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With this chapter of the larger The Multiversity event, Morrison seems to be expanding the idea of the Multiverse to include not just places where different version of heroes live but places where actual ideas live. The Earth-4 heroes have an intrinsic connection to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, but Morrison sprinkles in other ideas and themes that we’ve seen in Moore’s work to beguiling effect.

“This world rewards its bastards. Heroes are for movies. The super-hero is dead.”

With those words, Morrison might have boiled down Alan Moore’s feeling about comics in a mere three sentences, and that idea prevails throughout the issue. But Morrison doesn’t forget about his own goals for this series. Once we meet all the major players and see their obvious connections to their counterparts in Watchmen, we also are brought back to the idea of the cursed comic – a thread that Morrison has pulled through every issue of The Multiversity event. Morrison uses every trick in their arsenal to keep up the mystery. 

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Captain Atom’s direct address of the reader is unsettling especially after Morrison flips a famous Moore quote and has a character say “This is not an imaginary story…” Captain Atom is the most intriguing character this time around. He exists in all time and space simultaneously but he does not leave Earth the way Doctor Manhattan does. Instead, he stays around, and his presence is a powerful force. Morrison gives us a great scene with Captain Atom and his dog that gives us an idea of how disconnected he is from our reality. The juxtaposition of a god pondering the meaning of everything over a dog should be enough to give an astute reader a little chuckle, but Atom’s methods are horrific. Themes of life, death, time, reality, purpose and, oddly enough, vivisection have stayed strong throughout.

Frank Quitely is a rare talent. His work eschews description but I’ll try. I know many readers are put off by the textured look of his characters, but it’s scars and pockmarks and wrinkles that, I think, help characterize them even more. The purer a character is, the easier they are to look at. The more unsettling their actions become, Quitely changes their outward appearance in some way to reflect that. He definitely doesn’t hold back with regards to action and violence either. Getting punched in the mouth by a superpowered being is no small moment, so Quitely lets that all out on the page. Teeth shatter. Blood flows. It might be a little much to stomach, but “this is no imaginary story,” and Quitely’s exaggerated realism carries that theme through to its end.

The Multiversity: Pax Americana is a dense book. Every page is packed with panels. Every panel is packed with symbolism and it’s all serving Morrison’s bigger ideas for this series. Readers might be turned off by Morrison’s somewhat haphazard approach to time in this issue, but it’s almost as if he’s letting the characters control their own fates. Atom loses some awareness of where and when he is the same way that the reader might. Time flips between forward and backward on a whim and without warning. 

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Morrison and Quitely challenge the idea that anything you read is ever all that straightforward, and that’s a scary thought. If you could prevent something from happening just by turning back a comic book page, would you?

Get to know the bizarre story behind Peacemaker.

The Verdict

4.5

4.5 out of 5

PeaceMaker

An expert meta take on the DC heroes that inspired the Watchmen

The post Peacemaker – Inside the meta version of Watchmen, DCs Pax Americana appeared first on Game News.

After previously touching on Watchmen in his Batman run, King will dive head-long into that world with this 12-issue series spinning off the popular character created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

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Set 35 years after the end of the original Watchmen limited series (and Rorschach’s death at the hands of Dr. Manhattan), the 12-issue Rorschach series opens with a world which has distrust in superheroes but celebrate Rorschach as “a cultural icon” due to his actions in the original volume.

“So what does it mean when Rorschach reappears as part of a pair of assassins trying to kill the first candidate to oppose President Robert Redford in decades?,” reads DC’s synopsis for the series. “Follow one determined detective as he walks backward in time, uncovering the identities and motives of the would-be killers, taking him deep into a dark conspiracy of alien invasions, disgraced do-gooders, mystical visions, and yes, comic books.”

Similar to how Rorschach’s actions were re-examined in HBO’s Watchmen sequel, King and Fornés’ Rorschach distinctly frames the character as unheroic – with DC specifically saying so in the announcement of this book.

“Rorschach may have spoken truth, but he wasn’t a hero,” reads DC’s announcement.

Here is a unlettered preview from the Rorschach #1:

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“Like the HBO Watchmen show and very much like the original ‘86 Watchmen, this is a very political work,” King said in that announcement. “It’s an angry work. We’re so angry all the time now. We have to do something with that anger. It’s called Rorschach not because of the character Rorschach, but because what you see in these characters tells you more about yourself than about them.”

Scheduled to launch October 13 as an adults only 17+ title through DC’s Black Label, Rorschach will be colored by Dave Stewart, and lettered by Clayton Cowles. Jae Lee, who drew DC’s Before Watchmen: Ozymandias title, is drawing a variant to the first issue.

The post Rorschach from Watchmen returns in new DC series appeared first on Game News.

The Hollywood Reporter (opens in new tab) writes that a deal has not yet been reached, but that sources say the project is in the early days of development. As for what we can expect, here’s a few things to know:

It’s a totally new adaptation

This isn’t the first time a Watchmen TV adaptation has been pitched. Snyder was working with HBO back in 2015, on a Watchmen-related TV series, but it wasn’t clear if it was a prequel, sequel, or reboot. In any case, Snyder and HBO split ways and the project was dropped.

According to THR, this new version is being built from the ground up, and has no ties to Snyder or the previous pitch. In other words, this won’t be just an extended version of the Watchmen movie.

It’s by the guy who wrote and produced Lost

Lost was a pop culture touchstone of the mid and late-’00s, but it received criticism for taking a multitude of unexpected twists and turns that seemed to come out of nowhere – and according to some (opens in new tab), really was written without any regard for a larger story arc. Lindelof served as both producer and writer for the show, and received a large brunt of this criticism.

Lindelof also reworked a large portion of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus while it was in development, changing the script so that it was less of a direct Alien prequel and more of a mystery about humanity’s origins and how Jesus might’ve been an alien.

It probably won’t try to be as mainstream

One of the more common critiques about the Watchmen film is that it felt dumbed down compared to the source material. Based on comments Lindelof made to the Observer (opens in new tab) in 2009, it doesn’t sound like that will be the case this time.

“There’s a little bit about that feeling of Watchmen, in terms of the fans, it’s like, I don’t really know if I want it to go mainstream,” Lindelof said. “I want to keep it sort of insular. It’s okay with me if people don’t understand it because they don’t deserve to understand it.”

Images: Warner Bros.

The post What you should know about the Watchmen TV series coming to HBO appeared first on Game News.