Before Watchmen: Minutemen #5 - The Minutemen's Last Mission

[zapbiffpow]

In a departure from the classic saying, this is the one series I can believe no one's posted yet.

Not because the writing is terrible (it's not), or the art is sub-par (like hell it is), but because at all times the story's either so distrurbing or heartbreaking or controversial that it's hard to find which pages to post (i.e., the villain known only as The Friend of the Children.)

Before Watchmen: Minutemen #5 gives us the team's last moment as a unit. Four pages after the cut:



Here's what's happened during the series:

Silhouette - Murdered, mourned. I love how Cooke really expanded her back-story - she's now one of my favorite characters.
Dollar Bill - Shot dead, revolving door incident.
Silk Spectre - Quit after having avenged Silhouette, by way of 'taking care' of the Liquidator.
Comedian - Currently wetworks operative for the U.S. government.

The remaining Minutemen are just about ready to end the whole thing when they get an S.O.S from Bluecoat and Scout, a pair of heroes straight from the funny books who warn them of a Japanese plan to cause a meltdown in New York.

The target turns out to be the Statue of Liberty and the resulting radiation poisoning casualties, Bluecoat reports, would number in the thousands.

The Minutemen, although skeptical of the two, head for the Statue after the threat gets confirmed.



As the Minutemen hold off enemy gunfire at the base of the statue, Bluecoat is shot and killed, leaving Scout and Nite Owl to disable the nuclear device.

Then, in a freak twist of fate, Nite Owl is pinned down the stairs by the enemy he had shot to save Scout, forcing the kid to defuse a heavily radiated machine on his own.



This tearjerking sequence of words and images then happens:




This series has been executed so well it doesn't feel like a prequel or a fanfic anymore. Here's to Darwyn Cooke!

 

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

Agreed--this is pretty much equal in quality to Watchmen, in my eyes.

[halloweenjack]

I've enjoyed this miniseries, but I wouldn't go nearly that far.

Apples and Oranges

[capt_satellite]

Not entirely fair to compare the old to the new.....sort of like reading the new testament and saying, "It's OK,but I liked the Old stuff better" ; )

I've loved revisiting these characters and their world. The work has been a cut above a lot of current DC/Marvel fare, surely.

Well played indeed.

[sadoeuphemist]

Man that is some serious hyperbole right there.

[mrstatham]

Orrrr it's just an opinion and the original Watchmen is probably the subject of some serious hyperbole when it comes to the praise it gets itself.

[sadoeuphemist]

Opinions can be wrong! And claiming that this is equal in quality to Watchmen is, without disparaging Cooke, not an opinion I can take seriously at all.

[captainbellman]

I...I know how respected Darwyn Cooke is, but that fourth panel.

"We're with you, Captain. So says Bulboose, the Baloon-Brained Bruiser!"

[silverhammerman]

Yeah, this series has been fantastic. I've had my misgivings about the Before Watchmen project, as has virtually everyone else, but this book has been consistently stunning. The art, the story, everything. And goddamn, the story is compelling, I mean the pages you showed? Heart breaking, but also so awesome. Mothman taking flight one last time, completely sober, it save people, was pretty cool to me.
The only thing I'm a little unsure of at this point is the identity of the mystery child killer, and the handling of Hooded Justice in general. I mean, first off it seems that Hood might have actually been a Nazi, which kind of turns me off right there because I think that's just kind of lazy for the German character to actually have been a straight up Nazi at some point instead of an unpleasant dude who sympathized with them at one point. Secondly, it's not so much that I object to the idea of him being the murderer, though I do think it's a little incongruous with his status as a vigilante, but mostly I just think it could have some unpleasant implications. I mean, the gay guy who likes bondage is a murdering psychopath? Kind of an unpleasant linkage. Of course the story has yet to wrap up at this point, so I don't know for sure what's up with Hooded Justice, but that's my first blush reaction and I'm eagerly anticipating how Cooke will wrap this whole story up.

And I'd also just like to note that Bluecoat and Scout have a really neat look, that's some quality costume design right there.

[zapbiffpow]

Yeah, that's why I didn't show much of the Hooded Justice thing - I wanted to show those pages that I thought everyone could appreciate.

[halloweenjack]

I'm hoping that the thing with HJ supposedly doing the murders comes down to him being unjustly suspected of same because of homophobia being even worse then than it is now.

[turtlefu]

You know, I can't believe that some people get so indignant when Hooded Justice was "revealed" to be a rapist and murderer and Nazi. Despite the fact that it was implied that he was all 3 in the original series, I feel like a lot of people created this idealized version in their heads and then got upset when it was explicitly made that he was actually an awful person.

