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Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ owl eyes turn to look at Dan and Laurie’s developing relationship in an issue that at least one of our hosts thinks delves deep into superhero sexuality. But Watchmen #7, “A Brother to Dragons,” has a lot more on its mind than a superhero bone sesh, as elements of our mystery start to come together in the background. Hallelujah.
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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, a podcast about Watchmen, where we watch you watching Watchmen and you watch us watching Watchmen. It’s a watch party all over the place as we watch each other. I’m Alex.
Pete: I am Pete.
Alex: We have some bad news for you guys right up front. Unfortunately, two of our hosts are gone this episode. One of our hosts, Justin Tyler, usually here, our other cohost, Alan Moore, always here, but they actually went on a road trip together, cross country. Did you get the text about this, Pete?
Pete: No, I didn’t.
Alex: Yeah, they’ve been texting me all day. It’s so cute. They’re trying to get to a karaoke contest in Los Angeles. They got to get there in time to win the prize so that they can pay the rent money. Fingers crossed. I know they’ve gone on a lot of-
Pete: Wow. That seems like the plot for like a B movie.
Alex: Yeah, no, no, no. It is a plot for Bee movie, the Bee movie with Jerry Seinfeld, as far as I know. But yeah, they’re having a lot of cute adventures. They keep getting into scrapes and I think somebody might be falling in love.
Pete: Oh man. I hope they Instagram it.
Alex: Yeah. Well anyway, they should hopefully be back here next week, but we are going to be talking about issue number seven of Watchman by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, A Brother To Dragons. Brother To, two brothers, two dragons as I like to call it.
Pete: It’s not a brother and then the number two dragons.
Alex: No, it’s not unfortunately.
Pete: It’s T-O.
Alex: Yeah, real bummer.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: I got to say.
Pete: I think they really missed an opportunity with that.
Alex: Huge missed opportunity.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: Now, as the past couple of issues have been focusing on specific members… I was about to say the team, of course they’re not actually in a team at all. But specific members of the cast, here we focus almost solely in on Dan and Laurie. Now, Laurie has moved in with Dan. She was kicked out of her home after John Osterman, AKA Doctor Manhattan, headed to Mars. They were worried that she was irradiated. And Dan, who clearly has a little of a crush on Laurie, that comes to fruition of course this issue. Moved in with her.
Alex: The other thing that’s been going on in the background, the two other things that you probably need to know in case you are suddenly, for whatever reason, picking up this issue, Rorschach Nite Owl, AKA Dan’s former teammate, has been locked up and also, Adrian Veidt, AKA Ozymandias, there’s been tease in the background for a really long time, but he is doing a benefit to help Indian famine, is I believe what it is.
Pete: Cool.
Alex: Yes, Pete? You’re just agreeing? Just cool with you?
Pete: Yeah, that’s cool.
Alex: Oh great. Thanks for agreeing but not offering up any additional information. Let’s talk about this issue. We talked a little bit about Dan and Laurie’s relationship. How do you feel about it, Pete?
Pete: Well, first off, I don’t like it. Second off, I think that this is my least favorite issue-
Alex: Really?
Pete: … of Watchmen. Yeah, just spends a lot of time on my two least favorite characters. Also-
Alex: Wait, no, no, no. I want to stay on that for a second. Why is it that Dan and Laurie are your least favorite characters?
Pete: Because they’re boring.
Alex: Okay, great.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: But use your words Pete.
Pete: Well, I just feel that Dan’s too scared to stick up for himself, and Laurie is kind of stuck. But together, they kind of re-find themselves in a way. And that’s great, and I think they become interesting after that, when they get some confidence to start living life again. Where they’re both kind of hiding out from themselves and who they are, and they find strength together.
Alex: It’s interesting to me that you do not like them because I definitely remember back in the day when I first read Watchmen, Dan and Laurie were my favorite characters. They were my in characters in the book, and I think part of that is because they are the two characters that are most clearly superheroes. The Comedian totally fucked up.
