REVIEW: Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan

PLOT: Discover what happened before WATCHMEN as writer J. Michael Straczynski is joined by Andy Kubert and the legendary Joe Kubert to take flight with the gadget-savvy vigilante known as Nite Owl! And then in BEFORE WATCHMEN: DR. MANHATTAN, JMS teams with fan-favorite artist Adam Hughes on the all-powerful super-man Dr. Manhattan. For Dr. Manhattan, past, present, and future are one and the same. But as he observes the events of his life, do they remain the same? Or are they changed? The very fact of his existence may have altered the nature of what will or will not be...

REVIEW: Now that I've read two volumes of the Before Watchmen series, I've been able to get a pretty good glimpse of what they were trying to do. When I read Before Watchmen: Ozymandias/Crimson Corsair first, I thought that it seemed kind of fruitless to rehash the beginnings of a character that didn't get too much more depth that he didn't get from the original Watchmen or the movie adaptation. Now I see that they are pretty much taking the time leading up to the events of Watchmen to plot all of our favorite characters, and tying it all together between the volumes. After finishing Before Watchmen: Nite Owl/Dr. Manhattan, I'd really like to see a giant Watchmen sized compendium that puts all the volumes together as one big story to read together. I think it would benefit from being in a compilation like that.

Now this volume was a lot better than the first I'd read, mainly because Dr. Manhattan intrigues me a lot and his story crossing into the path of Ozymandias still puzzles me to this day. There's so much that can be discussed with the quantum intelligence of Dr. Manhattan, and it serves to show the complexities of the Watchmen storyline. The Nite Owl part was pretty good too, and as I saw him as one of the more underused characters in the book and movie, he gets fleshed out here to a more recognizable but extremely weak character when it comes to women, and shows where that came from. It really helps to explain him as a character in the events following Before Watchmen. The story of Moloch was also really great and I enjoyed the two issue line in with Ozymandias and it's tie in to the original. I would definitely recommend this to fans of Watchmen and readers of more intricately plotted stories. I can't imagine you'd have to have read Watchmen prior to this to enjoy it, but it probably adds that extra layer of plot that makes it so intriguing to me. Also I have to add that the alternate cover for Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan #4 is absolutely amazing and I want a large poster print of it, like right now. Early Christmas present anyone?

WRITING : ( 8 / 10 )

ARTWORK : ( 7 / 10 )

STORY : ( 7 / 10 )

COVERS : ( 10 / 10 )

AWESOME : ( 8 / 10 )

FINAL RATING : ( 8 / 10 )