HBO’S WATCHMEN: A Thermodynamic Miracle
*********Author’s note: This entire article contains in-depth spoilers for HBO’s show and Moore’s original graphic novel. Spoilers were unavoidable in telling this story. Read at your own risk. Thank you.
Legacy, Legacy, Legacy
Legacy is determined by how one’s life is viewed by their accomplishments or the foundation they’ve laid for their offspring. The idea behind this thought process comes from the existential need for “finding oneself” or “being”. Have you truly lived a successful life if you don’t have any children to continue those threads of genes proudly into the future? Even in giving your children this legacy, is it something they believe in and should feel proud to represent? Is it something that, as they grow in their time, they should be ashamed of? HBO’s “Watchmen” ponders about these ideas and what it means to be who you were born to be and why being that person could save the world.
Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” graphic novel is considered one of the best “comic books” of all time. One of the main reasons is for its realistic depictions of crime and how a world would operate with these types of characters in it. The novel follows a group of vigilantes throughout generations and depicts an alternate 1980’s parallel to ours. The novel climaxes when our group of heroes discover the person behind the big bad weapon is one of their own. When approaching this person in attempts to thwart the evildoer, ‘The Smartest Man In The World’ boasts he’d already enacted the deed, 35 minutes prior. The reason for this massive attack was to save the world. During this time in the novel, the US & Russia were at a tipping point where, at any moment, the citizens were expecting “The Big One” to drop. To avoid this, Smartypants concluded that the only way they could avoid another World War was to give each side a common enemy, aliens. A threat from another dimension would not only terrify but unify the world into a Utopia. To accomplish this, Smartypants bioengineered a one-eyed, squidlike Kaiju and teleported it to downtown Manhattan, killing 3 million people, give or take. The initial blast killing half the city’s population, and the aftereffect traumatizing millions more due to the blasts’ psychic properties, endowing them with genetic PTSD.
But it worked, in a sense. The world came together in this time of extra-dimensional terrorism and put aside their issues with each other. Watching the news from his lair, Smartypants cried happily as world leaders came together as he planned. Stunned, the group of heroes are given a choice, either live with the knowledge that their colleague has committed genocide to preserve their way of being or publically expose the largescale hoax and perpetuate the seed of paranoia and fear that plagued the nation. All but one, a masked man named Rorschach, agrees to keep the secret. HBO’s “Watchmen” takes this material and expounds on what happened afterward. The show incredibly dissects what it means to have a legacy and what it means to different people; specifically, black people.
Rorschach’s Legacy & The Art of Misrepresentation
One of the main critiques of this show is that it’s too “woke” or “progressive” by many “fans” of the original novel. This claim comes behind the depiction of a beloved character and the legacy he ended up leaving behind. Rorschach, the man who disagreed to keep Smartypants’ secret, ended up dying for what he believed in, a noble act. Throughout the original graphic novel, a large portion of the narrative is voiced by Rorschach; and these thoughts are written down in his journal. The novel ends with a Right-Wing newspaper company receiving Rorschach’s journal and is presumed to have published it. Within this journal are entries that range from his thoughts on the justice system, crime, race, politics and the lies people tell themselves to keep the status quo. Rocharch isn’t the nicest guy to be around. He’s abrasive and morally absolute, which is frequently frustrating to his teammates when there’s more than one way to assess a situation, namely, the squid attack. His views towards women are skewed due to abuse from his mother. Moore, the author of the book, also depicted the character as “extremely right-wing”.
Well, the main antagonists of the show, “The 7th Calvery,” are a group of White Nationalists who have taken on the appearance of Rorschach, using his mask as a symbol of their movement. Rorschach believed that the mask he wore was his “true” face and his unmasked face was the mask he used to lie to the world. The legacy he ended up leaving behind was one of anger and paranoia. Unable to properly voice his thoughts due to his death, his journal is the only thing left to be interpreted and has been by the same paranoid, determined and morally absolute individuals who strive to change the status quo; white nationalists.
HBO’s WATCHMEN is unapologetically for Us
The protagonist of our show is Angela Abar played by the ever-talented, Regina King and follows her journey to save the world. Set in an alternative 2019 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the show starts with a sobering reminder of The Black Wall Street terror attack of 1921. “Black Wall Street” was the name given to the business district of Greenwood due to its incredible capital and black-owned properties including, libraries, schools, and banks. In a tragic turn of events, a man named, Dick Rowland went to use an elevator and was accused of sexual assault by the white woman on the elevator. After publishing the young woman’s story, the locals of Tulsa went into the Greenwood district and demanded the lynching of Rowland. After a tense back and forth with the townsfolk, shots were fired, and the riot ensued. Hundreds of white citizens including the local mob and police department descended on the town and started destroying property, looting, and executing black civilians. The national guard even sent a plane to take down civilians as they ran for their lives. This is how the show starts and it’s a declaration of who this show is coded for; black people and their legacy within this country.
