Continued from part 4, book 8...

Book Nine

A certain amount of nihilism is the subject of book nine as Dr. Manhattan teleports Spectre off to his hideaway on the planet Mars. There he has a conversation with her that he already knows has happened, or will, because he can see all of time at the same time.

Manhattan's thoughts are a perfect encapsulation of nihilist philosophy, a philosophy that posits that everything is relative. That no life is particularly more important or better than any other life, whether it be man, beast or plant... or planet by Manhattan's perspective. He has about lost all interest in the specialness of humanity. Life is just a chemical process to him.

As Spectre tries to get him to come back to stop the Russians from starting WWIII, she asks Manhattan if it bothers him that man is about to become extinct. His reply is revealing of a nihilist philosophy.

"All that pain and conflict done with? All that needless suffering over at last? No... no, that doesn't bother me. All those generations of struggle, what purpose did they ever achieve? All that effort, and what did it ever lead to?," the blue skinned wonder replies.

The arguments that life "means something" is one that cannot be reconciled with the nihilist's ideals. If one is truly a nihilist, no argument can be made to counter the cynical and defeatist attitude that nothing its truly worth anything.

Unfortunately, nihilism isn't just a harmless ideology as it must, taken to its logical conclusion, end in the destruction of law, order, society, and morals. Everything that makes living have any safety for us whatever is targeted for annihilation out right or at best allowed to wither away through indifference by the nihilist's ideology.

Of course this is also an anarchist's base view, a label that the writer himself claims ownership. What does any of it mean? Why bother? The funny thing about anarchy is that its believers violate their own precepts by their activism for those beliefs. After all, if it truly doesn't matter, why bother to advocate for it at all? And if you are advocating, then you must feel it does matter. And if things do matter then, you have just proven your nihilist, anarchist ideas wrong. A catch 22 situation if I ever heard one.

In any case, as the two talk on Mars, Spectre realizes that her biological father was The Comedian and her birth might have been a result of her Mother's rape.

Once she fully realizes it she breaks down and we finally get one little ray of sunshine in this otherwise bleak story. Dr. Manhattan suddenly realizes that the chances of life occurring at all is infinitesimal. So he decides that life isn't so meaningless after all.

But this ray of sunshine comes along with several more jabs at American life, though. On page 13 we get an attack on Oil companies and on page 20, in another flashback sequence, The Comedian reveals he may have had something to do with killing famous reporters Woodward and Bernstein 13 in a Washington parking garage. The Woodward and Bernstein bit is an example of leftist's heroes being gored by an evil right leaning government in the Watchmen story. It is a thinly veiled attempt to paint the US as antithetical to enlightened thinking.

To this point I have not discussed the short background info that ends each book because none of them have been particularly important to the political philosophy or the story itself. Each book has ended with a "excerpt" from a book written by a past super-hero or an faux article printed about one. These are used to present some back story about the super-hero's lives.

At the end of book nine is included an "interview" with Silk Spectre's Mother, the original Silk Spectre. In this interview she reveals that several of the old time super-heroes were homosexual. Both male and female homosexuality is included.

So, we have a clear picture that every super-hero in the Watchmen universe is some how a mental case. If they aren't impotent they are rapists. If they aren't rapists they are gay. If they are nice they are ineffective. If they are homicidal maniacs then they are employed by the US government. They all have major underlying inadequacies that makes the lie to their claims to being super-heroes. On top of that we have a character, one of great power and presented as wise and powerful, that tells us everything is relative and that good and bad have meaningless distinctions anyway.

As I said, the main point for this story so far is despair. The constant use of the 70s pop culture icon of the smiley face is a rueful reminder that the author meant a fist in your face instead of "have a nice day." Fittingly, as our view drift's into space above Dr. Manhattan and Spectre as they stand on Mars we see them standing in a gigantic smiley face like crater.

Subtlety really isn't on the menu for Watchmen. But I suppose that can be excused. It is just a comic book, after all.

Click to continue to book 10...

Home|Prelude|Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Book 1|Book 2|Book 3|Book 4|Book 5|Book 6
Book 7|Book 8|Book 9|Book 10|Book 11|Book 12|Epilogue|Footnotes