They were, naturally, slightly different. For example, some of Rorschach's stats were off in the movie, his eyes were blue instead of brown (actors, you know.) and the ending, while making the same point, was executed in a way even dumb people could follow, while in the GN it was a little more subtle.
That's the movie and the GN, though.
The prequels writers (of whom there was a different one for each novel) clearly took the things established in both of these as loose guidelines. They may have been fans, but they didn't really get the characters. Their implied histories and what their entire point was in the Watchmen.
Alright, so the Before Watchmen books are divided into 8 books, and two small books. Each of the major characters gets their own, then there is a book for the Minutemen, and one for Crimson Corsair. I'm not entirely sure WTF is the deal with CC. It's obviously the counterpart to The Black Freighter from the Watchmen GN, but I've read different explanations as to what it is. I think it's supposed to be the story the Black Freighter was inspired by, but I'm really not sure, so I'm going to leave it alone.
The book on the Minutemen was okay, because we didn't see much of them in the original GN to contradict with. There was, however, a scene where Nite Owl I gets followed home by young Daniel Dreiberg, and then Daniel says itwas easy to find you, let me give you some security tips. That panel actually shook me out of the book. I had to stop and sputter. One of the established tropes, if you will, is that Daniel is way lax about security. Even when he was Nite Owl, he had a tunnel leading straight to his basement, Rorschach breaks into his house when he feels like it, to remind him his security is shit. The fact is, if this was Fanfiction on a website somewhere, the writer would NEVER get away with that, unless it was meant to be funny role reversal.
Also, the big surprise ending of Minutemen, where Comedian tricks Nite Owl I into killing Hooded Justice, while I can't actually argue that it was against canon, it certainly wasn't hinted at in any of the subtext in the GN. Other than that, I actually liked the way these characters were dealt with. Nite Owl I's relationships with the other masks, reflected, for me, a LOT of Nite Owl II's relationship with Rorschach. Working cases with Mothman, and his weird, distant relationship with Silhouette in particular.
Which brings us to the next book I read, Silk Spectre. I liked the art in this one the least. Possibly because it was soo teen-ish. I get that they were probably going with an art style that matched the char's in each of these books, but I wasn't a fan. Moving on. This story was okay, and fit the kind of selfishness and obtuseness I think Silk Specter II was capable of. She leaves home with some boy and goes to fight crime in San Francisco, it's the 60's so drug use ensues. Fine, fine, whatever, pages of psychedelic funk, sure. Boyfriend overdoses, sure. The thing is... her mother sends Nite Owl I after her, then gets bored waiting and sends Comedian. There is a dumb little bit where Comedian gets his happy face pin. Which contradicts the Comedian edition GN, because in that one he's got it in Vietnam and all implications are that he's had it for awhile, but that may be a timing thing, I'm not going to argue.
It seems really strange, though, that when Silk Spectre II gets back home at the end and goes to the Crimebusters meeting, her mother would be REALLY genuinely upset that Comedian is talking to her daughter afterwards, as shown in the movie, and GN. When she JUST sent him out to rescue her. Would she have been as mad if he'd talked to her while rescuing her, instead of working in the background? We'll never know.
The one major contradiction in this GN is the way she assesses Rorschach at the Crimebusters meeting. In this one she thinks something like 'the way that mask moves is creepy, but I'm sure he's a nice guy underneath.'. Bullshit! In the original GN, it flat out says she thought he was a creep the first time she saw him. She jumped straight to the conclusion that she didn't like him, no prevarication necessary.
After that I read Ozymandias. It was my favorite art out of the series. There is one panel when he's talking about his childhood and how he was a genius, and the kids in his class look like child versions of Dr Manhatten, Nite Owl II, Silk Spectre II and Rorschach. And they are all looking at him how their counterparts feel about him. I love the little red headed kid's "are you serious?" facial expression. Priceless. In fact, it's interesting, the antagonists in this GN, with the natural exception of the Comedian, all look like Rorschach. Some more than others, but all to an extent. There is even one panel where one of the guys is pretty much a portrait of Jackie Earle Haley, the actor who played Rorschach. He's prettied up to look like a lowlife gangster, of course, but there's clear inspiration. Anyway, that's the art. The actual writing was interesting, however it failed to keep up it's end of the bargain. Watching the movie, I felt that Ozymandius was vaguely arrogant and, while he was a horrible villain, I didn't really feel much about him one way or the other. When I read the GN, and got to the part where he talks about his life, I hated him. I was seething with rage over how arrogant and superior he acted, and how he was so callus and threw away perfectly good resources and left destruction in his wake, pointlessly. He was written so we would feel strongly about him. In the prequel, he was bland, vaguely irritating at best. Likable at worst. He was written in the prequels like a predictable movie villain. And that is EXACTLY what Ozymandius is not. You remember when your heart jumped when you first read, or saw him say "I triggered it 35 minutes ago.". And Rorschach and Nite Owl II realized how much too late they were. It was a huge moment, it was the icing on the cake. It elevated the story to greatness. Not so much in the prequels.
Crimson Corsair. I suppose it makes sense if you analyze it the way you did the Black Freighter. I'm not going to.
Dr Manhatten. I'm not sure if I even paid attention to this book. Now that I've seen the movie and read the GN, I skip his part. He just doesn't interest me. Ok, so what it comes down to is Dr Manhatten changed the timeline. He was originally supposed to be partnered with Rorschach instead of Silk Spectre II. I don't know why this makes sense, as Rorschach was already on a perfectly good team with Nite Owl II. So why they'd reassign him makes no sense to me. Also, the Crimebusters didn't actually happen in the movie or GN, so I'm not sure why, when the meeting broke up, they would have stuck to arbitrary assignments. Anyway, the implication is that is Dr Manhatten had worked with Rorschach instead of Silk Spectre II, things would have come out differently. Whether they'd have kept one another connected to the world or driven each other into a steeper spiral can only be guessed. Though I have to feel like Nite Owl II was 99% of what was keeping Rorschach afloat.