This opening scene is a make or break moment for a lot of viewers and says a lot about how you view history and your role within it. Often when confronted with their legacy, white people tend to either find how it has nothing directly to do with them or discredit certain events as no big deal and this show constantly challenges that idea. In fact, when the episode first premiered, Twitter was trending with “Black Wall Street” and the thread was full of people who had no idea it was an actual event and not HBO liberal storytelling. This was met with a vocal response from the black community on the site (referred to as Black Twitter) almost in shock that people weren’t privy to the event as we are. Weeks later, a report by The New York Times had stated, “newly found patches of land in Tulsa, Ok, might be the mass gravesite of the ‘Black Wall Street’ victims.”
“No shit,” said Black Twitter.
It’s 2019 and Angela Abar gets a phone call while having sex with her husband, Cal. She answers out of breath and frustrated. The man on the other line asks her name. She confirms. He asks her to confirm her father’s name. She pauses and asks who she’s talking to. The man replies and tells her to meet him by the big oak tree and not to wear a mask because he already knows who she is.
It’s Christmas Eve, 2016 & Angela is dancing with her husband, Cal. It’s a minute to midnight and they’re debating on when Cal gets to open his big present. It’s midnight and Angela realizes someone’s in her house. They are promptly attacked by members of the 7th Calvary. She kills one, but is shot by another. As the shotgun loomed over her face, she blacks out and wakes up in the hospital; facing Judd Crawford, her Deputy Chief of Police. He informs her that the 7th Calvary had orchestrated a terror attack against the Tulsa police department; breaking into their homes on Christmas Eve and slaying them. He states a lot of their targets were hit and the survivors are retiring and moving away. Angela tells Judd that she’s not retiring, and he responds in kind. Angela decides to adopt her slain partner’s three children and Judd is promoted to Cheif of Police. In response to this attack, Oklahoma passed a law that enabled police officers to wear masks and use aliases to avoid being targeted or put on a terrorist hitlist.
It’s now 2019, Angela is driving up to the old oak tree and notices two figures in the dark, one much higher than the other. She’s approaches to see Judd, hanging from the tree and an elderly black man in a wheelchair, besides Judd’s dangling feet, holding his hands in the air. The old man says that he murdered the Chief of Police and did so in attempts to thwart a “vast and insidious conspiracy” growing in Tulsa. What follows is a tightly wound plot that revolves around legacy and what it means generations down the line.
Will Reeves & Creating A Legacy Through Pain
To say that Angela was born to be a cop is a bit on the nose; but correct. Her father was a Naval officer and joined the service in hopes to carry the legacy his father carried; being a cop…of sorts. Angela’s alias is Sister Night. This being the name of the blaxploitation film she admired. The film followed Sister Night, real name, Pamela Davis, and follows her story as she goes from devout nun to moonlighting as a vigilante to fight crime in New York. When asked why shes so enamored with such a violent character, she replied, “she looks like me.” This brings us to another topic this show dissects; representation and its effects on those who feel misrepresented.
In the graphic novel, our ‘Watchmen’ heroes are preceded by their elders, ‘The Minutemen’. They were the first group of vigilantes to publically announce themselves and devote time and money to stopping crime in the city. One of the pillars of this group was Hooded Justice. With the appearance of an executioner, Justice was intimidating and powerful. Criminals would come up with their lore behind the tattered noose he wore proudly around his neck. Hooded Justice went down in history as a legend who spearheaded the vigilante business with his partner, Captian Metropolis and was widely regarded as the “first superhero”. But like a lot of superheroes, Hooded Justice had a secret. A secret so harmful to his image and brand that it would spell demise for him and his family; Not the secret that he’s bisexual and having an affair with his partner, Metropolis, but the fact that Hooded Justice is a black man.
