Short stories:

"This Man This Monster"

In "This Man This Monster" we described this story as a story of Ben Grimm's (The Thing's) loneliness. The story starts with a reflection of his self-pitying habits. He doesn't accept help from anyone because he feels that he is a monster who is beyond help. This seems to stem from the fact that of the Fantastic Four, he is the only one who appears non-human. It also comes from the fact that he is the outsider. Sue and Johnny are siblings and Sue and Reed are romantically involved. This leaves Ben "out of the loop." Another reason for Ben's self-pity might come from the fact that in the last three episodes, Ben was outmatched by a larger, stronger Galaticus. Ben relies on his strength, yet his strength was futile against the might of Galaticus

When the imposter takes The Thing's identity and leaves Ben as just... Ben, both characters learn a valuable lesson. The imposter learns not to judge someone too quickly. He also learns the true meaning of friendship and self-sacrifice. He grows to respect those who he truly detested. Ben learns that it's not the outside, but the inside that counts. And with this being said, the end proves that Ben was the man and the imposter was the monster, who then redeems himself. As it was back then, this episode ends with everything being ok and back to normal.

"In Dreams"

This is a story about Superma...I... mean... Samaritan, member of the Justice Le...Honor Guard, and it takes place in Metropo...A...Astro City. It's a story about "the reluctant Superhero," the superhero whose life is not truly his own. The man behind the curtain barely exists. He lives only to serve. He loves to fly, yet only does for under a minute. The rest of the day is spent representing a normal life, and saving the world. He has no time for people in his life, unless they are on the recieving end of a catastrophe. This story also depicts symbolism. Samaritan fights with the creature "Nightmare" This creature only comes to him when he is tired and it consumes all the energy and power he exerts while fighting it, leaving him helpless. It definitely changes the perspective of super powers being a gift. It really depicts it more as a curse.

Watchmen

Chapters 1-4

Chapter 1: It is the start of the story where a retired hero named The Comedian is murdered. Another hero, named Rorschach, is investigating the murder and goes around town asking people from his old partner Night Owl to Dr. Manhattan who is the ONLY hero with super powers. Rorschach wears a mask that has ink blots on it, hence the name, and isn't much more of a vigilante than a hero. Night Owl is a retired hero with a secret layer fille with his "toys." Dr. Manhattan is a superpowered, blue-skinned, nuclear man who walks around naked...clearly has issues.

Chapter 2: We discussed Chapter 2 in class on Wednesday, which focuses mainly on the Comedian. The Comedian was a masked vigilante who later worked for the government. I say "was" because he is recently deceased, and many of the main characters attend his funeral in the beginning of the chapter. The Comedian is not alive during the duration of the book, so flashbacks are used to show what kind of person he was. Each flashback is "remembered" by a different character, and thus each focuses on a different aspect of who he was, from a brutal murderer to a horrible cynic doing what he can to save the world. Nothing nice was remembered, really. The flashbacks also show some of the motivation behind other characters becoming "masked adventurers" but nothing too in depth. The most important flashback (word has lost all meaning) is when Moloch remenises about the Comedian to Rorsarch, and the groundwork for a gigantic mystery is laid. Questions aren't answered, more are raised, and we get to see a drunk grown man cry. Concerning the text, parallel structure was used throughout the entire chapter, in which text does not directly relate to the picture displayed, but it still fits. Such as page #1, panel #1, sentances #1-3. Gorgeous.

Chapter 3: Due to a snow day on the second Friday of February, the class was unable to discuss the revelations of The Watchmen chapters three and four until the following Monday. Incidentally, Monday was a harsh day for the senses and no one seemed readily willing to contribute much of their insight on the material probably because of the heat :p. This was a shame because both chapters were a delight to read; truly fascinating.

Chapter three is the first chapter to introduce the terribly depressing story of “Marooned.” “Marooned” is straight out of the very popular pirate comic TALES OF THE BLACK FREIGHTER being read by a adolescent sitting on the curb next to a news vender. Much of the story is told around and sometimes by the news vender. He is our link to the current events of this parallel 1985. However, most of the story imparted in chapter three deals with Doc Manhattan. We watch as his woman of over 20 years leaves him in a whirlwind of resentment. Shortly thereafter, he is accused by the media as being a cause of cancer. In the following confusion of media frenzy, Doc Manhattan transports an entire studio of people outside the building in order to be alone. This is succeeded by transporting himself to Mars in order to be really really alone. He takes with him a snapshot from his previous existence as just Jon Osterman. The issue closes with President Nixon discussing acceptable losses and the up coming war with Soviet Russia.