Nite Owl II. I had problems with this from beginning to end. Ok, so there was never any subtext that said Nite Owl II's father was an abusive SoB. The subtext from the one mention of him was that he loved his son unconditionally, whether he personally agreed with his choice to become a superhero or not, he supported him. Nite Owl II expresses surprise at this, which indicates that as a kid he didn't get his father (typical teenager.). It does NOT indicate that his father's leaving him his fortune was ACTUALLY unwarranted. And the way this prequel is written it doesn't really fit. Nite Owl II's relationship with Nite Owl I. I've already discussed the tracking thing, other than that, it seemed ok.
The first night he is out fighting crime, Rorschach finds him and they become partners. This is out of character for Rorschach who is a paranoid bugger, and wouldn't have teamed up with someone he didn't trust, and wouldn't have trusted Nite Owl II that quickly. This has the feel of the author's pet intro, rather than something that might actually have happened.
Twilight Lady shows up almost immediately. This is strange because, out of all the villains they could have encountered, it was the one who was in the video game, who prompted the dissolution of their partnership. Which also doesn't make sense, because Rorschch blames that on Nite Owl II quitting, but we're not here to talk about the game. So, there was a crack in their foundation from the beginning. And it wasn't Silk Spectre. And Nite Owl II sleeps with a villain. After 5 minutes. And she recognizes him immediately. And never does anything about it. Even though they want to put her in jail. Whatever.
Then there is this whole bizarre religious bit where a televangialist (brainwashes?) Rorschach and then tries to burn him alive on a pile of dead whores. All of which exists purely to explain why Rorschach has the End is Nigh sign. Plus, Rorschach curses, which Rorschach doesn't do. (Despite saying hell in the director's cut of the movie, it was OOC there, too.) Just because Rorschach is into morality in a serious way doesn't mean he's religious. I'm fairly certain he's too evidence driven for that. Besides, if he was disillusioned with belief in 1965 because of the televangelist incident, it really diminishes his pain as a result of the Blair Roche incident ten years later. It just doesn't add up in a straight line with what is going to happen later.
Comedian. Ok my first problem with this is that, while there is not a specific mention of this in the GN, there is no doubt left in the movie, the Comedian was the second shooter on the grassy knoll. He assassinated Kennedy. Full stop. Now, we have to take into account that the writer of the GN was not involved with the movie, thus all changes made to the universe have to be considered Fanfiction. Or Alternate Universe, at least. But the people who controlled the movie (DC) ARE the people who controlled the prequels. So why, oh why is the Comedian specifically NOT the assassin in the prequels?! Make up your minds!!
So this GN goes into the Comedian in the 60's. He doesn't assassinate JFK, and is, in fact, friends with the family and a big believer in them. He, in fact, bonds with Moloch over the death of JFK. He does, however, kill Robert Kennedy. Why this is an advantage to him, I'm not entirely sure. This one seemed kind of all over the place. He's anti-Vietnam, he gets kicked out of the war, well before Dr Manhatten wins it as seen in the movie and GN. It's possible that he killed R Kennedy so as to go back? Not sure. I should probably reread this one, but I'm not going to.
That leaves us the last one, Rorschach. I was told that this was a story of a typical Rorschach case. It is much more ambitious than that. In the GN, it says Rorschach is wanted on two counts of Murder in the First. One is Anthony Grice, ala the Blair Roche case, and one is a rapist he left in front of a police station. The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking that the serial killer case going on in the background, the guy Rorschach kills at the end, was the second murder he's wanted for. I just checked and, no, evidently not, though that would have been way, way more compelling than him being some random guy.
Anyway, so Rorschach tracks this gang, gets the crap beat out of him over and over, all that's fine. But he curses a couple different times, which is, as I mentioned, out of character, gets his mask taken off and is really blasé about it, and what's even worse is that the badguy who puts it on has a face shape in the ink, which is totally unwarranted and uncanon, because the splotches move according to heat and do NOT reflect the wearer. But the most out of character thing that happens is that Rorschach, even though this is post-1977, and he's supposed to be the jigsaw mess ever, at this point, gets it together enough to ask a woman out. Isn't awkward at all about it. Ok, he's a little awkward, but not much.
AHHH! Rorschach is an asexual misogynist!! Where did this come from??? There is no way this happened.
Yes, I am aware the writer was trying to normalize Rorschach. But this character isn't MEANT to be a red-blooded straight American hero. He's SUPPOSED to be warped, conflicted and emotionally crippled. It's what makes him who he is and do the things he does. There is supposed to be a hint of "I care about you, but it can't be love, it's safe because we're all guys here" between him and Nite Owl II. It's part of his pathos. He's homophobic, but more than a touch over the line, himself. He pushes everyone away. He can't do normal. That's why he's not an average middle age guy with a job and a family. That's why he's Rorschach.
Most of the books have little hints of the writers not quite getting their characters, of having been given character outlines, instead of having studied them in the original form. This writer seems more like "I will use what I saw in the GN and movie as a starting point, but THIS is how Rorschach should REALLY be." and then he went off and wrote a totally different character in the same clothes.
Huh-uh. I'm not buying it.
Oh, and the other thing that drove me crazy, in some of the prequels Rorschach had blue eyes, and in others they were brown.
