"Before Watchmen: Minutemen" (DC)

[pkristen]

Summary: A prequel to one of the comic book series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons that really pushed the boundaries of super heroism and its darker side. Part of a series of prequels, this one focuses on The Minutemen, the ill-fated previous attempt at a super hero team during the 1940's.

Review: I know this series is still being released but it's strong enough material that I feel compelled to go ahead and make some comments about it.

I am a fan of "The Watchmen" from an artistic and story-telling perspective. When it was announced by DC that they were going to release prequels I tend to default on giving creators a chance. The Moore/Gibbons are definitely a hard act to follow.

In the world of comics where the rights are company-owned, people obviously feel more secure when the original creative minds will take up the reins again but that wasn't going to happen in this case. And fan fears were rightly fanned when DC tried to do a sequel to the Top 10 series with a completely different, and less talented creative team that ended up with a product that completely missed the point and pissed off a lot of people passionate about the original series (myself included.)

But I saw the general roster of artists and since they included some of my personal favs (some of which probably won't be written about on this forum because they haven't yet written anything LGBT-related), I became more enthused.

However, as the prequels started to be released, it hit me that while I do really respect the original series, I really don't like any of the characters from a fan perspective. It would have been an exercise in intellectual support only (with the usual fight against other material wanting my attention.)

But I'm hooked on "BW: Minutemen" because of the focus of the lesbian character The Silhouette in issue #3 in a story-arc that has clearly been building issue #1. While we know it's not going to end well, I find the series compelling enough to make me anxiously look forward to how Darwyn Cooke fills in the blanks of this time period of The Watchmen universe.

And then there's the OTHER gay storyline...