Pete: Right.
Alex: Rorschach, totally fucked up. Doctor Manhattan, not an easy guy to relate to, I’d say, necessarily. Ozymandias has his whole thing going on. But Dan and Laurie, they’re pretty normal, right?
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: Laurie is picking up… They’re both Legacy Heroes, so that’s part of their connection there.
Pete: Sure.
Alex: But Laurie is picking up on her mom, Sally. She essentially just wanted to be a superhero because yeah, she thought it would be fun. As we find out bit more about this issue, Dan was a board millionaire, much like Bruce Wayne.
Pete: Hey, how dare you compare Bruce Wayne to this guy?
Alex: I mean, it’s pretty directly analogous.
Pete: No way, man. This guy is an owl. All right, that’s dumb.
Alex: That’s true.
Pete: Not as cool as a bat.
Alex: Hey, real quick. In Earth Two, which is the opposite Earth of Earth One in the DC universe, who’s the batman character on Earth Two?
Pete: Hey, fuck you for bringing that up.
Alex: Who is it, Pete?
Pete: Fuck you.
Alex: Who is it, Pete?
Pete: Fuck you.
Alex: It’s Owl Man, Pete.
Pete: Woo, woo is it, Pete?
Alex: Woo, woo, woo.
Pete: Woo, woo is it? Eat a fucking tootsie pop you asshole.
Alex: I honestly have no idea how many licks it takes to get to the center of that thing.
Pete: The problem is it’s not the same number every time that’s what gets you.
Alex: Ah, okay.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: All right. You’d figure a cartoon owl could make it consistent but, I guess not.
Pete: Well, I’m just saying I took that as a challenge, that commercial.
Alex: Really?
Pete: I bought a shit ton and I tried to figure out how many number-
Alex: You cracked your fucking teeth, didn’t you?
Pete: Oh yeah.
Alex: Oh jeez, you’re not an owl. This is a funny story actually, you guys will like this. When I first met Pete, Pete said, “Hey, check this out. I’m an owl.” And he turned his head 360 degrees, and it just popped right off.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: That’s why he’s a ghost now.
Pete: Yep, fun fact. That is a fun fact. So, I would like to say the kind of star of this issue is their ship, their owl ship. You know, that’s the only good thing I can kind of-
Alex: Archie is the star of the issue?
Pete: Yep.
Alex: The owl ship?
Pete: Yep.
Alex: What’s your favorite thing that the ship does in the issue, Pete?
Pete: I like the two big eyes.
Alex: Oh, the two big eyes is cute?
Pete: Yeah. It’s kind of great.
Alex: Well, so the visual theme in this particular issue does take its notes off of the owl ship. We get to see a lot of circles, a lot of reflections, both off of the owl ship. We get to see them off of Nite Owl’s goggles. We get to see them off of Dan’s glasses. Constantly zooming in and out of them. And always, well almost always, those circles are being wiped or splattered in some way with a very similar splatter to the one that was seen on The Comedian’s button in the first issue. Why do you think that is? What do you take away from that?
Pete: Because they’re like, “Hey, we know this issue blows. But hang in with us because it’s still connected to a bigger story that’s amazing.”
Alex: Again, one of the things that I liked about this issue is how human it is, and how grounded it is.
Pete: Yeah, and that’s why it’s slower [crosstalk 00:07:00] because it takes its time with the human aspect.
Alex: I think, if anything, it’s taking a break from the darkness of the past couple of issues. There’s still dark things that I [crosstalk 00:07:11]. But the Rorschach issue sucks you down into Rorschach’s psyche.
Pete: Yeah, it does.
Alex: This is a palate cleanser. This gets you away from it. It gets you back into Dan and Laurie’s life, but it also deals with a darkness in the history of superhero comics, which is the underlying sexuality of every single superhero, I think.
Pete: What?
Alex: Yes.
Pete: Every single superhero has an underlying sexuality?
