I’m really starting to think that I should’ve waited to pick up the trade version of ‘Before Watchmen – Comedian’. After the first issue, there were a few moments that kept my interest, but overall these stories have been letting me down. I said before that I liked the alternate version of history that’s presented in the ‘Watchmen’ universe, but according to Brian Azzarello, Eddie Blake was the cause of many of the major events in US history after the assassination of JFK. In this instance, the Comedian was the one who started one of the riots in Los Angeles in protest of the Vietnam War. Blake has done some crazy things in his life, but everything can’t be his fault, right?
It’s interesting from a character standpoint to see Blake’s descent into post-traumatic stress disorder and how he’s dealing with it (Spoiler: He’s not dealing very well.), but now the link to the Kennedys, the thing that I found so interesting in the first issue, is getting lost in the shuffle. It’s barely addressed and it’s been demoted to a framing device. It’s still possible that this could be addressed later on and have a worthwhile payoff, but the journey getting there is getting kinda boring.
The one thing that I liked in this story was the Comedian’s new war paint. It was a pretty twisted thing for him to do, along with what he did to the police chief, but that was the shining moment of the issue.
I’m hoping that this series finds itself and gets interesting again very soon.
Final Score:
BEFORE WATCHMEN – COMEDIAN #3
Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO
Art by J.G. JONES, ALEX SINCLAIR, and TONY AVINA
