In a lot of ways, Watchmen was a hugely satisfying book. Before getting to the serious writing, however, let me address the silly end of the spectrum.
You see, for years in high school I (mostly) jokingly believed that every problem in the world since the dawn of the Soviet Union could be blamed on that union. I would go through such convoluted loops to make the connections – if you broke a nail or got a flat tire, there was some way I would find that would relate that problem to the USSR. I’d love to give you an example of such a chain, but I never wrote any of it down, and they were clearly such crazy steps in logic that I would sound like a lunatic if I were to tell them to you here anyway.
What’s the point, you ask, of my telling you this? It’s simple, really – it was somewhat gratifying to the 13-year-old version of myself that the world should be brought to the brink of Armageddon by the Red Army. It was interesting, though – this was an Armageddon-type battle, in that countless millions would die, and a battle would have been fought with the USSR vs. seemingly the whole rest of the world. (Which, interestingly enough, would have put the Soviets on the side of good in Revelation, if you choose to take that imagery – a perspective not often visited, or one that I’d not like to ever need to adopt – it would necessitate the US being bad.) Even more interesting, however, was the lack of a God in this apocalypse. Yes, one might argue that Jon (whose name I loved sharing) served as the Christ-figure while Ozymandias served as the antichrist figure, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
I’d like to address the comic gems I found. However, my bookmark fell out from the second one that I found, and so I’ll only be able to bring you one. And by “comic gems,” I only mean to say that it was a gem found in a comic book. I would tell a page number, but this book’s pages are inconsistently numbered. So: Chapter IX, page 6, second row, second and third columns. Jon says “There is no future. There is no past. Do you see? Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.” I can’t say why, precisely, this line stuck out to me. I can’t say what about it was so damn attractive. What I can think of now, however, is that what I took away from it was so profound as to be irresistible – that everything the universe ever has been or ever will be, anything that will or has had happened, is right there in the here and now – we only have to be perceptive enough to comprehend that, to see everything. Granted, he was able to se these infinitesimal particles that made such sight possible… but the wider message to those of us in the real world can be easily understood as “live in the moment.” Or maybe it’s a cleverly hidden way of telling us to take a wider look at the world, as opposed to our own singular moment of right here, right now. And of course, both of my interpretations could be wrong.
But no matter; let’s return to the idea of Jon as the Christ-figure and Ozymandias as antichrist.
Ozymandias as antichrist:
- His rise to power was accompanied by widespread popularity
- When the rest of the superheroes became unpopular – or when they became illegal operatives – he had already withdrawn and maintained his popularity.
- He furthered his own popularity and profitability upon retirement from being a superhero
- He created several product lines, each baring his mark in some way – things that were becoming increasingly popular and spread throughout the world.
- He brought the world’s nations together into a peaceful unity – perhaps not a political union but a union close enough to a Revelation-esque one.
- He was to be the leader of this union, in a way; he so desperately wanted to succeed in such a respect where his idol, Alexander the Great, had failed.
Jon as Christ-figure:
- His birth is of a supernatural origin. That is, it is scientifically explainable – but it is still a mystery – how he came to be after getting trapped as he did is mysterious.
- He’s got powers.
- He’s widely popular at first, but his popularity wanes and he is exiled for some time, but returns.
- His return is to fight the antichrist figure, but in this story, the antichrist has seemingly won. Of course, one wonders, given the peace that has come upon the world now and the lack of any actual battles (forgetting the deaths of half of those who live in NY)… one wonders if we are meant to think of the two figures in this way – Christ-figure and antichrist – or if there’s supposed to be some confusion, the message of which is to say that life is not always clear.
The world may never know the answer to these things, but ultimately I’d like to choose the message of confusion – that we must remember that both saints and sinners bleed, so to speak, and that we must ultimately be careful, and avoid blind faith in those who would be heroes; skepticism and faith can go hand in hand, just they must be mixed carefully.
As a postscript, I’d ask – does anyone feel that Rorschach could be likened to John the Revelator? I don’t really like Rorschach, but I’m willing to accept that this could be his role, even though he’s a participant in the story’s events and not just a receptive scribe.
