movie adaptation, despite his efforts to stay true to the comics. If your only exposure to the source material is on Wikipedia’s plot summary—and why should you do that?—then yes, you’ll find the movie slavishly exact.

Before I go with how the film goes wrong, allow me to give the movie credit for achieving something nobody expected: make me feel stronger that Watchmen the comic book is a work of pure genius, and the devil for that, like how they say it, is in the details. The movie omits, or at best, glosses over those details, and ends up like a soulless telling of Watchmen.

Remember the autobiographies, the comic books, the newspaper clippings, and the profiles I mentioned a while back? None of them made it in the movie. The left and the right-wing publications that shape the civilians’ ambivalence for costumed heroes? Absent. If you’re going to understand the Watchmen lore purely from the movie alone, good luck understanding the civilian’s perspectives, because they have zero screen time. In the comic book, you’ll often see them congregating on one newsvendor while lamenting about the state of the world. Without the civilians, the movie takes away one vital character of the comics: New York City.

Yes, the city, the big apple itself. Some of the best stories—the comics included—are the ones where the settings assume their own characters. If you want examples, try Oceania of 1984, Macondo of 100 Years of Solitude, and that street in Brooklyn in Do the Right Thing. These places are memorable because they are multi-dimensional, you know you have certain requirements to survive in it, and you know that were you raised here you’d be a different, perhaps worse, person, yet you can’t resist imagining yourself in them anyway. I know the lifestyle of NYC is ubiquitous knowledge and in most movies NYC is chosen for convenience’s sake since you can fill in whatever you know about the city to the story. But the comics’ NYC is a different beast. This is not the real-world NYC where the populace’s brisk-walks to high-rise offices and coffee shops are common sights. Watchmen’s NYC is a far more hostile, polluted and sinister. It’s grimier, and you’re more likely to be mugged and beaten up here. It’s not a place for tourists at all.

So what part of this is apparent in the movie? The movie does not even make it clear that this is happening in New York – it might as well be anywhere else. Since there’s not a glimpse of the civilian’s life, nobody will get any chance to observe the costumed heroes the way they’d be perceived in the movie’s world, so why should those who’ve never read the source material care if the costumed heroes are banned? Why should they feel affected by the looming nuclear war? And though the city does look polluted and grimy, the movie styles it up too much. So instead of looking like slums from Harlem, this one resembles some film-noir alleyways that look alluring due to stylistic touches from past “golden” eras. I mean, what dystopia world is supposed to be this beautiful? I love noir, but this one’s just ridiculous.

Come and think of it, I’m very peevish about Zack’s stylistic choices. They’re why the defense “This movie only lasts 160 minutes, so you can’t expect Zack to cram everything in” is invalid. Yes, it’s impossible to cram everything from the comics in that time span, but he could’ve put in more stuff in his movie. Instead, he slow-mos everything to oblivion. Even turning of doorknobs takes 5 freaking seconds. The problem is that all these slow-mos, besides being cheesy and overdone, have the weird effect of polarizing two audiences of the film: the ones who never read the comics will feel that it’s too long, while the ones who have read it will feel that they’re being short-changed of plot details.

I’ve never felt that this world is in any way real, and it may have to do with the overstated Lomo effect. There’s never sunlight, there’s only muted sunlight, and the night sky looks more like a texturized layer from Photoshop. Here’s newflash to Zack: people still buy postcards. People still get out of their computers and have vacations at the beaches. People still stargaze. Wanna know why? We can perceive beauty without using grungy lenses. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe. But I’m looking at the morning sky now. It’s cloudy, it’s real, and it’s spellbinding. Didn’t the comics bring the superheroes down to a human level? How come movie’s setting feels manufactured?