It’s 1921 and as the horrific events of The Black Wall Street Massacre unfolded outside, a woman is sitting inside the Dreamland Theatre, playing along on the piano to a black & white film about America’s first Black US Marshall, Bass Reeves. The film is being watched by Will Reeves, a 6-year-old Hooded Justice. The film depicts Marshall, hooded, riding into town on horseback to arrest the town’s corrupt Sherriff. When the townsfolk ask who the hooded figure is, Bass throws back his hood to reveal his face; the people cheer. The townsfolk call for the lynching of the Sherriff; rejecting this, Bass points to his badge. He tells the folk to trust in the law and justice, and that it would be served properly. Will, unaware of the calamity outside, gleefully mimics his hero’s lines as his mother continues to play the accompaniment for the film. Years later, Will applies and becomes accepted as a Tulsa police officer. At his induction, he is not given his badge by the commanding white officer but a black officer, who, as Will tells him, is the reason he joined the force.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” the black commander said jokingly before whispering something in Will’s ear that would change his life forever,
“Beware the cyclops”.
This leads Will down a path of corruption and mysticism. As he begins to uncover the meaning behind the mysterious “Cyclops” organization; Will happens upon a man named Fred, lighting and throwing a Molotov Cocktail into a Jewish delicatessen. Fred walks away nonchalantly as Will attempts to arrest him. After a brief exchange, Will manages to cuff Fred and take him to the station. At the station, Will is explaining to his superiors what had happened and is casually called a “spook” by Fred when defending himself. Will’s superiors defend Will and tell Fred to apologize to him. Fred does and is taken away by the superiors. When the station’s clerk alerts the superiors about the bureaucratical side of their actions, they respond with “don’t worry about it, we got this.” and proceeds to put their hand to their forehead; imitating the third eye. The hand gesture ironically is the, now White Nationalist adopted, “Okay” symbol. In my youth, the hand sign was a cheap attempt to punch your friend in the arm if they happened to see you doing it above your knee; how times have changed. Will attempts to get information out of the clerk about what the symbol represents. The clerk responds in saying that he ‘ought to keep his mouth shut or else it’ll be the bullet it in his head.’
As he’s walking home, Will is approached by his fellow superiors; the one’s who apprehended Fred. They offer him a ride, he refuses, they insist, and so does Will. They give up, wishing him a good night and drive away; dragging behind the car are black bodies tied to the bumper; Memories of Will’s past superimposed onto the present. He rounds a corner into an alley and is stopped by the officers. They approach him, beat him and throw him in the trunk. The camera is now from Will’s perspective and we are now being dragged by the feet across a field, in the distance we see a large albeit infant Oak Tree. A noose is soon draped over our necks and a black cloth is placed over our head. We are quickly then hoisted up by our neck into the air. We can barely see the headlights in the distance through the dark cloth until they slowly fade away. We then drop to the ground, bloody and gasping for air. The sheriff cuts away the tail end of the noose and removes the hood. “You keep your black nose out of White Folks business, nigger. Or else…we won’t cut you down next time.” said the Sherriff confidently. He then leaves with his partners.
Will has now lost all faith in not only his police department but what it means to be a cop and the system in place that enables corruption and extinguishes any sign of progression within it; especially being a black man. Walking home with the noose still around his neck and the black hood in his hands, truly defeated, he hears desperate screaming coming from far ahead. A white couple is being attacked and robbed by the local gang. Struggling internally with the attack that had just occurred to him and his personal belief in serving justice; he looked down at his hood and forcefully pushed his thumbs through the cloth, making two small eye holes. He draped the hood over his head, fixed it so he can see, and ran towards his destiny. Using all of the rage he’s been building his entire life, he decimates the goons and saves the couple. They thank him tearfully, calling him a hero. He walks into his house and tells his wife about his night and his newfound vigilante alias that would stop at nothing to eliminate Cyclops.
Another genius story element of Hooded Justice is his appearance. After telling his wife the story of him surviving the Black Wall Massacre and what he witnessed; she reminds him of the dichotomy of how the White People responded to the Black Sherrief in the film comparative to how they treated his family and his community.
“You ain’t gonna get justice with a badge, Will Reeves. You gonna get it with that hood. And if you wanna stay a hero, townsfolk gonna need to think one of their own’s under there.” Ruth says to her husband.
She helps him apply white makeup on his face, appearing like a mask; giving the illusion of a White Man under the hood. This is an incredible element because it’s directly about how black people operate or how we second guess ourselves in the eyes of white people. Masking our true “black identity” is not only a defense mechanism but has been perfected in the adaptive need to “survive” within a certain system. “Using your white voice” or “speaking proper” is a microcosm of this phenomenon. Hooded Justice was seen as a hero and not a “vigilante coon lose on the streets”. Hooded Justice finds out that Fred is connected to Cyclops and saw him with KKK members go into a grocery store Fred owns. Going in through the back, Justice takes out all of the members and comes across a book on Mesmerism. He’s soon attacked by a determined Klan member and they both fall into the grocery store, where Fred is currently bagging groceries. Fred grabs a shotgun and starts firing at Justice who promptly escapes by jumping out the store window.
