Show notes
As Nite Owl and Rorschach approach Ozymandias’ fortress, Adrian Veidt takes a walk back through his history, and our Watchmen podcast breaks down Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Watchmen #11, “Look On My Works, Ye Mighty…” Plus, one of our hosts has seen the first episode of HBO’s Watchmen series and gives their spoiler-free impressions.SUBSCRIBE TO WATCHMEN WATCH ON ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER, OR RSS. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON.The theme music for Watchmen Watch was written and performed by Jeff Solomon.Plus, here’s a transcript of the episode for you to read through as you listen:Alex: Who watches the Watchman andwho watches you watching the Watchman? We watch you watch the Watchman rightthrough your window like a bunch of creeps. I’m Alex.Justin: I’m Justin.Pete: I’m Pete, but your-Alex: And this is-Pete: Your intro is getting creepierand creepier, man. You got to figure something out with that.Justin: So is Watchman. So is Watchman,Pete.Alex: It is, and we got a lot ofepisodes together. We got two episodes to go here on the comic, and then we’regoing to be jumping into the TV show and by the end, things are going to getreal fucked up.Pete: Yeah.Alex: Yeah. that’s 100% truth.Speaking of fucked up, I’m sorry to do this. Our fourth host, Alan Moore, thelandmark, the benchmark [crosstalk Pete: Can you even call him a host atthis point?Justin: What are you talking about? He’sbeen here for a couple of the episodes.Alex: Yeah, I remember he had somegood things to say about the last issue, I think.Justin: Yeah, he really, really blewhimself up over that last issue.Alex: Oh boy.Justin: It’s like, “Chill out dude.We get it. You’ve Rowe Watchman. But anyway, so he just texted me and he waslike, “Hey, I was there 35 minutes ago.” So I don’t know if we missedhim.Alex: Well, I’ll tell you what, aslong as he recorded his part of the podcast, we’re doing this one over Skype. Icould just edit it in. I can edit it in afterwards, and I’m sure it’ll beseamless. So, just throughout this podcast episode, let’s take incredibly longpauses.Justin: Yeah, that’s true, and we’ll justdrop in some Alan Moore Bond Moe’s.Alex: Yeah, oh, I thought you weregoing to say beneas for some reason. I don’t know why.Justin: Interesting, it’s two differentwords. Bond Mose, means good words. Beneas means doughnut for rich people.Alex: Speaking of doughnuts for richpeople, we’re going to be talking about chapter 11 and not going intellectuallybankrupt over it. As we talk about Look on my Works, ye Mighty the second tolast issue of Watchman by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. As mentioned, the showis premiering on October 20th. I don’t know if we want to get into this on thispodcast. I will mention we’re about a week out. We tape these episodes about aweek in advance, and we’ll probably catch up when we get to the show. I did seethe first episode [crosstalk Justin: What?Alex: What? No, I did. I don’t knowif we want to talk about that at all on the podcast before we get into theissue.Pete: What was it like man?Justin: Well it’ll be one side of theconversation, but yeah, let’s do it.Alex: Sure, I’m not going to spoilanything for anybody because I do want us to talk about a clean and fresh onthe podcast itself, but two observations I will give you all your listeners.The first one, so they showed off the first episode previously at TCA, theTelevision Critics Association. I did talk to some coworkers and friends therewho had seen it, but generally that’s kind of mum, that’s a very privatesituation for people watching that stuff. So this New York Comic Con, this wasthousands of fans inside the Javits Center.Alex: It was the first time theyreally publicly showing off Watchman, and Damon Lindelof came out on stage, andI don’t want to ascribe too much emotion for him because I don’t know him personallyor anything like that, but he, in the sweetest way, seemed so nervous aboutwhat was about to happen, which you don’t really expect from a show runner. Youexpect somebody to come out, and usually expect them to come out and be like,“what’s up y’all? We’re showing of Watchman. He came out-Justin: But I think that’s makes sense tome because these are the people … It’s like if someone were to come into yourhome and be like, “Hey, I made home videos about you and your family. Hereyou go.” Because the fans are that into it. They’re that rabbit about it.It’s like something so close to their hearts like family.Alex: Yeah, and you could see he wascarrying these handwritten notes, and you could see his hand shaking the entiretime while I was reading them, talking about how much Watchman meant to himwhen he was growing up. How it was the first comics that his father had givenhim. They told him it will change his life. And he’s told this story before inthe initial Instagram posts that he put up where he explained why I was doingthe project. He repeated a good chunk of that.Alex: He did, I thought this was alittle weird to call out, but our fourth co-host, Alan Moore, he called themout at the top of the presentation. He said, “I could reference oneperson’s name. You know who I’m talking about, but I couldn’t do this withouthim and this goes out to him and I hope we have honored you, even if your nameisn’t necessarily on this thing.”Pete: That’s a classy move men.Alex: Yeah, it was very sweet. I justwanted to-Justin: I read that report and when youtake your name off something, well how come you can’t even say his name? Hecould say is name.Pete: No man, he was being respectfulabout it.Alex: His name just doesn’t existanymore. Like anybody who does it… could you imagine if somebody just usedhis name to promote their product? They’d be [crosstalk Justin: Disgusting.Pete: Wait a second. Oh, come on guys.Justin: He’s our fourth co-host. We’re notexploiting.Pete: Have you ever been hosting apodcast and then you just realize you’re a part of a piece of shit podcast. Oh,that sucks.Alex: Jesus man, several times a weekI got to tell you.Pete: It’s a heck of a ride.Alex: Well, anyway, that was …Damon Lindelof introduced it. I thought that was very sweet, and then wewatched the whole first pilot episode. I got to tell you, I loved it. I thoughtit was really good. I’m very curious to talk about it with you guys here