Rating: 
Summary: Amazing classroom textbook & a perfect fit for early Kravitz
Review: Others have already said how amazing this book is, so I won't really bother. I'll just say that I have bought copies of this book for my friends so that they can see how great comic books can be as a storytelling medium. Speaking of which, I should note that a certain Ivy League school in upstate New York has used Watchmen as a CLASS TEXT for a freshman writing seminar class. It was used to demonstrate classic literary devices. This definitely ain't your average comic book. :) By the way, when I first read Watchmen, it was in the early 90s (when I was a senior in high school), and I had borrowed it from my friend, along with a tape of Lenny Kravitz's "Mama Said" album. I gotta say, those two are perfect for each other. In my mind, the Lenny Kravitz album is like the perfect background score for Watchmen. You might wanna try it too. :)
Rating:
Summary: Ever a masterpiece...
Review: Watchmen is the best comic books ever...you might have read it before,but it just...it doesn't fit all that Watchmen really is!It's brilliant,it's perfectly mixed,it's just incredible!I could say that it's just the most perfect application of the Chaos theory in books,and you have all of it there : a lot of "butterflies effects",a super human that enjoy himself building fractal castles in Mars(!!!),a complex and imprevisible story,with all ramification possible...It's still goddman actual,and it's the most complexe and entertaining thing any writer has ever offered!Alan Moore is just incredible,and every Gibbons picture is just a painel,a puzzle to discover!Take it now,and tell your grandsons!!
Rating:
Summary: A Comic Book for Thinkers
Review: Watchman was my first exposure to the genius that is Alan Moore. I enjoyed comics as a kid but gave them up until someone recommended I read Watchman. Watchman takes characters you've never heard of and shows them in various stages of their lives and their careers. I was skeptical those characters could be brought to life in any way close to what I know about Superman, Wolverine, Captain America and others from Marvel and DC that I grew up with. Rest assured, these characters leap off the page and simply learning about where they come from and where they're going will keep you turning pages.In Watchman, superheros are banned and each hero must find his own place in the world, either as a hero or as an "ordinary person". Each hero gets a chapter : Dr. Manhatten is the most powerful being on earth, Rosharch is a violent vigilante who refuses to stop his fight against crime (his chapter is worth the purchase of this book alone IMHO), the Nightowl is a middle aged pudgy rich guy who find that fighting crime is the real excitment in life, Osimandius is the smartest man in the world who believes he has the answers to all the world's problems and finally, there's the comedian who dies in the first chapter (no spoiler really) and the investigation into the death of this fascinating character is the backdrop for the entire story. Watchman makes you think - I read it in the backdrop of the 9-11 tragedy and even years after its publication, it still feels timely for me (in Watchman, the Soviets are the unstoppable menace). Watchman makes you feel - I cared what happened to every character (some more than others- the Comedian is a fascinating study of the anti-hero) and at the end of the book, I was sorry the ride was over. If you like fiction of any kind, pick this book up ASAP- I doubt you'll find the combination of art and writing in any other medium.
Rating: 
Summary: Great, but hasn't aged as well as I thought it would.
Review: I read Watchmen back when it first came out, and have been an avid fan ever since. However, I hadn't read the graphic novel in years, and upon re-reading it recently, I was struck by how dated it seems. Yes, it's still fundamentally excellent graphically and in terms of characterization, but it no longer seems as mind-blowing as it did back in 1986. Super-hero comics are still full of the same Good-Guy-Beats-Up-Bad-Guy stuff that they've always had, just with different artists and costumes. The depth of super-hero comics certainly hasn't increased; if anything, it may have regressed since the late '80s. In retrospect, one reason why Watchmen provided such exhilaration back in the day was because of the comic book's physical appearance. For the most part, comics before the mid-80s didn't look like Watchmen, with the then-fancy paper, the high production values, the ancillary material in the back of each issue, and the covers that looked like someone actually put thought into the design, rather than just slapping together something that looked, well, like a comic book. Sad to say, as with the plots, the graphic designs and layouts of comics have retreated to their garish days. On a broader scale, Watchmen's plot really reeks of the kind of Cold War thinking that turned out to be wildly wrong. And Alan Moore's black-and-white political speculation seems naive at best and laughable at worst, although there's still a good deal of validity to his overall views of the kind of sociological impact that a Dr. Manhattan would have. Perhaps the most regrettable part of Watchmen is the ending. Several observers (including Sam Hamm, who wrote the screenplay for Tim Burton's Batman and the original Hollywood treatment for a Watchmen movie that never got beyond the planning stages) have pointed out that the only way the Bad Guy's plan would actually work is if he redid it in a different city every six months. If you think otherwise, look no further than the World Trade Center attack--the world was gushing with Unity And The Fight Against Terrorism for about, oh, two months or so. Now the world is back to criticizing almost every move America makes. Granted, Watchmen's climax is on a much larger scale than the WTC (which was terrible enough, don't get me wrong), but ultimately, you'd still have the same reaction. Yes, the world would tremble for maybe a year, but then people would get back to their old ways; it's too implausible to expect people and nations of the world to abandon their ways almost overnight. Even the destruction of a major city, in and of itself, could not possibly overthrow all of human history preceding it. Perhaps the best example would be the biggest catastrophe in human history, World War II. You would think that a conflict that ruined two continents and a significant chunk of a third might cause people to think about world peace and unity. And they tried, which is why we have the United Nations. Unfortunately, the good feeling didn't last long, did it? The world is as conflict-ridden now as it was in 1939, perhaps moreso. And if World War II couldn't do it, it seems highly unlikely that Our Villain's "masterstroke" would be any more effective.
