New Watchmen Posters

[Conchaga]

His voice is reminiscent of Christian Bale's Batman voice.

 

[Archibald Nixon]

Well, I am happy that they're going for an "R" rating.

 

[Archibald Nixon]

Howza bout something that'll REALLY glaze your eyes over?

9-11 and its immediate aftermath is the squid
by Octaveaeon Nov 13th, 2008
0818 PM
Although this may sound provocative, my point is that the squid represents the sort of event that somehow unveils, to those willing to see, even if momentarily, the underlying reality shrouded by our acquiescence to ignorance when taking for granted the fact that our standards of living – namely our wealth and freedoms – come at a price (and that goes for everyone, not only the U.S.). The idea of the squid as an external threat is not as original as it sounds, since political leaders have always felt the need to demonize strategic opponents by characterizing them as enemies (the so-called ‘Other’) in advance of legitimizing any form of public support. However, I believe that the squid is meant to represent this ‘other’ on two levels.
First of all, and with regards to my reference to 9-11, I mention it in order to draw attention to how it was co-opted (as Dr. Manhattan was by the U.S. through a sense of patriotism, and then by Veidt through a sense of humanism) not only to legitimize the ‘war on Terror’, but more fundamentally as a means to 'end history' by taking advantage of the global solidarity that these attacks had provoked.

By the 'end of history' I refer to the phrase reappropriated by Fukuyama (supporter of the Iraq war at the time and co-signatory to the 1998 PNAC letter to Clinton urging him to remove Hussein by military means; http://www.newamericancentury. org/iraqclintonletter.htm) which suggested that human historical process -- the primary concern of Enlightenment thought – had ultimately rejected communism and embraced liberal democracy as the highest, and thus final (i.e. best alternative under the circumstances), form of political and social order.

Unfortunately, this reading obscures the real challenges that was at play in Hegel’s original concept of history, and subsequently what Nietzsche, Marx, and Kojève struggled with, though all in their individual and highly distinctive ways. Therefore putting Hegel’s thought aside, it was the continuing problem of the best political order (desire for utopia) that troubled thinkers in the wake of WWII (particularly many of the French thinkers influenced by Kojève’s lectures on Hegel in the late 30’s). Having lost faith in the Enlightenment project of modern, rational, and enlightened people governing in peace - free from ideologies and moral dogmas – there came a pronounced aversion (particularly among the intellectual class) to all grand ‘narratives’ about the human spirit, seeing that these could easily be used as ideological propaganda on the ignorant masses by the tyrannical few (hence their anti-humanist critique).

Unfortunately, as many critics of postmodernism have observed, particularly those usually referred to as neo-conservatives (many of whom were originally Trotskyists, but quickly lost faith and instead adopted an anti-communist and anti-progressivist - or what they called bourgeois liberalism - defense of liberalism), this rejection of any claims to Truth or meaning – often associated with dogmatic theology or scientism – produced a culture of irony and relativism. The political dilemma was that modern western democracies, having lost faith in the universal validity of their fundamental principles (and caught up in internal debates about how to actualize so-called ‘rights’ to freedom and equality without making them seem too reliant on any universalist claims), were increasingly less prepared to intervene militarily in order to secure its national interests.

Of course, it was the U.S. that most exemplified this dilemma, having assumed its position as superpower after WWII (cf. the article “Dr. Manhattan: Super-Powers and the Superpowers”), and even more so after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As most political leaders - whose claim to power is sanctioned by collective approval - know, a nation’s foreign policy is always constrained by the moral or ideological sentiments of the public, despite the fact that the public is not always aware (and in many cases cannot be made aware) of the dangers that it faces. It is this precisely this dilemma that many in the White House sought to override by making use of 9-11 and implement the Bush doctrine of pre-emption without international approval (it merits mentioning that the Bush doctrine actually expresses a fundamental principle of power that any nation will adopt under given circumstances in order to retain control over its security interests, though none more than the dominant power, who has no choice but to attempt to maintain order and not jeopardize both its interests and the dominance upon which those interests in turn depend).

The squid – being both grotesque and ridiculous, and a remnant of the fears as they were expressed in those b-movies of the 50’s and 60’s whose posters are depicted throughout the comic (off the top of my head: ‘This Island Earth’ [ch.3, p.11] and ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’) – is meant not only to represent the external threat that Veidt believed would bring the world together, but I think that it is also meant to draw our (i.e. the reader’s) attention to the ‘monsters’ – war, social decadence, alienation, etc. – that our culture produces (but also the graphic novel we, like the black kid sitting on the curb, are holding in our hands), and which continues to hurt us all (look not only at the ending of the novel, but the ending of the novel-within-the novel ‘Marooned’). For this reason, I think that the squid is meant to feel ‘out of place’ within the context of the story (just as Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan, like Vietnam in the novel, all feel out of place in comparison to the rhetoric of idealism, as well as respect for human rights and the rule of law).

In other words, it is meant to provoke a ‘wtf?’ reaction from the reader; as if to make us realize how contrived not only this solution is (and thus anti-climatic), but also to juxtapose our desire for some form of resolution with the other desires depicted throughout the story, namely: The comedian’s ironic and nihilistic cynicism, and how it depends on perpetual conflict, which is why it was the absence of conflict - the actualization of utopia itself, not the means by which Veidt planned to bring this about - that scared him the most; The U.S. desire to achieve and maintain global supremacy, albeit for purposes of international order, which ended up escalating global tension and anti-Americanism by those unwilling to acquiesce to their dominance; Veidt’s desire for global peace and stability, based on a misunderstanding of the paradox of human wisdom, which in fact represents the next step to this tyrannical desire for ‘good’, while Dr. Manhattan’s ultimate indifference likewise embodies the moral emptiness (i.e. inhuman, mechanical, watchlike) of reason when it sees itself as separate from the very human predicament – no matter how imperfect – that produced it (in his case, scientific intellectual curiosity).

And then there’s the ‘general’ public depicted in the book, which just wants to be entertained, consumes products that satiate their various desires, such as security (during the golden era of heroes the U.S. is at the height of its popularity), freedom (when heroes are seen as vigilantes, and tensions grow inside the U.S. due to Vietnam and the Cold war, and fears about the significance of Dr. Manhattan as a god that judges unscrupulously), comfort and individualistic narcissism (Veidt’s ‘Nostalgia’ perfumes; Veidt method), consumerism (Ozymandias action figure line and cartoons), escapism (sci-fi b-movies), hope in technological utopia (“Millenium” line), but most importantly our fascination with horror and ‘metaphysical terrors’ (see the end of ch. 5, part. ‘p. 61’on ‘Tales of the Black Freighter’ and the ‘Marooned’ story that is interspersed throughout the novel) and the ease with which our egos identify themselves with depictions of heroism notions about ‘saving the earth and mankind.’

Finally, precisely because it is these fears and desires that ‘Watchmen’ is, at its core, meant to depict, and regardless of whether the squid is used or not, I think that the movie will have failed if it does not incite some form of cognitive dissonance from the viewer (similar to what Fight Club was intended to do as well). Hence, to the question “who watches the Watchmen?,” the answer, both metaphorically and literally, should be: we do. With our books, our movies, our songs.. we watch the unfolding of mankind.

The Watchmen… that is us. And we’re responsible for what we do.

(...although to be fair, it's pretty intelligent)

 

[CaptainWacky]

Yeah, I skimmed it but it seemed to make sense.