Our Watchmen podcast kicks off in earnest as we break down the first issue of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal comic book series, “At Midnight, All the Agents…” Spoilers abound, but find out more about the structure behind the issue, Easter eggs, and how it all might tie into the upcoming HBO series of the same name.

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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:                 Welcome to Watchmen Watch. Apodcast about HBO’s Watchmen where we watch Watchmen, and then watch youwatching Watchmen, while you watch us watch Watchmen. I’m Alex.

Justin:              I’m Justin.

Pete:                I’m Pete. That’s too much, dude.That’s too much.

Alex:                 No, no. It’s just the rightamount, it’s just the right amount.

Pete:                No. That’s a little too much.

Alex:                 I got it. I nailed it. I nailedit. Crushed it, you guys. Episode over.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Okay.

Justin:              It’s very short. We’re doing shortpodcasts.

Alex:                 Now, we do need to apologizebefore we get into the bulk of our podcast. We do have a fourth cohost.

Justin:              Alan Moore is our fourth host forthis. He… We should say the writer of Watchmen, the comic book.

Alex:                 Yeah, so we’re very excited tohave him on board.

Justin:              And eventually, obviously he tookhis name off of the movie and the other comic book versions of it, and he wasgoing to be here today but he actually isn’t here. He’s actually at DC comicsphysically taking his name off the comics.

Alex:                 Oh wow.

Pete:                Oh wow.

Alex:                 That’s going to take him awhile. They have a lot of copies.

Pete:                Yeah, it’s a long [crosstalk00:00:52].

Justin:              But he’s going to be here, he saidhe’s definitely going to be here next week to talk about-

Alex:                 Well he better hurry up becauseWatchmen is I think the highest selling graphic novel of all time.

Justin:              It’s got a lot of-

Alex:                 A lot of copies.

Justin:              A lot of white out. A lot of whiteout coming in.

Alex:                 This guy is going to have toinvest in it.

Justin:              Yes, no, and he likes to smell ita little bit as well.

Pete:                It’s going to take more time.

Alex:                 You probably know this, butWatchmen the TV series, is not going to be on until October on HBO. So in theintervening time, what we’re going to be doing on the next 12 episodes ofWatchmen Watch is we’re going to be looking back at the comic issue by issue.And this week we’re going to be talking about the first issue of Watchmen AtMidnight, All the Agents. That’s based on a Bob Dylan quote, I believe yoududes.

Justin:              Yep.

Alex:                 Let’s talk about this issue. Idon’t know. I want to be honest about something upfront here.

Pete:                Oh, here we go.

Alex:                 I want to be honest with youguys.

Justin:              Ooh. Confessions.

Pete:                Oh. Confessions.

Alex:                 I read Watchmen, all in achunk, probably decades ago at this point.

Justin:              Wow.

Alex:                 I think I read it maybe, orskimmed it again, before the movie came out just so I could kind of familiarizemyself with it. But it’s been years since I actually read this book.

Pete:                Are you talking about the 80s?It’s been since the 80s?

Alex:                 The Zack Snyder Watchmen moviedid not come out in the 80s. What is your joke?

Pete:                I don’t know.

Justin:              The 80s is when it came out.

Pete:                Yeah.

Justin:              That’s when you were there.

Alex:                 The book. Yes. He was therewhen Alan Moore was like, “The end.”

Justin:              That’s why we got the connect.

Pete:                Yeah. That’s how we got thephone number.

Alex:                 Anyway, I haven’t actuallydeeply read it in decades at this point. So doing that for this podcast,actually taking the time to make sure that I synthesized as much of the words,of the panels, and everything as possible, was first of all fascinating.Because I don’t know if you guys know this, this is a very good comic.

Justin:              This is a very good comic.

Alex:                 Yes. It’s very well done. AlanMoore, good on writing. Dave Gibbons, very good on art.

Justin:              He’s good on writing.

Alex:                 Yes.

Justin:              He’s good on writing.

Pete:                Very good on writing.

Justin:              He’s as good on writing as you areon saying that.

Alex:                 Yes, John Higgins on color. Andit was edited by Len Wein and Barbara Kesel. This is… I really honestly waskind of blown away by how good this is.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Because we do a regular livecomic book talk show.

Pete:                We do.

Alex:                 Watchmen comes up a lot whenwe’re talking about it.

Justin:              Yep.

Pete:                Certainly.

Alex:                 So it’s almost become abstractto me in terms of like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the best comic book ofall time. I get it. That’s fine.”

