Helen, the Hermit

I'm sorry, world.It's a great comic book, but it might be a bit "too great".As in, it might have been trying too hard to be dark and gritty and "realistic" and philosophical.No particular element was too much, but combined it was just too many spices for it to be tasty rather than blah.Well, there is one element that I felt was not well done and it's, unsurprisingly, rape as plot device. While more understandable than usual in the context of dark and gritty world, and actually treated well in the beginning, revelations in latter part left bitter taste in my mouth. I'm sorry, but I cannot see how she could go and calmly have affair with him after he beat her up and tried to rape her. Wasn't she afraid? Traumatised? I won't say it's impossible to happen, but it's unrealistic. Going fully through with rape and having the baby be the consequence would have been cliche, but still made more sense. Alan Moore might be a great writer, but his grasp on female psychology is far from ideal.I'm not sure how I feel about comic within comic. It was interesting, and unlike many, I didn't feel it was disruptive. But I'm not sure if it brought much beyond style. I also wonder if it was another form of padding. Original script was for six issues. I cannot help but wonder if I would have liked it better if it was kept that way. (It was expanded to twelve because of the contract.)Yes, I realise it probably carries more weight if viewed in the context of era it was created in - the eighties. But, while there is political satire that transcends time, "Watchmen" isn't it. It's a bit too dated for me to apply world as it is now. It's maybe even more difficult for me personally to sympathise with given my own experiences in the nineties. It's, basically, first world problems. Perhaps even too naive. In the world of Watchmen, war happens somewhere else and main source of fear are common criminals and vague nuclear threat. I lived through a war that happened there and now, where source of fear was your yesterday's next-door-neighbour and where distant foreign forces did not threaten with missiles but flew over and dumped them over my head as I scrambled via shortcuts to reach school. In the context of my world, the idea that common threat will help humanity unite is childish. History teaches me that it's more likely factions will form nevertheless, united for a time perhaps but quarelling during ceasefire, and at least one will most definitely try to collaborate with the enemy. So the main "revelation" falls flat for me.Also, I cannot help but slightly resent the intent. "Watchmen" is supposed to be "obituary" of super-heroes. But why? The world is hardly worse now than it was before. And heroes existed long before comics. Why is it so irresponsible to have them now? Why must super-heroes of recent years be corrupted and flawed? Is having hope irresponsible?The idea of Superman is idealistic, but for me it is no more idealistic than Moore's alternative. That is, uniting humanity because of the common threat. One might seem more "realistic" than the other on the surface, but ultimately, it's just as full of hope in humanity. Therefore, I can't help but wonder if "Watchmen" isn't a bit hypocritical. Then again, Moore had expressed dismay that it launched a genre, so it's possible that the deconstruction in it was meant as pure philosophical exercise rather than manifesto. If it is so, it is successful.As far as comic book as comic book goes, though, storytelling is superb, art is well done - if it's the kind of art you like, "extras" at the end are just as well thought-out. If you have different perspective, your primary worry is still nuclear arms race, think the time of super-heroes is past, feel nostalgic about the eighties or can enjoy it without necessarily agreeing with the message, go ahead. It's vastly superior to most of the sequential art. It's just that I follow basic Goodreads rating scale, and it's subjective; and just quality couldn't make me enjoy it more than merely "like".