#Ozymandious

[plague-deene]

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[popculturebuffet]

Watchmen Issue by Issue Finale: A Stronger Loving World (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

The clock has struck midnight. Armageddon has been prevented.. but it took armageddon to do it. But questions linger, questions that may never get a satsifactory answer as we enter the final chapter of one of the greatest comic books of all time.

This has been an intresting experiment. While Kev came up with the idea and bankrolled it, it was still intresting to go through watchmen again and i'm coming out of the other side with a new appreciation for the work: the style, the sheer beauty and mastery in Gibbons art and layouts, and just how precise the story is. Like a watch some guy throws out a window because he thinks nuclear physics is a better thing for his son to take up and isn't good with Subtely. It's been a long, intresting project and i'm sad to see it over, but happy I did it. This comic is everything it's built up to be and more. IT dosen't mean i'm done with Watchmen, as I still have a movie to get to and I may return one day to cover one of the sequels or prequels. We'll have to see how I feel and what time brings. But this is still the end of a project that while I wish was more cohesive I don't regret taking on. Taking a nice slow look helped me see all the intricate wonder of this comic and I won't trade that for anything. I AM glad that the next year long patreon project Kev has for me is, while once again a massive tonal shift, FAR lighter in both covering it and in tone, but that dosen't mean it's bittersweet getting to the end of this one. So let's watch one last time as our heroes have failed.. and have to decide what they can do next… and if they should.

We open with easily one of the most horrifying sequences i've ever seen in a comic, possibly ever: just six straight pages of horror as we see giant tentacles strewn about dozens of corpses. Half of New York, as Adrian later puts it, is dead. And in the middle a horrifying alien face… and a familiar blue one as Dr. Manhattan arrives just after everyone is dead. Turns out there was some interfernce, but it wasn't the bombs going off like he thought: something cough adrian cough kept him from looking here. Laurie for her part.. can barely look at it and given i'm just seeing it on page I can't imagine what seeing all this up close, the smells, the sounds… or possible deathly quite.. just thinking about it has me about to collapse in horror. Jon takes her away from this and to his credit, he actually realizes it may of been bad taste to pontifcate on the how while surrounded by horses. HIs character growth from realizing humanity's worth.. has stuck.

Back at the fortress our two heroes have taken diffrent approaches to the news: Dan is in DEEEEEEP denial while Shackles fully buys it: Adrian isn't lying. Even the holes all add up as Adrian gleefully fills them in: the brain was from a young psychic, simply bloated and weaponized by Adrians people. The assians bullet? Well he can catch those. How he did it? Simple: Lethal informatoin: alien worlds, sounds: anyone not dead of the psychic shockwave will be driven mad. And anyone who was involved.. is dead. Killed by assasians or Adirans own plans. That leaves dan in the uninveable position of asking "What happens to us?" which is NEVER a question you want to ask when your hip deep in a supervillian layer after the evil genius at the heart of it just laid out how he killed any other person who could possibly out his plan.

Thankfully hope arrives in all it's naked blue glory as Jon shows up outside.. and leaves Laurie out there because he's still a dick just only mostly a dick now. And he quickly lets himself in, leaving Adrian to soil himself as he tries to use a death trap and a kitty cat. He then murders HIS OWN KITTY BUBASTIS to trap Jon, using the same machine that made him to try and kill him.

Honestly out of all the horrible crimes he's commited, this one is up there. Seconds later Laurie confronts him with a gun and nearly shoots him dead. He DOES catch the bullet like he said he could.. but his next line is telling

He's lost control. He's gone from plans he know will work with deadly efficency.. to barely keeping ahead of his foes. He launches into yet ANOTHER monologue after dan understandably gets pissed about him shooting laurie and tell shim to grow up. That superheroics have no place i his new world and that he's the outer god and.. wait what's that your all looking at?

As satisfying as it is though, seeing Jon utterly wreck this smug bastards day…. it sadly dosen't last. In any other superhero story Jon would likely kick his ass, find some way to turn him in and our heroes, while living in a still tense would, would find a better one. Instead.. Adrian simply flips on his giant tv wall which is somehow also a massive chekovs gun, as it shows our heroes.. that his plan worked. Tensions have ceased between the US and USSR, focusing on a new threat instead. Adrian reacts with all the grace and subtley you'd expect at this point

There is some depth here: The tear down his cheek, a hold over from the previous panel, shows that there's some part of him, however arrogant that was worried this woudln't work. That no matter what he did no matter how many dogs he kicked and cats he murdered that this woudn't work. But i'ts quickly overrid by him sliding into how he's going to fix the world, and smugly assuming he's going to get away with all this. It shows Adrian's true colors: While he plays this as being for the world and what not.. he really did it for his own ego. He did genuinely want to save the world.. but he had to do it in a way that showed what a clever clever boy he is. It's the only reason he just didn't fire missles at Dan and Rorshach and be done with it: He needed SOMONE to gloat to. Someone to brag about how only he could pull this off. How he did all the pieces. To revel in his "genius". Sure he hid all the evidence.. but it meant nothing if he didn't get to lay it all out. His gloating comes off as well planned as everything else. Even Dr. Manhattan, as scared as he clearly was, had a counter ready for him.