Alex: So, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this but superheroes tend to run around basically naked or in their underwear. Have you noticed that before?
Pete: Yeah, yeah. But what’s that got to do with sex?
Alex: Well, when, Pete, when a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, love each other very much-
Pete: Or, you know, we got to keep it open-
Alex: Yeah, or whatever you want to do.
Pete: Yeah, yeah.
Alex: Whatever your-
Pete: Trans, there’s other beautiful people in the world.
Alex: Totally. If you want to fuck a person, you take off your clothes. That’s what I was saying. That’s what I was getting towards, Pete.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: Since the beginning of superheros, there’s always been this very mixed up and messed up history of sexuality. I mean, it’s clear with Wonder Woman, that’s been talked about a lot lately. That the dude who created Wonder Woman was very into bondage, hence why Wonder Woman has her lasso-
Pete: Whoa, whoa, take it easy there guy.
Alex: What?
Pete: The guy who invented Wonder Woman is the guy who invented the lie detector test, and that’s what the lasso is about. It’s the lasso of truth.
Alex: Yeah, but he also-
Pete: It’s not about bondage.
Alex: He also… Marston? He also liked to draw bondage art.
Pete: Oh okay.
Alex: Constantly.
Pete: I didn’t know that.
Alex: Yeah, you should watch… Oh gosh, I’m blanking on the exact name of the movie but it’s Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman, I think.
Pete: As long as nobody is getting hurt in the bondage, it’s fine.
Alex: Totally. But it’s something that’s always been sublimated in superhero comics, and as much as this is about the mystery, as much as it’s about the characters. This is also about Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons reckoning with the history of superhero comics. Right? And here, we get to see that pretty plainly throughout the issue. It starts with, we see Dan is taking Laurie on this tour of his owl cave, I guess he calls it.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: Of the owl cave. She goes into a safe and she finds a signed picture for one of Nite Owl’s villains, and she’s dressed in bondage gear, like straight up. He is hiding it in a safe in his cave. He has it repressed. This is all about repressed feelings. This is all about repressed sexuality. It isn’t until the end, jump on to the end, where they put on their superhero costumes that they’re actually able to have sex. Superheros equal sex here in this issue. That’s what this issue is about.
Alex: But, the other thing that’s been running through this comic series, which they don’t let you forget, and was underlined very clearly with the Rorschach issue, is that sex and death are very mixed up.
Pete: I kind of looked at it as they needed to become the superheroes so they could have the confidence to be who they are and be what they want.
Alex: Well, I think we’re saying the same thing. I mean, you’re saying it through the lens of that’s what the characters do. That’s what they’re thinking. I’m saying through the themes that’s why that happens.
Pete: Well, let’s get to the part where we disagreed.
Alex: Which part was that? All of the parts?
Pete: All of the parts.
Alex: All of the parts.
Pete: Well, I thought specifically when you see the-
Alex: I like the fact that you’re at the page where they’re naked and you’re just tapping them.
Pete: I’m not tapping them. I’m tapping the page.
Alex: You’re tapping the boob.
Pete: No, I’m not.
Alex: You’re tapping the peen? What are you tapping?
Pete: I’m not. I’m tapping the corner of the goddamn, the corner of the panel.
Alex: No, I can see it right now. You’re tapping the boob.
Pete: I’m not tapping the boob.
Alex: Yeah.
Pete: In your mind, you’re like, “Well, the boob would be down here.” But that’s a different panel, so it doesn’t count.
Alex: Okay, Scott McCloud.
Pete: My point is that, this, to me, looked like a real call back to Blue Man Group’s Mars world that he built, and it seemed like they were on Mars together, kind of making out. And then, they kind of explode and die.
Alex: Oh okay. So you’re looking specifically at the dream sequence page, right?
Pete: Right.
Alex: All right, well just to very quickly walk through the book.
Pete: Okay.
