Is this the most overrated comic of all time?

This guy actually makes a good point. Are we judging based on how good or bad a comic is vs. how it's advertised by autistic fans and media alike?

Really, I thought the most overrated comic was the Dark Knight Returns.

Strikes Again was pretty bad, mostly because of the scenes with Dick.
Haven't read The Master Race yet, but I assume it's equally as bad.

DRK was good, it just spawned too many spin-offs and adaptions.

I can see that. TDKR was a good story I just get annoyed by all the fanboys of that story that treat it as the one true batman story.

TDKR was placed on NYT best sellers for so long, and people picked it up thinking it was the true essence of comics.
Watchmen had a similar effect on mainstream perceptions, so everything had to become "everyone is aged 40+ and its dark and brooding and there's death and they're only antiheroes etc etc".

I fully those those 2 comics alone as the starting point for comics being destroyed.
Moore is the worst, as he writes pretentious deconstructions then tells everyone to fuck off and that they're not smart enough to understand it, when it's quite simple to comprehend.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the only people Moore told to fuck off regarding Watchmen were the people who decided to make a movie out of a comic designed to show off the particular strengths of the medium, and those who decided that what a work made unique by being *finite* needed was spinoffs and crossovers - in other words, to be made like every other goddamn comic out there; and in both cases, their lack of understanding of it is pretty self-evident.

That didn't stop people from completely missing the point and deciding all superheroes needed to be mentally damaged murderers/involved in serious things like politics and rape.

Moore regularly states in interviews that people don't understand his work and that they're wrong.
He's especially salty about Watchmen and V for Vendetta, and refuses to watch the movies, but will happily tell the directors why it's shit. Let that sink in. He tells them they're retarded hacks for making something he hasn't seen. He instantly assumes his version is the best and only.

He's not wrong in regards to these 2 films, but the fact that he does it purely out of how he thinks they turned out makes him very shallow and self-centred.

His daughter is even worse. She does the same shit with a side of feminism.

so

Alan Moore finds other peoples' reuse of his characters to be disrespectful

that's fascinating

Specific works, sure, and he usually has a point.

To take your exemples, V for Vendetta was about fascism vs anarchy, and more specifically, a political satire of Thatcher England; the movie made it a half-assed Bush-era satire in which those ideologies aren't even mentioned. And Watchmen was specifically tailored to be a comic; making it into anything else is missing its point to begin with.

Surely it's not unreasonable on his part to point out those things?

No, he made objections to shallow, wrongheaded adaptations of works of his he feels he was swindled out of. "Characters" don't come into it except as a part of a much bigger whole.

Are you serious? I remember Alan Moore saying he regrets watchmen because he felt responsible for making super hero comics even worse, although he was proud of storytelling devices he and Dave Gibbons used. I think he mentioned The Killing Joke as well.

This. Watchmen is great, but holy shit the hype is out of control, and people need to stop insisting that capes be, "Gritty," and,"Realistic," (read: dark and edgy) because of it.

Well let's be fair. There are a hell of a lot of people who don't understand those works beyond "V and Rorschach are badass".

No. It's an amazing gem of its time.

Great comic overhyped by normies.

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I feel like political satire is not the man's greatest strength

It's regrettable that "mature" superheroes is the legacy of The Watchmen instead of how it expanded storytelling in comics. The story itself, while solid, is really secondary compared to what Moore and Gibbons were doing with the medium.

Well, good thing shit like the internet now exists. Today, we're not really constrained by how much money a publisher can spare, and we can go on and make our own shtuff and be in complete control of it.

I guess that's also the problem. Like everything else after industrialized America took the world by storm, everyone has forgotten how to become independent. Prior to the concept of getting a job, people primarily ran their own business, or something close to. And, when they saw something lacking, they fixed it. However, we've become so lulled into expecting other people to provide things for us that we'd rather complain about shit than actually making…something that's better.

Then again, I'm not really one to talk because I'm spending my time here browsing the board and writing this post instead of doing something I should be working on.

Check out the Metamorpho storytime and tell me it wasn't a more imaginative time.

I wouldn't say so

I don't think anyone hypes that shit up.

I hear about this a lot because it's supposedly important, not because it's especially good.

No, but i have seen people defend it constantly when it is called shit

Ah. Well those people have no damn clue what they're talking about.

Capefags gonna capefag.

I haven't read it.

I would consider Transmetropolitan to be up there, though (not to say it wasn't entertaining and impressive as a complete work), as it read to me as a leftist fantasy about their ultimate superhero (the 'last honest journalist') in a world that functions as an overplayed caricature of capitalism and the political right. In its idea to portray a capitalist dystopia, it wanders between serious, morbid credibility and the desire to overwhelm the reader with the fantastical, alien and foreign, losing its internal consistency in the process. Humorously, even in this thin premise made robust by the sheer volume of it, Spider must be granted an uncanny amount of luck, an overpowered gun and an inhuman level of flexibility and competence to navigate the spectacular trials he faces.