It's what makes Adrian's plan and genuine hope ring hollow: to him those half a city's worth of people he gruesomely murdered, the islanders he slaughtered, the scientests he poisoned, even his good boy sweet boy kitty cat, they were all acceptable losses. All for his grand masterstroke. Adrian posed a question to day last issue: "What do you think I am, some kind of republic serial villian?"

Just because Adrian WON dosen't make him any less of a super villian. It's the great irony of the work: Watchmen was a world with maybe one super criminal but no one who could really stand up to dr. manhattan for long or who really deserved the title.. and when it got one he was too good at his job. He made the heroes seemingly obsolete. Adrian Veidt.. is a monster. And i'ts summed up all too well from some lyrics I love, from the Run the Jewels Song "A Few Words for the Firing Squad"

I used to wanna get the chance to show the world i'm Smart Isn't that Dumb? I Shoudl've focused Mostly on the HEart Cause I seen Smarter People Trample Life Like It's an Art So Bein smart ain't waht it used to be that's fuckin dark.

That's Adrian: Trampling life like it's an art and bragging about it like he just did his piscasso.

Our heroes though are stuck:

This again dosen't make Adrian right… it just means they can't stop him. They do.. and this was all for nothing. They don't and they still have to live with letting a mass murderer get away. No one wins. Rorshach disagrees.. but even then it's hard to take him seriously. So dan and Laurie find solace in each other, with Laurie just a sobbing mess… to her after seeing all that carnage nothing matters.. nothing.. except love. Except comfort. Except the two of them. She just needs something to make sense and to her, Dan does. She may of left.. but it was only to try and save us all. Now.. she has all she needs.

Rorshach.. does not get such a happy ending. Pun unintended. He plans to leave.. but Jon stops him. Even the faint chance of him threatning things is too much. And shockingly despite often being such an unlikeable pirck.. Rorshach's death.. is probably the saddes, most powerful in this entire work.

Yes he's being stubborn, yes he's not a great person… but at th eend of the day… despite all he got wrong over his crusade he's right. He's ultimately the only person willing to tell the truth, that as Adrian pointed out no one would believe anyway, and he's paying for it. What's one more corpse among the foundations? And while I don't like Rorshach I will admit his death.. was on his own terms. Pulling down the mask so Jon had to look him in the eye, tears streaming down knowing this was it and sad tha tthe truth seemingly dies with him. I haven't hid how much I hate this man, the fact he spews out tons of right wing propoganda and has only gotten more horribly relevant as a charcter with age as a result dosen't realyl help.. but I can pitty him as he explodes in the snow, cold alone and in his mind the only one who could do right. He didn't compromise in the face of armageddon, held fast to who he was.. and it amounted to sadly little: the conpsiracy he worked to unravel won, life goes on and he's just one last ink blot in blood on the snow to be washed away along with any legacy. His life is just.l.. a sad one.. a traumatized man who needed help, refused to take it… and ended his story in tragedy instead of moving on. We get a sweet moment as Jon heads back inside.. and smiles at Dan and Laurie. BEfore he was detached from the stiuation, ressigned to it.. but now.. he's just happy she's happy at last. He goes to talk to adrian, and while he regained his intrest in humanity he's leaving.. but leaves his "friend" with some advice

This is the true hell for Adrian Veidt and a satisfying conclusion: He WON.. but there's no guarnatee his peace is the eternal world peace he smugly thought ti'd be. That any of this lasts. He wanted to be a better alexander.. but there's no guarnatee it won't go up in ruins> And wether it does or not the possiblity will forever haunt him. And i'm going to enjoy it

We cut to a few months later: it's Christmas! Huh I forgot this ended on Christmas. We wrap up Dan and Laurie's story as they visit her mom under assumed identities. She reveals what she learned.. and as her mother apologizes she says.. it's okay. She gets sometimes the worlds messed up and you do things you can't admit to people. And it's okay. She never did wrong by her. It's a ncie message of not blaming a victim or blaming someone for a moment of weakness. Just letting it pass. Laurie and Dan baanter ab it happy while Laurie prepares to put on a gimp mask and gun like her old man.

I'll admit the message here is kinda.. fucked that Laurie will be more like her dad.. who was a pretty awful person… I can't tell if she's reclaming it for herself or their implying it's a good thing. And maybe tha'ts the point.

