Is Watchmen Prophetic?

              After reading the graphic novel front to back, I’d say that Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen is most definitely prophetic. Readers know right away that this story is not going to end happily. Within the first few pages, readers view the bloody mess left behind from the recent murder of the Comedian, while Rorschach narrates from his journal about the inherent evilness and repulsiveness found in humankind. It is also established quite early on how common it is to see signs around the city warning about nuclear attacks that can strike at any time. Furthermore, at the end of each chapter, there is a depiction of a clock, and the hands are slowly approaching midnight, where coincidentally, by the twelfth chapter, at the twelfth hour, is when Dr. Manhattan and Laurie discover the carnage dealt by the attack on New York. Watchmen literally gives readers a doomsday countdown. 

            Another hint that Watchmen is going to end tragically is found in the treatment and public perception of superheroes. Unlike many comics, where the superhero is often respected and appreciated for his/her work, superheroes have been outlawed. They are a relic of the past, and recently retired superheroes like Dan Dreiberg (a.k.a. the Nite Owl) express a yearning for the past, where the vigilante crimefighting business was celebrated, and matters of right and wrong were separated by a clear line. This disenfranchisement of superheroes and the murkiness of identifying right from wrong tells readers that Watchmen probably won’t end in the traditional narrative where the day is saved and evil is defeated. In fact, two large question that readers form while reading Watchmen is: who’s evil? And who’s good? The graphic novel never seems to give a clear answer.

            I believe that Watchmen is relatable to today. In a post 9/11 world, people often seem to be expecting world destruction. Threats of bombings, of terrorists attacks, or of nuclear strikes sometimes feel commonplace in the modern age, which is echoed in the pages of Watchmen. The graphic novel actually seems to encapsulate the 9/11 attack in some ways because, like in reality, an attack was made on New York, and there is certainly grounds to label Adrian Viedt as a terrorist for his actions. I don’t think Alan Moore or Dave Gibbons happened to do this accidentally.

Also, another common concern in the modern age is our lack of connections with other people. Oftentimes, we blame technology for this distance we maintain from people, and Dr. Manhattan’s presence has also similarly created this aspect of technological advancement in the novel, although I don’t know if that can be pinned as the root cause behind people’s lack of personal relationships in the text. Nonetheless, we see that people are struggling to form connections with others in the text. For example, the boy and the newspaper seller never talk that much to each other, despite hanging around the other’s presence a lot. While the vendor sometimes tries to strike up conversation with the boy, the kid never encourages it, which can be seen as a remark on younger generations. However, readers see that, by the end of the novel, the boy and the newspaper seller finally embrace each other right before their bodies are disintegrated. Perhaps Moore and Gibbons are saying it was a little too late.