Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan by Michael J. Straczynski


Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan consists of backstories for three of the characters in Watchmen: Nite Owl, Dr. Manhattan, and Moloch.

The art style of the book is very nice. Each panel has a large amount of detail and helps tell the story wonderfully.

Nite Owl's story was my favorite out of the three in this book. It details how Nite Owl (second generation) came to be, and what hardships he had to deal with in his life to become how he was. It also includes a good portion of Rorschach with many action-packed scenes. This is probably one of my favorite sections out of the series of Before Watchmen.

The second section deals with Dr. Manhattan, not really detailing his backstory since it was already shown in Watchmen, but focusing more on how his current existence correlates with quantum physics and how time is working with him. It was my least favorite, because he is my least favorite character and then way things are explained with him are just so...infuriating. The story constantly jumps around, relying on you to keep track of everything that is going on. On some pages the text is placed at different angles to correlate with the story.

Moloch is the character the third part is based off of. He is a minor character, but still gets his backstory told. It is a simple origin story explaining how things went with him up until the events in Watchmen. It was alright, and would be what you would expect for it.

Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan is a good book that does a great job at explaining the origins of characters before Watchmen. The biggest problem is Dr. Manhattan's story, which feels more like a "we have to include it" sort of story, rather than actually being important to the plot. Nite Owl is told wonderfully and Moloch is a simple story. Overall, it is a book worth looking at.

Interested? Get a preview of the book and buy it here.