on thepodcast because there’s a lot to talk about, but my general impression overallwas even though, and we’ve talked about this from the very beginning, you don’tneed to continue Watchman. You don’t need to riff off Watchman. You don’t needto do before Watchman in the comics or anything like that.Alex: We talked about that back whenit was coming out of D.C., but if you are going to do it, I’m glad that it’sgood, and that’s what I thought about this pilot. It was clear that if nothingelse, they have put so much thought into every single frame of it and to me itmatched my hopes of what I wanted out of the show.Justin: Wow. A greatness-Alex: Being very vague about it. Idon’t want to spoil anybody’s experience, but I was very happy at the end withthe experience that I have. I’m very excited to watch it again because-Pete: Would you say the first half wasgood, but the second half wasn’t or-Alex: I know you like to make fun ofme for doing that. No, it was good throughout. Regina King is amazing. The castis amazing.Pete: She is a national treasure. Thatwoman is unbelievable.Alex: It’s going to be a conversationpiece, that’s the other thing. People are going to talk about it quite a bitbecause even when it honors, and echoes, and reverberates off of Watchman, thecomic that we’re about to talk about, it’s very much its own thing, and it’salmost, in a certain way, in conversation with Watchman, the comic book. Again,I know that’s being very vague, but it’ll make more sense when you watch it.Pete: Weird.Justin: It’s in conversation.Pete: You’re telling us to watch thisWatchman show? Is that what you’re saying?Alex: Yeah. I’ll tell you what, Iknow we were kind of waffling about this. Let’s [crosstalk Justin: Don’t waffle the Watchman.Alex: But you buy our Watchman brandedwaffle bakers made with our good friend, [Wildland Bore by Le Creuset.Justin: Le Creuset. Excellent partner forthis Watchman themed waffle maker. Every nook and cranny is full of syrup andbean juice.Alex: Oh, there was one other thingthat I wanted to mention to you guys about the Watchman premier. So I went tothe Watchman party afterwards-Pete: Men, you went on all Watchman.Alex: I was all Watchman all thetime. Now, this was actually the thing that made me feel a little uncomfortableabout the whole monetization of the whole thing-Justin: I’m sorry, the what?Alex: Monetization of the wholething, where as opposed to the premiere where they were very respectful ofeverything to go in and hear like a DJ blasting 90’s dance music and peopledressed in cosplay wandering all over the place, that was a little weird. Butthe main thing I wanted to mention to you, which I was very excited about,we’ve talked about previously in the podcast, they had Watchman theme drinks andin fact, they had Doctor Manhattan.Pete: That’s good.Justin: That’s nice.Alex: Now, I know your recipe was aManhattan with big blue dick in it, right Justin?Justin: No, I believe my recipe wasstirred with a regular dick. Didn’t have to be blue unless you happen to have ablue dick and not naturally then ice-Alex: I’ve been freezing my dick allnight just to make sure it’s nice and blue when I stir my cocktails [inaudibleJustin: You could just get a vasectomy.Pete: I just want to back up the truckfor a second here.Justin: It’s much cheaper to just stick itin the freezer. What’s up Pete.Pete: You thought it was people wholook like they were going to a Comic Con were at the party that was forWatchman.Alex: No, what I mean by it is thatWatchman is a very particular thing, without being too snotty or gate keepingor about it. It was just a regular Comic Con party where they were like,“Here we go now, Here we go now oh, oh, oh.” And everybody’s dancingaround and getting drunk, and partying.Pete: I like the way you’re putting atone on that. I think it’s a great song.Alex: Oh, you’re missing my pointentirely, Pete.Justin: Wait, Alex, are you saying youwere bothered by the Alan Moore jalapeno poppers they were serving at theparty?Alex: Yes, can I give you the recipefor a Doctor Manhattan then we’ll move on?Pete: Okay, great.Justin: Yes, please.Alex: Okay, Doctor Manhattan,according to them, is four roses bourbon, splash Curacao liquor, Biancavermouth, and orange bitters.Justin: Well, the Curacao is horrible.Pete: That’s sounds disgusting.Justin: [crosstalk blue.Alex: I’ll tell you what, it made itblue, wasn’t great.Pete: I could have told off from thatlist.Justin: Curacao is a bad thing.Alex: I’ll tell you what, I got drunkand I made some very poor decisions there that night, extremely poor decisions.Pete: Good for you.Justin: When do we get into thosedecisions?Pete: Yeah, when do we talk aboutthat? Which podcast is that?Alex: Just very briefly then we’llmove on. I bought a ticket to go see Joker. [crosstalk Pete: I don’t care what you say.You’re a sellout, man.Alex: I was very drunk. We’ll talkabout this another time. Let’s jump into Look on my Works, ye Mighty, chapter11 of Watchman. This is the big issue. This is the big one. Granted, some stuffhappens in the next issue as well, but this is really where it all goes down,and for those of you who were, whatever reason, haven’t been reading to thispoint, we know now that Adrian Veidt is the villain. He’s been masterminding aplan. We don’t know exactly what that plan is. At night, Ellen Rorschach haveheaded to Antarctica to his base to confront him.Alex: Even though they put togethermost of the clues, they’re still not quite sure why he’s done this or whatexactly is going on, and they want to find out more from him. So, this is verymuch the Ozymandias issue. We’ve seen him a bunch throughout the comic, butthis is the first time we’re really getting inside of his head, and it’s prettyhuge. Before we get into a page by page or anything, any overall impressions ofthe issue, things you taken away, themes, anything like that?Justin: Well, it’s interesting. So whenNite Owl and Rorschach head to Antarctica, they’re like, “Oh, Adrian Veidtis responsible for The Comedian’s death perhaps and threatening the otherheroes.” But in the midst of this, they’re like, the world is probablyending, but they’re heroes and they’re like, “Hey, the world’s ending, butwe should go investigate this murder our friend may or may not haveaccomplished.” I think that’s interesting that it happened to work out aswe learn in