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Narcisi, Lara. "‘A Stronger Loving World’?: destruction, compassion, and megalomaniacs in alan moore’s watchmen." Imagining the End. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Apocalypse. Eds. Thomas E. Bishop and Jeremy R. Strong. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Pr. 2015. 83–97. Added by: joachim (19/03/2022, 12:09) Last edited by: joachim (19/03/2022, 12:33) |
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| Resource type: Book Chapter Language: en: English BibTeX citation key: Narcisi2015 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: "Watchmen", Gibbons. Dave, Moore. Alan, United Kingdom, USA Creators: Bishop, Narcisi, Strong Publisher: Inter-Disciplinary Pr. (Oxford) Collection: Imagining the End. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Apocalypse |
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| Attachments | URLs https://www.academ ... plinary_Press_2015 |
| Abstract |
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Alan Moore’s 1987 graphic novel, Watchmen, can at first appear to be a postmodern commentary on the futility of the Cold War world. However, the book’s conclusion begs for a more complex rereading – one that sees this particular moment reaching its crisis as only one of many. Moore focuses less on the means of destruction – nuclear weapons, relatively new to human history – and more on human psychology, which he demonstrates to be the true genesis of annihilation. Nuclear capability enables more widespread destruction, but the intractable problem is our own desire to rewrite history. Ozymandias, modelling himself after both Ramses II and Alexander the Great, sees himself as capable of single-handedly creating a new peaceful world order, and his scheme works, but only temporarily. The ending radically destabilises any hopes for Ozymandias’s success, as indicated by Dr. Manhattan’s prophetic observation that nothing permanently ends. While superheroes fail to be super, however, Moore indicates that there may be some hope for the future, and it rests in our common humanity.
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