Justin:              Yeah, no exactly. You don’t thinkabout it as much anymore.

Alex:                 Right, but this is legitimatelyan excellent comic book.

Justin:              Breaking news. Breaking news.

Pete:                [crosstalk 00:03:28] blown awayyou are by this comic.

Justin:              I felt the same way because…Like Alex was saying, actually rereading it, the pacing of this comic book isunbelievable.

Pete:                Yeah. It really is.

Justin:              It’s so shocking.

Pete:                It starts out so well, grabsyour attention, never lets go. It’s really impressive.

Justin:              Just how much control Alan Moorehas of the story from the jump and the art on top of that is just so good. DaveGibbons’ art, it’s so… It’s of the era but it also feels timeless. It has alot of the sort of dark shadowing to it, which gives it this sort of tense,bleak tone, but it still feels just as relevant as modern art.

Alex:                 Well, I think just real quick,the thing that I was going to say about the timeless thing, the thing thatstruck me is so many things you go back and read and you’re like, “Ohthat, I can see how that worked at the time, why it was important.”

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 This is still a very good comicbook.

Pete:                And it’s also one of thosethings where the imagery and the stuff that they use in comics, everything thatI see kind of informs them. It’s like one of those things that sticks with you.When I picture someone getting thrown out of a window, it’s always TheComedian.

Justin:              Yeah. What you picture often,right?

Pete:                Yeah.

Alex:                 Usually as you’re being thrownout a window.

Pete:                But it’s done so iconically andso well-

Justin:              First story windows.

Pete:                Everything after that blows.

Justin:              Yeah. The 9-panel grid that, it’sused in this is sort of a, and it’s not all… There’s not nine panels on everypage, but using that grid as a basis, I feel like that’s something that a lotof comic book artists are coming back to now.

Pete:                Yeah. Especially recently.

Justin:              I also want to say in the 80s,this was in sort of the Cold War, like nuclear threat that definitely weighsheavily on this series. And now we’re sort of back in international politicsbeing terrifying. Our American politics being expressed-

Pete:                Keanu Reeves is popular again.It’s like the 80s all over again.

Justin:              He really weighs in here, theKeanu Reeves of it all. So I do think rereading it now just in 2019 with ourpolitics and culture definitely feels more relevant now than it did even when Iread it in the 90s.

Pete:                Oh wow.

Alex:                 Right. Well, you do have thewhole weight of the Doomsday Clock playing throughout it and that’s somethingwe regularly hear about right now.

Justin:              It’s close.

Alex:                 Yes.

Justin:              To Midnight in our time, now.

Alex:                 It is.

Justin:              I think we’re going to get

[squidded 00:05:45]

right here in New York City.

Pete:                Oh man.

Justin:              That would be-

Alex:                 Squidded right here in New YorkCity.

Justin:              That would be a fun surprise.

Pete:                We should move, guys. We shouldmove.

Justin:              But do you think… It wouldn’thave the same impact because if we got squidded, we’d be like, “Oh,squid.”

Pete:                Oh, cool. This is a promo forWatchmen on HBO.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Nice. Thanks guys.

Justin:              Cool promo.

Pete:                We’ve got to stay away fromTimes Square, they’re throwing squids.

Justin:              Should we walk through the issue alittle bit?

Alex:                 Yeah, absolutely.

Justin:              So we start with, as Petementioned, a recap. Two cops are talking about the death of The Comedian.

Alex:                 Well, so let’s… This is oneother… I mean I was struck by a lot in the issue.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 But one of the things I definitelydid not pick up on the first couple of times that I read it, is you have thisfirst page, it starts on The Comedian’s, now iconic, button in a pool of blood.It pulls up, up, up, up, up as it goes up to this cop saying… What does hesay? “It’s a long drop?”

Justin:              “Hmm. That’s quite adrop.”

Alex:                 “That’s quite adrop.” You have Rorschach’s [crosstalk 00:06:36] narration over the entirething, but you also have the guy that we don’t know yet is Rorschach walkingthrough the blood, trailing the blood as he goes.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Pulling it with him. He’spulling this death with him, which I think is very cool.

Pete:                Yeah, he’s a creepy dude.

Justin:              Yeah, as the cops are leavingthat’s when you really see Rorschach for the first time.

Pete:                Right.

Alex:                 And we still don’t… In thisissue-

Justin:              We do not.

Alex:                 We don’t know that he’sRorschach.

Justin:              No.