this issue that they caught both problems at the same time.Alex: Well, but I think, maybe I’mnot remembering correctly, but I believe they made that decision last issue,right?Justin: Yes, they did.Alex: They decided let’s tackle thesolvable, potentially solvable problem versus, hey, we’re going to stop nuclearannihilation between the United States and Russia, right?Justin: Right, but don’t you think … Iguess maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the like, oh, as humans we can’tactually solve these larger problems, so let’s just do what we think we canhandle because I think that plays into a lot of the themes of this issue, whichis all about how we as humans set our own traps and end up causing our ownproblems that come back and get us killed or ruin our lives basically.Alex: Well, and the other thing thatis playing throughout the issue, that’s actually been playing throughout theseries, but really comes to bear here is just kind of the idea of knots. Everyissue has its own theme and that’s something that’s gets pushed very heavily.The image on the cover and in the second paddle this time is these butterfliesand this fully age peeking through the snow. It’s in the shape of the stain onThe Comedians button. So it’s the same sort of thing, but it also kind of lookslike a rope tied together.Alex: We’ve had the Gordian knotlocksmiths or Gordian lock, I think it was called, that’s popped up throughoutsort of that running joke about Dan Dry berg’s door keeps getting knocked openand they keep coming back and fixing it. But throughout this, we get the ideaof knots, and what I took away from that is that we are all intrinsically tiedtogether, but often it’s hard to tell a knot from a tangle, if that makessense.Justin: Interesting.Pete: WowAlex: Well, I’m riffing a little bitoff of your point here, Justin, that everybody is so tied together. When youlook at it up close, Nite Owl and Rorschach are heading there and they’re like,“okay, what is this small solvable thing? We can untie a knot,right?” But ultimately they find that it’s this enormous bundle of ropethat is stretched all over the world.Justin: Yeah, I mean, to take that as alarger metaphor for this whole issue, like this issue is crazy complicated.There’s so much exposition. All the Black Freighter stuff, when I was youngerreading this, I was like, “Okay, let’s get back to the story.” But Ifeel like maybe it’s a sign of maturity or growing up or being interested indifferent things anyway, is that’s the stuff that is so intense here. Themetaphor of that is so great juxtaposed against both the people at the newsstand, and the crime that happens there, and then the larger story of AdrianVeidt Rise from being just a rich genius to having this plot to save the worldby killing half of New York city.Alex: Well, I just want to mention,to get back to the thing that you said about the Black Freighter stuff, I agreewith you as the same sort of thing. I basically skimmed it the first time Iread it when I was younger. So yeah, going back now when we’re really delvinginto it, it certainly makes a lot more sense, but there’s a very funny exchangetowards the middle/end of the issue when Bernie, the news stands dude, findsout that the dude has been reading the Black Freighter the entire time is alsonamed Bernie.Alex: He says, what we’ve all beenthinking, the dude on the ground, he says, “Why do you keep coming backhere for weeks and reading that over and over?” And the younger Berniesays, “Because they don’t make sense man. That’s why I got to read themover.” And I think a, that’s a very funny exchange. B, it ties into thatwhole knot thing of him trying to unravel what’s going on with the BlackFreighter, but I think that also points to exactly what you were saying is thatdivide between youth and older. Not that Bernie, the newsman, has any real ideawhat’s going on, but the younger Bernie is just like looking at as a kid andit’s like, “I don’t know why these pirate comics are like this.” Andthat it isn’t until later that you really get them.Justin: Yeah, it is funny that the Berniecharacter there also, he’s young and he also doesn’t read it. Just like we alsodidn’t really read it when we were meeting this comic. Man, Alan Moore gets it,except for showing up on time for a podcast.Pete: I mean overall it starts kind ofreal interesting, tying stuff in but the ending is so massive. That ending blewme away so much that I was like…. that’s when I went back and startedrereading stuff and the interview at the end of this, I read that all the waythrough. That’s the first time. That ending was so bad-ass and that was such anamazing villain monologue thing that I was like, “Oh my God, this comicjust went from being really interesting and beautifully drawn, and well done toa whole different level of respect.”Justin: I mean, I agree with you, thelevel of just mastery of the art form to pull off telling a story this complexwith all these crazy details in it, and also making the end reveals trulyshocking and have a great fight sequence in the middle. This revelation aboutAdrian fight and he kills his assistance through boredom mostly, I think, isgreat. It’s just such a great issue and it does so much.Alex: I don’t know if you’re talkingabout reading this time or the first time you read it, Pete, but I got to tellyou, I knew exactly what was going to happen. But when you get to that finalline of Adrian Veidt where he says, “I did it 35 minutes ago,” Icackled when I read it, this time too, because it’s so good. Even if you knowexactly what’s coming, the way-Justin: It still gets you.Alex: … the way the word bubblesare paced out too it just hits it at a perfect rhythm. It’s amazing.Pete: Yeah, it really does.Justin: And he’s a cocky motherfucker.He’s a cocky motherfucker, this guy.Alex: So, the other thing that we’retouching on a little bit here that we should mention, and then I guess weprobably, we’ll page-by-page a little bit, but there’s two things that aregoing on in this issue. We’re following Nite Owl and Rorschach as they areapproaching Adrian Veidt to the palace, fortress, whatever you want to call it,and confronting him. Ultimately him laying out his whole history, and plan, andexactly what’s been going on the entire time, cresting in this I did a 35minutes ago. And then we’re watching what’s going on the