Eventually, Captain Metropolis, real name, Nelson Gardner, approached Justice at his home to recruit him to help lead a new group of vigilante superheroes, The Minutemen. Ruth advises Will not to join, that he can do more on his own and that they’re just using him to boost their image; whereas Will believes more people like Nelson can assist in the fall of Cyclops. Will joins and ends up having a sexual affair with Nelson. After they have sex, Nelson tells Will about how excited he is for him to meet the group. There is, however, a catch. Nelson informs Will that not everybody on the team is as “tolerant” as he is and that he’s required to wear his mask at all times to avoid any confrontations between the more conservative members of the group. Will agrees and eventually realizes his role within the Minutemen is to be a trophy for the group and is used as a sexual fetish by Nelson. Will is publically humiliated when revealing his plans to take down Cyclops, Metropolis abruptly cuts him off and makes up a villain to distract from the truth. They then reveal a promotional poster for the bank, a member of the Minutemen apprehending a young black thief; bruised and bloodied.
Months later, Will approaches the scene at a local theatre where bloodied black bodies lie everywhere. “Glad you’re here, we need someone to speak their language,” a white cop tells Will as he walks towards the establishment. He walks in to see a horrid scene of bloody corpses strewn across the seats and the floor of the theatre. He kneels in front of a crying woman and asks her to explain what happened. She explains that they were watching a movie when a flicker flashed on the screen and she began to hear voices in her head, then, nothing. As she’s explaining, he sees a man walking to the theater’s exit holding a film projector. Will excuses himself and follows the man to see him placing the projector into a van labeled, “FT & Sons”. Then it hits him all at once.
He immediately calls Metropolis and tells him that Cyclops is an arm of the KKK specialized in Mesmerism, somehow convincing black people to kill themselves using mind control. Metropolis rejects this. Calling it farfetched and that citizens of Harlem are very capable of harming themselves without any help. He then offers Will to come over for a “good time”. Will is now slamming the payphone, enraged. An onlooker calls out to him, it’s Fred. He says he knows every officer who works that particular area and Will isn’t one of them. Fred jokes and offers Will a chicken from his local warehouse, a few yards away. Stunned, Will confirms that Fred owns the warehouse that housed the projector and klan that terrorized the theatre. Fred confirms and asks Will if they’ve ever met; saying ‘all you Spooks look alike’. Will shoots Fred between the eyes. Will heroically dons his hood and proceeds to take down the Klan with little to no effort. He then walks into a room where a White man is sitting in front of a projector that’s projecting pulsing white light and reading lines to hypnotize the listener upon viewing the strobing white light.
“Do not attack any White men, women or child. Only each other. Fight viciously. Do not stop until their blood covers your hands. Then…kill yourself.”
This is abruptly ended when Will wraps the microphone cord around the man’s neck, suffocating him. Will gathers all of the dead bodies, throws them on a pile and sets them ablaze. He then grabs a projector and walks outside to watch the warehouse burn to the ground; similar to how he watched his hometown of Tulsa burn as a boy. He then goes home to see his legacy in full effect. His son is in the mirror, applying white makeup to his face, wearing his father’s noose around his neck. Will runs into the room to see his son’s face light up and say “I’m just like you.” Will panics and rushes to the sink and starts to wash the makeup off; Ruth runs in and pushes him back. She tells him that this is his legacy and there’s nothing he can do to change it. She thought that joining the Minutemen would help him focus the pain and rage he has inside but it’s only inflamed it. She decides to move her and her son away to avoid inheriting masking your pain instead of confronting it.
It’s 2019 and Will, now 104, is sitting in his wheelchair, waiting for Judd Crawford to drive by in his truck. Judd’s truck then runs over unseen road spikes and screeches to a halt. Judd cautiously approaches the spikes and is then struck by pulsating white light. He puts his hands up, but it’s too late. Judd is now pushing Will towards the old Oak Tree with the light still in his face. They get to the tree and Will turns the light off. Judd walks in front of the old man and asks who he is.
“Justice…” Will replies.
Judd claims that Will doesn’t know what’s going on and that he’s trying to help “you people”. Will then claims Judd has a Klan robe in a hidden compartment in his closet. Judd confirms this saying it’s his grandfathers and that he sees nothing wrong with preserving his legacy. Will asks if he’s proud of this legacy, why hide it behind a closet? Judd replies in saying, “You don’t know me, old man.”
