Rating: 
Summary: Nerdy trash POSING as great art
Review: Sure, Moore and Gibbon use some very complicated narrative and visual techniques. In that way one could say it 'bears the hallmarks of great literature'.The problem is that any hack writer can use complicated symbol-schemes and narrative devices in order to distract from the fundamental shoddiness of his story. It's not difficult to copy the superficial elements of modernist writing. It's apparently not difficult to convince readers that you are an important writer by doing this - as reviews here attest. Moore's characters are indeed cardboard. They're pure cardboard, but if you've wasted your mind reading superhero comics for years you may not notice that. Moore looks like a competent writer ONLY in comparison to the hacks who grind out Superman or the Hulk. There are very complicated visual schemes here - patterns repeated, juxtapositions, recurring motifs - and readers tend to think that they serve some deep and profound purpose. They don't. There just isn't anything to them other than Gibbon's desire to create flashy visuals. All in all, it's a characteristic example of the way some creators can fool themselves and the public into overrating their talents. If Watchmen fans had ever read Delillo or Pynchon, they would probably not have been impressed by the shallow social and political comments contained in this book. But they haven't, and probably won't.
Rating: 
Summary: Believe the Hype
Review: You might be inclined to dismiss reviewers who gush that Watchmen is a great literary work: "They're just over-exuberant comic book fans blah blah blah." Don't be so hasty, and I say that as someone with degrees in English lit (who also appreciates comics). While Watchmen isn't Shakespeare or Milton--duh--and suffers from some clumsiness, it's certainly intelligent, thought provoking, and even poetic at times, either visually or textually. It bears many of the hallmarks of great literature, like an investigation of substantial themes (use and abuse of power, moral responsibility, fate vs. chance or free will, hubris, etc.) and their effects on everday people, well-rounded characters that you can never fully love or hate precisely because they're more like real people than cardboard cutouts, a multi-layered and partially self-referential narrative structure, and more. Part of what makes this story so entertaining and thought provoking is the way it makes full use of its chosen medium. Watchmen is filled with visual/textual puns (not often of the humorous variety, unless it's black humor) and running visual commentaries on the text and vice versa. The medium allows Moore and Gibbons to feature mirrored or parallel strands of ideas or narrative at the same time instead of having to switch back and forth, as in purely text-based fiction. As for the art, it's straightforward and effective and finely detailed, if a bit anonymous in technique and style. Actually, a more prominent, personal style arguably would have detracted from Watchmen; the seeming prosaic anonymity of the art lends the fictional world more verisimilitude--an "everyday" look for a world of relatively realistic people you're supposed to believe in, as opposed to wild fantasy. Speaking of the art, it's been said that the characters in Watchmen are poorly developed, and that's been chalked up to Moore. That seems to show a misunderstanding of the genre. Comics aren't simply illustrated texts; the visuals in comics play an equal or greater role in the storytelling as the accompanying words do. As in film or theater, what you see of the characters--their expressions and body language and unique features--says at least as much as any written text. When you take both words and images into account, you can see that the characters here are indeed well rounded. Overall, then, great stuff. It's fun to watch Moore and Gibbons have their cake and eat it, too, by revelling in traditional comic book superheroics while critiquing the very notion and adding many new layers of depth to it. Be sure to check out Moore's V for Vendetta, which is arguably an even more intelligent and "adult" look at the masked "hero".
Rating:
Summary: FAR AND AWAY THE BEST!!
Review: If you read no other comic book in your life, this should be it. While I disagree with some reviews that put this comic on par with great literature, this is a fantastic read. Watchmen paved the way for the three-dimensional anti-heroes that we see in comics today. Written in the mid-1980s, Watchmen reflects the politics of the Cold War and the internal struggles of a few aging ex-superheroes years after they have been banned by Federal law. The characters are tremendously three-dimensional and real, particularly the Nite-Owl and Rorschach. I have always wondered how some superheroes spend so much time in the dirt and slime of the underworld without having at least some of it stick. In Watchmen, it sticks, and it sticks all over. Not to ruin the plot, but the character of Rorschach is what I've always thought a crimefighter would be like after too much time in the trenches. The book also contains many subplots, and every time I read it, I catch a few details that I glossed over previously. In short, READ THIS BOOK!!!
Rating:
Summary: For geeks only
Review: Don't believe the hype about how mature and literary this book is. It builds up its story on super-hero cliches, and unless you're capable of taking super-hero antics seriously you won't find anything here to respond to. The author has tried to imagine what the world would look like if super-powered individuals really existed. He has failed. At no point does this fictional world become even remotely credible. The wretchedness of the dialogue is also maddening.
Rating:
Summary: Watchmen: forget that its a comic and just read it!
