I have just finished reading the first issue of the scandalous Before Watchmen comic, and I’m happy to report that no one died, Alan Moore did not break into the store with a spiked club, none of the trade paperbacks of Moore’s Watchmen run burst into flames, nor did all their pictures go black or their words turn into alien scribbles. None of Western, Eastern, Northern, Southern or Pangean civilization was in any way altered by the existence of this comic. I didn’t even hear any children crying in the distance or see the sky rain any more blood than usual. In fact, the first issue of Before Watchmen is actually, well, boring.

I don’t mean this as an affront to Darwyn Cooke. The truth is, I found a lot of The Watchmen to be pretty boring, too. I appreciate its depth and the way it changed the way people wrote and read graphic novels, but the story didn’t excite me or change my life. I imagine this is largely due to me not being exposed to The Watchmen until after I’d read dozens to hundreds of series that came after it and built upon its legacy.

Again, I’m not being a Watchmen hater. I like it, I just don’t love it so much that I think it’s untouchable. I went out to see the movie opening night and couldn’t bring myself to hate it. It was exactly what it said it was going to be. I left the theater feeling satisfied with the experience which is better then what you kids call “meh” but not quite as good as what my older cousins called “gnarly.”

Having only these twenty-six pages of material laid out, I am thusfar underwhelmed. It’s not bad. Darwyn Cooke is an excellent writer and an even more talented artist. And the art in this book is every bit on par with the Parker books, Catwoman and New Frontier. There’s not a single panel that doesn’t look like the artist loved what he was doing.

My main problem with this issue is that, essentially, nothing happens in it. It’s an introduction. A place setting. Here, meet the characters, something cool is going to happen to them later.

While it is technically written well, I prefer for comics to start from some fantastic event: The Comedian is pushed out a window. BAM. Following it up with ten or so pages of “here are the characters” afterward is fine, but give me a reason to be invested in the story aside from the logo on the front and the association with the previous piece of writing.

I’m a little stunned that Cooke wasn’t able to hook me in. Technically, nothing other than the utterances of “Screw You” and “Go to hell” happened in the first fourteen pages of Parker The Hunter, but I pored over every panel of that book completely on board for wherever Cooke was going to take me. If that book had been 150 near silent pages culminating in Parker looking in the mirror, I would have closed the book at the end and cursed the publishing gods that Cooke wouldn’t be able to just drop off the next volume at my house within the hour.

Cooke’s grasp of tension was in every line in every panel in every page of that book. When I was done reading it, I figured I could trust Cooke to take me on any journey. Even if a future story of his didn’t connect with me, I would still seek out the story after that.

Unfortunately this issue is the faulty step for me. I got to the last page and didn’t care for anyone I’d been introduced to. I didn’t care what was going to happen in the next issue, and I couldn’t tell you an interesting thing about any of the characters except “Hollis has written a book that other heroes won’t like.” and that was in the first six pages. After that, cornflakes. Cornflakes that feel like they’ve been sitting in milk long enough to lose their consistency but no so long that the milk spoiled.

If this issue didn’t have the Before Watchmen stigma attached to it, I don’t think anyone would bother commenting on this book. It’s in no way awful. It’s just dull. And I don’t mean to say “It’s dull compared to the original material.” Fuck the original Watchmen series. In a total cultural vacuum this is a beautifully illustrated story where nothing interesting happens.

I think the iFanboys may enjoy this issue. I don’t say that as a criticism or to be a jerk. I’m not self-important enough to think that my view of “nothing interesting happened” is going to be shared by everyone. Several times Ron, Conor, and Josh have mentioned that they love a good “getting the band together” issue. And that is somewhat the point of this issue. We don’t see them actually coming together and becoming a unit, we get pieces of each of the characters’ history: one to four page glimpses of the characters who inhabit the world that DC is about to exclamation point at us for the next several months.

Again, they’re technically written well. I believe every characteristic Cooke has ascribed to these people. I just don’t understand why I should care. And that’s a hard flaw to read around.

It is entirely possible that this series will pick up tremendously in the next issue. But I get the impression from these pages that it will not. That, at least The Minutemen series, will not use any of the storytelling techniques that drive popular series like Saga or Irredeemable. There are no page turners. The final panel will not make you gasp or internally caps lock “AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?????!?!?!?!?!” It is a straight forward, narrative that not only appears to have no tricks up its sleeve, it also appears to not be wearing a shirt.

Maybe this is an illusion. Part of Cooke’s master plan. If so, he’s going to have to do something spectacular in the next issue to balance this issue. Whether it’s something plot related or an artistic choice that renders the narrative moot. And he certainly has the talent to pull that off. I’m just not sure what his motivation is in telling this story (and I don’t mean his personal motivation in the sense of money, career, fame…I don’t give a shit about any of that; I mean what part of this story intrigued him enough that he felt the desire to tell it).

It’s far too early in the Before Watchmen gauntlet to say whether or not this series is worth an of the irate Moore fanboy tirades plastered across the internet and in the teeth grinding obscenities hurled at comic book store employees by people who confuse opinions with absolute facts. I was really hoping this issue would be the Shut The Fuck Up And Enjoy This Amazing Piece Of Literary Art. But, honestly, I think that if Moore were to accidentally pick this up and read it, even he would have to crack his neck a bit, scratch at his beard and say “What’s all the fucken fuss about?”