Week 13: Reconsidering the Superhero

I kept postponing making this blog post since I was having a really hard time getting into this genre.  The first time, I read just the script for Watchmen on the course syllabus and could not get myself interested in the story at all.  I found the comic online and started reading that, but for some reason, I just couldn't get into it.  I wanted to get into it, but I just couldn't.  I can definitely see the appeal behind it; I think that it is such an interesting idea to have a superhero that is the total opposite of a superhero that is well liked, or a superhero that even likes the people he's saving.  In the first few pages of Watchman, we see Rorschach call the humans around him 'human cockroaches' and watch him as he breaks an innocent man's fingers just to learn information:  he's definitely your friendly neighborhood Clark Kent.  This idea in itself is really intriguing, which is why I'm not surprised why so many are drawn to it.  Watchman on a whole deals with more adult topics and it shows the darker side to superhero/masked vigilantes/humans in general, and I think this element makes it more appealing to adults.

For me, I think Watchman was a little too grungy for me.  I'll also be honest and say that stories which require a lot of dialogue and less relying on the visuals are not as appealing to me.  Especially at this point in my life, where I'm an exhausted college student looking for something to take my mind off things.  It is for this reason that I also didn't like Preacher as much, but felt more drawn to Hellboy.  I think Hellboy was also more appealing to me because the characters are completely different than anything I've ever seen before; whereas Preacher and Watchman are mostly just humans, Hellboy's new designs made it more interesting and I felt that the tone of it could get a lot more light-hearted than the other comics:

I think the art style also contributed; Preacher and Watchman are much more detailed than Hellboy and aren't as much of a quick read, whereas here there are very clear visuals with only one or two items as the main focus.  To me, it's comics like Hellboy that keep the action that made the first generation superheros famous, that I find more fun to follow and can relate to more.