It’s like Zack lives in a world where nothing ugly exists, only pretty and ugly-pretty. It’s not just his aesthetics, but also the way he presents his characters. In the comics, all the costumed heroes have their origin stories and none of them are pleasant. The movie captured the origin stories well, but did not grasp the ugly consequences on their characters. Unlike in the comics, you’ll find all the costumed heroes here cool in the gritty way that seems so fashionable lately. They’re too cool for their own good. The comic book’s intent was not to present the costumed heroes in very favorable light and as misunderstood characters, but rather as characters who misunderstood the world. Dr Manhattan’s detachment from human life, and Rorschach’s uncompromising ways, and The Comedian’s being the anathema of other costumed heroes, are only given cursory glances. Ozymandias’ obsessions with Alexander the Great and Egyptian death rituals are not explored in depth. I have no sense of Nite Owl’s frustrations in subduing his childish hero fantasy in a world that forbids it, nor Silk Spectre II’s fury as someone who despises everything about being a costumed heroine. I don’t see tensions among the costumed heroes, and them to the world at large. All they do is band, disband, retire, and then regroup, and then engage in epic battles in the process. It feels like watching a reunion concert from musicians you don’t know about – you feel disconnected and you wonder what the fuss is.

It’s not just the characters here are Cliff’s Notes of their comics’ self, but that some are completely mischaracterized because Zack did not put in the details that gives them more dimension. Zack puts all his attention in styling everything up but not add the real meat and potatoes to the plot, and his fight scenes, with all the exaggerated violence and the flying bodies, take away the realism the movie needs. It’s frustrating to care about anything. He renders his characters more as superheroes than as costumed heroes, or as normal people who dress up to enact their justice in ways law doesn’t, without question to the morality of their deeds.

Which begs the question, how exactly does this movie alone deconstruct comic book heroes? Since it’s unclear why the civilians resent the costumed heroes, how will they be thought of as fascists, psychotics, and extremists? What is the fuss with the Keene Act all about, and what is its rationale?

As for the acting, Rorschach and The Comedian deserve praises. Dr Manhattan isn’t too bad. Night Owl and Silk Spectre II, however, are atrocious. They sound dumb when they talk, and are devoid of personalities. I know it’s early this year, but they’d’ve clinched a razzie award had Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li not been released this year – and, mark my words, Dragonball Evolution will also come up with serious contenders.

So, given my disapproval, some may wonder what I expected of the movie in the first place. Honestly, I have never liked the idea of making a Watchmen movie. The moment I saw the trailer, I wrote it off as a loud, bombastic film that will fail to grasp the scope of the comics. And I was more scornful after seeing it advertised as being directed by the “visionary” responsible for 300. In the history of overrated, claiming Zack a visionary ranks up there with awarding Chicago the best picture and calling Nicole Kidman a good actress. You don’t become a visionary by translating comic books to movies. I mean, is it just me, or is comic books the laziest source material to adapt to films? The director doesn’t even have to bother with storyboards anymore, now he can simply use the panels for references! Zack is known to be literal, and none of his movies are his own material, so how is he a visionary? Where’s his creativity?

Some of you may ask which director I would suggest for Watchmen’s movie, and I don’t want to answer that. I never believed in a Watchmen movie anyway. I maintained that stance before, and I still maintain it now, that nobody can translate Watchmen to film in a self-sufficient way while staying true to its source’s spirit. Inwardly, I hoped Watchmen the movie would stink. And stink it did. And I’m glad Alan Moore didn’t attach his name to it. So I hope that when this movie fails to endure in conversations 3 months from now, Hollywood will finally get a clue that they need to stop all these waves of uninspiring superhero movies. Leave the comic medium to thrive by itself, and write some original screenplays for once. That can still be done, can’t it?

My New Obsession!

I’m not really in the mood to be elaborate, so let me just get this done real quick.

I’ve been reading Ed Brubaker’s Captain America. So far I’m at the 34th issue (of 42, or so I heard). I have a good reason for going that far into the entire series, and that’s because the story rocks my socks off! I know it’s utterly embarrassing and pointless to go into a gushing-fanboy mode when describing any product, but I just can’t help it in this case. The writing, the pacing and the characterization feel so right.

