Whatmen #1

Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Premiere HC

Written by Scott Lobdell
Art by Alejandro Figueroa
Published by IDW
Review by Ryan Stevens

    With the release of the highly-anticipated Watchmen film, naturally an endless supply of spoofs and parodies were bound to start coming out of the woodwork. The latest attempt comes from IDW, and is actually pretty good.

    Scott Lobdell weaves a humorous script, effectively satirizing a 300-page graphic novel in one issue. However, the spatial limits are clear, as this is a bare-bones, moving-at-the-speed-of-light plot, although that too is a bit of an understatement.

If you haven't read Watchmen, this will make no sense at all, but if you haven't read Watchmen, (1) Why are you reading a Watchmen parody book in the first place, and (2) Why haven't you read Watchmen yet? Getting back to the issue, Lobdell certainly has a finely chiseled funny bone, though some of the humor is fairly generic, and could be done in any other comedy book. While some jokes fall flat, there is a fair amount of clever material, with my personal favorite being Lobdell's skewed take on the classic "Rorschach and the kidnapper" scene. The issue's ending is a bit of a let-down, which is ironic considering the ending of the actual series was extremely controversial in itself. I don't know if this was Lobdell's intention, but if so, bravo.

The thing that's the most similar between this one shot and its source material is the art. Alejandro Figueroa's pencil art is disturbing similar to that of Dave Gibbons, so much so that some characters, when not striking ludicrous poses or having silly facial expressions, look just like they did in the original graphic novel. Figueroa does a marvelous job infusing his art with the necessary silliness to keep the reader from taking it too seriously. The characters certainly don't, so why should we?

    All in all, "Whatmen?!" is an entertaining jab at the flaws of what some consider the best graphic novel of all time, reflecting an ideal from another comic legend, 300: Even a god-king (or Alan Moore comic) can bleed (or be made fun of). While there's nothing here you absolutely have to read if you want to call yourself a comic fan, it's a nice distraction that's worth the $3.99. If you have the extra money, what the heck, buy "Whatmen?!". If not, don't worry, I'm sure another Watchmen parody is on its way.

MODERATELY RECCOMENDED

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