Recently, I requested a critique for “Johnny Saturn” on a certain forum, and several of my webcartooning peers were kind enough to offer their opinions.  One such critique set me to thinking, though: It stated that many of our “Johnny Saturn” villains were evil for evil’s sake, and that we didn’t offer good reasons for them to be this way.  This criticism centered on Tactical and Dr. Wissenschaft.

As much as I welcomed the critique, I have to respectfully disagree with this assessment.  There is that old Stan Lee adage, that “there are no villains, just fallen heroes.”  That same line of reasoning goes on the express that everyone is the hero in their own story, and every villain believes he’s on the side of the angels no matter how awful their deeds.

I don’t buy it.

Josef Mengele, the so called Angel of Death, is a loose inspiration for Dr. Wissenschaft.  This should be pretty obvious to those of you who know anything about 20^th century history.  Did Mengele feel he was walking a moral high ground in doing the things he did?  I doubt it.  My guess is that he was all about the science, and that he was a total sociopath, devoid of any empathy for his victims.

Tactical, in his origin as a Balkan war criminal, is loosely based on any number of similar war criminals, both those that have been brought to trial in the Hague, and those that have yet to be apprehended.  Did these men relish the slaughter they ordered and oversaw?  Did they feel terrible about the massacres and rape camps?  I doubt it.  I think they performed their deeds in a misguided sense of nationalism.

Does every villain have some defining moment in their life when they become evil?  An “origin,” you might say.  Or, are they all sociopaths and psychopaths?  This is the standard comic book way, but I don’t think it’s the real way.  I think many of these people grow up in hell holes, and they grow up with cruelty.  It’s what they know.  They become inured to the suffering of others by their environment, and they learned cruelty as a second nature.

To put a point on it, many of the “Johnny Saturn” villains are simply those who put the ends before the means.  If they want something, they will do anything to make it happen.

In the real world, we know some people are bad, and we neither know (nor usually care) what made them bad.  The same rule applies to the “Johnny Saturn” villains.

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I know people who think that superheroes don’t lie, and that they would never fight other heroes.  It’s easy to see where they got this idea, because, outside of comics, superheroes are portrayed as one-diminsional, bright, optimistic do-gooders, sort of boy scouts in tights. They always do what’s right.  It’s never hard to decide what is right or wrong.  Good always wins over evil.  Good deeds never have unforeseen, bad consequences.

In comics it’s another story all-together.  Well before the “Watchmen” or “Dark Knight Returns” were published, comics had already shed much of its innocence and stories often pushed the accepted boundaries and dealt with drug abuse, alcoholism, pornography, addiction, and any other vice you can think of.  Most often these vices were dealt with tastefully, and moral conservatism won over depravity.  When heroes fought each other, it usually began with a cliché misunderstanding, a short inconclusive tussle, and then a congenial team-up to deal with the “real” problem.

I would argue that what ”Watchmen” and “Dark Knight Returns” brought to the comics scene was mental illness: the superhero as a sociopath, or psychopath, or some other such behavioral dysfunction.  For example, Batman has spent the last thirty years wound so tight and out of touch with his human emotions that he is regularly described as psychotic.

This war for the soul of the superhero is at the heart of Watchmen.  Dan/Nite Owl is a decent person, one unwilling to abandon his morals or dish out jackbooted oppression.  Comedian has completely surrendered to his dark philosophy of brutality, and he believes in stark, ugly “truths.”  Rorschach is a one-man judge, jury, and executioner.  Ozymandius exemplifies putting the ends before the means, and in service of his goals he has placed himself high above his fellow humans.

Dr. Manhattan is easier to nail down.  He belongs to the old archetype of the non-human who is more than human.  Pinnochio, the Vision from the Avengers, Data from Star Trek, and many others fit this role.  Dr. Manhattan believes that he is now divorced from humanity and their concerns, yet it is the tears of a woman (Silk Spectre) that change his mind and bring him back to earth one last time.  Still, it’s curious to note that for most members of this would-be human archetype, most aspire to become human, as if that were innately superior to their non-human status.  Not Dr. Manhattan.  We come away with the suspicion that he left for another galaxy and he would do well and good without his human traits.

The soundtrack to Watchmen is outstanding.  In addition to the original score for the movie, which is moody and a little threatening, there are old songs worked in to great effect, including Bob Dylan’s “Times They Are A-Changing,” Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” Simon and Garfunkels “Sounds of Silence,” and the Jimi Hendrix version of Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower.”

Scott Kurtz of “PvP” labeled Watchmen as superhero porn.  I respectfully disagree.  Clearly, this movie is Superhero Noir, a dark, serious alley off the brightly lighted streets of traditional superhero fair.

It’s safe to say this movie isn’t for everyone.  If you expect that you are going to watch something like Superman returns, or Iron Man, or the Fantastic Four, you are going to be quite disappointed. Watchmen is darker even than Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Don’t take your kids.  The teenagers that shared the theater with me seemed less than diverted, and they came and went often to get refreshments.