Alex:                 But he is. This red-haired manis Rorschach as we find out later in the series. But the thing that I thoughtwas so neat, when you look at it, is there’s three things in the issue, right?There’s this first page where the cops are looking down at the pool of [blotteddeath 00:00:07:12]. You have the final page where you have Dan Dreiberg andLaurie Blake? Wait, Laurie-

Justin:              Laurie Jupiter or Juspeczyk.

Alex:                 Jupiter. Yeah, exactly. NotLaurie Blake. She’s Laurie Blake in the TV series. Laurie standing on thatrooftop and you have the same zoom-out at the same pace looking down abovethem, which could imply that that’s another murder. That we’ve watched anotherdeath happening at the same time.

Alex:                 But then you also haveRorschach’s narration saying, “And I would look down at them and I wouldsay no.”

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 There’s so many differentlayered things going on here at the same time.

Justin:              And to add another layer, at thatlast panel to me, it’s Doctor Manhattan spying on them-

Alex:                 Yes.

Justin:              As Nite Owl’s out with his wife.

Alex:                 Right. And it’s his heartdying, potentially. Well, if Doctor Manhattan potentially has a heart.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 I mean that’s really up for-

Pete:                A heart breaking.

Alex:                 Exactly.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 The other thing that I wasreally struck by in this issue as we walk through it, is it’s funny.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 That’s something that I thinkpeople forget about Watchmen is there’s some funny moments. There’s some weirdmoments in here. It’s not… The wrong lesson that so many people have takenfrom Watchmen is, “You’ve got to make things dark and serious.”

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 And that’s not what this bookis about at all.

Justin:              In fact, it is dark and serious,but it’s the feeling, the way that lands is by having comedy, which creates agreater distance between the laughs to the really dark stuff. So you’re reallyon a roller coaster ride.

Pete:                So you’re asking yourself,“Why so serious?”

Justin:              Right. That’s exactly what mypoint is.

Pete:                Yeah.

Alex:                 Yeah. Watchmen walked so theDark Knight could run.

Justin:              Watchmen watched so the DarkKnight could watch harder.

Pete:                Harder.

Alex:                 So we got that first page, youwant to move to-

Justin:              Yeah. So we have… And thesecops, they seem sort of [scumbaggy 00:08:59] cops. And they’re sort of theheroes here.

Pete:                Classic.

Justin:              And we’re seeing, interspersedwith their investigation of the crime scene, you see flashback the murderhappening of The Comedian, which was… Just hadn’t seen that before when Ifirst read this. And, reading here, it’s really well-paced and it reallycreates this essential mystery. And at the same time, we don’t know who TheComedian is.

Alex:                 Right?

Justin:              We don’t know this is a take on aJustice League-type team until much later. Not even in this issue.

Alex:                 Yeah. There’s something thisissue does. Another thing this issue does very well, is introduce all thecharacters in a very fluid way through both these detectives initially, andthen through Rorschach’s investigation where he approaches each of thecharacters. But it never feels like, “And now meet this character. And nowmeet this character.” And part of the reason is that Moore and Gibbons,Gibbons through the body language of the characters, but Moore through thewriting, has set up all of these backstories and all this history. So peopleare not coming into it as, “We are fresh friends who have met each otherfor the first time.”

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 It’s when Nite Owl andRorschach see each other for the first time. It’s for the first time in years.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 And they broke apart and atleast one of them doesn’t know why.

Justin:              And you feel the weight of theirrelationship on all of these characters.

Alex:                 Yes.

Pete:                I really do think that becausewe read so many comic books, we can kind of tell at this point when people arejust moving characters around to get them to a certain thing for something theyhave planned. And this is done in such a creative way. You don’t feel likethey’re just moving characters.

Alex:                 It’s very fluid in terms ofintroducing the characters, in terms of the plot. Alan Moore, again, hugeshocker here, a very good writer. But he knows how to get us across both plotand character at the same time because of all of the dialogue.

Justin:              It would have been great if he washere to answer some of these questions I’m asking [crosstalk 00:00:10:51].

Alex:                 It’s a real disappointment tome.

Justin:              He is going to be here next week,as we keep saying.

Alex:                 Yes. I’m excited. We’ll savesome of the questions while we talk about episode two.

Justin:              Definitely. Definitely.Definitely. Definitely. Yeah, so the spine of the issue is Rorschach sort ofgoing around to the different heroes and warning them like, “Hey, TheComedian is dead and you might be next.”

Pete:                Right.

Justin:              And it’s telling them-

Pete:                And what a good friend.