street corner with thenew stand as every single regular human character we’ve encountered over thecourse of the past 10 issues all come together at exactly the same time,exactly the wrong time.Alex: But it isn’t until later thatwe realize that we’ve been watching what happened to the past. We’re watching35 minutes ago through this entire thing. You can tell if you look at theclocks, but they’re off to the side in such a way that it’s not immediatelyclear until for Nite Owl and Rorschach, it’s far too late.Justin: Yeah, and the fact that seeing theHiroshima lovers shadow here and the fact that that’s the blast point wherethat hits, everything starts to resonate for us backwards as well. That this isthe flash point where this disaster happens and all of these characters are thevictims of it. I feel like it just … We get to live like Dr. Manhattanbecause we retroactively feel so bad for these characters that we’ve beenfollowing their sort of boots on the ground story this whole time.Pete: Also a lot of people are like,“Oh, why do you like Rorschach?” This right here is a moment that Ireally like Rorschach where even though he’s beaten, he still keeps getting upand trying to win. He does that move behind his back to block Rorschach andthat to me, I love the fact that he’s not willing to accept this and is stillfighting to the bitter end.Alex: I got to say he uses a fork,right? Are you sure he’s not trying to eat Ozymandias because he’s so hungry?Justin: He’s been in the snow for so longand that’s a tasty dude.Alex: He’s only had a sugar cube tea.Pete: Oh man.Justin: Yeah. And let me ask you, Pete. Inthis story, in this issue specifically, what character do you want to be orwhat character are you?Pete: Rorschach.Justin: Alex, what about you?Alex: What character do I want to be?Justin: What character are you like, I’mhim or her?Alex: Oh, I’m having a little troublewrapping my mind around it. In the real world, I’d probably be one of theassistants that dies in the snow.Justin: Come on dude, that’s the saddest answeryou could ever say.Pete: It’s honest though. It’s honest.Alex: Yeah, man.Justin: One of the assistants who dies inthe snow, come on man.Alex: Yeah, or maybe the lesbianwho’s getting beaten up by her lesbian lover.Justin: Wow, jeez. Alex, be best.Alex: Okay, [Bu Bust I’ll be Bu Bustiest.Justin: There you go.Alex: Wait what about you? What areyou getting at here? What’s your game Justin?Justin: There’s no game. I just think it’sfunny-Pete: Are you the villain monologue in,are you?Justin: Yeah. I’m Adrian Veidt.Alex: I knew it. Well, what I thoughtyou were getting at was the idea that you touched on Justin, either a podcastor two back about the idea that, sure, we look at Adrian Veidt as the villain,but maybe he actually is the hero of this story. Is that where you’re gettingat or not at all?Justin: No, definitely. In technically ifthe way … I mean, the next issue we technically don’t know what happens inthat because we’re reading this issue, but if the story continues, and we’regoing to find out in the TV series, he saved the world from nuclear disaster.So he is really the hero in that way even though he murdered half a millionpeople or half of New York city, and killed a bunch of heroes and all thisother stuff. It radiated a bunch of people. But I also think like this issuesets him up in that way because he’s talking about how the ills of the world,how humans just are built to kill each other and kill the environment, andthese things resonate so hard with our current life and politics and globaldisasters. It’s crazy how this series was written so long ago and feels sopresent.Alex: I completely agree with you ofthat. I would argue that this issue makes a very strong and not completelysubtle case that Adrian Veidt is a psychopath, like unrelenting-Justin: A sociopath.Alex: Sociopath, yes. So, just towalk through this a little bit because I do want to talk about that. Actually,I’ll mention a couple of things that come to mind in terms of Adrian Veidt thatI think you could certainly read into it. When he’s telling his story to hisassistants, he tell his backstory, explains that he was raised rich by hisparents. They died when he was 17. There’s a shot of him, I believe, sitting onone of the graves, and the implication that I took away from that is heprobably killed his parents.Pete: Yeah, he murdered them.Justin: I agree with you.Alex: Yeah. [crosstalk particularly because Rorschach says he’s never killed anybody, which contrastvery directly with, yeah, but he probably has been killing people as long as hehas had the capacity to kill.Justin: Yeah, I mean, I think he’s someonewho doesn’t value other humans lives, the lives of other humans, and that’strue sort of especially through this story. Then, again, at the end when werealize what he’s done because he thinks of himself as this person, the manabove all other people.Alex: Right. There’s also the otherthing that’s running through Ozymandias’s backstory is his rivalry with TheComedian that plays out through this issue, which very much straddles the linein terms of how you interpret it. Extensively on the surface, he talks aboutthe first meeting between Ozymandias and The Comedian. It’s something theyrevisited in the back matter, which seems like this very classic heroes fightbefore they team up type thing, but they’re very clear about the fact that TheComedian beats Ozymandias, which, again on the surface, if you wanted to readThe Comedian as hero, he’s actually beating a villain in that case and onceagain that paints Ozymandias as a villain, except for the fact that as we knowthroughout reading this comic book, comedian is a pretty awful dude himself.Justin: Well, I think they see each other,or at least this is mostly from Veidt perspective, but they’re both stillsociopath’s in the way they value other human lives. I think the fact thatAdrian Veidt is using The Comedians… his whole plan is inspired by TheComedian and is basically a joke or as he calls it a prank. So, I do think hekills him to prove that he’s the better man but The Comedians sort of POV orphilosophy is what Adrian Veidt actually just sort of steals and uses toexecute in his plan.Alex: Yeah, should we walk throughthis issue? Should we go a little page by page or two over here?Justin: Let’s do it.Alex: All right, so we do start offon