Alex: Dan and Laurie take a tour of the cave. They seem to be flirting a little bit. Dan is definitely making the booze. He’s doing the classic touch the center of the back thing, to let the girl know he likes him. When she calls him on it, he does a very smooth move through his hair. There’s still flirting a little bit, but she doesn’t seem to be picking up on it as much as he’s necessarily laying down. Ultimately, they go upstairs, they watch TV. There’s some horrific reports on the TV. She calls him on not taking any risks, and they start making out.
Alex: They try to sleep together, but it turns out that Dan is impotent for hours throughout the whole entire affair, they try several times. I believe it’s from 7:00 to 2:00 AM, or something like that. But ultimately, it doesn’t work. Frustrated, he wonders down to the owl cave naked. He puts on his goggles and they decide to get in their superhero costumes and take a cruise around. At which point, once they put on the superhero costumes, we get such blatant sexual imagery throughout the thing. You see the owl ship going through a tunnel, which Freud was like, “I get it.” Then, they fly outwards. There’s a bunch of splooshy clouds coming off of the roof. They end up saving some people from-
Pete: Apologies to the people listening to this one because Alex said, splooshy clouds coming.
Alex: Splooshy clouds coming from the roof. Listen, that’s what it is man. I didn’t draw this. I’m not Dave Gibbons man.
Alex: And so, they find a fire. There’s a bunch of people trapped in a tenement. Silk Spectre, Laurie puts on her Silk Spectre costume, or rather she pulls off her overcoat revealing her costume. At which point we get, again, a ridiculous image of Dan is like, “Oh, this seems to be working.” And his drawbridge pops out of the owl ship. Goes across, they save the people, he’s feeling it completely. They drop the people off on another roof, and then, he takes charge. Kisses her and they make love inside of the owl ship, at which point it explodes fire.
Pete: Fire. Yeah.
Alex: Out of the back.
Pete: Which was the kind of worst part of the movie when they did that.
Alex: It’s so funny that that completely, 100%, did not work in the movie. That is-
Pete: Well, it also lasted way too long.
Alex: Yeah.
Pete: That shot, like should have done it quick. Okay, kind of try to make it funny, not… You know?
Alex: Well yeah, exactly. It’s supposed to be funny. They treated it seriously. They had the hallelujah, which we took the theme from the show from playing under it. They stayed on it, versus the way Dave Gibbons lays this out. It’s flashes as they are getting undressed. As they are making love, and ultimately, when they’re naked and they’re chatting, it’s all in shadow. It’s, not to sound like I’m from the 1950s or anything, but it’s very tastefully done. It’s very tasteful.
Pete: Yeah, the shadowing is tasteful.
Alex: But it is. It’s not about the sex. It’s about what the sex means to the characters, versus what happened in the movie, which is about the sex.
Pete: Right.
Alex: But then we get… And we end with a very funny joke of now that Dan, who’s been very suspect of this whole conspiracy that’s been going on, that Rorschach told him about, tells Laurie as we pull out from the owl ship, “We got to break Rorschach out of prison.” There’s a pause and then she says, “What?” Because she thought he was going to suggest that they should sleep together again, and instead, he’s suggesting this other thing. Such a great way to end the issue. Very funny way to end the issue.
Alex: But in the middle of the issue, the thing that we skipped over there that you were talking about. Dan has a nightmare after he cannot consummate the deed with Laurie. He pictures a number of things. Do you want to talk through that page a little bit?
Pete: Yeah, I mean, so we kind of have, again with the lens, we see his lens of his glasses zoomed in and it kind of zooms out. And you see him looking kind of horrified at Laurie. And then, they start to kiss and she kind of pulls off his skin to reveal his owl costume. He pulls of her skin to reveal her costume, and then they kiss and explode. And they lose all of their skin. They’re just bones and a big explosion. And they have, in the background, it’s all black and the ground their standing on, it looks like a red surface, like a Mars, like they’re on a different planet.
Alex: Yeah, I don’t think it’s necessarily… I didn’t take it necessarily as a vision. It might be the coloring from John Higgins.