"the gay guy who likes bondage is a murdering psychopath?"
It's important though that YOU state he is the gay guy. Moore never does. People latch onto the Metropolis/Justice relationship and pretend that it is something it was never supposed to be (see: the fan theory about their deaths). As far as I see it, he's actually just one severely fucked up individual, who gets off on dominating and hurting others.

This is one of the major reasons why I am critical towards fan reactions towards gay characters.

[silverhammerman]

Hmm, I think you're right. I mean, now that I think about it I do recall that Justice was said to be "'out with boys' with a lot of 'rough stuff' going on" (from the wiki), I don't recall exactly where that was written, it may have been in one of the supplementary text sections. So that could definitely be considered a tipoff to his proclivity for sexual violence, though I still think it's a bit of a leap to go from liking rough stuff to being a child murderer.
I do think the Nazism is worthy of some note though, in the original text I think he was only ever noted to voice support for the Nazis, and while it's certainly not too huge a jump to think that means he was a member of the Nazi Party at some point, I do think it's a bit more than is necessary. He's a German guy who kind of agrees with the Nazis, and I think that's fairly realistic and makes sense given the context of the story. Having him actually be a straight up Nazi, who just happened to be working at the facility where Silhouette was, is too much for me. It's not a deal breaker, but a bit obvious and sort of an "everything is connected" kind of thing that I find really tends to limit the scope of a fictional world.
And I think he was pretty explicitly gay. Moore just didn't shove that fact in our faces, he provided stuff that a reader could look at and draw the conclusion that he was gay. Like I said, he was mentioned as "going out with boys" or some such, and I think with that's pretty much as close as Moore could get ton confirmation without just explicitly stating it, which would have ruined the subtlety and been unnecessary for someone who was ultimately a fairly minor character.
I do see your point about fan reaction towards gay characters though, I think it's sort of a situation where there are so few gay characters that fans tend to latch onto them and defend them.

[superboyprime]

All that really needs to be said about Cooke: http://watchmen2creatordarwyncooke.tumblr.com/

I love the guy's art and writing, but it's pretty much impossible to respect him as a person now that he's willing involved himself in such a morally bankrupt project. To such an extent that I'm not sure I could ever buy his work again. Shame, that.

[espanolbot]

Generally speaking, no one connected with Watchmen tends to come off that well. I mean that I get what the complaints are about, but at the same time it WASN'T a creator owned series and it wasn't as if it was Moore's sole intellectual property either.

If it was his intellectual property (think how Hellboy and its spin-offs are directly owned by Mike Mignola) then I'd be more upset, but considering they've managed to actually turn out a lot of quality stuff by quality creators here...

Well I'm less mad than I was when the project was just announced. If only because there are series out there that I liked better than Watchmen (like New Frontier) that DC botched in far worse ways (connecting it to Countdown for god knows what reason).

Also, I'd have to agree with Grant Morrison in his assessment of Moore's current attitude towards comics,

"I find it tragic but quite pertinent to this piece that the loudest voice in our business – the one that carries the furthest and is taken most seriously by the mainstream media – is the one that offers nothing but contempt and denunciation, with barely a single good word to say about any of the many accomplished and individual writers currently working in mainstream comics, let alone the wealth of brilliant indie creators.Does he ever, for instance, use his high media profile to do anything other than steer potential readers away from modern comic books and their creators – while over-playing his own achievements and placing himself centre stage at every turn? How hard would it be to say something encouraging, positive, or hopeful about the generally improved standard of writing in all comic books these days? Or at least say nothing at all.

And if I may untangle the logic behind so much of his hectoring: Moore constantly reiterates the idea that all modern comics are copied from stuff he did in the '80s – and they're all rubbish!

Is he genuinely saying that his influence has been entirely malignant? If he actually believed that, I'd almost feel sorry for him. I see my own influence all over the place and I'm quite chuffed."

Read More: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/11/26/grant-morrison-responds-to-alan-moore-criticism-parting-shot/#ixzz2FCpYxsMe

[sadoeuphemist]

Uh, you do get that the reason that Moore is pissed off at DC in the first place is that he felt that Watchmen ought to have been a creator-owned series and ought to have been his intellectual property. Moore, and presumably the people on DC's side, assumed that the rights to Watchmen would revert to Moore once the book went out of print. They didn't count on the book being so popular and critically acclaimed that DC simply kept it in print for perpetuity and never gave the rights to him.