that first page where he is laying everything out about his philosophy. Iswore I wasn’t going to use this word again, but there is some really nice juxtapositionon this page as it goes, [crosstalk Justin: Juxtaposition.Alex: Let get something that I wantedto throw by you guys. So, he’s watching everything on his monitors. Bu Busts iswalking next to him and he’s saying some very cheeky stuff about, of course,the ice they’re skating on is slippery and thinner that it looks. Let’s hopethey don’t become reckless and overstep themselves. Let’s hope they know whereto stop, and of course they don’t stop. They do keep coming. We had talked aboutin the last episode that part of Adrian Veidt plan was leading them here,luring them here and then laying everything out for them. Do you think there’sa part of him that thinks maybe they won’t make it, maybe they will turn back?Justin: Yeah, and I think he’s the kind ofguy who’s like, oh they’re still coming? Oh great. I’ll get to talk to themabout my plan. My former partners in arms like this is a nice brotherhood, thatI can really brag about what I’ve done in front of them. So I think, he takes pleasurein it a little bit and he doesn’t feel threatened in the least.Alex: Yeah, neither should he. Whatwere you going to say Pete?Pete: I say agreedAlex: Nice, so then they decided togo out anyway, and we get Adrian reaction to that, realizing that he has to goforth with his plan. He can’t put off things any longer. We get a very clearshot of the clocks in Tokyo, London and New York, so we know exactly what timeit is, and there’s a large panel where he says, no time like the presentplaying off of those clocks. Also playing off of the very large picture of, Ibelieve, it’s Alexander the great who I was named after. I don’t want to bragor anything.Justin: Oh my God.Pete: Did you just drop that in?Alex: I mean, it’s not a big deal.Don’t even worry about it.Justin: Your middle name is Alex… Yourname is Alexander like the fine?Alex: Yeah, my name is Alexander, thebeat up lesbian. [crosstalk Justin: Is that a family name, a familymiddle name?Alex: Yeah, it’s from my grandfather.So, then another very interesting secret, we see Adrian walking through. Hesays to Bu Bust not coming any further. No, fair enough. Wait here. This won’ttake a moment. Why do you think Bu Bu stats who’s basically just a giant catdoesn’t want to come into this chamber and watch Ozymandias know what’s goingon?Justin: He’s worried about getting blamed.Pete: No, he used to-Justin: He’s like, let me chill out. Idon’t want to be named in the court documents. I’ve got a life.Pete: He knows where the dead bodiesare. He doesn’t want anything to do with that place.Alex: I don’t know. I agree withJustin. If you see a bunch of broken stuff on the floor, you’re immediatelyblaming the cat, not the smartest man in the world.Justin: Yeah, exactly. That cat is like,oh, I actually like New York. I have some friends who are in the musical catsand I don’t want to be part of this.Alex: Yeah. Now, two other thingsthat I want to point out on this page. One, it’s so clear when you look back atit, but there’s a closeup shot if him pressing the button at exactly the 35 minutes ago. So if you’re paying attention to any of the clockswhere they show up at New York, if you’re paying attention to any of the clocksin the actual scene, you know that it’s already happened. But then there’s thepanel right after that, which doesn’t become clear until the next issue, butOzymandias seemingly looks directly at us, the reader, and is bathed in a bluelight before he turns back and finishes what he’s doing. It’s pretty clearthere that Dr. Manhattan is showing up, right? I think?Justin: I don’t know, interesting. I meanI hadn’t thought of that. I love this sequence. I mean we talked about thepacing in this a lot. That to me feels like that moment where you’re like,“Oh, what’s he doing? God, this feels important. I don’t know what he’sdoing. I wish I could find out what he’s doing.”Pete: Also, I agree with Alburn. Itdoes look like the blue is like a nod to Dr. Manhattan.Alex: Well, it might be, even if itisn’t specifically Dr. Manhattan showing up and I honestly do not remember fromthe next issue, it could just be based on the fact that for all of his smarts,for all of his planning, everything that he has is really based on dr Manhattanand dr Manhattan’s technology.Justin: He’s a scumbag.Alex: Exactly, he is. He’s stealing.He’s using other people’s works in order to do what he himself is just sayingwhat he wants to do-Pete: So you’re saying he hooked it upso when he presses the red button, a blue light goes off as like a F you to Dr.Manhattan?Alex: No, I mean I think that’s …Again, I think we’re going to probably find out where we’re about in the nextissue, if I remember correctly. But I do think it’s firmly indicating that no,this is not Ozymandias doing whatever is happening right now, it’s Dr.Manhattan, even if he would want it to be himself.Pete: Oh wow.Justin: Oh, interesting.Alex: So then we get everybodycoalescing on the same area as we get some of the tales of the Black Freighter.We do meet the girlfriend who also, she’s part of the Knot-tops. This gang thatwe’ve touched on now and again, that’s another knot reference in the issue.Then also we get the big revelation of the tales of the Black Freighter, whichwe kind of already knew from reading the previous issue, but the characterhimself realizes the classic, “Are we the baddies moment,” where hecomes in and he’s beating up what he thinks is a pirate and it turns out he’skicking the shit out of his wife in front of his kids.Alex: In her, he realizes he’s becomethe evil that he thought was coming for him and coming for his family. Samesort of thing that’s going on with everybody in the world. They are becomingthe evil that they thought was coming for them. And then we cut back toOzymandias in his big dome entertaining his three assistants. Now, youmentioned that he’s being an asshole earlier, Justin. I think this is anEgyptian thing. He says, “You’re buried with your attendance, right?”So, instead of burying them in sand, he’s burying them in snow by the end ofthe sequence.Justin: Yeah, but he’s not like, oh, I’mgoing to die too. He’s like, “Sorry dudes, you die. I’m going to go dosome other stuff.”Alex: I mean, that’s the curiousthing