I'm pretty new to comics and given that everyone hypes the

Batman beat up Superman

>>86832928
One of the first stories to give rise to the darker side of comics.

Showed that comics could be targeted to audiences other than kids and still be successful.

>>86832928
It's not an inherently amazing story - just a good one.
It changed the comic industry itself, that's all.
Watchmen is an 80s timepiece and a criticism of 80s popular culture as well as the 80s comic industry, if you didnt read it in the 80s stop fucking hyping watchmen you didnt /really/ read it.

the beginning of the dark batman meme to now.

My humble opinion - it brought a lot of depth to Batman's character through a series of interesting dynamics that could be explored as themes like:
>Batman's relationship to his villains, there's almost an intimacy between him, Two-Face, and Joker for example.
>Bruce's relationship to Batman, in a way he is dominated by the Batman persona which is an expression of his reaction to childhood trauma
>Batman's relationship to his mission
>Batman's relationship to Superman

I love this book because it portrays Batman as dark and kind of a frightening idea, but at the same time as something breathtakingly powerful. Batman is this figure of tragedy's mark on a man but at the same time a figure of the overcoming strength of the human will.

A lot of the things I love about Batman can be found in this book, with the exception of the Batfamily.

>>86834092
Question to everybody who was actually alive when this came out.

Did this popularize the whole 'let's have 2+ established heroes fight' thing that has now taken over the industry?

I feel the same way about Killing Joke, every says it's the greatest comic ever written, I guess just because of when it was written there weren't many edgy batman stories.

>>86835022
Even the guy who wrote The Killing Joke says that it's a waste of your time.

>>86832928
it made batman gay for the joker instead of robin

>>86835179
Alan Moore hates superheroes in general.

>>86835518
Completely irrelevant, my friend.

Alan Moore says that The Killing Joke is bad, but he doesn't say that about Watchmen or Miracleman or Supreme or Top Ten or 1963 or any of his other superhero work. He singles out TKJ because it's a bad comic, not because it's a superhero comic.

>>86835639
>Alan Moore says that The Killing Joke is bad, but he doesn't say that about Watchmen or Miracleman or Supreme or Top Ten or 1963 or any of his other superhero work
Because these doesn't play the superhero trope straight.

>>86832928
Batman shot a thug and killed him with a big gun it was badass

>why is up there with Watchmen

Fucking hell, please don't tell me you read TDKR and Watchmen as some of your first comics...

It's easy to not understand why those comics are good if you're just starting out reading them. You barely even know the medium -- barely even know the history of it.

It'd be like listening to a highly regarded yet non-obvious symphony (e.g. not Beethoven's Symphony No. 5) and trying to figure out what makes it good, even though you've hardly listened to classical music in your life.

>>86835661
Or he simply thinks that he did a good job writing those comics and he thinks that he did a bad job writing TKJ.

People are capable of critically evaluating their own work beyond "it's in the wrong genre so it's bad".

>>86834843

I was born in '91, and if I hadn't taken AP American History, so much of Watchmen would have been lost on me.

>>86835762
Mostly read them because they're frequently discussed and I wanted to see what they were for myself. I'll probably end up revisiting them later on. What would you actually recommend in terms of starter reading?

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>>86835840
Not that Anon, but here's a good list for people learning about the comics medium.

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because it's fucking FRANK FUCKING MILLER you god damn ass


That's all I even need to say

>>86832928
Because it was basically the first comic to do what it did.

It is not as complex stylistically or content-wise as Watchmen or many other great comics, but that's kind of just how art works. Illmatic isn't as musically complex as TPAB, but it laid the foundations. You're going to be underwhelmed because you aren't reading it when it came out--the people who did had never seen anything like it before.