And by the way, I’ve never read a single issue of pre-Brubaker’s Captain America, so I have almost no prior knowledge of that superhero. Sure, I know his arch-nemesis is Red Skull, and that America represents America (duh!), but that’s about it. Even so, I can follow the story most of the time. The only rough places are some issues that are tie-ins of major marvel events: for example, as part of House of M, issue 10 has nothing to do with the continuity; being part of Civil War, it’s hard to understand issues 22-24 when you’re not following the entire Civil War arc chronologically. Since I haven’t read either, I don’t know what are happening at those issues at all.

Besides those complaints, I can wholeheartedly recommend this series. Ed Brubaker excelled in portraying Captain America not as an ultra-nationalistic boy scout, but as a jaded war veteran. The characters were fleshed-out very well. The story did not weaken a bit even after issue 25 (you probably know what happened there by now). So, yeah, go read it.

This One Sticks

This guy and I were talking about Spider-man (mostly Spider-man 3) non-stop for the past few days (though you can’t read it here, as we discussed this on yahoo messenger) and both of us managed to post our reviews of that lackluster film. Now before I move on to discussing something slightly-related, let me add a few things that worked in Spider-man 3. None of these were saving graces, but I think that they need to be recognized. Really, not saying them aloud bothers me a lot in my sleep. No wonder I got this stupid cold (yeah, I know I’m digressing, but I said that to let people know how I’m doing lately).

I still like J. Jonah Jameson. He is the editor-in-chief of Daily Bugle, the newspaper where Peter Parker works as a photographer. All of his scenes were funny. There’s no greater schadenfreude than watching J. Jonah Jameson lose his temper and lash out snide remarks, which he did all the time he appeared. If the movie were just about him it would’ve rocked. Alas he appeared only in a few scenes, so just like everyone else he was underdeveloped.

I also like the Stan Lee cameo. He actually spoke to Peter Parker. Really, that’s the only reason I like his cameo, but that’s reason enough.

Anyway, I still think that the movie sucked even if I’ve suggested that you watch it just to laugh at how funny it is. Because Spider-man 3 sucked so badly, I took interest in reading Ultimate Spider-man just to wash off the poor tastes the movie left in the mouth. So, did the comics do that? Was Ultimate Spider-man any good? Yes (in spades) and yes.

All comics from Marvel’s Ultimate series retell the origins and the major events of Marvel’s superheroes, with minor modifications such as setting them on modern times. In Ultimate Spider-man, Peter is living at a time when internets and youtubes are already well into public awareness; I think those were done to make the story feel closer to home. Beyond appearing different from the comics of the olden days, though, the story remains (mostly) the same. Ultimate Spider-man still has the same feel as the early Amazing Spider-man. It’s action-packed, fast-paced, and has a story more down-to-earth than most other superheroes’. And good news: you’ll actually like Mary Jane Watson here. No singing too, and that’s a good thing.

Although I recommend Ultimate Spider-man, I have a couple of complaints. First is that I’m already at around 30 issues, yet none of all the 5-6 villains that have appeared so far have been very well-developed. They just exist to kick Spider-man’s butt and they don’t have a lot of personality. Now, really, don’t get me wrong, as I do think that sometimes a villain is really just a bastard and not a misunderstood person needing our sympathy, but c’mon, this series has wasted time on five (or six?) of such villains! Wouldn’t it tell a more compelling tale if some of the villains were not so one-dimensional? Then again, this comic seems to be aimed for kids so the portrayal of the enemies as simplistically evil may be intentional. I don’t know.

