2000 AD Online Forum

Ok- if you've ever wanted to read this and haven't done so yet, sod off now- big spoiler ahead.

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No really- you'll wish you hadn't.  Go on- sod off.  This is for those that have already read it.  The rest of you can come back later.

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Ok.  So did I read it wrong, or is there this great big glaring, hugely irritating, inconsistency in it?

If I read it right (and I accept that this may not be the case), the Superman of this tale is eventually revealed to be not from Krypton at all, but from the far future and descended from Lex Luthor.  His red sun is actually our yellow sun that is nearing the end of its life.  Fine.  Nice twist.  No problem with that.

This being the case, if Superman attended Stalin's funeral in 1953, how could he have arrived as an infant in 1938 when it had already been established that he'd been on Earth for at least thirty years by 1953?

I've got an annoying Watchmen Inconsistency as well- but let's get this one sorted first...

Tell you something else- it took me three attempts to post that- and I've had other posting hassles today as well.  Is there something wrong with the board?

I must admit I missed that particular inconsistancy in Red Son, Jeb.  Mind you, that's because I view everything Millar writes as just a load of fluff as he padded out his comic cv until he eventually gets his dream writing job on Spider-man, which I figured was his eventual goal around about the time I realised where his 'movie of the week' writing style was leading.  Fair play to the man, at least now he's hot shit in yankeeland, he won't be bothering my favourite books over here.
Not until Barnes replaces the Dredd Files with a Babe Race reprint, anyway.

This Watchmen inconsistancy - I'm intrigued.  Tell me more.

Yeah JEB, what's the Watchmen thing?

Bolt-01

Ok.  Two cops investigate the death of Edward Blake.  From their conversation, it?s obvious that they have no idea he was also the Comedian.  Rorschach investigates and he too seems surprised to learn the truth.  When he goes to warn Dr Manhattan that there might be a ?mask killer? on the loose, everybody seems to know that the Comedian and Blake are one and the same.  Laurie goes so far as to say that Blake never sued Hollis Mason over the allegations of rape, made in his autobiography, because Blake knew that they were true.  How would a man with a secret identity sue for defamation?  The Minutemen were even calling him by his first name back in 1940.

Having looked at it again, I can see that perhaps you could explain it away as Laurie talking off the top of her head, I suppose.

Anyway- that?s it.  Maybe it could do with a re-read?  Either that or I?m just interpreting it incorrectly?

Going on the premise that there are what, eight million plus people in New York - that, coupled with the phrase 'one in a million' it's quite possible that there are/were(?) more than one 'Edward Blake' resident in the city at the time.

It's consieveable that the flat foots at least never made the conection because they were not well read, to young to remember events or just assuming that this 'Edward Blake' was not *the* 'Edward Blake' of Comedian notoriety..

Whatever the reason, you're right, it's time I re-read The Watchmen.


B.

PS. JEB, have you seen my uncanny likeness of you (school age) in the 'Who do people say you look like?' thread ;)

Hmm... Maybe.  That said, if you were a masked superhero, wouldn't people pay just a little bit more attention if your real name was bandied about willy nilly?

And that pic looks nothing like me- you can't even draw!*

;)



*Not true- I'd rather have your pic of Hammerstein on the wall than the one that appeared on the cover of 1400 any day of the week.  Soak up that compliment, Diaz- it's the only (sober) one I'm ever giving you.

've got that pic on my PC too. It rocks big time.

Bolt-01

It's been a while since I read Watchmen, and I'm a bit surprised that there can be such a big glitch as this in it. Do the detectives know it's Eddie Blake who's been murdered, or are they investigating the death of an anonymous individual thrown out of his apartment window?

"Bah! Something else I will now have to re-read."

They know it's Blake and that he does some unspecified work for the government- but that's it.

My take:

Jon knows absolutely everything, so that's not a surprise. Plus he was at the re-united (70's? certainly pre-Keene Act) Minutemen meeting, where this info was presumably disclosed.

Laurie, specifically, would know EB was the comedian as she'd (a) been to the aforementioned meeting and (b) he tried (as far as she's aware at this point in the story) to rape her mum.

Was Rorschach at that meeting? I forget.

J-Bo-1

Was Rorschach at that meeting? I forget.

Yes, he was - but Nite Owl was also present at the meeting and is also surprised to find that Blake was the Comedian, if I recall.

...OK, but Blake was in costume at said meeting. Was he mentioned by his first name? I forget.

....WHY AM I EVEN THINKING ABOUT THIS!?!? Aaagh!

J-Bo-1

After re-reading a bit...

None of the non-government masks knew of the identity, with the exceptions of Veidt and the 1st Silk Spectre. The government would obviously keep tabs on the Comedian and know his ID (there's a photo of Blake shaking hands with with the vice president that the cops notice, so the upper echilons were aware of Blake's 'job'). As he was a government operative, they would have the motive to protect him. Once Blake was reported dead the G-men would inform anyone else who needed to know.

As for Hollis, The Comedian could sue, or even the government for the slander of a public hero, but they knew that the truth would come out and that they'd loose both the case and the secret Blake identity. I don't believe that Under the Hood actually mentioned Blake's name, if Hollis even knew it, anyway.

When he goes to warn Dr Manhattan that there might be a ?mask killer? on the loose, everybody seems to know that the Comedian and Blake are one and the same.

Dr Manhatten and Laurie knew the Comedian's secret identity before the murder - Rorschach doesn't, probably because he only seems to have met him once.

The Minutemen were even calling him by his first name back in 1940.

The original Minutemen all seem to have shared their secret identities with each other (with the possible exception of Hooded Justice), but they haven't made their identities public (Hollis Mason mentioned that he only went public after he retired, although Sally Jupiter seems to have worked simultaniously as a film starlet so presumably everybody knew that she was the Silk Spectre).

Therefore, the first generation heroes all know who the others are (presumably, Sally Jupiter told Laurie everyone's secret identities at some point - Laurie seems to be on first name terms with most of them), but the public don't.

Fair enough- I'm happy to have a satisfactory explanation so that I won't be bugged the next time I read it.  My biggest stumbling block was always Laurie's line about why Blake hadn't sued Mason- but as that's been adequately explained, I'm a happy bunny again.

Apart from the Red Son mix up.

;)

I like Watchmen, apart from one thing - the colouring (Or should that be coloring) it's really bad in places- wouldn't it have been a hell of a lot better if the whole thing was left black and white?

Apart from the Red Son mix up.

Uhhh, the Superman of the fifties could use his super-powers to fly backwards and forwards in time (by flying past a really big calender, for some reason).