As said many times before, Heroes, inc. is quite often compared to The Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. I’ve known of The Watchmen for a long time. The now classic smiley face with the drop of blood is something I remember seeing a lot. I was never quite sure what the actual story was about though. There was a superhero parody movie called The Mysterymen, which I thought were the Minutemen from Watchmen and so mistakenly, thought that that was what it was. So I never really bothered to read it. I don’t even think it was available here, in Finland, until close to the movie was coming out. 
It wasn’t until the Watchmen movie was getting close that I started to look into it again. When I read the synopsis of it online, I realized that there could be some overlapping ideas with Heroes, inc. (alternative history, aging superheroes etc.) so I found a few copies online to read through.
I think I got about issue five when I quit. I read thought wikipedia for the rest of the story to make sure Heroes, inc. wasn’t treading to close to the Watchmen story. Satisfied with the differances, I dropped it.
Now I’m making an effort to go through the WHOLE story. Watchmen is praised to high heaven so often and so much that it’s time I see what exactly the whole hubbub is about.
So…
I’ll be going at this one issue at a time. Take in mind that I haven’t read this to the end and though I know the basic story I don’t know all of the small details so NO SPOILERS BEYOND THIS ISSUE PLEASE!!! I say that because from various conversations online I’ve gotten the feeling, that there’s a lot that’s in the story now, things said or seen, that make sense later on. Things that make you go “hang on! let me go back to issue one and check that out”
So let’s get to it!
I’m sure there isn’t a whole lot of people who haven’t read The Watchmen, but I’m hoping there are at least a few out there who can share my ignorance. The basic synopsis of issue #1 is this:
The story starts at the murder scene of Edward Blake. Through the conversation of the investigating officers and flashbacks we learn that he was thrown through the window of his penthouse. Also through the conversation of the detectives we learn that superheroes exsist. But only the government approved ones (An idea later used a lot by Marvel) Rorschach, one of the old superheroes is a vigilante and continues without the government’s approval.
That night Rorschach (he wears a mask with a Rorschach inkblot test on it) breaks into Blake’s apartment. It turns out that Edward Blake was an old superhero known as The Comedian.
Jump to the orginal Owl, Hollis Mason now an old man and the Owl that came after him Dan Dreiberg. Hanging out at Mason’s house as Mason talks of the old days. Dan makes his way home where Rorschach is waiting for him in his kitchen. Rorschach informs him that there could possibly be someone going after old superheroes.
From there Rorschach goes to see Veidt, who is an ex-superhero now typical rich guy with head up his… *ahem*…Then it’s off to a military reasearch center to see Dr. Manhattan (a blue… energy… godlike guy) and his girlfriend, Laurie Juspeczyk, a former superheroine. Rorschach informs them about the murder and his theory.
Through these various visits we learn that Edward Blake, The Comedian wasn’t a very pleasant guy and basically deserved what was coming.
Laurie meets up with Dan Dreiberg and we get the impression that she’s not quite happy where she is. She’s pretty much kept around to keep Dr. manhattan happy it seems.
We end with some musings from Rorscach’s Journal.
Then there’s an outake from Hollis Mason’s (the original Owl) autobiography. This is really fun stuff and gives a little backstory and “credibility” to things. These bits at the back of Moore’s books are always interesting.
So far the story is intriguing. It introduces the characters and gives you enough story to let you know that there’s a whole lot more going on. Gibbons’ art is good. It’s pretty basic eighties art. The style and coloring brought back comicbook memories. 
One point worth bringing up and i’m not sure if this was all Alan Moore or did Dave Gibbons have any say, but the whole book is done with the 3×3 panel layout. For those not in the know, that means three panels up and three across. Pretty hard to pull off these days with the widescreen and splash pages being popular. 
It’s easy to see why The Watchmen was thought of as such a revolutionary comic. A typical reader of today’s comics might find it to be one cliché after the other, but one has to remember that this was made in 1985. This is the original “template”. Things like cinematic camera pans and angles, the use of journals or diaries instead of typical captions, superheroes being considered vigilantes and made to register, superheroes growing old and retiring, superheroes being depressed, extenssive use of “silent” pages and of course Alan Moore’ trademark “backstories”. And this just in the first issue. We see all of those things everyday in comics without even thinking twice about them. Back in 1985… not so much. On the other hand I was only ten back then and mostly interested in who Spidey was going to punch this month. 
At this point I really liked Watchmen so picking up issue two goes without saying. It wasn’t until a few issues in that I started to get bored. We’ll see how far it holds up this time around.
-Scott-
) For guys like me on the other side of the globe, they’re a blessing. I was originally going to order some books from DCBS because the guys over at 
Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? Well, now you know why I chose Comicbreak. 
So…
