CBR: EXCLUSIVE: JMS Talks "Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan"

[Ari Gold]

I like JMS a lot as a writer. If I can afford to I'll be picking up his part of the series.

[littlenomad]

...won't do anything other than disappoint. Bad idea.

[Jake V]

I can't imagine any way that the Before Dr. Manhattan won't be terrible. Before he was Dr Manhattan he was a regular guy. The problem is that no one wants to read about a regular guy going through life, which means they will have to spice it up. More than likely, that "spicing up" will ruin the character. One of the reasons Dr. Manhattan is so effective is that he was a regular joe that was turned into a god. If they throw in some cosmic destiny crap, or something similar, it's going to destroy the character.

The book is called "before Watchmen"

He was Doctor Manhattan before Watchmen happened.

Of course, that doesn't mean the book won't be terrible.

[Disco_Magic]

Dr Manhattan is surprising his wife with some butt sex.

I will laugh myself silly if there is a scene in this where Dr. Manhattan makes a duplicate of himself and does an "Eiffel Tower."

[starman]

I will laugh myself silly if there is a scene in this where Dr. Manhattan makes a duplicate of himself and does an "Eiffel Tower."

JMS are you reading this? It's not too late to include this.

[Kolymar]

But by the same token, Alan has spent most of the last decade writing some very, very good stories about characters created by other writers, including Alice (from Wonderland), Dorothy (from Oz), Wendy (from Peter Pan), as well as Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, Jekyll and Hyde and Professor Moriarty. I think one loses a little of the moral high ground to say, "I can write characters created by Jules Verne, HG Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle and Frank Baum, but it's wrong for anyone else to write my characters."

Good point.

[RolandJP]

Alan Moore predicted this.

:smh:

[virtualmark]

While I'd rather they not do anything more with Watchmen, I do think Straczynski has a point about Moore complaining about people revisiting his world at the same time that he's been doing stuff like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a series dependent on characters created by other writers. In the NYT, he basically compares Watchmen to Moby Dick, saying that Moby Dick didn't have prequels or sequels, but he's essentially doing sequels to things like Dracula and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

No, he really isn't doing sequels or prequels to Dracula or 20000 leagues or peter pan. He uses those characters as a point of departure.

and "who watches the Watchmen?" does not mean "who do you trust?"

It means, when it comes to power it is not about trust, it is about accountability

This is a cash grab by the publishers and pandering to the ego of the the creators.

Also comparing Watchmen to Superman is facile. Superman was created as a character for serial story telling. Watchmen was written with a beginning middle and end. as self contained.

JMS: you sir are a hack

[Genki Sudo]

From taking shots at the current writer for Spider-Man, making a huge fuss over Superman: Grounded then abandoning it midway to then his Wonder Woman fiasco JMS has made sure he'll never see a dime from me and proved he's a hypocritical so and so.

You can have your ball back JMS I don't want it and I'm heading home

[Steve Broome]

Best of luck to the teams working on it, the story itself was not only self-contained but had enough back story, so further exploration just doesn't interest me.

[.c.h.r.i.s.]

Canon for what?

Watchmen canon.

As in, will this be treated as a legitimate part of Watchmen history or glorified, well produced fanfic.

[iduckles]

I was actually ok with this announcement, but this quote from JMS is a bit worrying

" As one example: it's always bothered me that someone as brilliant and precise about time as Jon could just blithely walk into the intrinsic field test chamber as the time-lock closed. He'd know better than that. But since it did happen, you now have to say, "Okay, that being the case, how did it happen? Is there something we don't know? Or more to the point, was there something he didn't know?"

because that doesn't just sound like writing a stand alone sequel, it sounds like altering parts of Moores story.

This is what really bothers me about these prequels and why I will not be buying or reading them. I can never unsee the Star Wars prequels and they definitely made the original trilogy worse. I worry the same will happen here.

[dimo1]

I agree with some comments made here that a prequel doesn't make any sense at all. We know everything about the characters already. Nite-Owl wrote his book, Dr. Manhatten's story is brilliantly told in the book. I really can't find any reason, other than making money, to explore into known territory again.

[Darrell D.]

Watchmen canon.

As in, will this be treated as a legitimate part of Watchmen history or glorified, well produced fanfic.

I'm of the opinion that the original work is all that matters, and until DC comes to my house and scribbles in my Watchmen book, I can ignore this stuff.
Too many fans care about official 'canon' and less about just enjoying a story.