It's not bad, but it's consistent and sometimes heavy-handed with its political tone and compromises its integrity as a result. Close scrutiny spoils the reader's experience.

Wow. I never thought I'd read something that would make me wish Alan Moore were writing Batman now, but here we are.

Agreed. Bring back the fun camp of it all.

Have you read Moore's Supreme? It's a lighthearted totally-not-Superman series.

Tom Strong as well

Transmetropolitan and Spider Jerusalem miss the mark on Hunter S. Thompson so bad that it's insulting to consider it an homage.

It's better when you understand who the heroes are based on and it deconstructs the idea of major events arcs. Especially considering Crisis on Infinite Earths was just a year before The Watchemen was written.

To be honest, I'd forgive it all if the authors were more pensive and less outright hostile to the right (and far right; caricatured as Heller's party) portrayed in the election. Heller's brief introduction was when it became a left-wing work in full, because compared to the rest of the work it's the pinnacle shallow moment of intolerance from the author against the right; a cause so intolerable that it's beyond fair treatment or even shrouded metaphor (although the rest of the work is full of it, albeit the outdated brand of right-bashing appropriate for its time of publishing). Hitler comparisons are made for a few pages and then it's over, tarnishing the entire thing. In that moment, all pretense of objectivity fell away for a brief while. Jerusalem ceases to be an 'objective' third party for the first time and takes a side while discarding all his usual behaviors of rationalizing and understanding causes behind movements; treating them as symptoms of larger patterns and trends.

Interestingly, Heller's party is noted to be Callahan's party, although the Beast and Callahan's party affiliations are never formally laid out (referred to as "Party in Government"). If we extrapolate this fictional right-wing dystopic world, I'd posit that all three figures are Republicans based on their attitudes and the themes they evoke.

I take Transmetropolitan as a comedy series first and foremost.

Fuck you, I liked it.

I think The Beast was a pretty clear Nixon, especially considering how much Thompson hated Nixon. I think the politician in real life who reminds me most of The Smiler is Clinton, honestly, but clearly she wasn't the intended target because of timing, so maybe JFK or something? It's hard to place Heller as a Democrat, so you might be right about all of them being Republicans, but I just can't see the Smiler fitting into that. He's thoroughly the worst qualities of the Democratic party in one.

Most of us liked it. It's still overrated because of

I don't believe that. Alan Moore started work on the Watchmen in 1985, so I doubt COIE was a major influence. Events back then weren't a real thing to deconstruct.

One of the biggest problems with the Watchmen is that it poisoned well so badly that most people don't even know what it's deconstructing, which makes it lose meaning. You have to be familiar with pre-1986 superheroes to fully grasp what Moore is doing.

It was '84 actually. The book was set in '85, because Moore anticipated publication in '85. It didn't actually get published until '86

Work on COIE started in '82

Firstly, he read the script for the V for Vendetta film and secondly, he's completely right. The vast majority of films based on his work have absolutely no resemblance to his work whatsoever and very often they completely miss the point altogether. And he never told Snyder or anybody else why their adaptations were shit, he merely said that he would never watch them.

Then, let's begin storytiming that shit like there's no tomorrow. Someone already started with the Metamorpho, and someone did Flash Gordon a few weeks back (But, I'm not sure if he would count as capeshit).

Ehhhh, kinda… I'd still argue it's one of the greatest superhero stories ever made, but personally, I'd also strongly argue that The Incredibles is a better superhero story.

… Which just makes The Incredibles all the more awesome. So yay.

As long as it doesn't have any propaganda leftist bullshit, it'll be a great sequel to a great movie.

No. Its actually good. The movie fixed the one thing it had that was odd which was the faux giant space alien organisms.

Is the movie worth watching?Not as a faithful adaptation but as its own thing.

The space squid was a key point in the deconstruction. It highlighted how Ozymandias's entire plan was an insane comic book answer to a serious issue.

Again, it's one of those aspects where you have to be familiar with the older comics to fully appreciate it's meaning.

You could give it a try, but it's not that good.

The problem with the movie is that it's trying to be a faithful adaption, but it's missing a lot of the point of Watchmen. You can't faithfully adapt it as a movie. A good movie based on Watchmen is possible, but it would have to try being its own thing instead of a direct translation, otherwise the best possible result is a poor imitation.

That's truly what DC wants from the Watchmen, considering how they spent the last 30 years trying to turn it into standard superhero product.

Wasn`t just a way to make the reader believe his plan focused on Doctor Manhattan just so we can scream What a twist! by the end of the history? Because the alien monster, while is consistency with some plot elements and making overall sense, it`s more or less an ass pull since you barely get any hints of it. It could be anything in the end really.