Pete: Right.
Alex: That implies that. But first of all, we should mention that when he first sees her, it’s not actually Laurie. It’s the villain from the picture. So, again, he’s mixing up all of these sexual things in his head. He’s seeing Laurie as a sexual object, the same way that he sees this villain. And ultimately, that’s tied into explosion, which certainly you could take sexually at the end there. But it’s also tied into what they’ve been watching on TV, which is that the Russians are invading Afghanistan. There’s all this nuclear fear that’s going on. They’ve been blown up. The skeletons looked very clearly like two things to me. One, they look almost exactly like Doctor Manhattan’s skeleton when he’s blown up, or John Osterman’s. And then, they’re also in the same position as the Hiroshima Lovers that we’ve seen throughout the issues of this comic book.
Pete: And, they also kind of look like a little bit of a Rorschach test.
Alex: Yeah, I think that’s fair as well, absolutely. Because it’s white and black panel, right?
Pete: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alex: So, I’m sure there’s a lot more to be delved in here, and I’m sure people who have more time to do analysis can have certainly looked into this. But it is interesting to me how many repeated visual themes there are. And sometimes I wonder if it’s just to give it this sense of rhythm, versus necessarily meaning all the things that we are ascribing to it, you know?
Pete: Yeah. I mean, they really think about pacing and paneling in this book, which I really appreciate. And there are definitely stories within stories. The layers of this book is really impressive.
Alex: Well, the Hiroshima Lovers, at the very least, I think, pretty clearly whenever we see a shadow of say Dan and Laurie in this issue, it’s always about the fallout of actions, specifically sexual actions or violent actions. As we saw last issue with Rorschach, where there were both things with this mom and her client, I guess. Then, also his mom hitting him, that they’re all mixed up in the same thing. And here we’re seeing the same thing with the exploding nuclear bomb, as well as when Dan and Laurie make love, ultimately.
Alex: One thing I wanted to talk about that’s such a great sequence is the first time that they try to sleep together. And I know there was somebody who was making fun of me about first discovering the word juxtaposition on a previous podcast, a couple of episodes back.
Pete: Right.
Alex: But we do get this great juxtaposition between what’s going on with Adrian Veidt as he’s doing this athletic routine, and what’s actually happening with Dan and Laurie. You have the copy of the book. Can I grab it from you for a second?
Pete: Sure. Sure.
Alex: Thanks. I’ll bring my copy next time. I left it-
Pete: It’s right there. I opened it right up for you.
Alex: Oh man, you’re amazing dude. So yeah, we get to see Ozymandias as he’s doing this pitch perfect routine. And they’re, in fact, doing this this terrible job of sleeping with each other on a couch. And I don’t know if you ever hooked up on a couch, not particularly comfortable, right Pete?
Pete: Well, it’s tough. I mean, it depends on the size of the couch. But yes.
Alex: Yeah, you got to get a pull out couch. That’s the important thing.
Pete: Oh my God.
Alex: What?
Pete: So much going on there.
Alex: What do you mean?
Pete: Pulling out, pull out couch. Come on man.
Alex: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Don’t use a pull out couch kids.
Pete: Oh my God. But yeah, tight places are tough to maneuver-
Alex: Abstain from couches.
Pete: Oh my God.
Alex: But actually, one thing that I’ve heard about couches is if you use a proper bed to cook you can… Nevermind. Anyway, so as he’s saying Adrian Veidt on the TV says, “Thank you. I hope you’ll forgive me while I warm up. I haven’t done this in a while.” And everybody laughs. And Dan and Laurie, Laurie says, “that better?” And Dan says, “Uh huh.” And then, he says, “Just look at the confidence as he leaps up and grabs the bar, beginning the maneuver.” While they say, “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I crushing you?” “No, it’s okay, don’t worry. Everything is okay.” Mm, and you think she’s saying that in pleasure but it turns out that he’s actually jabbing his elbow into her.
