Watchmen: Only Humans After All ...

Out of all the comics that we've read this semester, Watchmen seems to me the most grounded and believable.  Sure, there are less realistic elements, such as the character of Dr. Manhattan and even Rorschach's heat- and pressure-sensitive latex mask.  But in comparison to some of the other super heroes that we've read about (apart from maybe Frank Miller's Batman), the heroes (or, rather, the anti-heroes) in Alan Moore's graphic novel are unsettlingly life-like.

Larger real-life events, such as the Manhattan Project, the aftermath of World War II, the Vietnam War, and Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, certainly make Watchmen seem like a believable story from the 1980s.  But more than anything, it's the characters, their interactions and their psychological dilemmas that make the Watchmen seem like people who could have actually existed in our world.  None of the heroes in this story possess supernatural powers.  All they do is use technology or their own mental and physical strength to beat up their enemies, who themselves only deal with underground drug rings or petty crimes that already exist in the real world.  

There's nothing glamorous about their lives during the heyday of their adventures, and even less so now in their retired state.  All of the Watchmen struggle with feelings of depression, nostalgia (cue the nod from Veidt's Nostalgia perfume), fear, paranoia, love, helplessness, anger, and sadness.  These are emotions that we, real humans, feel.  And Alan Moore weaves together a brilliantly elaborate and messed-up story that makes us not only fear our own emotions, but also realize that the Watchmen, even with their kitschy costumes, are just humans after all.