Rating:
Summary: perfection in comics
Review: This is the greatest comic ever written and for good reason. It takes place in the "real" world, during the mid eighties. This story looks at the charector behind the mask, what makes that person tick, and how they got in the costume. The story starts off simple, a murder, and evolves into something that effects the fate of the world. A good portion of the story takes place in flashbacks, and shows how much effort and thought went into this story and how everything is connected together. Another thing about this story is that it doesnt give away anything early, like in most comics, we find out when the charectors do. And in the end when you are done you will realize why this the greated comics ever writtten.
Rating:
Summary: We need another Watchmen...
Review: ...although I don't think it will ever happen. Watchmen came at a time when comics were stuck in a rut they had been in since the early sixties, and blew everybody away. It was a product of it's time and the effect it had could never be duplicated. Most comics out today are pretty much the grandchildren of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. These two stories and a handfull of others changed the way we think about comic books. They introduced more mature and relevant themes that went way beyond the typical super-hero fare that dominated everything up till that point. Watchmen is a brilliantly written masterpiece of comic fiction illustrated by the very talented Dave Gibbons. Gibbons' style dosen't ever get him on to any "hot 10" list's because of his subdued, low key style, but perfectly brings to life Alan Moore's story with his excellent storytelling skills that no early Image artist like Rob Liefeld or Erik Larsen could accomplish because of the fact that there aren't buildings exploding every two panels and the characters have to look like real people. Watchmen slowly simmers to a boil then explodes into a very satisfing ending (regardless of what some people say). This story represents what I wish we had much more of in comics, well concieved, well executed stories that advance the medium and brings it closer to an artform that will gain some respect. Thank god for guys like Alan Moore and Frank Miller who show that comic books can be just as powerfull and entertaing an industry as Movies, TV, or novels, and sometimes surpass them.
Rating:
Summary: A CLASSIC
Review: I bought a hardcover copy of this book-without the dustjacket-in a used bookstore... I sat down and read the volume and was utterly amazed. This is a classic of the comic book world. The collaboration between Moore's writing and Gibbons' artwork is jaw-dropping. I don't know how they began to even start this complex creation of words and pictures. Intricate, amazing and wholedheartedly fun, WATCHMEN is a must. SIDE NOTE: Rorschach is one of the greatest, spookiest and saddest comic characters ever to grace a comic page.
Rating:
Summary: A modern comics classic
Review: Alan Moore is one of the best writers working in comics today (to me, he's right up there with Neil Gaiman and J. Michael Straczynski), and Watchmen is some of his best work. It's a fascinating exploration of the nature of superheroes, their weaknesses and human foibles -- told in an epic story that should hook even those (like me) who don't usually like superhero comics.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: To be honest, if you've read Michael Moorcock's non-fantasy novels, you've read most of what's new in comics from Gaiman to Morrison. Moore, too, took a lot from Moorcock (including his
'JC' signature characters) but is probably the only graphic writer to have built solidly on his original inspiration. Read this and then read From Hell and you will see a writer developing his craft to a very high degree -- getting better, subtler, more pointed. This still remains one of the classics of the field, but Moore has come a long way since then. Only Moore really backs up the claims of comics fans that the medium has reached some kind of maturity. There is mature work out there, including Bryan Talbot's Tale of One Bad Rat and his Luther Arkwright stories, but Moore remains the most consistent and interesting of the great innovators.
Rating: 
Summary: watchmen a mix of good and stupid
Review: ... I would not really call The Watchmen the "Citizen Kane of graphic novels." It is more like Tarentino's movie, Pulp Fiction, multiple plot lines, hip references, and plenty of gory violence and power trip fantasies to satisfy a basically adolescent audience. But it is not as good as Pulp Fiction. For ambition,
for the acheivement of taking the form to a new level, for superficial complexity, for the effective blending of story telling and art work, I give it an A. For content, for ideas, for genuine insight into the human condition, I give it a C minus.
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