So the world goes on, the newstand is replaced by a booth, and at the fronteirsman… a clueless intern trying to find some content to fill for his asshole jingoist boss.. finds the journal. About to publish it. What does it do? Well.. that's up to you. As a wise naked man once said.. it's never over. What happens next is in your hand

Or in the sequels but.. we'll table those for now and I question why make them as this endings ambigiuity is what makes it work: We don't know if this Journal will destroy everything or just be dismissed as writing. If dan and laurie's new careers work out. What JOn's new life will be. And that's the point. As he said.. it's never over. life moves on.. and what happens next for better or worse. .is out of my watch

Watchmen is a masterpiece. That statment isn't at all new, but revisiting it has made me see just how masterfully i'ts put totgether. It's not to say it's without fault but most are with age: The sexual assault stuff is handelded very poorly, Laurie feels mildly underwitten compared to the male cast a lot of the time, the handling of gay people is bleh, and some of the language used is sur eis from the 1980s. LIke a lot of comic books, parts of it have aged like old tissue paper, but what keeps it despite it's issues.. is the central themes; of looming war, of what superheros can really do about it and of the beauty of just being alive and how it can be takena way from us. Watchmen has perserved for a reason. Like Dan and Laurie it may of aged a bit.. but it's still got a long ways to go. Did it need sequels or prequels? Probably not, but we can analyize tha tanother day. For now… the clock is ticking past midnight and while the comic is over.. there's one last show to catch. So thank you for reading this, i'l lbe collecting all these reviews shortly.. .I just have a movie to review first. Yes next time we take a look at Zac Snyders watchmen and see if it's that bad. Until then… smile, even in the face of armageddon.

[gothamcityneedsme]

Tbh it will always get my goat that me:a doesnt have the attention it deserves and that no one talks about it on a deeper level or examines the characters etc. like even the wiki pages suffer with like basically no info.

[catcomixzstudios]

My name’s Ozymandy and I’m here to say, despair on my works in a major way

[forthedancingandthethriving]

The Viruses/Programs

Viruses

Ozymandias

Virus

Status: Active/Contained

Ozymandias is one of a pair who once occupied an area with a Program named Leto. Both had an agreement where the other would not attack, as both knew that the other could kill it. However, when Ozymandias began to leave and destroy universes to grow stronger, Leto set out to get more power. This resulted in a fight months later, with both of them firing a shot of code that caused everyone to forget their true names.

Enraged, Ozymandias went on a rampage until reigned in by Antivirus, CPU, and Crash. It was trapped in a prison of its own code until escaping in Fleeting Sands, causing chaos, and then being drawn back in once more.

Morris

Virus

Status: Deactivated

Introduced here!

Morris was a twin Virus, paired up with her sister Root. The two were viruses that were made from Ozymandis's scales that got cut off when it was escaping its prison. Morris's end goal was to siphon power from the Admins and anyone of similar power in order to free Ozymandias. However, it didn't go to plan, as Root didn't share her sister's sentiment, and Root killed Morris.

Root

Virus

Status: Active

Introduced here!

Root is a former twin Virus, having once been a twin to Morris. The duo were made from the scales of Ozymandias, but Root didn't know this as her code formed wrong. This left her with memory issues and being blind. However, as time went on, she began to remember and was horrified at the prospect of having to have all these people who cared about her die. So when she had the chance, she struck and killed Morris.

This left Root with being able to see in one eye, but she still had memory problems. She currently resides at the Showgrounds Castle.

Lockdown

Virus Status: Active/Contained

Introduced here!

A prisoner at the Containment Zone and a part of the Illusion Gang. He's the second eldest of the group and is a terrifying Virus, using his ability to force any area of code into a lockdown. Whenever she makes he attempts to escape, Warden often chases him.

Dust

Virus

Status: Active/Contained

Introduced here!

A prisoner at the Containment Zone and a part of the Illusion Gang. He's the second youngest and is a near harmless Virus, only using his abilities to help his friends make an escape after a successful plan. Whenever she makes her attempts to escape, Supervisor often chases him.

Worm (belongs to @duckapus)

Virus

Status: Deactivated

Introduced here!

Once a powerful Virus that reigned with a cruel hand, during his first inital defeat at the hands of Antivirus (a failed fusion of Glitch and a red Doomguy), he went into hiding and planned his revenge. During the events of the Legacy Arc, he re-emerged with two helpers, Mira and Garyboy. However, this still failed in the end, and he died at the hands of ClearAll.

Glitch (belongs to Duckapus)

Virus

Status: Deactivated

Introduced here!

Originally a creation of Worm, her code had the ability to damage any other code she touched. She didn't agree with her creator and hated him, but initially thought there was nothing she could do. However, she then met a red Doomguy recolor, Dave, and Matrix. While the initial fight did not go their way, in the final moments of Glitch's life, she got the friendly contacted she'd wanted for so long. From this, she and the red Doomguy fused, creating Antivirus.

Mira (belongs to Duckapus)

Virus

Status: Active

Introduced here!

Originally created by Worm to distract and distance Antivirus whenever the virus was working on his plans, she was eventually freed from his influence following his defeat at ClearAll's hands. She now resides in the Mushroom Kingdom, dating Amy Rose the hedgehog.

