Scans_Daily

Yeah, my biggest problem with Before Watchmen as a whole is that every book so far has been predictably reverent, and mostly boring--they're well written for the most part, the artwork is fantastic, but the stories themselves are, well, exactly what you'd expect from a prequel series.

I'd hesitate to say that Dr. Manhattan will be much different when all signs point to predestination, but I think it has more potential to actually comment on the nature of Dr. Manhattan's original role in Watchmen whereas the other books just feel like supplementary material. I'm more concerned with the fact that this kind of stuff--the many worlds theory, the future self influencing past events paradox, predestination--JMS has used it before, and each time he trots these plot points out its to diminishing returns. It's fitting subject matter for a character like Dr. Manhattan, but I'm not sure Straczynski is the best person to be writing it...because he's done it before. (Which is a weird thing to worry about, I suppose.)

I'm super conflicted about keeping up with this--it's the only book out of the Before Watchmen series that has interested me, but not so much that I'm entirely on board with reading more.