Dark Knight Watchmen: Comic turned Movie History

There have been many comic book heroes that have made their way into the big screen. The watchmen comic is just the newest generation to have made their success. If we are to list down all the comics that have ever made this transition, the list would be a long one.

It would be easier to narrow things down by narrowing down the genre. Let’s simply look at the comic turned movies that feature a sort of superhero. There are so many comics turned to movies but not all have superheroes. Nevertheless, the bulk of these comic turned movies actually do have super heroes. In fact, its superheroes are the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about comic books.  It would also be a good idea to limit the list to Hollywood productions. Of course those movies are the only ones reaching huge amounts of circulation reaching so many audiences.

Who can ever forget superman. He has stood for something in our society, something very old as a matter of fact. The ideals attached to him are related to the bourgeois ideals and he also upholds the most common conservative’s values. And then, from that god and ideal comes batman. The first batman movies helmed by the pulp favorite Tim Burton is a step down from superman’s clean narrative of saving the world and heroism, dark gritty overtone reflective of the horrors of modern capitalist industrialist and realist society. As opposed to Superman who came from the heavens to save us, Batman is a frail human without any powers at all. His dark and tortured existence brooding on the death of his parents and its social causes takes us into a more intimate look in modern civilization. However, Tim Burton’s taste for surreal kitsch has been turned into pure candy kitsch by Joel Schumacher, whom everyone agrees destroyed the batman series.

Thank goodness the new Watchmen comic is not helmed by that guy. The new Dark Knight movie for batman saved the whole batman franchise, and indeed, in my opinion, is its very peak. As a movie critic and literature student, I find it hard to think about how this version of batman could ever be topped. The story deconstructs the whole superhero mythology. It brings batman up (or is it down?) to the level of grit and social importance as Fyodor Dostoyevsky novels. And this isn’t just a case of comparison based on greatness achieved. There is an actual strong intertextual correspondence between the two. Not just influence, but a reworking of themes and texts.

This bring us to the Watchmen comic which is also a deconstruction of the superhero genre. It came about in almost the same time, maybe earlier, as the Frank Miller Dark Knight rendition. And it also has so many symbols and implications that touch on deep philosophical and political undercurrents of modernity. Hopefully, the movie can capture the whole range of the complexity found in the watchmen comic.