So do you find the Dr. Manhatten storyline at all satisfying, the idea that someone with real powers (like Superman)?
Absolutely find it satisfying. This is going to sound odd I’m sure but Manhattan does not take me out of the story. It’s a freak accident that results in a superbeing. It’s comepletely within the comic genre. Manhattan makes sense to me in the context of the story because once I accept that he is what he is then I can accpet his role, powers etc.
You really don’t get it? It’s an extreme comment on the whole theme of the would-be protector becoming a monster. The castaway in the pirate comic is obsessed with getting home to save his family, but…
He’s an analogue to Ozymandius in a way.
It’s basically an analogy, for the most part, to Ozymandias. Resorting to desperaate and horrific means for a perceived greater good. For example, the castaway literally rides the corpses of his dead crewmates to get back home much like Ozymandias using his former colleagues to get what he wants.
I agree with this. I wasn’t saying I endorsed the point I was making; just that I understood what it was. Too many people seemed to have gotten locked into nitpicking about bullets and such.
My point of view is that Moore wasn’t commenting on the physical aspects of superheroics - if he had wanted to do that, he’d have written this book. Moore was essentially saying “Okay, let’s accept it as a given that it’s physically possible for people to do the kind of things that Batman or Daredevil do. Now what would be the psychological effect on those people and what would be the social effect on the world?” So Moore used the physical conventions of the genre while questioning its psychological and social conventions.
Metafiction. Tales of the Black Freighter was a comic book that existed in a comic book world. Moore was pointing out that the pirate comic book story that the characters were reading served as a metaphor for events in their world. And by extension, the superhero story we were reading served as a metaphor for our world.
This is true, but there is more too it. The castaway’s experiences mirror, at some point or other, many of the experiences of each of the main characters. This is subtext but it is never subtle. When Dr. Manhattan repairs to Mars, the castaway meditates on his isolation at the same time. The castaway story helps to generalize the experiences of the individual Minutemen and to cast them in higher relief. It is interesting subtext and helps to bind the story together, but it is rarely subtle.
To paraphrase Tolstoy, sane people are all alike and crazy people are each crazy in their own way.
For Silk Spectre 2, maybe Doctor Manhattan imbued her with some powers on the sly? They met when Laurie was just getting started. He could have similarly turned those bullets aimed at her into steam and erased the assailant from existance without anyone knowing.
Damn it, people. Seriously. Rorschach. Ozymandias. Manhattan.
So what you don’t like is a 70-year-old convention used throughout an entire genre. Fine – but that doesn’t make is a “gaping flaw” in Watchmen or any other particular comic.
I guess my confusion is why Moore felt the need to include it at all.
The Question, not Batman. The Question was a character who was created by Steve Ditko wanting to explore Ayn Rand’s black and white (geddit?) “A is A” point of view (which Ditko was enamored with at the time. After the company folded, Ditko went on to create Mr. A (again, from Rand’s maxim “A is A”) who was so extreme as to make Rorschach (let alone The Question) seem like Captain Nice.
All the Watchmen characters were based on characters from that same comic company (Charleton). Silk Specter=Nightshade, Dr. Manhattan=Captain Atom, Night Owl=Blue Beetle, Comedian=Peacemaker (Peacemaker: The Man Who LOVED Peace So Much He Was Willing To KILL For It! <-Actual tag line from the book) etc.
Errr, because it adds richness, and layers, and perspective to the storyline?
For me, I get why Batman doesn’t use guns.
I get why Spiderman doesn’t use guns.
I get why Veidt doesn’t need guns (at least at the end).
I get why Manhattan doesn’t need guns.
I don’t get (or didn’t buy, it’s been awhile since I read Watchmen) why Rorschach, Silk Spectre, Night Owl, Dollar Bill, etc. aren’t armed to the teeth if they’re going to be out confronting criminals all day. I don’t think it’s a gaping flaw, just something that wasn’t really explained adequately to me for a comic that is supposed to take place in the “real world”
Because in a world where superheroes are real, no one would read superhero comics. So, Moore asked himself what kind of comics they would read, and decided to go with pirates. Because, as everyone knows, pirates are just that cool.
(Except that ninjas are, of course, cooler. It should have been Tales of the Black Ninja, in which a ninja singlehandedly wipes out the island of Tortuga. How that would relate to the main plot, I don’t know. But ninjas are still cooler. 
)
I’m not seeing that, but YMMV.
No, because this was supposed to be a serious examination of the genre. Such a serious examination should either show the logical results of trying to take the law into your own hands or should have just given the Watchmen a modicum of super powers. Moore has it both ways (particularly with the need for mental powers to empower the bomb). This takes me right out of the book which, to me, is a gaping flaw. YMMV.
I find it hard to see the pirate comic as anything but filler. Sure, it reflected the plot and themes of the larger story, but it was in a particularly anvilicious manner. It was neat seeing pirate comics instead of superhero comics, but a little subtlety would’ve been nice.
As pointed out above, Moore did show the logical results of trying to take the law into your own hands. Several heroes in the book have very sad ends, including death and insanity. Even the major characters have consequences to their actions. Rorschach, in particular, undergoes a pretty drastic transformation as a result of his experiences.
It was explained very adequately if you read between the lines.
The Minutemen, for the most part, did not kill. Even the most extreme of them, Rorschach, never killed anyone until the Blair Roche case. His experience killing Grice changed him irrevocably, as is recounted in some detail. Given Rorshach’s otherwise absolutist morality, the fact that he crossed the line into murder is an act of major consequence. Even the Comedian used rubber bullets during the police strike. Not killing is just about the only thing that separated the costumed adventurers from their prey.