about it, right? Like you would think if he really was following thisphilosophy, he was really believing what he’d say like Alexander, he would dieyoung. I know he says that he wasn’t planning on doing that throughout theissue, but also if he was following Ramsey’s in the Egyptian tradition, hewouldn’t plan on making it out of this, right? So he’s a hypocrite beyondanything else.Pete: Also I’m really disappointed ina place that cool they don’t have HR. Like tell HR to let them go. They’ll doit a lot nicer. It will be … They’re not such a big thing. I don’tunderstand.Justin: No, this is the best way to befired.Alex: When you said cool, I thoughtyou meant Antarctica.Pete: Cool, like pretty chill.Alex: Yeah, pretty chill.Justin: I mean it’s, especially fucked upthat the last thing these three dudes have to hear is another boring story fromtheir boss, and then the one dude’s got butterfly all over his face, like, comeon.Alex: I don’t know. That happened tome once in the Museum of Natural History. A butterfly landed on my head, veryupsetting.Pete: I’m glad you didn’t die at thatexact moment.Alex: Who knows? This could be somehorrible dream that I’m experiencing right now. So dudes do die. We get thisshot of him sitting on the tombstone with hay, or whatever it is, grass in hismouth. He’s kind of smoking it a little bit, and we start to get his archerstory. He says that he divested all of his money, traveled the world. It’s notquite here, but we do get a shot of him. It’s actually two pages from there, ashe’s continuing to talk to his assistants where he’s standing in front of thestars completely naked. He is bathed in red and it almost to me, I take it asthe opposite of Dr. Manhattan.Justin: Yeah, I think that makes sense,and he’s just had some hashish and he’s like going into that mental state whereyou can really become a true sociopath.Alex: Right, the other thing thatI’ll mention just in terms of the coloring is throughout the sequence he is asilhouette. He doesn’t exist. He’s not there. He’s the absence of things. We’vecertainly seen that with the Hiroshima Lovers and other things. I don’t know ifnecessarily there’s a connection there. The main way that I took it was that heis not yet the person that he wants to be, and it isn’t until he becomesOzymandias that he is colored.Justin: Oh, that’s interesting. I likedthat a lot. I took it as he’s a void. He’s part of the abyss. He doesn’tcontribute anything, he just draws energy and everything into him because he’sa villain.Pete: Yeah, I thought it was like hehad been changing into the villain that he wanted to be.Alex: Yeah. So regardless though, aswe mentioned, he does kill the assistants. He buries them in snow instead ofthe sand. Here’s a thing we should probably touch on, the whole Ozymandias ofit all, why he’s called Ozymandias. “Look on me, my works, yemighty,” the rest of that is and despair. But the way that I alwaysinterpreted that poem and the way I think you interpret that poem, is they comeon this broken statue of a man and there’s nothing around him. It says,“Look on my works,” and there’s no works around except for thisbroken statue of Ozymandias. How does that connect with the Ozymandias and thebook? How does that connect with what he’s doing? I bring that up here becausehe’s clearly causing the destruction not just of New York, but of his Antarctichideaway base at the same time.Justin: He’s vivarium.Alex: Yeah.Justin: I think he’s romanticizing theterm. He likes the idea, I think, that he’s this super villain who is createdthis whole thing in his secret plan to save the world, and no one will everknow the true source of it. Because he does have plans, I think after this tocontinue his business and go back to his life as Adrian Veidt the herobusinessman. But the Ozymandias side is you’ll never see my works because Ihave erased it from the earth myself.Alex: I thought it was an interestingthing you just said, Justin, in terms of him stealing from everybody and notmaking anything on his own, that essentially he is this parasite on the entireworld because if you think about it, he hears all of Alexander’s things and hegoes and travels that journey and it’s like, “How can I do this better? Iwant to do this better.” He hears about Ramsey and he wants to do itbetter. Dr. Manhattan, but he wants to do it better. He takes all of that, TheComedian, he wants to do it better. That might be the same thing, taking on thename Ozymandias being like, “Yeah, but that won’t be me. I’m going to dobetter than the guy that said, look on my works of despair because you actuallywill look on my works and despair because they will last forever.”Justin: Yeah, I think that’s totallyvalid. He definitely has that taking credit for other people’s actions whilenever being that creative force on his own.Pete: I just think the guy’s a superdouche.Justin: Or that. That is what Ozymandiastranslates to directly.Alex: Well thank you. You speakfluent Greek, I believe, Latin.Justin: Oz is super and manias is douche.Alex: So then we do get a page of thenewsstand, the wife of the therapist/psychiatrist who’s helping out [inaudiblearound. There is a uncomfortable/comfortably hilarious exchange where the guy’slike, “Oh, why don’t you go to the Negro watchmaker up the street?”And she’s like, “Do you think we have a club? What are you talkingabout?” And he’s like, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” But what’shappening throughout this page is this exchange is interspersed with the man inthe Black Freighter story. Seeing the Black Freighter itself and swimmingtowards it. I think what’s pretty clear is all of these people, as we see bythe end of the issue, they’re all embroiled in this enormous fight. They’reswimming towards their own destruction, right? They’re swimming towards theirown death.Justin: Yeah, and to follow the BlackFreighter line as he swims closer, trying to track down the answer to thismystery that’s plagued him, he realizes when he gets there, “Oh, I’m justjoining this badness. All this time I’ve been fighting against this and I’mactually a part of it,” and he’s welcomed aboard and becomes one of thepirates of the Black Freighter.Alex: Yeah. Now I want to talk aboutyour favorite dude for a little bit, Pete, Rorschach, because then we get tothe scene of Nite Owl and Rorschach sneaking into the