At this point, there's not much new that can be said about Watchmen. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's comic changed the way comics were thought of. The team gelled perfectly, with Moore setting things out in painstakingly detailed scripts and Gibbons bringing it all perfectly to life on the page. It's easily one of the greatest works of superhero fiction ever, possibly the greatest.
Some aspects of it have held up in its over thirty years of existence, while others have not. Times change and things that worked in the 80s don't work nearly as well now. This list is going to look at the things that are timeless in the story... and the parts that have aged like milk.
10 Didn't Age Well: Moore's Portrayal Of Homosexuality
Over the years, audiences have become more enlightened when it comes to LBGTQ issues in fiction. Now, in Watchmen, Moore is never bigoted against homosexuality, but his treatment of it is very problematic. All of the homosexual characters suffer a terrible fate in the book.
It's implied that Hooded Justice killed his lover and gets off on violent sex. The Silhouette and her lover are both murdered for being lesbians. A lesbian cab driver ends up committing domestic violence against her partner out of frustration with the partner moving on with her life. These are all negative portrayals of homosexuality and wouldn't fly today.
9 Timeless: The Art
Dave Gibbons's art is one of the book's greatest weapons. The legend goes that the scripts Moore sent him were meticulous in their detail, with multiple pages going into describing single panels, but Gibbons stepped up and helped create visuals that stand the test of time.
Comics art has changed a lot since Watchmen was published, with penciling and coloring techniques getting better and better, but very few of today's artists could do what Gibbons did. Just look at Doomsday Clock- Gary Frank got so behind that it completely changed the shipping schedule of the book. While the original run of Watchmen had a few minor delays, Gibbons was able to keep the book mostly on schedule and deliver art that still hasn't been topped.
8 Didn't Age Well: Rorschach
Rorschach is the first character readers are introduced to. Readers spend more time with him than other characters in the series and come to understand why he is the way he is. His life story is one full of violence and pain and he becomes an avatar of that same violence and pain. To him, the world is black and white.
Fans love the character, but his outlook on the world is terrible. Fans see him as "cool" and forget that this is a deeply troubled man with a very twisted world view. This isn't Moore's fault at all, but reading the character nowadays, it's easy to see how much of a monster he can be even in his more heroic moments.
7 Timeless: Doctor Manhattan
First off, Doctor Manhattan is literally timeless. Beyond that, though, Moore takes readers into the head of this godlike character and fleshes him out to degree that is unprecedented. Modern audiences have been known to decry characters that are too powerful as boring to read about.
No one has ever said this about Doctor Manhattan and he can do anything. This is a testament to the strength of Moore's writing of the character. The character comes across as a god but also is relatable in a weird way.
6 Didn't Age Well: The Role Of Women In The Story
There are two main female characters in Watchmen, Sally Jupiter and her daughter Laurie, the two Silk Spectres. Sally is an elderly woman enjoying her retirement and her daughter is in forced retirement, basically treated as a kept woman for Doctor Manhattan by the government,
While both get their stories and moments, they are mostly there as objects for the men of the story. Sally's horrific rape by the Comedian is there to show readers how bad he is and Laurie is the impetus behind the men's actions- she gets Dan Dreiberg to become Nite Owl again and gets Doctor Manhattan to come back to Earth. Neither of them has very much agency in their lives or the story.
5 Timeless: Tales Of The Black Freighter
Tales Of The Black Freighter is a comic within the comic. It tells the story of a man whose ship is attacked by pirates and his race to save his home before the pirates can get there. However, as time goes on, he gets more and twisted by his battle against time and the elements, becoming something entirely new.
The story is basically the plot of the book in microcosm and it stands up brilliantly. It works on several different levels- as a piece of ephemera from a world where superhero comics aren't in vogue, as an entertaining narrative break from the story, and as a foreshadowing of the darkness to come.
4 Didn't Age Well: The Lessons Of The Book
Watchmen is widely heralded as the true beginning of maturity in the comic industry and because of it, fans got some great comics and creators. However, a lot of people got the exact run idea from it and thought that people just liked it because it was violent and adult and so they went and aped those aspects of it.
This really isn't Moore's fault, since he mostly did a great job of decrying the more extreme actions of some of the characters, but so many got the wrong idea from the book.
3 Timeless: The Back-Up Material
While the characters of Watchmen were pastiches of Charlton Comic characters, their world was entirely new. They needed flashing out and so, after each issue, Moore included a text piece that would give readers a glimpse into the world of the book.
These back-ups are just so well down and engrossing, giving readers the necessary background to get a better understanding of the world of the characters and what drives so many of them. They work so well that they can be read on their own and still enjoyed.
2 Didn't Age Well: Sally And The Comedian
As alluded to above, one of the more problematic aspects of the book is the rape of Sally Jupiter at the hands of the Comedian. It seems like it's just there to show readers how terrible the Comedian is. It's a horrific event.
What compounds it is the fact that Sally seeks him out later and it seems that she has some kind of affection for her attacker. This is a very problematic scenario and it wouldn't fly today.
1 Timeless: The Twist
By now, everyone knows the ending of Watchmen. One doesn't even need to read the book to know how it ends, it's become a huge part of comic lore. However, this does nothing to lessen the impact it has or the power of the moment and that speaks volumes to just how well the comic is done.
It plays into so many of the themes of the book and it's done perfectly. Even knowing it's coming doesn't change how great it is nor does it lessen one's enjoyment of the book. Ozymandias becomes a monster by doing what he perceives as the right thing and taints everyone else with his monstrousness. It's so very powerful and very few endings since have carried the same thematic weight.