My other complaint is that the comics do not have high re-read values. This may be because there aren’t many profound messages sprinkled throughout the story, and the dialogues are mostly just funny one-liners. In a way, reading Ultimate Spider-man is like watching 24 (I had watched it before it jumped the sharked) in that I just keep wanting to move the story forward without ever wanting to look back. It’s just the kind of comic book series that does not require a lot of mental effort to plow through, and it may be good if you’re in the crowd that wants that. I, personally, find that as a welcome change of sceneries in this era where some super artsy indie comics of late exert a major influence on the industry (and it shows on some of the atrocious JMS’s Spider-man’s stories), but it still does bother me that a comic series that provides not much but cheap thrills has to cost so much. Marvel’s Trade Paperbacks are never cheap and they tend to last forever, and this one is no exception. I’m just glad the Ultimate Spider-man I read isn’t mine and that I did not have to spend any money to read it.

Batman

I’m weary of the excess of movies based on comics, but I want to see The Dark Knight. I’m so stoked about The Dark Knight, I’m avoiding from watching its trailer again, because everytime I do so I cry, “can’t July come any sooner!” I’m not young, and wishing time to fast forward isn’t good for my well-being. 

Still I wish I could timewarp to July and then watch this movie and then timewarp back to June and then resume living this day (June 25, 2008) as a normal but a happier guy. Too bad no such technology exists. Fine, then, maybe Christopher Nolan would be so kind as to grant me an exclusive screening in a room for me alone, or maybe accompanied by a bunch of supermodels dressed up as Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Huntress, Oracle, Batgirl, Renee Montoya, and Harley Quinn. 

Don’t be surprised if I sound like I’m more than just acquainted with the Batman universe: of all superheroes, Batman is my favorite, and I have long been collecting his graphic novels. I like Batman not because he is always likeable — hey, he’s quite the jerk sometimes; I like him because stories about him or his city are very somber, film-noir-like, and psychological. And I dig that kind of crap. 

So what about The Dark Knight gets me excited? Look at the characters: Harvey Dent, Joker, Batman/Bruce Wayne, and Commissioner Gordon. Now imagine all the possibilities! Yes, Bruce and Gordon appear in all Batman stories anyway. But, Harvey Dent and Joker, in the same movie, but only one is the main antagonist, while the other slowly becomes one? ZOMGZ! Did you know that some of the finest stories in Batman involve these two psychos? So, yeah, I want to see how this film is gonna depict Harvey Dent’s fall from grace. And I’m raring to see Heath Ledger’s final role, as Batman’s insane arch-nemesis. 

But since I can only pine, you know what I’ll do? Reread the hell out of the finest Batman comics about Joker. You can do that too, so that when you see the movie, you can throw fits everytime the movie diverged from the source materials! And then you can kick the chair in front of you until the security locks you up in Arkham. 

And here’s where I tell you what Joker stories to read.

First, it’s Batman: The Killing Joke. It’s written by Alan Moore, the same guy who did V for Vendetta and Watchmen. You have always known Joker as that psycho clown who kills without remorse, right? Well, here, you’ll read about why Joker is like that. It shows you his past – how he ended up being Joker - and it also shows you another of his plot to terrorize Gotham, this time by trying to make Gotham’s most righteous person lose his mind. It’s a horrifying tale, and it’s not meant for kids, but it triumphs because it makes you feel sorry for Joker despite how despicable he is. 

But if you can, don’t buy The Killing Joke. What you need is to buy DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore, because it compiles, uh, DC Universe stories written by Alan Moore. The Killing Joke is in there, plus you’ll get to read some of the finest Superman, Green Lantern, and Swamp Thing short stories too. So it’s worth it.

When you’re done with The Killing Joke, you can buy Ed Brubaker’s Batman: The Man Who Laughs. This is a very fitting companion to The Killing Joke. Taking place after The Killing Joke’s past and before The Killing Joke’s present, The Man Who Laughs retells Batman’s first encounter with Joker, about how Joker began to change everything in Gotham City. My copy also has a nice episode about Batman and the very first Green Lantern, and it juxtaposes Gotham’s past and present very well. 

And when you’ve finished reading the two, then keep rereading and rereading them until the only thing you have in your mind is Joker’s nasty smile. And then, start laughing like a loon.