Alex: So, it’s just throughout that entire sequence we see, I think there’s two things going on, right? We get this very funny exchange between what’s happening with Adrian physically, and what is happening with them physically, but also the fact that right now Dan is overweight, right? He hasn’t been a hero in years. Laurie, also, hasn’t been a hero in years. Certainly she’s been hanging out with John Osterman but they haven’t had the practice. We saw a couple of issues back that they were both out of breath when they fought in the alleyway and Adrian Veidt is at the tip top shape. Now, we know, this is a big spoiler and I think you guys probably know if you’re reading the book, that Veidt is the ultimate mastermind. He’s ahead of them on every move is what I think we’re being told here, once again without being told. And that’s what I think is great about every issue here, is that Alan Moore never forgets about the mystery. He’s layering it in every issue.
Alex: Even in this issue, which seems to be about Dan and Laurie and their relationship, there’s still little clues like that.
Pete: There’s clues, yeah. Where you’ve got to… You were like, “Oh, how did I not put this together? It seems so obvious here.”
Alex: Well, there’s even more stuff. It’s funny that they rely… Oh, what were you going to say?
Pete: I was just even more stuff. Do you see what…
Alex: Wait, even more stuff?
Pete: Alan Moore. Even more stuff.
Alex: Oh. Yeah.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: No, no, no, I know. He owns that store, that knickknack store called More Stuff. It’s very cute. Very homey. Again, it’s funny to me that they use the TV as a device. It must have felt relatively new then, because I think now you see that on TV, where somebody clicks on the TV and immediately it’s like, “And in other news, here’s the specific clue you needed to know.”
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: But here, we get a bunch of different things. We find out about the Institute of Extra Spatial Abnormalities. I’m forgetting the exact name of it, but we pass by it a couple of times with the comic. And they’re very excited because they have figured out a way to maybe access alternate dimensions that, as we’ll find out later, is a big part of what’s going on with Adrian Veidt’s plan.
Alex: There’s also a seemingly random mention, which seems to just be killing time where they talk about a artist, sorry a writer, who has gone missing. Now, this is the same writer who worked on Tales of the Black Freighter, who in The Back Matter, a couple of issues back, we found out had also gotten missing, and then ultimately was replaced on Tales of the Black Freighter. This is, again, as we’re going to find out later, these are all people that are working for Adrian that he is getting rid of as they create this story, as they create this narrative for him.
Alex: So, everything there is not wasted. They use every part of the Buffalo, as they say. Right, Pete?
Pete: Yeah, and then we get an amazing story about owls.
Alex: Did you read this, Pete? Be honest.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: You did?
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: Oh, I’m so proud of you. What’d you think?
Pete: I liked it. I mean, this was one of the only ones that I read the first time around because it has pictures. So, I was like, “Oh cool.”
Alex: Oh birds.
Pete: Yep.
Alex: What did you think of this? What did you take away from this story?
Pete: Well, I mean, it talks about the owl in comparison to kind of… Well, we can kind of talk with our character, the owl character, like what the owl is like. The specific, how he hunts prey, all this kind of stuff. And I think there’s a lot of great kind of parallels here.
Alex: Yeah. We find out about that. We also find out about his relationship with his father, which is something that I think potentially drove him on to become Nite Owl here. It’s also funny to throw this in, given that Dan talks about, “Oh, I write articles about birds, but nobody reads them.”
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: And then, that’s what several pages at the end of the comic is. They’re like, “Here you go. Here’s a boring owl story for you.” Expect, obviously, it’s not. Another little detail that it I thought was fun in there is a couple of issues back we found out that one of the team members from, I don’t think it was the crime busters, I think it was from the minute man, Moth Man was committed to an insane asylum upstate.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: And I think we’ll meet him again in a couple of issues’ time, but Dan mentions in the story that he was visiting a friend upstate, which is probably Moth Man, even though he doesn’t talk about it.
Pete: No, interesting.
