Why didn’t they just combine this series with the Rorschach one? Straczynski probably gives Rorschach a third of the issue anyway. He’s juxtaposing Dan and Rorschach’s differing Mommy complexes, which would work for a combined book. But for one called Nite Owl? Doesn’t make any sense.
There’s not a lot of callbacks to the original series here, except Rorschach getting his sign. Why doesn’t he get in his own series? Because Straczynski doesn’t have a story for Dan, not really. He’s got Dan chasing down some leather madam–gratuitously topless woman in a DC regular comic alert–because of his Mommy issues.
There’s also a lot of stuff Straczynski should have included in the first issue regarding Dan’s home life. It’s unclear how he’s a millionaire when his family lives in a very middle class home. Straczynski definitely should have addressed it.
The art’s real bad this issue. Real bad.
CREDITS
Some Things Are Just Inevitable; writer, J. Michael Straczynski; penciller, Andy Kubert; inker, Joe Kubert; colorist, Brad Anderson; letterer, Nick Napolitano. The Curse of the Crimson Corsair, The Devil in the Deep, Part Nine; writer, Len Wein; artist and colorist, John Higgins; letterer, Sal Cipriano. Editors, Mark Doyle, Camilla Zhang and Will Dennis; publisher, DC Comics.
Given the problems, Nite Owl is a lot better than it should be. Straczynski writes Rorschach and Nite Owl well together. The humor of a gentler Rorschach helps it.
Looks like Conner rushed a bit with the art. The issue opens fine and closes okay, but there are some definite rough patches.
The mystery of the smiley face button is solved! Finally, now everyone can sleep at night. The addition of said button does make one wonder if Cooke’s flipping off Moore a little (as the button is what started Moore’s disputes with DC).
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.
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.
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.