Also I don't know what Moore's opinions about modern day comics have to do with him being pissed off that he never got the rights to his work.

[arbre_rieur]

I found what Morrison said after that part interesting:

'Moore includes Geoff Johns among the “parasites” and “raccoons” rooting through his trash. Why? Because Johns seasoned his own epic expansion of the Green Lantern mythos with a couple of minor elements from Moore’s Green Lantern short story “Tygers” (1986) – a story that was itself created to make sense of a plot hole in the 1959 Green Lantern origin by Gardner Fox!

So, in fact, both Moore and Johns were simply doing their work-for-hire jobs by adding to and expanding upon the many-authored quilt that is DC, and specifically Green Lantern, continuity. In a shared narrative universe, such as those of DC or Marvel, any element introduced into the continuity surely becomes part of the backstory and is therefore available to other writers to build upon or incorporate. Johns’ Green Lantern work and the “Blackest Night” story in particular would have worked as well without any reference to “Tygers”, in fact. Why the sneering, dehumanizing putdown? Who chastises a man for the unspeakable crime of synthesizing prior elements of Green Lantern’s back story into his own fresh and personal creative vision for the character, m’lud?

Would Moore have appreciated a comparison to vermin snuffling among Gardner Fox’s garbage for treats when he brought Fox’s Floronic Man back from the archives to feature in a “Swamp Thing” (Len Wein’s trash!) story? What obsessive snouting around in the municipal tip does “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” reduce to if we regard Alan Moore’s endeavours through the same unforgiving lens he applies to Geoff Johns’ work?

Geoff Johns like the rest of us, has his own identifiable obsessions as a writer. He has his own interests, his own points of view, and his own way of articulating his ideas via his chosen medium. I know for a fact that Geoff has seen and done and endured things in his life that Alan Moore is unlikely ever to experience, yet Moore automatically brands him creatively bankrupt and tries to insists that Johns’ imagination is so low on fuel, it relies for sustenance on his own. If I can speak up for a friend, Geoff Johns, like the rest of us, like anyone who picks up a pen to earn a living, has plenty to say and, with all respect, he doesn’t need Alan Moore’s help to say it.'

[halloweenjack]

Nice. Morrison doesn't pass up the chance to piss on Moore one more time while stroking his own ego. Whether or not the "standard of writing in all comic books these days" is "generally improved"--that's the sort of grand, sweeping statement that's dubious at best--he's obviously including himself in that group. And Moore has done more for "brilliant indie creators" with Dodgem Logic than Morrison has ever tried to do.

[mrstatham]

'All that really needs to be said about Cooke'.

What, a bunch of recycled, recontextualised nonsense cut and pasted to make him look like a complete idiot? Please. That's NEVER going to say all there is about Cooke. It's biased bullshit. So the guy has proven willing to work on a project like this - it doesn't make him a complete monster or invalidate how amazing his work is in general.

[kamino_neko]

The fact that people think the creator of Lost Girls and Neonomicon ever has the moral high ground sickens me.

(Edit - for clarity's sake, this is a combination of sarcasm and hyperbole, since I'm fucking sick of his hypocritical bullshit and lies being trumpeted as truth.)

[zapbiffpow]

"So the guy has proven willing to work on a project like this - it doesn't make him a complete monster or invalidate how amazing his work is in general."

Thank you, mrstatham. I didn't know how to express my feelings about the whole issue, so it's really heartening to read something like this.

[sadoeuphemist]

Wasn't one of the ideas in Watchmen the fact that there weren't really any superhero comics? Because superheroes were real, the whole idea lost a lot of its escapist power, and that's why pirate comix came to fill the void.

[halloweenjack]

The idea was more that there were, which I think that Hollis Mason even mentions in the first excerpt from Under the Hood, but that they fell out of favor once real-life superheroes came along and everyone saw how ridiculous they turned out in the flesh.

[sadoeuphemist]

Yeah but even in that scene the real-life superheroes have all appeared and are all washed up already, so how is this kid still getting inspiration from the funnybooks?

[i_paint_the_sky]

Glad to hear good things about this series. I hadn't really heard much about it for awhile but I was going to be buying it most likely, since it's getting released in the same volume as Silk Spectre which is the one I really want to read.

Also probably getting the Nite Owl/Manhatten one, for the latter.

Eating my words

[capt_satellite]

I really feel lie sticking my foot in my mouth. Did not like the first issue of it, but the whole project won me over by the second issue released. Can;t say why the art didn't click for me at first; I was very very wrong. Now I must catch up on what I've been missing.

Love you all!