While I am not really one to follow weekly releases of comic books, as evidenced by my preference to wait for the New 52 Graphic Novels - Detective Comics, Action Comics, Justice League of America etc - rather than collect each individual issue, I have been trying quite hard to seek out the Before Watchmen miniseries by individual issue. I'm not certain why; after all, I just have to wait a bit for the Graphic Novel to come out, encapsulating all the various issues into one easy, convenient book.
The Before Watchmen miniseries capture the events in the lives of the Watchmen before they became, well, the Watchmen. The series includes Minutemen, Nite Owl, Rorshach, Silk Spectre, Dr Manhattan, The Comedian and, my 14th favourite male character of all time, Ozymandias.
Of the entire miniseries, I have chosen to follow Rorshach, The Comedian, Dr Manhattan (quite psychadelic to be fair) and, of course, Ozymandias. And I gotta say, tracing how Adrian Veidt became Ozymandias is seriously compelling and, dare I say, inspiring. Especially, of course, if you're a megalomaniac.
I've always thought a superhero or an idol, for lack of a better word, should not really be someone you can relate to, but rather someone you can strive towards. For this reason, while I can understand why people tend to like, say, Spiderman or Batman or, maybe, Wolverine, I'm not convinced that they make good 'idols', necessarily. It's kind of the same logic when building, say, a company. Would it be better to build a company based on pragmatism or a company based on ideals? I can take the pragmatism point, but I strongly advocate ideals, simply because ideals are things behind which people can rally. But I digress.
Adrian Veidt's journey and eventual Watchmen-defining moment make for a nice twist because Adrian Veidt makes for an antagonist who is kind of an idol of mine. I mean, he's called, in the comics, as the "smartest man on the planet." Doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to see why that would be appealing to me. But the way in which he became Ozymandias or, at least, his journey in the first 2 (of 6) issues of the Ozymandias Before Watchmen series is incredibly fascinating. I'm not going to give a synopsis of the events because I seriously think you should read it, but I really love the way in which he became an idol of sorts - He chose to measure himself against his idol.
I don't think I'm being very eloquent here, but essentially, I find it really fascinating how he became an idol (of mine, at least) because he wanted to be like his idol. And, unlike 99% of the human population, he actually achieved the successes of his idol. I mean, most of us, we want to be like MLK, we want to be like Lincoln, we want to be like Mandela, we want to be like Gandhi. But we never get to be simply because, well, we fall short of them. But there's nothing wrong with striving to be like them. And that's the difference between us and Adrian Veidt. He did not fall short.
In Before Watchmen, he describes how his mind was battling with the following questions - Firstly, how had someone so young (Alexander the Great) come so close to uniting such an ancient, primitive world? And secondly, how did one man drag a civilization barehanded from the blood and filth of such utter barbarity? Taking it upon himself to match Alexander, he chose to measure his own success against the success of Alexander, setting himself on his life path. He wanted to bring an age of illumination to a benighted world. He adds though, and this is an amazing line - one which actually gave me goose bumps and blew my fricking mind, "In truth, I think I just wanted to be able to have something to say to (Alexander), should we ever meet in the Hall of Legends."
Wow.
I mean, wow.
Of course, as the story goes, while he traced the life of Alexander, Veidt found disappointment in his idol as he found that Alexander had not united all the world, nor built a unity that would survive him. This, of course, despite Alexander reportedly weeping when he found out that there were no worlds left to concur. Instead, on a hashish-induced night, Veidt finally found his calling. He had finally found Alexander's true triumph. Alexander has merely resurrected an age of pharaohs, whose wisdom was truly immortal and was now the source of inspiration for Veidt. And, in time, he took the name Ozymandias, the Greek version of Ramesses II, the greatest Egyptian pharaoh of all time.
Anyway, so that's how Veidt became Ozymandias. But the next step was to find a way to become immortal, to match the achievements of Alexander and Ramesses II, to bring an age of illumination to a benighted world. He needed to find his way into the Hall of Legends. You know how the story goes. If you don't, shame on you. Realising that merely fighting crime and evil villains only helped symptoms of the human condition, he strived instead to alter the human condition, attempting to alter human nature rather than simply applying bandaids in spaces where the negative side of human nature chose to manifest itself. He realised that no amount of beating up villains would really alter human nature. It was no way to join the Hall of Legends. The Smartest Man on the Planet had, in fact, been slow to catch up to a fact fully understood by The Comedian earlier, which was that mankind has been trying to kill each other off since the beginning of time.
