I love Watchmen the comic and I liked the movie only for bringing some of it to film. I agree that it wasn’t successful in many ways, and I think the primary culprit was the time limitation of a standard movie.
The comic is multi-layered and is fascinating in various aspects, including its humanity and its ability to tell so many stories at once with an amazing degree of economy.
There’s a lot about it that is outdated, primarily its Cold War setting. But, 'Mika, I’d encourage you to read the comic anyway. It’s really a pinnacle of the superhero comic genre, and while you still might hate it, I don’t think it would be an entirely fruitless endeavor.
There are a few things to note here. There are essentially three stories in three different formats being employed here. One is the primary plot of costumed superheros. The second is the comic-within-a-comic Black Freighter story. The third is told through text (which might be interesting to you, 'Mika), mostly in the form of newspaper clippings, memoranda, letters, and memoirs.
There are several substantial issues being explored in this story, and it might require the perspective of someone who lived through the 1970s and 1980s to really have a handle on the context.
One is the growing skepticism about the global hegemony of the United States and the eternal dance of death of the Cold War. There is a lot that people forget about American foreign policy at that time and how painful it all was for people going through it. During my lifetime, the Vietnam War went from being a symbol of the left of the folly and immorality of imposing a single country’s will on the world to a symbol of the right of “betraying our own boys overseas.” The propaganda campaign that made this happen – including things like the Rambo movies – is really amazing. The comic book came out in 1986, I think, during a time in which Reaganism was assuring everyone that, yes, we really are the greatest and no one should ever question our motives or methods ever again.
Another topic underlying the story is what has been mentioned here – an examination, a deconstruction of costumed superheroes. What kind of person really puts on a mask and “fights crime”? Does that really have any meaning? Aren’t these people just misfits, weirdos, and psychopaths? Alternatively, aren’t they just sideshows, shysters, and entertainers? And what is a “super-villain”? One of the big problems in the story is that costumed vigilantes had “arch-enemies” who didn’t really live up to the name. What’s the social utility of a costumed vigilante? Why do we admire them? What’s so great about Batman, anyway?
You’re not supposed to care in the sense that you’re supposed to feel bad or that you really want his killer to come to justice. The Comedian’s death is a mystery because (1) he’s a badass, and (2) he’s protected by the government. Anyone that can throw him off a skyscraper is a real threat.
But you are supposed to “care” about the Comedian, because the Comedian is really *us[/], the U.S., as a country. He’s the embodiment of the United States acting in the world. He kills with impunity, serving a “national interest” that nobody really thinks too deeply about. He is the United States imposing its will in a world in which, because of Doctor Manhattan, the U.S. government can pretty much do whatever it wants to.
Doctor Manhattan – yes, he’s unsympathetic and unreachable. But he’s also an exploration of another kind of superhero. If a character like Rorschach is an examination of a mentally damaged costumed vigilante like Batman, then Doctor Manhattan is an examination of a person who really has acquired real super-human abilities. What does that do to a person? What is his perspective? What is his motivation? What is his duty to individual people or to humanity as a whole? Why the hell would Superman spend his life sitting around with a secret identity filing stories for the Daily Planet and flirting with Lois Lane?
I think it’s kind of meant to be an in joke, in this case. The Comedian was behind *everything *that happened since the 1950s. This also might be contextual, because in the 1980s there was a resurgence of interest in Who Killed Kennedy conspiracy theories.
There are explorations of smaller things as well, some of them … uh … comedic, such as Dan and Laurie’s inability to have sex until they’ve played superhero. Some of them human, like the stories of the background characters … the lesbian couple, Hollis Mason (the first Nite Owl), the kid reading the comic book and the newsstand guy. There’s also the James Bond moment in which Ozymandias gets rid of the people who helped him set up his scheme, which Moore actually makes touching and tragic.
There are also the visual details of an alternative-reality 1986 that I find really fun … the airships, the “Gunga Diner,” the weird cigarette holders that now look like something a tweaker or a crack-head would use.