Justin:              Yes, he’s a good friend but healso is… He feels like he’s the one character after their super team brokeup. And you feel the sadness for everyone in different ways. Like Nite Owl,he’s sad because he doesn’t have anything else going on in his life. He’svisiting the original Nite Owl who also has a sad life and wrote a book aboutsuperheroes. As he visits everyone, it’s clear it was a bad relationship. Theirrelationships have not maintained throughout. But he’s the only one who’s sortof still in his mode, on the case trying to figure this out.

Pete:                Yeah.

Justin:              So you definitely identify withhim as the character, the hero driving through.

Pete:                Oh yeah.

Justin:              But some of the things we weretalking about before, he is saying some stuff that now, I’m in our modern politicsand culture. He’s saying some pretty out-right shit here.

Alex:                 Yes. I do not think you’resupposed to identify with Rorschach at all.

Justin:              Really?

Alex:                 No, I really don’t think so.

Pete:                He’s the only guy I identifywith.

Alex:                 Really? What do you identifywith in him? And I’m scared to ask.

Pete:                The way that he doesn’t trustpeople, the way that he feels like he is creepier or dirtier than people. Theway he lives is different.

Justin:              He’s an outsider?

Pete:                He’s an outsider. Yeah, thankyou.

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                And also the fact that he covershis face and doesn’t show people kind of who he is and what he’s about.

Justin:              And his dedication to the sort ofthe case and being-

Pete:                Yeah, exactly. He’s above allelse. We’re above getting proper meals or [crosstalk 00:12:46].

Justin:              I think that’s the trap. That’sthe trap of what you were saying before about the lesson a lot of comic bookwriters and companies took from this was like, “Oh, we gotta dothis.” I think now after we’ve read hundreds of issues of The Punisher andall these other darker heroes that came out after Watchmen, it’s tricked usinto thinking we should identify with Rorschach when really he has just asmany-

Pete:                Plus, he’s fucked up.

Alex:                 He’s violent.

Justin:              He’s super violent.

Pete:                Which is great.

Justin:              He’s a loner. He considers therest of the world filth and just like an [abattoir 00:13:13].

Alex:                 Let’s talk about that a littlebit because his… It’s interesting. I’m sure there’s much better ways ofsaying this in a much… There’s been so much research and writing aboutWatchmen in the intervening years, but he’s Rorschach, right? Like his mask isa fluid Rorschach test that people can ostensibly see whatever they want.

Justin:              Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Alex:                 They look at him and they seewhatever they want in him, but everybody sees the same thing in Rorschach.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Everybody sees exactly who heis and he is pretty straight up exactly who he is at the same time. Versuseverybody else who is currently, they’re not wearing masks. They’re allsupposedly being who they are, including say, and this is a huge spoiler ifyou’ve never watched Watchmen, but Adrian Veidt, Ozymandias, who is the realvillain of the series, he’s not wearing a mask right now. He’s not wearing acostume. He’s like, “This is who I am. I’m a businessman. I’m smart, butI’m not really the smartest man in the world. This is me upfront.” Buteverybody else is hiding something.

Justin:              Yeah, except Rorschach.

Alex:                 Rorschach’s the only one-

Pete:                Rorschach’s [crosstalk 00:14:21]honest one.

Justin:              Rorschach is calling them out.He’s going out and calling each of them out in these missions.

Alex:                 Right. So I guess what I wasgetting around to is the point that I think he wants you to see whatever yousee in the world on him, but all he sees in the world is that filth. Is thatdisgustingness, is everybody is airing on the side of bad. That’s why he makesthis, frankly crazy assumption off of one murder, that somebody is killing capes.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 You know, there’s really noevidence there and he’s not necessarily wrong, but he’s not necessarily righteither. It’s because he goes to, The Comedian is dead, what is the worst casescenario?

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 And the worst case scenario isthey’re coming for all of us.

Pete:                Right.

Alex:                 He lives walking through thatpuddle of blood all the time.

Justin:              And he comments so much on theculture.

Pete:                Yeah.

Justin:              But at the same time he’s areflection of all of the comments he’s making. He is the Rorschach test for theculture.

Alex:                 Right.

Justin:              But like some of the [outrights00:15:18] tell you.

Pete:                Are you okay, are you dyingthere?

Justin:              Sorry. Yeah, I’m choking. Thetruth… Betraying even his own shallow liberal affectations. There’s just somestuff in here that really hit me in this rereading of it in our modern worldwhere the… In all this kind of language and mentality really likeproliferates on Reddit and different spots on the internet where a lot of badshit comes out of it.

