Cooke and Conner set up Laurie as a hippie superhero; it’s kind of cool and definitely a decent look at sixties San Francisco. What’s interesting–and something I don’t think the original series ever established–is Laurie goes the “with great power” route. She turns into Silk Spectre because she can help people if she does. It deepens the character quite a bit.
And she needs it, because Cooke and Conner spend almost half the issue on the supervillains plotting to get kids tripping and consuming. It’s an incredibly boring scene and it goes on forever and ever.
Her boyfriend’s not much of a character either. I haven’t determined if they’re supposed to be teen runaways, but one would think his parents might be concerned.
The ending cliffhanger’s either going to be awesome or some terrible way to be grim and gritty.
Shockingly, Wein writes an okay pirate backup too.
CREDITS
Getting Into the World; writers, Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner; artist, Conner; colorist, Paul Mounts; letterer, Carlos M. Mangual. The Curse of the Crimson Corsair, The Devil in the Deep, Part Seven; writer, Len Wein; artist and colorist, John Higgins; letterer, Sal Cipriano. Editors, Chris Conroy, Camilla Zhang and Mark Chiarello; publisher, DC Comics.
For Silk Spectre, Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner go the romance comic route. Or at least closer to it than I was expecting, but it makes sense given Laurie’s age during the high adventuring days of Watchmen.
Cooke plays both Hollis and the reader. We all find out at the same time–maybe Cooke’s trying to show Hollis made the same negative assumptions the reader does, but I don’t think so. Cooke’s been intentionally fooling the reader for at least three issues and in ways he doesn’t fool Hollis.
Yeah, Cooke goes exactly where I expected him to go. I suppose one could say there’s a balance to how he treats gays, but there’s not. He turns one group into martyrs and demonizes the other. It’d probably make Alan Moore ralph; one’s got to wonder if it’s there as a middle finger to Moore, actually.
On one hand, this issue is the most how I’d expect a Watchmen prequel from Cooke to read (if it weren’t four issues in). There’s back story on the Minutemen after the war, including when Sally and the Comedian reunite. Cooke humanizes him quite a bit… even if he does rip off Full Metal Jacket and a handful of other war movies to do so.
Poor Hollis, in love with a girl who doesn’t know he exists. Strangely, Cooke doesn’t narrate the book well when Hollis–in the sixties–is commenting directly on his younger self’s actions. The narration does work otherwise though.
And now I’m not sure with where Cooke takes things. He turns Minutemen, in its conclusion this issue, into a really tough, uncomfortable book. It’s like I can’t decide if it’s homophobic, if Cooke’s just using the material or if he’s just being straightforward about it. There’s probably no comfortable way to handle it.
I’m a little surprised, but I only have one problem with Minutemen (at least the Darwyn Cooke material). Who the hell is Hollis Mason talking to? He’s basically summarizing his book, right? It doesn’t make any sense.
