Esquire USA - 11.2019

the Big Bite

46 November 2019_Esquire

T V

A WATCHMEN FOR

OUR TIMES

Damon Lindelof ’s HBO adaptation of Watchmen might be

the truest to the spirit of the original groundbreaking comic, and the

most relevant show on TV right now By Matt Miller

VIGILANTE JUSTICE

Regina King as Angela

Abar, a lead detective on a

murder case.

Damon Lindelof was 13 years old when, in 1986, his dad

gave him the first two issues of a new comic book called

Watchmen. It was, Lindelof says now, like nothing he’d ever

experienced. Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons,

shattered all expectations of comic books. It proved that the

superhero genre could be as political, controversial, challeng-

ing, thought-provoking, and deeply human as any work of

dramatic literature. The flawed, flesh-and-blood characters

deal with ethical conundrums (who watches the Watchmen?)

and anxieties (the threat of nuclear war). “What separates

Watchmen from Superman or Batman or even Spider-

Man is there’s a depth of psychological pain,” says Lindelof,

a TV showrunner with Lost and The Leftovers on his résumé

who’s adapting a version of Watchmen for HBO. In setting