Alex:                 Yeah. Now, one other visualthing that I really loved throughout the issue, just in terms of the bodylanguage, there’s so many little subtle things that happen. There is a…There’s a bunch of graffiti like, “Who watches the Watchmen?” Butit’s kind of cut off each time. I don’t think we see it fully each time it popsup.

Justin:              No.

Alex:                 There’s also pirate comicsthroughout, which I think we should talk about the whole comic book, in asecond when we get to the Under the Hood, because there’s some fascinatingstuff there. But there’s this little moment where Rorschach takes a pocket fullof sugar cubes, they never talk about it, and then five pages later he’s eatinga sugar cube and it’s so gross. He’s like a fly who’s feasting on garbage theentire time.

Pete:                Yeah.

Justin:              He eats a can of cold beans.

Alex:                 I don’t know why you’re stillinto this after we talked about it.

Pete:                I love it. I love how gross heis.

Alex:                 Let’s talk about the DoctorManhattan stuff.

Justin:              Yeah, so after Rorschach goes toNite Owl, who’s living a sad life, he goes and beats up a bunch of people in abar.

Pete:                Yeah!

Justin:              To try, what Pete obviously likes,to try to figure out… And they’re like-

Alex:                 I really think you’re takingthe wrong lessons from this comic book.

Justin:              Yeah.

Pete:                Cool.

Justin:              It’s crazy though. He calls it hisexercise and it’s just… Because there’s no real, it was a one-person jobkilling The Comedian. The fact that there would be henchmen there. It seemslike he’s doing this fully just to beat people up for [crosstalk 00:17:02].

Alex:                 Yeah. Absolutely.

Pete:                Well, it’s his exercise. Somepeople like to walk in the park. Other people have gym memberships. He goes toa bar-

Justin:              All equally reasonable things.

Pete:                Yep.

Justin:              He goes and talks to Ozymandias.Veidt, who’s a corporate sellout basically, shits on him a little bit. Then hegoes to talk to Doctor Manhattan who lives in the… Works for the government,is still ostensibly a mask. He’s distant from the world. We see this greatpanel where he’s three stories tall to first meet him.

Alex:                 Yeah.

Justin:              Such a great visual.

Alex:                 And everything else throughoutthe book, for the most part, is very, very tight. It holds that 9-panel griduntil we see Doctor Manhattan where it completely opens up.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 And this gets to something thatI think… Also in particular, not to lump on it too much, but the Zack Snydermovie got completely wrong about Watchmen, is these aren’t superheroes.

Justin:              No.

Alex:                 These are regular people. EvenAdrian Veidt is, certainly he’s pushing down his intelligence a little bit.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 He’s trying to be modest aboutit, but he’s not actually the smartest man in the world. He just has a lot ofresources at this point.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 Same with Rorschach. Rorschachisn’t super strong. The Comedian isn’t super strong. Superheroes have developedin a way, but they’re really just humans.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 The one exception is DoctorManhattan. But the other thing that I think even everybody gets wrong aboutDoctor Manhattan, that’s very clear in this issue, is he’s not all powerful.

Justin:              No.

Alex:                 He doesn’t know everything andhe can’t do everything.

Justin:              No, and he’s even learning abouthis powers. The whole series is about him figuring out what it means to be thissort of godlike person, but he doesn’t have command of it. And he’s so obsessedwith research that he’s not able… It’s not about power for him.

Alex:                 Right.

Justin:              It’s about, “Oh, I can lookinto this now.”

Alex:                 Right.

Justin:              It’s like someone who would havethe internet for the first time. Like a scientist having the internet is whatDoctor Manhattan feels like in this.

Alex:                 Yeah. So we do get this greatcharacter scene and we get to see a lot of what’s going on with DoctorManhattan. We get to see what’s going on with Laurie and also Rorschach, whoshe doesn’t like at all. And then we get the other big plot that’s gonna playout throughout the series, which they dance around for the first half of theissue very purposely until Laurie comes out and says it, which is that TheComedian raped her mom.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 He raped her mom, he assaultedher mom. That came out during the Hollis Mason, who’s the original Nite Owl inhis book Under the Hood, and she believes the story. Rorschach is not 100%sure, if I remember correctly.

Justin:              Yeah. And she actually saysalmost. She doesn’t say it.

Alex:                 Right.

Justin:              So everyone, it’s like a suspicious,you don’t know what the deal is in this moment.

Alex:                 Right. And we’re still learninga lot about these characters. We don’t even really… We haven’t heard TheComedian say a word.