Not to mention the plot holes that pop up from framing Manhattan for blowing up New York and Moscow. If anything, that would've caused WW3 instead of delaying it. Plus we're supposed to believe that the Comedian broke down at discovering that instead of slitting Ozy's throat and reporting back to Nixon.

As silly as the space squid was, there's little reason to suspect foul play when you have mountains of dead people and traumatized survivors suffering from psychic visions.

Who knew!

Movies strongest point are the visuals, with opening credits and Old Nite owl vs Gang being most outstanding scenes. If you are not an art/cinematography fag, it is just a somewhat average film. Keep in mind that if you have read comic before seeing it, you might like it less for changes and omissions it makes to the source material.

Snyder's take was probably the best possible adaptation that we could get out of Hollywood. There were a few Watchemn scripts that made film "it's own thing," but they were all atrocious. Worst examples included giving Watchmen pro-enviornment message or turning it into criticism of Bush's administration.

Alan Moore himself said that David Hayter's script was the closest anyone was going to get to Watchmen

It's like how Bruce Lee influenced every martial artist who came after him so much that what he does doesn't look as original now.

He said of Zack Snyder, that someone he knew watched 300 and said it was stupid.

He never said that. He said he didn't have any hopes for the Watchmen movie based on Snyder directing it because he read the 300 graphic novel and had a lot of problems with it. Essentially, the kind of person who could make a good movie out of 300 was, in his eyes, the wrong fit for something like Watchmen

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Well, I can't find the quote, but you seem like an expert on everything the old cunt has ever said.

He said in a British interview with some annoying host with a nasally voice that he refuses to watch the adaptations of his work as he knows that they can't be as good as his own work. It was in 2009, the interview, if I recall correctly, and he flat out says that he hasn't read the scripts or watched the films, but hates them out of the fact they exist and that they couldn't be as good as his own work.

Then he says the comics industry was founded by criminals and is owned by criminals today, then goes off on a tangent about owning characters, which should happen, but he goes a bit overboard.

He just seems like a hipster with regard to his own work, tbh.

I should know better but I wanna hope against all odds that Incredibles 2 turns out great.

sauce?

what was Hayter's script like?

wasn't the movie done before Alan Moore did his own thing with the character?

so basically what happened to video games and comics.

I know there was a video game that was supposed to be the sequel to the movie. Makes me wonder how they'll get around that.

it won and deserved its hugo award. It was also the first and only comic book to do so until 2009

Probably just ignore it, like they did with Star Wars and Tron.

I can't remember but I think he updated the setting to the 2000s, for starters. There are copies of it on the internet

Well the film seems to be dated 1981 and I think Moore started on Swamp Thing in '82. So yes, probably

He made specific comments about the contents of the V for Vendetta screenplay. This was around the time the movie was being made and Joel Silver said that Moore fully supported the film, which he did not and which precipitated his second departure from DC, amongst other factors.

Oh, Jesus, they let Jim Wynorski direct the sequel?
It's been years since I saw the movies, but I'm sure I remember some elements from Moore's run being incorporated in a ham-handed way. If it wasn't the first one it must have been the sequel.
I didn't know there was a TV series, has anyone seen it to judge whether any Moore ideas were used?

This is actually true. Harry Donenfeld, founder of DC comics, was an illegal porn publisher, bootlegger, and had ties to Frank Costello.

If I recall, Swamp Thing was cancelled for a while, and the movie was the entire reason they gave it a second chance, which lead to Moore taking the reigns.

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Go home, Holla Forums. You're drunk.

Whole point of the exodus was to leave faggots like you behind. Go back to cuckchan.

I only saw the first one and basically Moore's elements aren't in it. Haven't seen the sequel though.

LOL

And here you are to shit up another thread.

That's a lot of Harry Potter books.

It's sad how many people I've spoken to who thought the movie's ending was better than the book's because they thought the "frame Dr. Manhattan for attacking both sides!" was better than the space squid. The entire purpose of the psychic alien squid attack was to unite the world against a common, albeit fake, enemy

Framing Dr. Manhattan for the attack would have just united other countries against the US, because even though he went rogue, he was still made in America. Hell, the reds would probably launch an immediate nuclear attack on the US just to try and prevent the creation of another Dr. Manhattan

whats wrong with Abbott and Costello?

fuck off

you too

and you

I hate this thing of tilting the smiley face. It made zero sense to have it tilted on the shirt of the New Frontiersman kid.

Even with the squid thing it seemed like Ozymandias was delaying the inevitable. They would go back to fighting eventually it's human nature.

It isn't but Moore is the most overrated comic writer of all time.