“Oh, I know you…” Will replies holding his hand up to his forehead; doing the Cyclops sign. “Okay…you can hang yourself now,” Will says handing Judd a noose. Judd grabs the noose, stands on a stump, tightens the noose around his neck and steps forward. Will then calls his granddaughter, Angela Abar and tells her to meet him at the old Oak Tree.
Representation and its importance in storytelling
Hooded Justice’s influence spanned generations. And not just generations but the combatting ethnic groups within them. Throughout the series, you see their universe’s version American Crime Story entitled “American Hero Story”. The story follows the origins of The Minutemen and is currently focused on the rise of Hooded Justice, played by a white actor. Never exposing his true identity to the public, Will allowed the public to believe Justice was a white man, and so the world portrays him as such.
As a young black boy, Will saw himself and his people represented in the black and white biopic he saw about Marshall Bass Reeves. Seeing Bass onscreen, proudly dishing out justice and saving the townsfolk became embedded in Will’s memories and would be the catalyst for his need to become a policeman. This would trickle down to his son as well, even though he moved away with his mother after applying the makeup to his face. Marcus Abar, Will’s son, joined the military at the dismay of his mother; his way of serving “justice”. He will go on to marry and have a child, Angela.
It’s 1987 and Angela is walking back to return the Sister Night VHS to the video store. She notices a young man on a bike, receiving a green backpack and starts riding towards her parents. As the biker gets closer to them, she gets flashes of the Massacre her grandfather witnessed as a child, younger than herself. As he approaches Angela’s parents, he jumps off the bike and runs towards them screaming, “death to the invaders!” He jumps into the jeep parked behind them and engages the bomb in his backpack. Angela is then put into a foster home. She’s soon visited by the local police. She’s asked to identify the man who gave the backpack to the teen that killed her parents. She positively identifies him and the police proceed to execute the man in an alley away from citizens. The cop tells Angela that she should go inside. Angela then asks if she can listen to the officer executing the man. Taken aback, the officer hands Angela her badge and tells Angela she should think about joining the force when she gets older.
Later that year, Angela would be visited by her grandmother. After being picked up from the foster home, her grandmother treats her to breakfast at a diner. They catch up. The talk about how Angela’s father never mentioned his mother to her, out of frustration he’s had since a child. She tells Angela that she forbid her son to join the military and that he did so in protest and never spoke to her again. She learned about Angela after hearing about the passing of her son. She then informs Angela that she’ll be taking her back to her to Tulsa, Oklahoma, “It’s where we’re from.” she tells Angela proudly. As they’re loading the taxi to leave, Angela’s Grandmother suffers a fatal heart attack, dropping to the ground behind the cab. Angela is stuck in Vietnam.
Watchmen is meditating on the effects of what Legacy is what it means to fulfill it. The series masterfully curates its characters around this specific theme. Ozymandius, the aforementioned ‘Smartypants’, has a daughter who plans on propelling his legacy to greater heights than he could have ever imagined. FBI agent, Laurie Blake is a former masked hero and was in fact, one of the heroes who attempted to thwart Ozymadnius’ genocide. After keeping her secret about what happened, Laurie has become incredibly cynical and works to arrest vigilantes for the government. She becomes dispatched to Tulsa after the mysterious death of Judd. She’s also the daughter of The Comedian. Wade Tillman is a cop working for Tulsa PD. He was in the perimeter of the Squid attack and has since suffered PTSD and wears a mask that he believes protects his mind from “psychic attacks”. His home is also fitted to alert him whenever the next “big” attack is about to commence. All of these characters move along a line of linear time but only Jon “Dr. Manhattan” Osterman can see the strings.
A common misconception about Jon’s “power” is that he can see the future. This is a half-truth in that he can only view his future, not one specific person. “The future” is a constant and cannot be changed, in the novel, Jon is overcome with depression and isolates himself to Mars to destress. After a while, he goes down to Vietnam to meet Angela and discuss their future together in Tulsa.
Over 9 hours, Damon Lindeloff and crew seamlessly weaved the original lore of the novel and the atmosphere of today. It tackles themes of generational trauma, legacy and the corruption of power. The cast is acting their ass off and Regina King is a Godsend. The show is thought-provoking, entertaining and pivotal. I’m grateful that this show took the time to discuss and explore important moments and acts for black people and managed to be massively entertaining at the same time. For your consideration.