Review: In my opinion Watchmen is an outstanding read. Unpredictable, imaginative, original and compelling. In fact I read it again as soon as I had finished. I enjoyed it even more the second time because of all the details, links and hints that suddenly make sense. This shows how much time and thought had gone into the writing and construction. There is a lot to this book; just because it is a comic doesn't mean its low-brow and just for kids and geeks who can't get girlfriends! I have had a look at other comics since buying Watchmen but none of them appealed to me at all, in comparison they all seem, well like stupid comics really! In my opinion Watchmen is somthing else - buy it you won't regret it!
Rating:
Summary: A Personal Epic
Review: Watchmen is by no means a crime story, but is in no way unexciting. Somehow it manages to thrust the reader into it's slightly futuristic world, with amazing set pieces and an ever unraveling plot, while simultaneously disecting the world of the super hero. It focuses on the lives of the (living) members of an old super hero group, and displays there emotions and memories after one of their ex-members is murdered. The plot slowly reveals itself, unearthing inumerable connections in the super heroes' pasts, while all the while gradually revealing the incredible conspiracy behing their fallen comrade's death. An excellent read. Probably one of the best graphic novels ever written.
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Summary: The Comic That Changed Comics.
Review: Most simply stated, WATCHMEN was the graphic novel that totally changed the comic book industry. The book is a deconstruction of comics. The book also forces a person to challenge the way they view life and the events that go on in the news. Besides all that, it's a great story, too. Still, with all that said, WATCHMEN isn't a great piece of literature (though it comes pretty close) there's just too many comic conventions involved in both the art and story. Whatever the case, if you're a fan of comics at all or have an interest in the history of pop culture, this is one of the graphic novels you should read.
Rating:
Summary: Quite disappointed.
Review: I was quite disappointed with Watchmen. I had heard so many great things about it and was expecting a memorable read. Now that I have read it I'm left with a feeling of "What was the big deal?". The story was incredibly average. The art was mediocre at best. Alan Moore's writing is eloquent but an eloquently written boring story is still boring. I was expecting a lot more. Three GREAT examples of graphic novels at their best are: Kingdom Come by Alex Ross, the Rising Stars series by J.Michael Straczynski, and The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller.
Rating:
Summary: Not for children, not really for adults either...
Review: If Watchmen deserves to be classed as a serious work of literature, it also deserves to be described as a clumsy and unsatisfying performance. The characterization is simply not up to the standards of first-rate literature. Consider the young female lead. She meets a man who is not only bald but entirely hairless, blue-skinned and lacking eyeballs; a man who walks around naked in public; a man who speaks in a non-human voice and displays unusual emotional coldness - and she decides to cohabit with him. In reality, only a woman of unsound mind would take such a repulsive creature as a lover, but Moore clearly does not intend us to see her as unsound. She is supposed to be, if anything, an exemplary person. Even Hemingway and Mailer have never displayed such a weak understanding of female psychology. The worst chapter is chapter six, in which the deranged vigilante is interviewed by state-appointed psychiatrist. Moore gives us the tired old stage-device of the psychiatrist who ends up adopting his patient's view of the world rather than changing the patient. It doesn't work. It's not at all believable, and the attempt to provide a credible psychological portrait of the vigilante also fails.
Rating:
Summary: Still watching the Watchmen almost twenty years later
Review: Moore brilliantly deconstructs the medium's traditional interpretation of the superhero- fearless, mighty, zealous defender of the good- and reconstructs him/her by asking, quite rightly, what kind of person would ever want to dress up in tights, cape, and/or mask under the auspices of fighting crime? Before Watchmen, this question was completely ignored. Consequently, comics focussed more on the external battles between 'good' and evil' at the expense of studying the internal psychodynamic battles attending all superheroes. The great part about reading any of Moore's stuff (V for Vendetta, From Hell, etc.), is that he's so obviously brilliant; unlike a lot of the other guys writing comics, his works contain a breadth of current societal/economic/political issues (although feminists could arguably point out that Watchmen reinforced gender inequality and traditional sex roles). In this way, the characters of Watchmen interact in a living, breathing, complex world: a 'realist' world. Moore also enjoys telling two stories at once through the use of intertextuality: in a vein similar to Shakespeare, a minor sub-plot informs the major storyline (note Moore's usage of the fictional 'Tales of the Black Freighter' as well as the clippings concluding each chapter) Watchmen's enduring contribution to the medium was his intersection of the comic world with the real world. So many complex themes and plots appearing in today's comics (the morally problematic hero, the sympathetic villain, drug addiction, rape, etc.) derive directly from this great and important work that dared to imagine how superheroes would really fare in the present time. It should also be noted that Dave Gibbons' art had a lot to with the boldness and brilliance of Watchmen: his clever use of close-ups/fades, morphing, and cut-away techniques hearken to mind the approach of a film director rather than a traditional comics illustrator. Gibbons ably brought to life the multifaceted world envisioned by Moore and in the process greatly opened up the possibilities available to the comics illustrator. Almost twenty years later, Watchmen continues to astound readers and stands heads and shoulders above anything preceding or succeeding it. I am yet to read a single graphic novel that astounded me in its scope and originality as this one did. I cannot say more other than this is the single best graphic novel I have ever read.
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