Garyboy (belongs to Duckapus)

Virus

Status: Active

Introduced here!

He was originally created by Worm to help him further his goals and plans. However, now that Worm is dead, he's working for another major virus: Ozymandias. While Ozymandias is still trapped in his prison, Garyboy is capable of coming and going and is spending a considerable amount of time teaching Ozymandias that brute strength alone won't win a battle.

Programs

Leto

Program

Status: Active

Introduced here / here!

Leto is one of a pair who once occupied an area with a Virus named Ozymandias. Both had an agreement where the other would not attack, as both knew that the other could kill it. However, when Ozymandias began to leave and destroy universes to grow stronger, Leto set out to get more power. This resulted in a fight months later, with both of them firing a shot of code that caused everyone to forget their true names.

Following this, it left its home in search of ways to grow its power in case of Ozymandias returning. It then found Avatar Nimbus in her universe, and due to the Avatar's preexisting insecurities, Leto was able to convince Nimbus to use its programs. This resulted in an incredibly toxic 'friendship', and Leto's manipulation only ended when Nimbus's friends came to her aid and the Program was imprisoned in its own home.

Hotspot (belongs to @duckapus )

Program

Status: Active

Introduced here!

Hotspot owns a bar named the Internet Cafe, called that because she doesn't have a license and is trying to keep the Moderators from coming down on her ass.

Vector (belongs to Duckapus)

Program

Status: Active

Introduced here!

Vector is a who really doesn't like the Admins. Per the post he came from; "As far as he's concerned, they're a bunch of self-righteous blowhards who act like they're in charge of everything just because they have ridiculous powers and get rid of a few viruses every once in a while. Never mind the fact that their battles, both against so-called threats and each-other, often cause far-reaching devastation, leaving everybody outside their little club to pick up the pieces."

His grievances are understandable. However, he doesn't have the full picture, and unfortunately, the barkeep he's venting to doesn't exactly have his best interests in mind.

Circuit

'Program'

Status: Active

Introduced here!

A second identity for Mr L as he finds himself able to access the code world. With this failsafe of an identity, he's obliviously going to get up to something..

Overseer

Program

Status: Active

Introduced here!

An egmnatic Program that keeps to its own space. Not many know what it does. All they know is that it documents everything. Leaving some a little.. unsettled, because sometimes you can clearly see evidence of how it gets information it wants. Often leaving its targets with trauma, be it physical or mental.

Click/Blotch

Program / NPC

Status: Active

Introduced here / here!

An NPC who is cursed to never be able to stay in a universe for too long, they met Overseer, and the two formed a friendship quickly. Blotch often uses a bracelet given to them by Overseer to come with them into the world of code, simply to learn and try to figure out what their role should be.

Sparks

Program

Status: Active

Introduced here!

The owner of a restaurant/bar that's pretty popular with many Programs. He's a kind hearted Program, but he isn't above getting cruel if someone decides to try and make any of his patrons uncomfortable.

Cipher

Program

Status: Active/Contained

Introduced here!

A prisoner at the Containment Zone and a part of the Illusion Gang. She's the eldest of the group and its founder. She's a tricky Program, using her puzzle-themed abilities to scam and harm others to get what she wants. Whenever she makes her attempts to escape, Warden often chases her.

Chainlink

Program

Status: Active/Contained

Introduced here!

A prisoner at the Containment Zone and a part of the Illusion Gang. She's the youngest of the group and is a tricky Program, using her chain-based abilites to hold down victims and take their code or items. Whenever she makes her attempts to escape, Supervisor often chases her.

Disc

Program

Status: Active

Introduced here!

A brother-in-arms to a long forgotten Healer, and tried to cheat death multiple times, and has been cursed to be in a constant state of pain, and can only speak in Binary that's intentionally garbled. He intends on getting revenge soon enough..

RAM

Status: Active

Introduced here!

The Lead Archivist for the Internet Archive, she really has her work cut out for her. But hey, she can get through it! Even if some Programs are ruder than others.

[loopy777]

Whats your thoughts on watchmen as a work?

Rereading it, it's certainly not a bad story, but it has some massive issues that keep it from holding up all that well.

Ignoring the fact that everything it has done, so many series since(especially manga) has done better, the way it portrays non-powered crime fighters as somehow being so influential they have a massive impact upon american history is just... Rather silly and dumb to be honest.

I like rorchach and ozymandis as characters a lot, but there is no getting around the fact that the world they live in, which treats less than 20 vigilantes as super important to the point there are mass scale riots about their existence is kinda dumb.

Again, comparing it to, say, MHA, where society is built around the fact there are tens of thousands of heroes alone, Watchmen's societies obsession with superheroes is stupid.

Then of course there is the fact it was written in the 1980's and the way the setting portrays the USSR as this big bad powerhouse, when in reality it was on its last legs, and the afghanistan war that the soviet union had launched half a decade before(And starts in the comic itself) would be the death of it, because it didnt have the economic power to win such a war, nor survive it.