hideout, touring througheverything we’ve seen before. I think it’s pretty clear, at least to me, thatRorschach realizes how out of his depth he is almost immediately, andspecifically I’ll call out two lines. As they’re outside, he says, “Palmtrees buried in snow doesn’t make sense.” And then later on Dan is tryingto open the door. He’s trying to open it with this laser, and is having alittle bit of trouble the Rorschach says, “Nervous?” But Dan isn’tactually nervous. He’s fine. This is the sort of thing that he’s kind of usedto. He’s just trying to figure it out, but I think Rorschach actually is nervous.I think he is scared of what’s going on because this is so much bigger than heever could have imagined.Justin: I 100% agree. In the last coupleissues Rorschach has been so chatty. He’s been so verbose when they break intoAdrian’s penthouse and find out all this information. He’s like talking forpanels and panels, and in this section he is only speaking in sentencefragments, just like random little bits. I think he is terrified and I love thesubtle way they present that.Pete: I don’t know if it’s terrified,if he’s just kind of like taking it all in because they just rolled up on asecret layer that is really weird and freaky, and they’re kind of walkinginto… I think he’s just kind of like when you first go to a place you’re kindof looking around and soaking it in, and that’s how I feel.Justin: No, I think he’s scared. He’sscared. He’s a scared cat.Pete: You’re a doucheJustin: Do you mean Mandy is?Alex: There’s one other thing that Iwanted to point out. So as they’re walking through the base, we get to see acouple of rooms that we’ve seen before. We see the room with the big Alexanderpainting. We see the chamber where he transported the squid as we find out nextissue. They walked through the stairs that he’s walked before. But right asthey come in, we see a weird sort of doomed structure. Nite Owl says, I mean,what the hell is that thing? Half this equipment I don’t even recognize. Isthat the chamber that created Dr. Manhattan or a version of it?”Justin: Interesting, I mean, I had neverthought that, but I guess it could be.Alex: I don’t know, it just seemsweird thing to call out in particular, right?Pete: Yeah, kind of. It reminded methat’s the only thing we’ve seen close to anything like that. So you’ve got tokind of assume he tried to make his own Dr. Manhattan.Alex: Yeah, if he wanted to do that,he probably should have gotten more blue Curacao. So then we get a two pagesequence, a big fight sequence as Ozymandias takes down Nite Owl and Rorschachpretty handily. Pete, your dude taken out like a bitch. What’d you think?Pete: Hey man, if you’re all class,he’s still fighting though. He’s still fighting.Justin: Yes, he does. He uses his forkwisely.Alex: So, the interesting thing, Ithink, about the structure of the issue here is the first half of the issuewhen he’s talking to the assistants, he’s repeating his past, right? He’slaying that all out. But then we get this big two page spread in the middle ofthis fight sequence that’s mostly silent, and then after that we get to see thesuperhero history that we’ve heard about and seen so far.Alex: But through Ozymandias’perspective, so it’s almost these two halves, these histories laying out. Forthe assistants who are part of the overall grand scheme, he’s laying out thatpart of the history. For the superheroes, he’s laying out the superherohistory, is how I took that at least.Justin: Oh yeah. I think that’s great. Imean, it fits nicely in the first part of his story and the second part of hisstory timing wise. But again, real cocky to be telling your plan literallywhile you’re fighting the heroes.Alex: Yeah. On the Rorschach band,it’s so weirdly upsetting to see Ozymandias rotating his mask. I know that’ssuch a specific thing, but seeing him take his mask and kind of twist it sothat what Rorschach has called his face isn’t on right makes be very sad forRorschach in that moment.Pete: I know.Alex: Did you feel that way?Justin: Yeah.Alex: Pete?Pete: Yeah, that was definitely like alow blow.Alex: Yeah, cool. Thank you forelaborating.Justin: If I was fighting you and if I hadjust like shaved off your goatee while I was fighting you.Alex: Oh, Jesus.Justin: Which is what I will do withshaving cream.Pete: Well, since I have a beard thatwould be weird that you would do that unless you were talking about going backin time to when I did have a goatee.Justin: No, but your goatee is your power.I will shave just the goatee and leave the beard, which is even goofier.Pete: I would have to turn it into oldschool mountain chops then.Justin: Yeah. And who, who can walk aroundthis planet with-Pete: That’s a good point.Alex: Yeah. It just reminded me oflike if you had someone who’s shorter than you and you will hold their head andthey’re just kind of flailing their arms and they can’t hit you that’s kind ofwhat he was doing. It’s a super douche move, you know, just like you’re noteven worth my time. I’m just gonna pull on your mask and that’s enough to makeyou useless.Justin: But they’re not, I mean, they showup here and he dispatches them instantly and then they are literally justfollowing him around while he tells more of his story. They’re there to stophim and then it’s like, “Oh cool. Yeah. Take us on a tour of your coolplace.”Alex: Yeah. Got any snacks? We’repretty hungry. Any sugar cubes or anything like that? Love a good sugar cube.So they do want it around. He lays out the whole plan. He explains how hekilled The Comedian. He gave several people cancer in order to frame Dr.Manhattan and get him off planet. He heard about Rorschach thing. I thoughtthis was an interesting detail. It sounds like he didn’t plan his ownassassination until Rorschach started sniffing around. So it’s interesting thatthere’s a certain level of improvisation to what Ozymandias is doing.Justin: That’s smart.Pete: But also like this plan, theodds of it working out are insane. He started his plan by just irradiating somerandom people, that’s wild. The only reason it seems cool is because we’re hereat the end of it hearing how great it was. If he walked up to you and was like,“I have this plan to save the world. I’m just going to irradiate thesestrangers for the next couple of weeks.” It’s like, what dude are youtalking about?Alex: That’s a real