Once he understood that, Ozymandias crafted the biggest trick in human history. Essentially, his method was this - realising that, throughout human history, humans have found other humans to be their enemy; there was no common enemy to unite everybody. In essence, that has been true of most wars in history - people uniting against a common enemy. I mean, consider World War 2. 2 countries which would enter into a Cold War and, really, had no real reason to be allies found themselves on the same side against a common enemy - the Nazis. That's what unites people. The presence of the 'other' against which everyone rallies.
Ozymandias gave everyone that 'other' by killing millions to save billions, ending the Cold War (which was threatening to erupt in nuclear war between the aforementioned 2 countries). Rather than stopping the present symptom (the Cold War) as he knew more wars would come even if he achieved peace negotiations or whatever, he chose to alter human nature, giving humanity a new 'other' in which to unite against.
Now, I'm all for the greater good and all that but I do have my moral reasoning objections against what Ozymandias did which made him the antagonist of Watchmen. But using a rather Bentham-ic Utilitarian kind of world view, he chose to sacrifice millions to save billions. A completely out-of-the-box unorthodox method to really unite the world. And that's what happened. He succeeeded (at least until the end of the novel - we don't know events that transpired after the New Frontiersman found Rorshach's journal). Whether or not he brought an age of illumination to a benighted world, he united the world. He united humanity by giving it a new common enemy.
Ozymandias may have had his methodology completely screwed up, but y'know, I completely buy the original idea that he had. I don't condone the execution of the idea nor would I have done it but I think he was right. If you want to change human nature or at least trick human nature, give a common enemy. This has ALWAYS worked in the past. Think of Americans uniting against Communists or Malaysians uniting against the British for independence or that sort of thing. This works. You can't keep on dealing with each human versus human problem one by one and expect it to be sustainable. But giving all of humanity a new common enemy? That is fricking brilliant. Give the man credit - he measured up to the successes of his idol, becoming an idol himself despite being a villain and should he have met Alexander or Ramesses II in the Hall of Legends, he would have had something to say. And they would have looked upon his works and have despaired.
The Before Watchmen miniseries capture the events in the lives of the Watchmen before they became, well, the Watchmen. The series includes Minutemen, Nite Owl, Rorshach, Silk Spectre, Dr Manhattan, The Comedian and, my 14th favourite male character of all time, Ozymandias.
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| Ozymandias, King of Kings |
I've always thought a superhero or an idol, for lack of a better word, should not really be someone you can relate to, but rather someone you can strive towards. For this reason, while I can understand why people tend to like, say, Spiderman or Batman or, maybe, Wolverine, I'm not convinced that they make good 'idols', necessarily. It's kind of the same logic when building, say, a company. Would it be better to build a company based on pragmatism or a company based on ideals? I can take the pragmatism point, but I strongly advocate ideals, simply because ideals are things behind which people can rally. But I digress.
Adrian Veidt's journey and eventual Watchmen-defining moment make for a nice twist because Adrian Veidt makes for an antagonist who is kind of an idol of mine. I mean, he's called, in the comics, as the "smartest man on the planet." Doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to see why that would be appealing to me. But the way in which he became Ozymandias or, at least, his journey in the first 2 (of 6) issues of the Ozymandias Before Watchmen series is incredibly fascinating. I'm not going to give a synopsis of the events because I seriously think you should read it, but I really love the way in which he became an idol of sorts - He chose to measure himself against his idol.
I don't think I'm being very eloquent here, but essentially, I find it really fascinating how he became an idol (of mine, at least) because he wanted to be like his idol. And, unlike 99% of the human population, he actually achieved the successes of his idol. I mean, most of us, we want to be like MLK, we want to be like Lincoln, we want to be like Mandela, we want to be like Gandhi. But we never get to be simply because, well, we fall short of them. But there's nothing wrong with striving to be like them. And that's the difference between us and Adrian Veidt. He did not fall short.