Also the whole nuclear armageddon thing being innevotable is kinda silly given we are still here, and as we have seen with the Current russian war, Russia even under an undisputed and kinda insane dictator is no more eager to start a nuclear war now, than it was in the 1980's.

Honestly, manhattens line to Ozy at the end that "Nothing ever ends" though it wasnt meant like it, sounds more like Manhatten refering to the fact that the current peace built on genocide in new york is in the grand scheme of things only necessary to keep the equilibrium going for another decade, cause the soviet union is gonna fall apart anyway.

Not to mention Ozy's rant about how nuclear power and the waste it produced would ruin the enviornment is kinda hilarious, given 1. How much we have improved on that to the point where it's for all intents and purposes a non issue, and 2. This kinda thinking would lead to so much anti nuclear power as an energy source over that years, that we polluted way more through coal and gas(like germany shutting down its nuclear power plants and then being forced to go back to coal) by following this line of thinking.

Also while it wouldnt have happened immediatly, as genetic science advanced it would become obvious that the giant squid was 100% earth based and not from an alien world XD

All in all, i would say this aspect kinda works to the story's advantage, and if you were gonna write a sequel to Watchmen, exploring how Ozy's big, ridiculous plan was rather unessecary and how the characters would react to that(as opposed to Manhatten rewriting the DC universe's history(Which ignores EVERYTHING about his character)), but it obviously wasn't meant to be read that way.

Also, one aspect of this story that just annoys the piss out of me, is that it seems nobody in this story seem to use any other kind of basic swearing insult than calling someone the same few variants of negative words for gay folks, again, and again, and again. Like its so prevelant that Rorchacs use of "whore" as insults actually stands out. Like, i know these would have been some of the standard deragatory insults at the time, but man you can tell Moore's experience with folks actually swearing was concentrated and limited to a very small amounts of insults. There were other go to insults in the 80's than just calling someone gay.

And while i do like the mystery, i would say that one aspect that really needed some buildup was that human psycic, who's brain Ozy used to clone his big monster. Its the one thing that had absolutely no set up whatsoever, and just shows up at the end as ozy explains everything, a rather important detail to just drop on us(Oh by the way, there are powerfull human telepathic psychics in the world).

On the more positive side, i like most of the characters(Except the comedian, he is both insanely unlikable, but also very boring to watch), Ozy's insane, batshit scheme is actually kinda amazing and he overall is a great villain, and rorchach as our protagonist is both entertaining, a great example of an incredibly flawed character full of both virtues and massive character flaws, a deconstruction of a lot of superheroes, and yet also has a really strong thematic arc, where we are introduced to him through his journal ramblings where he has a huge edge lord monologue about how when society finally fell, and those he deems as degenrates would reach out to him for help and salvation and he would look down on them and say: "No." ...Only for him at the end to do the exact opposite, to be the only one who stands for justice for those very same people he decried as degenerates. It hits way harder than it probably should, given how unlikable Rorschach can be.

The whole "not even in the face of armageddon. Never compromise." wouldn't hit halfway as hard if we didn't get to see him treat and think about treating those he deemed as "Others" so badly. And yet at the end, he does not at any point differentiate between angels and devils amongst those who died in new york. They were all human beings, and deserved justice.

But what do you think? Do you think Watchmen holds up? And if not, do you have issues with it beyond what mine are as desceibed here?

My big problem with "Watchmen" is that I didn't read it until I was in my 20s, and yet I had grown up in the 80s and 90s with the superhero comic books which had been influenced by it, and continued with comic books into the late 90s and 2000s where stories started directly debating it. I even read "Kick-Ass" before "Watchmen!" So by the time I read it, I felt like nothing in it was new to me, and in fact I had seen bits of it done better elsewhere.

It also doesn't help that I'd encountered plenty of buzz about it long before I read it. I think the article that first clued me into its existence even revealed the "I did it 35 minutes ago" twist. So there was nothing in it I wasn't expecting, and thus most of it lost its power for me; I was just reading to see how it all played out.

(Contrast to my recent experience with reading "Kraven's Last Hunt" for the first time. I also knew the events of that entire story beforehand, but I found the writing and presentation itself was the real draw and still worked very well, so it turned out to be a very powerful comic for me.)

The only stuff I really liked in "Watchmen" were the little human moments, like the newsstand owner who tries save the kid or Silk Spectre 1 giving Nite Owl the Tijuana bible.

I agree with a lot of your criticisms. It's very much an Alan Moore comic, with all his quirks on full display. I'm not particularly enthused about Alan Moore as a writer; I think what he does best is scifi concepts, so in my opinion he peaked with his random Green Lantern stories. I do like his level of storytelling and the aforementioned human moments, and he also gets more than a few good gags in there, but I could say the same about a number of writers. He's not unique in those respects, at least to me, and I think his themes and presentations are rather tired.

