You know, those BEFORE WATCHMEN parody covers were funnier before it was clear that DC really is going to milk every single panel of WATCHMEN for prequels and sequels and other crap.

For instance, I remember someone spoofing the idea of BEFORE WATCHMEN: DOLLAR BILL. It was outlandish -- har! -- because the guy only appeared in, like, two panels of WATCHMEN, right?

And now ...

So, yeah, prepare for BEFORE WATCHMEN: GAY COUPLE, BEFORE WATCHMEN: THE BLACK KID READING THE PIRATE COMIC and BEFORE WATCHMEN: SEYMOUR.

Because there clearly are no depths to which DC won't sink in the pursuit of the last few bucks available in the U.S. comic book market, and not much integrity left in the ranks of the sad, broken slobs who write and draw comic books for a living.

Oh man, it's gonna be so great when we see his parents out on the date where he's conceived, and they're like, "I don't know if we even want to bring a child into a world where bad things happen to innocent people, and you can't even count on a single act of kindness before the end."

This series was SUCH A GOOD IDEA.



Kidding aside, I still don't get why anyone expected anything different. The entire premise of the series is "the answer to a question nobody was asking."

Maybe it's a good story.

Are you kidding me? It's gonna be awesome! There's totally gonna be a bit where somebody says, "I dunno, Bill. Are you sure about the cloak?" And he's all, "Come on! What's the worst that could happen?"

GOLD, GERALD. FUCKING GOLD.

More than likely it will be more subtle than that.

If Azzarello's Rorschach is any indicator, it might be so subtle that it's completely irrelevant.

Ha ha, no it really won't.

If the goal was subtlety, Before Watchmen would never have been made in the first place. The entire premise is about as subtle as a baseball bat in the nuts.

Moloch #1...

Secret Origin of Moloch, told in the form of an extraordinarily verbose Catholic confession. He's got about as generic a supervillain origin as you could ever imagine. Rorschach-Lite with some Nightcrawler mixed in. Ends after Doctor Manhattan shows up and Moloch feels like he's outmatched so is now going to turn his life over to Jesus. Veidt shows up in a Rolls Royce (inexplicably in full superhero garb) to offer him a ride from prison and presumably the new boring lifestyle that we saw in Watchmen.

Functional artwork by Eduardo Risso occasionally has some nice expressions or textures, but never once makes reference to Gibbons' original art (or even the movie). However, Jim Lee's alt cover does reference the Pietà as Moloch and a hooker (although I'm guessing he's referencing one of the many other comics adaptations of it -- Jim Starlin's The Death of Captain Marvel GN, Alex Ross' Captain Marvel and Shazam, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Obnoxio the Clown vs. the X-Men, etc.).

Second alt cover by Matt Wagner. Who cares.

That's stupid.

Alan Moore has created lots of cool characters but not all of them can be spun out into their own books.

All the characters in Watchmen are not visually, or narratively, interesting on their own.