“The Superman Exists, and He’s American”: Faux-vintage Watchmen Goodies

Judging from the amount of times it has popped up in my inbox over the last few days, I think it’s fair to say that the new vintage newscast featuring a retrospective on Dr. Manhattan ten years after his public debut has been sweeping through Watchmen fandom like a big blue, freaky, naked tidal wave. Or something. Regardless of how you felt about the trailer, the faux-news item certainly feels more immediately drawn from the graphic novel than anything we’ve seen so far, inspiring even further confidence that this movie might actually get things right (instead of breaking millions of little nerd-hearts faster than you can say The League of Extraordinary Gentleman: The Extremely Crappy Movie Version).

No word yet on whether we can expect more happy shiny breadcrumbs of awesomeness to entice us along the way to the big premiere, but judging by the reaction this one’s receiving, it would be a smart move. The producers have also released a pretty nifty image of Neil Armstrong photographed on the moon by Dr. Manhattan himself, which is fun...but not as fun as the wrath of science-types decrying the “bad astronomy” and other crimes committed in the composition of the image under intense scrutiny.

Over-analyzing an obviously bogus image in the most interesting possible way? That’s just the kind of crazy I can get behind. It’s the other kind of reaction that bothers me. In the wake of the newscast video, I seem to be reading a lot of comments about how the back-story served up therein makes the trailer much more accessible to people who haven't read the novel. Which is fine and good, except that if you’re interested enough to see the damn movie, you need to go read the original...immediately.

And I mean, RIGHT NOW. You have until March. That’s plenty of time! There’s really no excuse. I realize that I’m probably preaching to the choir here (in the sense that “choir” is a nice way of saying “cult”). But for the uninitiated: Here, have some delicious Kool-Aid! Alan Moore and his Great Big Bushy Beard compel you...

Now go read that damn book.