I don't recall all the swears used in the comic, but I do remember reading some analysis that Rorschach is supposed to be in denial about having homosexual tendencies, so between that and his issues with his mother I suspect the swears you mention are supposed to reflect that or at least keep it in mind for the reader. It's less supposed to sound realistic or reflective of reality than demonstrate the hyper-masculine attitudes that go into superhero comics and, I presume, a society shaped by real superheroes. Perhaps it's kind of like how pirate comics are popular there, but not in our world, so having superheroes made the inhabitants of that world most likely to use homophobic slurs? But I admit I've never really thought about it before.

The only thing I'd add to the list of criticisms is really more an expansion of one of your points, that the impact of the powerless vigilantes seems very exaggerated, especially in the way people react to Rorschach. A whole bar full of tough guys are terrified of him breaking their fingers, but he's just one guy who doesn't even eat properly. I wouldn't expect him, or any of the heroes, to win as many fights as they do, even with their experience and attitude. It's the type of thing I can accept in regular comics, "Watchmen" demands so much realism from the genre that retaining this one aspect sticks out like a sore thumb.

So yeah, I wouldn't recommend "Watchmen" to anyone except as a piece of comic book history. Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" is similarly dated and worse in some respects in its attitudes and themes, but I actually found that one to be more impactful as a story due to its stylized craft and use of familiar characters. But I wouldn't recommend either one to people just as a reading experience; there are lots of better comics out there, even in the 'literary' genre.

[the-resurrection-3d]

The way I know Tennis Team Nick is his own thing is that all other Nicks' discord usernames are based on Caligula or Ozymandis from Watchmen and Teen Nick's is TonySimprano because he let Alberto have Antonio They/Themanato

[ao3feed-crimeboys]

Moth's Amazing Collection of Sad DSMP Writes

by mothsareorange

A soul sits in a cavern That once help laughter now rings with silence Listen to the rain as it pitter-patters A boy sits in a cavern Remembering the thoughts he longed to forget Sounds of screams and laughter mock him as he listens to the pitter-patter A soldier sits in a house that he once called home Filled with long nights and cookies jars Potato wars and bickering A child sits Alone In a place that was filled with joy But now leaves him broken and alone Abandoned to the wisps of memories Left to fade The soul cries

Words: 322, Chapters: 3/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Minecraft (Video Game)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Other

Characters: TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot, Phil Watson | Philza, Toby Smith | Tubbo, Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF)

Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit

Additional Tags: King TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Lonely TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Neglectful Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot Has a Bad Time, TommyInnit Has a Bad Time (Video Blogging RPF), Implied/Referenced Suicide, ozymandis type beat ig, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, What Was I Thinking?, I Made Myself Cry, Sad TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Sad Wilbur Soot, Post-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Resurrected Wilbur Soot, Bad Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), please help with tagging, Poetry, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I Wrote This While Listening to ABBA's Music, Prince TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)

[mymp3]

im the parasocial enemy of the people

[ambiguouslyart]

Another Shitty Mummy Lady c:

She’s terrible and I love her. Naming her Queen Ozymandi after the poem Ozymandias because I feel like it fits her character. Mandi for short 

[ritsukafujimaru]

THEY HAVE OZYMANDIS WORKING FOR MINIMUM WAGE IN THE NEW FATE COLLAB

[yugiohman66]

Let’s travel back in time to this past weekend which would’ve been #animeboston2020 and everyone follow @2leftjoycons he had a awesome cosplay. #ozymandis #ozymandisfate #fate #anime #ozymandiscosplay #fatecosplay #lifeisstrange #lifeisstrangecosplay #squareenix #videogame #videogamecosplay #pax20 #pax2020 #pax #paxeast #paxeast20 #paxeast2020 #collinandrewcaufieldcosplay https://www.instagram.com/p/B-7Jmv8j5HG/?igshid=joixx24fnl1h

[popculturebuffet]

Hello all you happy people. It's time again to watch for the Watchmen , with only three issues and three months left till midnight. It's been.. a heck of a ride and it's hard to believe it's almost over and we'll be moving on to ducks what were iron armor next year, because apparently these yearly patreon quests of kevs are never not emotionally jarring. So come with me under the cut as we continue our final days towards Armageddon and giant squids as Dan is forced to hand hold an extreme right wing man through stopping the apocalypse. So another tuesday for them.

