One of my favorite literary works is being cannibalized. Next week, "Watchmen" (2009) will hit theaters, but, for me, the terror has already begun.
Let me take you back for a moment. The year is 2000, and I'm the precocious, fat kid in eighth grade that has been into comics for as long as he can remember. These were the days when superhero movies were just coming out of the category of "absolute flop," before the Spider-Man franchise grossed billions and definitely before, sigh, Christopher Nolan. This was a time when saying I was a comic fan led to derision and comments like "What? Do you want to get it on with Wonder Woman?" and "You know you're no longer in 2nd grade, right?" Even some of my teachers wanted to know what a smart kid like me was doing wasting his time reading comics.
It was this year that I discovered "Watchmen." When I put down the trade paperback, having finished issue 12, I literally said aloud, "Wow." I knew comics could be great. I knew that they could be smart and challenging, but never before had I been confronted with a masterpiece like the one I had just read. This was one of the most meticulously put-together, perfect things I had ever read. And it worked because it was a comic. This achievement proudly proclaimed that you could do as well through the medium of comics as "Citizen Kane" (1941) had done through cinema or any modernist or post-modernist work has done through prose.
Over the years I watched my little geek sanctuary become just another morsel to be consumed by the masses of mainstream. Suddenly, everyone knew who Aunt May was, that the Phoenix force possessed Jean Grey, and what could happen if you walked down the right back alley in Sin City. But "Watchmen" remained safe. Every time I reread it, I found it more brilliant. Unlike some other comics, which only held me in a nostalgic grip (and sometimes not even then), this one continuously reprimanded me for not fully grasping it upon the last reading. In fact, a speech of Dr. Manhattan, one of the titular Watchmen, was the jumping off point for my Tufts admissions essay. Even Hollywood, in all its stupidity, would not be audacious enough to try to touch my beloved "Watchmen."
Then along came Zack Snyder. I might have rather given my ten bucks to al-Qaeda than donated it to the cause of increasing "300"'s (2006) profits. How directing "300" makes him the "visionary" that the "Watchmen" trailer touts is beyond me. He espoused his belief that he would be faithful and that he would not change things and that he was a fan. But that was a lie. Would a fan of Joyce adapt "Ulysses" into a comic?
Then came the pictures. All the characters looked cool. Wrong choice, Snyder. The characters were supposed to look ridiculous, pathetic, like overgrown kids playing dress-up. Silk Spectre's outfit should not be sexy but make you wonder if she even owned a mirror; because if she did, she probably would have thrown on another few layers. Nite Owl is the fat kid who puts on a Halloween costume and suddenly thinks he's Superman, though he's still just the fat kid in a cheap costume. In the comic, the costumes highlighted the realistic nature of "Watchmen." They underscored the utter tragedy of normal people trying to be comic book characters, hoping to make the world a better place and failing miserably.
Next, there was the trailer. Overall, it's a cool action movie trailer. I suppose that would be satisfactory if "Lolita" (1955) could be regarded as just a quirky piece of erotica. "Watchmen" should not excite audiences like a generic action movie. It should engage one as an intellectual, artistic piece.
On top of everything, they changed the ending. I will not go into details, for I hope you plan to read the comic. Let's just say, it poses a moral question (and not in a contrived manner like " The Dark Knight" (2008) does) that is completely unanswerable. I have pondered it for eight and a half years to no avail. Even if they have not overtly changed it, I doubt they will give it the complete moral ambiguity of the source material. There will be good and less good, or evil and not-so-evil. A line can be drawn.
And now, the entire thing has spread like the plague. I cannot go on Facebook.com without seeing Rorschach staring back at me, telling me that the city fears him. Friends send me links to a Nite Owl/Silk Spectre side-scrolling arcade game. There are even "Watchmen" condoms (for the man who ejaculates over half an hour early, I suppose). Soon, everyone will be asking "Who Watches the Watchmen," will know who killed Edward Blake, and will get the joke in the prior sentence.
I want to go back. Back to days when knowing what "Watchmen" was (and better yet, having read it) showed that you knew something about comics. Back to the days when no one knew what my old AOL screenname, "Veidt35," meant. Snyder is making me wish that comic-book movie adaptations never happened.
I can't expect everyone reading this column not to see "Watchmen." But please, I know you're all busy, but before you see it, read the book. And if you can't do that, promise yourself you'll read the comic soon afterwards. You'll make the little, fat adolescent in me just a little less sad.
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Devin Toohey is a senior majoring in classics. He can be reached at Devin.Toohey@tufts.edu.