Alex: Yeah, so I thought that was neat. Yeah, this is… It also, what was the other thing? There was one other detail. Oh, what’s the name of the story? It’s something of Pelham?
Pete: Yeah, it’s Blood from the Shoulders of Pollis.
Alex: Pollis, yeah, sorry about that. So, Pollis is Athena, the God of the hunt. And I do think, this a very vague idea, but I think that telling the story about Athena, telling the story about the owl, and the way that Dan acts throughout the rest of the issue is that he only comes alive when he truly is Nite Owl and when he’s on the hunt. Otherwise, he’s kind of meandering, he’s wandering through life. He doesn’t have a strong personality, but here we get to see him as soon as he puts on the Nite Owl costume. He’s in charge. He’s riding on top of the owl ship.
Alex: He takes Laurie in his arms and kisses her, which is what he’s been unable to do the rest of the series. It’s cool. Good comic.
Pete: I also like how with the owl story, it’s from his perspective, you know?
Alex: Yeah.
Pete: And it’s like this thing of things he should or should not be paying attention to, which is something we, the reader, should be paying more attention to what we’re seeing here, as far as who don’t it, you know? So, it’s kind of a big clue that, “Hey, I’ve given you everything you need to know up until this point.”
Alex: Yeah, I think that’s a fair point. I mean, particularly because there have been so many character driven issues up to this point, it would almost feel like, “Okay, we are learning more about this team that isn’t really a team. We’re finding out more about these characters.” But the entire time Moore is saying no, there’s a mystery here. There’s a mystery here. There’s a mystery here. Don’t forget about that.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: Anything else you pulled out from the issue, Pete?
Pete: No. I just, I mean, even if this is not my favorite of all the chapters, or my favorite of all the issues, it’s still pretty amazing. And yeah, just going back, it’s just I’m constantly blown away by how good this is. It really doesn’t dip in over the years. I mean, it’s just still very, very fresh, and there’s new things that you can find in it, you know?
Alex: I will say, as we talked about last episode, I do have a problem hooking into Laurie as a character, a bit. Dan’s very well fleshed out. Dan’s very well thought out. But Laurie in this issue, I’m not 100% sure what she wants or needs, or what she’s getting out of the relationship with Dan. There’s a little blip where as she’s sleeping she murmurs something to Doctor Manhattan.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: So, it feels like maybe this a rebound, maybe she just needs to feel something physically. But it feels a little more surfacey to me with Laurie, than it does with the rest of the characters-
Pete: Well, it’s probably one of the downfalls of maybe it being a male writer, you know?
Alex: Yeah.
Pete: That he’s not giving enough attention to the female characters.
Alex: Yeah, I think there’s a tension there. That’s the thing is there’s still… Laurie is still good, and I like Laurie and it’s a well thought out character, but there’s an emotional depth there that drives her more to be a driving force to get Dan out of his funk, versus anything particularly for Laurie.
Pete: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that she does… I mean, we get to see the way she’s fighting in the next chapter. It feels like she’s definitely coming alive more, and being more her superhero self, which feels like she’s kind of more in her element.
Alex: It might also be a problem just with, A, the character of Silk Spectre that Sally Jupiter, Sally Juspeczyk. I don’t know how to pronounce it. She became a superhero to become famous. Laurie did it because she had nothing better to do. And when you have a character who’s just kind of bored and not quite sure what they want to do, it comes off wishy, washy in the text.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: She doesn’t really have a place in the world, as of yet. And as we read this story, to be honest, I don’t remember if she does by the end of the book or not. I know what happens to her plot wise, but I’m not sure what… I don’t remember what happens to her emotionally. So, I’m curious to see if she does find that drive, that purpose by the end.
Pete: Yeah.
Alex: We’ll see what happens.
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Alex: Oh, sorry. I’m getting a text actually from Justin and Alan. They just crashed the car, but they went on another adventure. A bunch of raccoons are helping them out.
Pete: Oh!
Alex: So, they should be back in time for next week.