Two Riders Approaching is a great issue, and while like many before it it feels like a way to move the plot gears, unlike past gear turning issues it has a bit more character. While I'm still bummed we didn't get a spotlight issue for dan that covered his history and motivations in the same way as most of the main cast (minus adrian) , I still think this issue and "brother to Dragons did a good job showing who he is as a person. Now WHY Dan didn't get a spotlight

There's no clear reason. Maybe they just had better stories, maybe there wasn't enough time, maybe they considered hte one where he can't get it up unless he's in a costume one and called it a day. I dunno. This one does show Dan on the job, genuinely doing his best to unwrap this mystery before the end of the world, with the sorta help of the mumbling MAGA man with a plan. And several conspiracies about jewish space lasers he'd love to share with you. We do cut to some other things going on as we go. First stop…

As he's heading into a hidden bunker compliimplating armageddon. One of his companions is G. Gordon LIddy, and just the thought of LIddy having any sort of postion of power or influence is more terrifying than the threat of nuclear armageddon. I also assume since Nixon couldn't bring his wife with him they let him bring the next closest person in his life, his beloved Cocker Spaniel Checkers

At any rate we cut back to our dynamic-ish duo as Your Gonna Hear Him Rorshach brings up that it's sad "Mrs. Juspick" coudln't join us.. because apparently he shows his graditute for prison breaks by twisting the knife. Just kidding he has no gratitude for anyone or anything.

Anyways our heroes go to get his costume, with Row Row Row Your Shach Gently Past Sanity saying the methodical take down of them all was too easy and they must be careful in the future. Dan understandably pipes up

And points out that's part of why he's iffy about this side quest. They only have a WEEK till the end of the world at most to figure out whose behind this plot, stop them and hopefully HAVE some sort of future by stopping them and he's at a loss as what to do epsecially since again time is ticking away. Rorshach mumbles something abotu how "some of us have always lived on the edge Daniel. " like he's on an episode of doomsday preppers. One upside of the waking nightmare that is the warner bros discovery merger: we MAY just get an episode of doomsday preppers on shach adam here.

Shachers left some stuff under a floorboard Lane Kim style, specifcally a spare uniform and his rambling manefesto: "ALL WOMEN ARE WHORES:WHY THIS WORLD IS FUCKED by RORSHACH" with a foreword by frank miller. His landlady shows up understandably afraid for her life… and then he confronts her, mad about her claiming he came on to her sexually. I mean I do GET where he's coming from: Faking sexual assault or harassment is just about the lowest fucking thing you can do to someone, and while that someone is Rorshach shit like this makes it harder on people who've LEGITAMTELY been harassed or assaulted to have their claims heard without dudebros piping up "well she's a lying bitch bro". She could've still sold her story without it.

That said i'm still sympathetic to her as while she could've left that part out, it's unknown if the news guys ASKED her for it to spice it up or she needed it to get money, money to feed her handful of children that I can't blame her for taking. Also she had to deal with Rorshach as a tennant and that.. can't have been easy. Like i'm usually not sympathetic to landlords, but the smell of beans and him not bathing for months on end had to be toxic by the time he was arrested. The fact his response to give her a look that internally just screams (Chucky)

And call her a whore in front of her children kinda proves my point. What she did ws horrible and he's right to be angry but I can't help but sympathize with someone he was about to brutalize or murder had she not pointed out her kids didn't know and were right there. This DOES give him the rare human moment of walking away, deciding not to repeat the kind of crap he'd been through as a kid and recognizing that this woman is not his mother and is actually trying to keep those two worlds separate for more than just not wanting to loose money.

We cut to Ozymandis who is pulling in to his winter fortress and reuniting with his kitty bubastis. He does the very normal thing of.. watching 80 thousand tvs at once, channel change every hundred seconds. This shows both his ability to focus… and how fast his mind works. He instantly picks up a sexual subtext due to the heavy undercurrent of war, citing the baby boom as a similar incident, and has his employees buy up shares of pornographic companies in the short term and baby food and other baby stuff in the long. It also subtly hints that Adrian expects the world NOT to end… and that whatever he's planning involves stopping it.

Back to our odd couple who are understandably bickering. Daniel from the smell, Shackles hadn't thought of the smell that bitch, and Shach from danny boy daring to… use a crime computer to look for some sort of connection instead of randomly assaulting people. Danny serious question: why did you think you needed him again?

Dan eventually lays into Roshach honestly asking you know how hard it is being your friend…. before backing off and apologizing

Shockingly we get ANOTHER almost human moment from Mickey Roarshach as he apologizes fo rhow hard he's been, admits daniels a good friend and Dan splits the diffrence deciding the old team needs to go beat up some thugs or something to feel normal because that's a thing healthy people do. Shockingly Roshachs strategy of "beat up people till we luck into who we need" actually WORKS this time, and it only takes two filithy bars to find the guy who ired the guy who tried to kill adrian: we only get a company, Pyramid Deliveries. Hmm i think I may know our culprit now

Dan nearly looses it after finding out about hollis and it really grips at the heart: he nearly sinks to Roarshach's level. HIs smelly smelly level. Shach TRIES to be helpful byu pointing out if they find the solution to hte mask killer it might mean vengance. Dan gets that A) this is clearly unconnected and B) NOT THE TIME FOR THAT.. .but recognizes soon after this is the closest Rorshach can give to actual condolences and continues the ivnestigation

Meanwhile two of the people kidnapped for that thing prepare to escape on a boat only for it to explode

Also we ge tmore of the tails of the black freighter. Pirate man kills two people to hid ehis plans… for what he sees as the greater good. Hmmmm.. foreshadowing.

