Watchmen Series and Superhero Stereotypes

As modern American culture has developed, comic books have been used as a means to reflect upon the nature of our society and the culture that has defined the country in itself. Comics have long been an integral attribute of American media, creating iconic figures such as DC Comics' Batman character or Marvel Comics' Spider-man. Originally, comic books were used to portray feats of superhuman power, exhibited by individuals who had a disposition to help and save those around them. Classically, these stories always had antagonists who for some reason or another wanted to disrupt or destroy the sanctity of the country or the world, and it was the responsibility of the superhero to assert themselves as a positive force and guarantee the safety of the citizens of the country or the globe. While it can be said that other comics had introduced the idea of superheroes being detrimental to the betterment of humanity, few have articulated this sentiment with as much profound resonance as that of the 1986 series Watchmen, by Alan Moore and David Gibbons. In this comic, the creators confront the grisly reality of a world where superheroes cause arguably as much destruction as they facilitate growth, giving a developed and cultivated approach to the classic superhero structure.

In the reality of the Watchmen series, the world has been subjected to a chaotic and apocalyptic reality where the United States has remained under the authoritarian leadership of Richard Nixon, some twelve years after the events of the Watergate scandal have happened. In this world, the United States has come to a devastating nuclear war with Soviet Russia, and the effects have shook the foundation of society to its core. The story follows a group of retired superheroes who are attempting to investigate the murder of one of their allies, who helped them fight the Soviet presence and develop the nation into the grim, destitute world in which they inhabit at the start of the series. Moore's construction of the story was developed largely as a means to reflect upon the nature of American global presence, the capacity of unrelenting strength and power to be a negative for humanity and to deconstruct the concept of the classic superhero itself.

Superheroes emerged in the 1940s and throughout the 1960s in this world, and their involvement with the Vietnam War ensured America's victory and helped propel Richard Nixon forward to cover up the events of the Watergate scandal. The influence of the heroes themselves was even used in particular to ensure that Watergate was never revealed. As of 1985 in the series, the United States is perpetually moving closer towards an all out global assault and the catalyst for World War III with the Soviet Union, and as a result, the implementation of costumed superheroes has been outlawed, and restricted by the government. This has forced the situation in which essentially all superheroes have either retired or are directly working as agents for the government's motives. The premise of this story was to reflect upon what superheroes would be like, if they were forced to live in a world that was real and credible. Bradford Wright claimed that Watchmen was “Moore's obituary for the concept of heroes in general and superheroes in particular.” (Wright, 110)

The purpose of the story was in revealing the humanity in those that were designated as heroes and to showcase the notion that, in a real world, these individuals could often be used for devastation and against the morality that they are perceived to have had in classic superhero comics. The heroes within this comic are devised in a way to essentially deconstruct the concept of the hero as a whole, and what constitutes a being which is supposed to be inherently good. Watchmen is regarded as the comic book which showed mature themes and helped comics themselves to grow and develop to better reflect reality, and the gritty, real nature of the universe in which these stories take place. As such, the villains of the stories themselves are often the culture and the society at large, in which these heroes exist. They are used to serve as a means to an end, and a collective weapon that the United States military engineers to perpetuate their goals. Furthermore, as the government begins to utilize these heroes more, their involvement in scandal and corruption runs rampant, allowing for an individual such as Richard Nixon to abdicate the throne of the United States and assert himself as a sort of defacto dictator.

Watchmen shows that if the superhero ideas and fantasies that we all have had were made real, the world itself would be changed and drastically altered, and it would not be for the betterment of humanity. Nixon's resignation was directly affected, for example, by the existence of the Watchmen. In particular, one by the name of “The Comedian” was utilized by the President to murder Woodward and Bernstein to guarantee that there would be no involvement or scandal by the public to ensure his eventual downfall. This represents one of the primary ways in which the whole of society is changed by the presence of the heroes. In our present reality, Nixon was forced to resign and the corrupt, scandalous actions that he committed were brought to light to reveal the nature of his character as a statesman and a being in general. In this world, there has been no opposition to Nixon's advances because he has utilized what was originally intended for good to help perpetuate his own advances and imperialism. The Comedian's actions directly reflect the notion that the presence of superheroes might not directly correlate to them being heroes at all. He is a particularly right-wing hero who is willing to serve the President, even in the face of corruption and controversy, to give America's government an unprecedented level of authority.

Furthermore, and in a different regard, the more direct and pronounced power that superheroes possess is also challenged by this narrative and the existence of one notably super-powered man, known as Dr. Manhattan. While it can be said that Superman was used as a device for good, Alan Moore and David Gibbons portray Dr. Manhattan as a Goliath of superhuman proportions and of absolute devastation, even in the face of nuclear weapons. (Duin, Richardson, 88) The art style and the presence that Dr. Manhattan commands in many of the panels in which he is featured stands him as a stark, non-human juxtaposition to the other heroes, reflecting the extent to which his unrelenting power has changed him and how the way that the American government has utilized him has contorted his willingness to help it achieve its goals. Russia is terrified of the United States in the beginning of the cold war because of the absolute decimation that Dr. Manhattan caused in the Vietnam War.

Yet, Dr. Manhattan's inherited superior intellect has convinced him of the obsolete nature of humanity, and he decides to leave Earth for Mars, which in turn has catalyzed an imminent nuclear war due to the fact that Russia wishes to once again assert its dominance with Dr. Manhattan no longer wishing to be involved with humanity. In this regard, Moore constructs a type of hero that stands to show the true nature of superheroes, and develop what fantasies exist of heroes into the nightmares that they truly exist as, when the reader reflects upon their existence in general. This is cemented by the presence of the detective hero Rorschach, who has taken his name and his mask from the famous ink blot tests used in psychiatry. In these tests, psychiatrists give people pictures which have no meaning, constructed out of random ink blots, to test the projections and thoughts of their patients based on what the person sees. The art of Gibbons and the writing of Moore thus are used to show that the fantasies of superheroes do not coincide with what they actually are, and Rorschach's bleak outlook on life portrays the reality that superheroes were not better for humanity as a whole. He believes that they should largely be held accountable for their actions, and Moore uses him as a device to further this satirical opinion of heroes when Rorschach states, “It must be great for you, having a secret identity, a secret place nobody knows about.” (Moore, VII.10.18)

The entirety of the Watchmen series is used as a device to reflect upon the superhero stereotypes, and to show the depths to which humanity's own fantasies prove to be contradictory to what we wish them to be. In this world, superheroes of essentially every accord are created and used to help establish authority and control from the government in a way that entirety delineates freedom from the reality in which they know. Nixon's regime has gone unregulated, able to avoid loss and corruption due to the involvement of the heroes that he employed, and as a result, the corrupt, near apocalyptic present in the series is a bastardization of the world in which we currently live. The art style of Gibbons and the writing of Moore reflect upon the conditions of this world and the notion that the presence of super humans and heroes do nothing to supplant the fantasies to which people have of them, and that their presence is actually detrimental to humanity in general.