chest move, man.He’s using the ponds that he has. I think it’s a boss move. I mean, when youthink about it, there’s so many villain plants and never really happened.Pete: That’s what I’m saying. This islike a guy who like you’re playing monopoly with and he’s like, “ha ha,I’m going to run waterworks.” It’s like, “Okay man, we’re going toquit in 20 minutes, so do whatever you want.”Alex: But that also points tosomething that we’ve talked about all along, which even to he cops too,everybody calls him the smartest man in the world. He’s not actually thesmartest man in the world. He’s very smart. But to your point, Justin, his Bainplan is I’m going to build this big bod stir, get a bunch of Hollywoodscreenwriters to work at it and then teleport it into New York, and then cooltimes everywhere at that, and then most of the rest of the plant is, ah, shit.I gotta do a bunch of cleanup on all these people that figured out my plan.What do I do now? He’s remaining very cool about it, but it’s not as perfect a planas he wants to let on at all.Justin: No, he fucked up.Alex: Yeah.Justin: When you got shove a pill in adude’s mouth and the fountain of your own building, like-Alex: Yeah, it’s going to slop. It’sgetting sloppy. Yeah. So then we get to the moment we get to the big moment asthe New York city streets starts to clear out from the fight that’s happeningin the background, which itself is very sad because we do get to see thislesbian couple devolving into a fight we didn’t even touch on. There’s thisincredibly sad moment, uh, where the grapher member of the couple who’s beingbroke up with he’s like,”I just want to sleep with you. I just want tofucking sleep with you. I just want to feel something. I just want to be happy.I want to die,” and starts beating her up and it broke my heart readingthat. We see the same thing with the therapist and his wife where they’rehaving almost the same conversation Lori and Dr. Manhattan had about are peopleworth it or not? So do you save the earth or not?Alex: And then Bernie and Bernie arehaving a very similar conversation where Dreiberg is like, “I don’t carewhat’s the big deal? We have the same Big birdy.” They’re completelyfalling apart across the board. And as that’s happened and things are tighteningand simplifying with Ozymandias to we get that paddle where he says, “Doit… Dan? I’m not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I’dexplained to my master stroke if there remain the slightest chance of youaffecting its outcome? I did it 35 minutes ago.” And then we cut to thatpaddle of Night Owl and Rorschach stnding in front of the clocks. We see thatit’s one minute to midnight in New York, and the streets of New York havecleared off. But of course this is all happening into the past. And that finalpage, we see all the characters seeing what’s happening, which we don’t findout until the next issue.Alex: And then the ultimateheartbreak, Bernie and Bernie turned to each other. They hold each other as ithappens after younger Bernie has said, “No, I don’t want anything to dowith you, man. Leave me alone.” And they fade. And we end once again withthe same splash pattern on the comedians button. But this time it’s thedissipated molecules of Bernie and Bernie who had been blown apart the same wayDr Manhattan was created and we’re left with one white panel just like the snowin the beginning. So sad.Justin: So sad. The fact that they havethe line of like, “What does it matter that we’re both named Bernie?”And then it actually is the most meaningful thing at the end that they were,had a somewhat of a connection and there with each other when they die, such agreat subtle little little package.Alex: Well then it pays off. Like wetouched on earlier in the podcast, all of these various things that of coursearen’t randomly thrown in there, but feel like they’re similarly randomly throwit in there. Like the newspaper people like the therapist, all of thesecharacters. We lived with them so long beyond the “main characters” inthe book. All for this moment. Also, we could feel this moment and understandthe weight of this moment. Pete, how did it hit you?Pete: I mean it just it sucked man.Who really was it’s such a powerful ending after like such a Oh shit moment.It’s like, you know, you really feel it.Alex: Yeah. And then the back matterof course is a rolling stone style interview where the interviewer putsthemselves in the interview way too much where he’s talking to Ozymandias. Ofnote it takes place in 1975, which is about when he has started to kick hisplan off. We have about 10 years there where he’s putting it into action. Sothere’s little hints there. There’s little touches there, but already you get asense of where Ozymandias is heading even though the guy himself doesn’t realizeit. Any final thoughts about this issue?Justin: Just like I, like I said before,the storytelling here though, the way it all culminates here, we have gottenall of the heroes sort of origins and at this point all the characters originsand now we’re here at this final point moment where the trap is sprung and it’sjust great.Alex: Yeah.Justin: I live for the day when I cansomehow get captured the moment of like, Oh, I did it 35 minutes ago.Alex: Yeah. Pete, any final thoughtsfrom you?Justin: I’m spent, dude.Alex: Oh, man. [crosstalk Justin: Well, I just think that we coveredit. it’s a powerful ending.Alex: It is absolutely a powerfullanding and this is a powerful ending to our podcast. If you’d like to supportus, patrion.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night atwith you about Watchman. You can follow us at Watchman watch podcast onInstagram and Facebook. WatchmanWatchone on Twitter, comic book club alive toup for this podcast, and many more. Also, subscribe and please comment oniTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Android, or the app of your choice. And remember, wetaped this podcast. Oh God, I’m forgetting. What was it, how long ago. in thepast? Oh yes. Six weeks. Six weeks. Yeah. We taped this a week ago. Oh, Alantexted. He’s definitely gonna be here next week for the last dish. I don’tbelieve him.The post Watchmen Watch: Issue #11, “Look On My Works, Ye Mighty…” appeared first on Comic Book Club.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclubAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
