The comic book event of the summer is nigh!  Before Watchmen, the much-anticipated prequel series to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, will consist of seven limited series and an epilogue one-shot.  Stay tuned, as the Fanboy Comics crew will be reviewing each title as it is released. Hurm. 

Thirteen pages of this issue are really good. The rest is not. For the middle thirteen pages, Darwyn Cooke does exactly what I have wanted to see this entire series. He shows us a never-before-seen Minutemen adventure that has no ties to the Watchmen source material. We get to see the Minutemen fighting a villain, being heroes, and saving the day despite all their personal flaws and failings. Then, we get to see the terrible fallout of their actions, and watch the Minutemen learn a hard lesson about heroism. It is wonderful.

Then, the book slides back into its regular rut of jumping between scenes we’ve seen from the source material and reminding us that these are all horrible people who have done some really bad things. It’s a real shame that Darwyn Cooke had such amazing characters to work with, and so much untold history to explore with the Minutemen, and that this book is the best he could do. Sadly, it seems like the follow up to Watchmen, the most influential graphic novel of all time, will not be a major flop or a great book, but instead will just be mediocre and forgettable.