Before Watchmen: The Silk Spectre by Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner

Script: Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner

Art: Amanda Conner

Publisher: DC

I was looking forward to giving this one or two stars or if you use our new Watchmen inspired ratings system a rating of one would be “I’ll look down and whisper…’No’”. Imagine my surprise when this turned out to be a fairly entertaining read that reminded me of a light hearted romantic comedy, with future violence in store. I mean, I never had any interest in the few romance comics I’ve ever seen (unless I saw one drawn by the late Frank Frazetta…) but this had a nice entertaining B movie feel to it. I wanted some popcorn while reading it.

Our completely unauthorized prequel to Watchmen begins in 1966 where we find out that the spawn of a professional lady wrestler and a comedian/occasional murderer built like a linebacker is a pretty good high school athlete. We also find out that she’s boy crazy and dreams of being carried away by some white knight, or blue knight but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We also find out that her training involves her mother dressing up as a hooligan in a mask and attacking her while she’s watching TV. This reminds me of the training regimen of Inspecter Clouseau but it seems like its working. It also references a scene we’ve seen in Watchmen numerous times or the hands around the Comedian’s throat.
But the really warm parts of the comic would have to be the occasional anime like cartooniness of the book, well, here’s what I mean:

and here.

I just love those third panels. That’s an element that I just don’t see in a lot of the very violent comics that I read.

Oddly enough, if I knew any young girls, and wouldn’t face an arrest warrant for knowing such young girls, I would give them a copy of Silk Spectre number one. That’s because, and gosh knows the original Watchmen could never be described this way, it was heartwarming and probably even a bit sentimental. It also has a great ending where it looks like she finds herself running away from home and taking a psychedelic van straight into the Summer of Love. Great timing that. Overall, 3.85 stars. Not bad. Not groundbreaking but a nice addition to the mythos that doesn’t strike me as being embarrassing. Truth be told, none of these Before Watchmen comics are all that bad.