Justin:              We don’t know anything aboutanything in this.

Alex:                 Right.

Justin:              And it’s crazy how much they justgive us right out of the gate and we’re just like, “Okay, we’ll keep upwith this.” It’s dense in a great way.

Alex:                 And then at the end, we seeNite Owl and Laurie end up going on a pseudo-date together.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 It’s not supposed to be a date.It’s mostly catching up. But they both like it because they’re friends. Onething that I do want to point out that I thought was kind of fascinating,there’s little things here. This is an alternate history. It’s split off fromsome point, both from our world, from the DC Universe, from anything else.There are little things. I believe there’s a turkey there with four legs thatthey’re serving at the restaurant. And there are other things like that thatgive you little indicators, not just through the fashion but literally thethings that people are eating. The world is a little different.

Justin:              Oh yeah.

Alex:                 Yeah.

Justin:              That feels like… The turkey withfour legs feels like a mistake, but maybe not.

Alex:                 No, I don’t think it is.

Justin:              Really? It’s so small in thispanel.

Alex:                 If you have a world, againjumping to the end here, where Ozymandias is able to build genetically a catcreature. He’s able to build a squid.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 What’s to say he hasn’t alsodone that where, “Great, we’ve created a Turkey with a little more meat onit.”

Justin:              That’s true. That’s fair.

Pete:                Yeah.

Justin:              We do get a mention of ActionComics in the back matter, an excerpt from Under the Hood, which is the bookthat the first Nite Owl read. Was sort of a superhero tell-all, which I rereadfor this as well and man, it’s so good.

Alex:                 I want to say I reread it, butthis is another… This is the second thing I wanted to be honest with you guysabout, I don’t think I ever read it.

Justin:              Oh really?

Alex:                 I don’t. I think I completelywas like, “Eh, word book. No thanks.”

Pete:                Yeah, that’s exactly [crosstalk00:21:12].

Alex:                 And I was so wrong becausereading it for this, I was blown away.

Justin:              The first story, it’s sort of theintro to the book and it’s just a story about him and his dad at thisauto-mechanic shop that he worked at. It’s such a great, short story.

Alex:                 It’s a great short story. Itparallels what went on in the first issue. But from a continuity standpoint,when you’re talking about that alternative evolution, as you mentioned, hetalks about, Hollis Mason talks about, “Oh, I remember reading ActionComics and seeing the introduction of Superman, but the alternate history ofWatchmen, what actually happened was they released Action Comics.” It wasbig, people loved it, but then a couple of years later, the first vigilantehooded justice showed up and then people didn’t need superhero comics anymorebecause superheroes existed in real life and that’s why pirate comics becamethe biggest thing.

Justin:              Yeah.

Alex:                 So when we link up in thecurrent continuity in Watchmen, everybody reads pirate comics and we’re goingto get into that pretty soon with the Black Freighter-

Pete:                Curse of the Black Freighter.

Alex:                 Curse of the Black Freighter,and everything else, which again provides a lot of parallels for what’s goingon. But yeah, I felt super dumb for having not read it that first time through.

Justin:              Yeah, no, it’s so good. Justrereading it I was like, “Oh right, I forgot how good this was.”

Alex:                 Yeah, definitely check outWatchmen #1 from DC comics.

Justin:              Well, you can’t recommend it.

Alex:                 Oh man.

Justin:              Find it if you’re-

Pete:                [Hard take 00:22:37]. Hard take.

Alex:                 All right. Next week we aregoing to be talking about the second issue of Watchmen, so be sure to read itbefore then if you want to check it out with us. And of course as the seriesgets closer we’ll talk more and more about that. You could support this podcastat patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also, we do a live show every Tuesday night at8:00 PM at the Peoples Improv Theater Loft in New York. Come on by. We’ll chatwith you about Watchmen. Pete, what do you want to plug?

Pete:                Find us on Facebook so you getto know about the amazing guests we have on our live show.

Justin:              Follow us on Twitter@comicbooklive.

Alex:                 Also, follow us on Twitter[@atwatchWatchmen1 00:23:20] for Watchmen stuff.

Pete:                Yeah. Number one.

Alex:                 Number one. Watch Watchmennumber one podcast. Comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and more. You cansubscribe all sorts of places. Our RSS feed is on the website and remember wetaped this podcast 35 minutes ago.

Justin:              Oh, Alan just texted me again.He’s definitely going to be here next week.

The post Watchmen Watch: Issue #1, “At Midnight, All the Agents…” appeared first on Comic Book Club.

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