In Before Watchmen, he describes how his mind was battling with the following questions - Firstly, how had someone so young (Alexander the Great) come so close to uniting such an ancient, primitive world? And secondly, how did one man drag a civilization barehanded from the blood and filth of such utter barbarity? Taking it upon himself to match Alexander, he chose to measure his own success against the success of Alexander, setting himself on his life path. He wanted to bring an age of illumination to a benighted world. He adds though, and this is an amazing line - one which actually gave me goose bumps and blew my fricking mind, "In truth, I think I just wanted to be able to have something to say to (Alexander), should we ever meet in the Hall of Legends."
Wow.
I mean, wow.
Of course, as the story goes, while he traced the life of Alexander, Veidt found disappointment in his idol as he found that Alexander had not united all the world, nor built a unity that would survive him. This, of course, despite Alexander reportedly weeping when he found out that there were no worlds left to concur. Instead, on a hashish-induced night, Veidt finally found his calling. He had finally found Alexander's true triumph. Alexander has merely resurrected an age of pharaohs, whose wisdom was truly immortal and was now the source of inspiration for Veidt. And, in time, he took the name Ozymandias, the Greek version of Ramesses II, the greatest Egyptian pharaoh of all time.
Anyway, so that's how Veidt became Ozymandias. But the next step was to find a way to become immortal, to match the achievements of Alexander and Ramesses II, to bring an age of illumination to a benighted world. He needed to find his way into the Hall of Legends. You know how the story goes. If you don't, shame on you. Realising that merely fighting crime and evil villains only helped symptoms of the human condition, he strived instead to alter the human condition, attempting to alter human nature rather than simply applying bandaids in spaces where the negative side of human nature chose to manifest itself. He realised that no amount of beating up villains would really alter human nature. It was no way to join the Hall of Legends. The Smartest Man on the Planet had, in fact, been slow to catch up to a fact fully understood by The Comedian earlier, which was that mankind has been trying to kill each other off since the beginning of time.
Once he understood that, Ozymandias crafted the biggest trick in human history. Essentially, his method was this - realising that, throughout human history, humans have found other humans to be their enemy; there was no common enemy to unite everybody. In essence, that has been true of most wars in history - people uniting against a common enemy. I mean, consider World War 2. 2 countries which would enter into a Cold War and, really, had no real reason to be allies found themselves on the same side against a common enemy - the Nazis. That's what unites people. The presence of the 'other' against which everyone rallies.
Ozymandias gave everyone that 'other' by killing millions to save billions, ending the Cold War (which was threatening to erupt in nuclear war between the aforementioned 2 countries). Rather than stopping the present symptom (the Cold War) as he knew more wars would come even if he achieved peace negotiations or whatever, he chose to alter human nature, giving humanity a new 'other' in which to unite against.
Now, I'm all for the greater good and all that but I do have my moral reasoning objections against what Ozymandias did which made him the antagonist of Watchmen. But using a rather Bentham-ic Utilitarian kind of world view, he chose to sacrifice millions to save billions. A completely out-of-the-box unorthodox method to really unite the world. And that's what happened. He succeeeded (at least until the end of the novel - we don't know events that transpired after the New Frontiersman found Rorshach's journal). Whether or not he brought an age of illumination to a benighted world, he united the world. He united humanity by giving it a new common enemy.
Ozymandias may have had his methodology completely screwed up, but y'know, I completely buy the original idea that he had. I don't condone the execution of the idea nor would I have done it but I think he was right. If you want to change human nature or at least trick human nature, give a common enemy. This has ALWAYS worked in the past. Think of Americans uniting against Communists or Malaysians uniting against the British for independence or that sort of thing. This works. You can't keep on dealing with each human versus human problem one by one and expect it to be sustainable. But giving all of humanity a new common enemy? That is fricking brilliant. Give the man credit - he measured up to the successes of his idol, becoming an idol himself despite being a villain and should he have met Alexander or Ramesses II in the Hall of Legends, he would have had something to say. And they would have looked upon his works and have despaired.
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