Clearly Snyder missed the point of the book. The whole reason that the Doomsday clock was getting closer to midnight in the first place was because Dr Manhattan fucked off to Mars leaving the Americans really vulnerable, because they were overly dependent on him, and the Soviets free to invade whoever they wanted because there was no Dr Manhattan to stop them.

One of the things I liked about the comic, that I don't think was in the movie, was how Rorschach got the last laugh. People were going to find out what Ozymandias had done

I always thought that, too. Even if Ozymandias continued playing puppetmaster (or took power openly) and kept WWIII from happening, how long would that last after he eventually died?

Ah, but only people who read The New Frontiersman would know about that.

He's not really playing puppetmaster, because he doesn't have direct control. He did a single thing that made a huge difference and swayed the people in direct control.

I think it's plausible that those people would make the situation continue. It's better than the alternative, even knowing it's fake. But it's deliberately uncertain.

Maybe so. But his line about how he helped the world avoid Armageddon, and now he'll lead it into a new golden age or whatever, made it sound like he intends to take an active part in shaping the future of mankind.

But OP, that's not The Sandman

You nigger.

Preacher is probably the most overrated comic ever.

Yeah, no thanks. The movie's version gives greater reason for Dr. Manhattan to gtfo permanently.

Why did he need a reason? He had no connection to humanity, that was the whole point of his character

It's doubly funny because we do have those (sort of), and the left fucking despises them.

do you mean like Glen Greenwald?

frank costello was an italian-american mobster

Exactly. Though Rorschach's more a Gary Allen.

Eh, not my first pick

And he's the fastest man alive?

Rorschach doesn't sound anything like Space Ghost.

I don't have my copy handy at the moment to check, but wasn't Manhattan's last comment to Ozy something to that effect? Ozy asks him if what he did was the right thing to do in the end and Manhattan says something like "Nothing ever ends, Adrian."

I also like to think that, in addition to Manhattan simply being realistic, he was actually taking a jab at Ozy. Punishing him with self doubt and guilt over the possibility that people will find out what he had done and all that death would have been for nothing more than a brief calm before an even greater storm.

Yeah he says that in the comic. Makes me wonder what would happen to Nite Owl and Silk Spectre if the truth came out to what Ozzy did since at the end they just give in and lead a normal life.

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Well, you can go even deeper and look at the poem Ozymandias was based on.

The implication is that all of Ozzy's work will be for nothing since man, not even the smartest man in the world, can control fate.

That's 9Gag-tier memeing, user. Try harder.

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Meh, to me it was just a comic that had a bit too much influence.

Comics shouldn't actively strive for the dark and grim setting they currently are, but they must always have a foot on the ground, and that is why I believe realism (to a degree, do we really need to know the exact science of Shazam?) is necessary for a comic to be successful.

Honestly, people are talking about how Moore's books have some deeper meaning. V for Vendetta I believe, but Watchmen, I can't see it. And more importantly I don't care. It was a good read and a good ride. And like all good things, it ended.

Of course comics need realism. Without the realistic, you'd have nothing to contrast with the fantastic, and it would appear lesser.

Personally the most overrated comic I've read was The Invisibles, which is weird, since I quite like Grant Morrison. I enjoyed All-Star Superman, Doom Patrol and Flex Mentallo bits of the Batman runs, and I'm reading Animal Man and having fun, but I couldn't get past the first trade of Invisibles.

I agree with the first poster, comics are meant to be fantastical. I don't want Captain Marvel to be grounded and realistic, he's meant to be the fantasy hero a little boy turns into when he says a magic word.

Yeah, that's the way I saw it, as Adrian he'd built a huge business empire, capable of revolutionising the world with new energy and all sorts, and as Ozymandias he's developed his body to the peak capability of any human, all around becoming not just the smartest man, but the most powerful and the strongest. He also thought he'd ended all strife with free energy and a plan to stop war, but it was all based on the crazed comic book logic that Doctor Manhattan brought into the world, that's part of the double meaning of the "Nothing ever ends" bit.

But all that means nothing if he no longer has the backup of Doctor Manhattan, since he either directly or indirectly created the conditions he can exist in (both in the Watchmen world and in the narrative, when you've got a god who joined the Blue Man Group, a smart guy who can catch bullets is nothing).

Like Manhattan says, "You're just a man […] you mean no more to me than the world's smartest termite". Just like Ramses, Ozymandias didn't become powerful through his own efforts but rather because something so much more immense and powerful than him allowed him to, and that something (Manhattan) would eventually get bored of the novelty and just go on with its day, which brings me to the second meaning of the "Nothing ever ends"… For Doctor Manhattan, it doesn't. He can perceive all of time at once and go anywhere in the universe instantaneously, from his perspective, Ozy is foolish to assume he'd ended anything since the forces of the universe operate on such a huge scale that what he'd done meant nothing.