Chapter 4: Chapter four enlightens audiences about the history of Jon Osterman, a.k.a. Doc Manhattan. We learn that his most life has been decided for him by external situations. As Professor Higgins pointed out to the class, Doc rarely makes decisions for himself. However, this is a shady area as he seems to be aware of all of his decisions past and present and they seem to be happening, have already happened and will eventually happen all at the same time. So, it could be argued- and indeed, the Doc sees it this way himself- that he doesn’t have to make decisions, he is just following a path he has already seen come to pass. As a human, he was much the same. The decision to become an atomic scientist was made for him by his father, a watchmaker. Becoming a super-human was a complete accident. However, it was certainly his will to come back and rebuild his entire body from atomic energy. He could have given up when his body was disintegrated, but he didn’t. And now he’s on Mars, watching from the heavens as Nixon starts what is presumably going to be World War III.

As we had seen in previous chapters, there is a great deal of parallel structure. The Black Freighter captions are often placed inside the frames of the actual Watchmen story. However, the captions always seem to fit, some humorously so and others not so humorous.

“Crazed with helplessness, I cursed God and wept, wondering if he wept also.” - “Marooned” from TALES OF THE BLACK FREIGHTER

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 5 and 6 explored the character of Rorsach. We talked about the hidden clues in the story about his identity. We talked about his warped mind and how it influences others so easily. We also talked about his change from having an alter-ego to becoming his alter-ego. Little things like the change in the look of the black marks on his face. We talked about he's, oddly enough, the best hero of them all. He's morally guided, though he's sick and sadistic. He punishes those he views as evil as they would punish others. He, though he's the best 'hero' in the book, is an anti-hero at best. We also got a few more clues to the mystery of all of the deaths.

In Chapter 7 Laurie goes to Dans and marvels over the old crime fighting junk in his basement, and then nature takes it's course! In Chapter 8 they took off in Dans ship Archie to go spring Rorsach from jail. A riot broke out in the prison and Rorsach beat up a few people and killed some other people before he left the prison.

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 9 and 10 were mostly focusing on the events leading up to discovering that Adrian is in fact behind everything that has been happening in the book up until now. He was behind the murder of the Comedian and behind the Pyramid Shipping company to gain all of the Egyptian items and various other things. He is also behind the disappearence of the writers and artists and has in many ways become an almost Super Villain, although that would generally depend on what it means to be a villain. Adrian seems to believe that in order to save the world, he must destroy it. We also discussed the meaning behind the Pirate Comic and that it is really more of a parallel to the real world and the story taking place. It is also more of a parallel with Rorshach's life, as the main character of the comic has a rather terrible life, being stuck out at sea, having to make a raft out of dead people and finally being almost eaten by a shark and Rorshach's life started out with his mother being somewhat of a tramp, his father leaving him, him being beaten up and finally ending up in prison a couple of times.

In the final chapters of Watchmen we learn the true extent of Adrian(Ozymandias) Veidt's plans. We have learned of his overseeing of the creation of a large(very suggestive) monster created using the cloned brain of a psychic(makes perfect sense). We witness him put his master plan in to action as he teleports the monster(which he passes off as an alien), in to New York, where it explodes(sort of), killing everyone within ten miles and leaving everyone else within reach crippled for the rest of their terrible lives with horrific nightmares and visions spawned from the sad desparing mind of the psychic whose mind he cloned. When our heroes(Rorschach, Dan, Laurie, and Jon) arrive too late to stop him, and then learn of the plans many benefits to the world(albeit short term benefits), they are forced to remain silent as to keep from plunging the world back in to its prior state(nuclear arms race, impending doom, etc). Rorschach, with his black and white, good and evil, two sides of a coin view of the world, takes it upon himself to reveal Veidt's monstrous plan to the world and is swiftly killed by Jon. As the world begins to rebuild, its fate is left in the hands of a large stupid news boy as he reaches to a pile of possible publishing material, and possibly for Rorschachs journal, which contains the truth in its entirety.