Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, Watchmen is set in the Fall of 1985, New York City. The Comedian, a super hero and US government agent, has just been murdered in his own home by an unknown assailant, and more and more heroes are meeting ill ends. Rorschach, one of the last active super heroes since the government outlaw of masked vigilantes in the '70's, suspects a plot to eliminate all former costumed adventures, and he begins an investigation into what is a very dark world.
This graphic novel is excellently written and illustrated. Yet unlike most DC comics Watchmen is not an action oriented comic series, but rather, a deeply written detective story greatly reflecting the Cold War state of the mid-'80's. The graphic novel is spread out over 12 issues, and while constantly evolving the overall plot, many issues have a key focus, often on a specific character, illustrating their back story, how they came to be what they now are, and glimpsing at how that's relevant to the grander picture in motion behind the scenes. While I found the series started off slowly, once it got going it really took off, really sucked me in, and was very hard to put down. There is a lot of depth in Moore's writing, once one grasps this it is an extremely truly fascinating read.
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