Wednesday, July 10, 2013

365 Comics...190: Before Watchmen: Minutemen #1 (2012)

If there were any logical extension to The Watchmen, Minutemen would be it.  Moore's original work naturally delves into the characters of the Watchmen superhero collective, but only really got to touching upon the Minutemen as they related back to their successors.  The characters of Night Owl and Silk Spectre had a larger role due to the fact that they were second generation versions of the Minutemen iterations, and the Comedian was a nada of both groups, but the rest were only minimally touched upon and have always been ripe for further exploration. Heck, the Minutemen even got their own entry in Who's Who, almost as if there was the expectation of more to come out of it.  l haven't done my homework so I can't say offhand one way or the other if Moore had more in mind, but unlike the rest of Before Watchmen, this one feels okay, less interested in connecting with the source material than in broadening it.  Cooke doesn't do a whole lot here beyond a 1-3 page introduction to each member of the team, through the narration/memoirs of the original Night Owl Hollis Mason.  It's truly not much but it is effective and, moreover, interesting on its own terms.  I've only peeked into 3 of these books so far but I think of all of them I might see this one through.

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