For what's next.. well techncially the explosion was next because the schmuck writing this forgot to include the tales bit earlier. So our heroes head to Adrian's office. Too bad his dad's probably dead in this realtity. We could've seen them dodge some lasers and find some shit destroying lasers and monologues about teenagers in fur suits. At any rate while Rorshach rambles into the void, can relate and that worrie sme a lot, dan gets actual work done and finds out the horrifying truth: Adiran is behind it all!

… Yeah while I went into this having read the complete series before, and thus knew this, even then it's not an actual suprise. Like at this point most of the other culprits have been ruled out, and while yes he was attacked… it's something that could easily be faked. Like it was obvious an issue or two before this it was Adrian. We don't know QUITE why yet, though there is a clue as Dan and Radio Shach find a chart detailing a war in a decade that seemingly came early. But given the lack of suspects combined with the fact that with Laurie ruled out Adiran was the only one healthy enough out of the known cast to throw someone out a window, and it becomes shockingly obvious. The reason it's usprising is that the entire story is build around a mystery.. that gives you plenty of clues but not enough suspects. It IS a tad hard to figure out at first blind, as Dan, Laurie and Adrian are all valid suspects all with the connections to pull this off.. but Adrian was alwasy the prime suspect.

Our heroes prepare to confront Adrian at karnak, his artic fortress because he's clearly going full republic serial villian despite his protests next issue, with Rorshach dropping off his journal at Right Wing News Co… where it gets put in the crank file. WE end this issue on our heroes… crashing into the arctic as Archie wasn't built for it and while time is of the essence dan didn't think to maybe you know, prepare for that before heading off into the frozen north. He did pack his thermal gear. Our heroes approach as Adrian assures his kitty everything's all right. Kind of a weird way to end this but a great way to ratchet up tension as we prepare for the climax. In a month. We also get some various press stuff from adiran's company. It's all fairly neat especially the toy proposal which he mostly rejects, wantin ga shift to more gi joe style stuff as superheros haven't been popular here.

So with that this issue comes to a close, the clock moves one tick closer to midnight and this story is about to reach one of it's most iconic moments. I'd like to tell you i did next months review 30 mintues ago… but I did not so come back next month for that and thanks for reading.

[gothamcityneedsme]

oh hell yes. cyberpunk giving me poetry to read and interpret while at almost the end of the fuckin game

[ctntduoarchive]

the ozymandis poem. fucking GENIUS

[thevindicativevordan]

Was Mr. Oz a Bad Idea? Does a living Jor-El in the "modern day" of the DCU have any potential?

Yes he sucked.

He's an example of yet another loose plot thread that Johns pawned off on other writers to finish. While it didn't help that Oz's "true identity" was clearly something that changed over the course of his existence - in his debut he seemed to be Pa Kent, his early Rebirth appearances teased Ozymandis with the way his screens formed a nine panel grid - Jurgens still handled him about as boringly as one could, making him generically evil via mind control, so he doesn't even present a legitimate ideological challenge to Clark. He's just an evil doer who wants Clark to stop being Superman because humans suck and plans on forcing the issue. Note that this doesn't line up at all with Oz being proud of Clark protecting humans initially, but again this is clearly a character whose background went through many revamps.

People can scream as much as they want, and while the execution wasn't perfect, Bendis by far had the best take on him.

Jor as the "Old World" father who kvetches about how Kal is raising Jon, and complains that Kal isn't living up to his expectations of him? Absolutely rules, benefit of having a Jewish writer tackle Superman again is that Bendis manages to inject more of that culture into the main character once more. Unlike the Kents who are just there to be "wholesome" or to provide basic advice, Jor under Bendis at least served as both a challenge to Superman's ideals, and a story engine given how Kal is forced to deal with multiple screw ups Jor creates on account of his trip with Jon.

Could the execution have been better? Undoubtedly. Ideally we would have gotten Jor showing up and integrating himself into the Kents good graces before he's able to convince them to let him take Jon. Getting to spend more time with Jor trying to mold Jon into what he thinks a proper son of El should be, with Lois being a counterbalance who still differs from her husband in her own right, and Jon having to juggle the different lessons his father, grandfather, and mother are trying to teach him is something I thought would happen and was excited for. Really wanted to see Lois and Jon together without Clark in the picture, there was a great opportunity to let Lois offer her own moral lessons to Jon to balance out all the time we spent seeing Clark teach Jon in Rebirth. And it would have been interesting to see a confrontation between Jor and the Kents, a fight between his surviving Kryptonian parent and his adopted Earth parents over how Kal turned out would have been interesting and entertaining to read. Jor clearly wasn't impressed with "Superman" and to see him critique his son to the people that set him on the path to becoming that strikes me as a chance to talk about the other directions Clark could have taken to become a different breed of hero.

Flawed as the execution was however, it was still a better effort to do something interesting with Jor than what Bendis' predecessors did.